by Sam Cheever
No. I think I’ll stay here a while longer. Doctor Lee needs me.
See you later then.
Emo reached toward me, stopping before his hand touched my shoulder. “Shall I?”
Although I’d improved a lot in my space shifting ability, I was just too tired to trust myself. Landing inside a couch would not be a restful way to spend my precious few hours off. “Please.”
Emo’s hand touched my shoulder and sound and movement stopped. A moment later we landed in my father’s kitchen. Emo left almost immediately. I stood in the center of the big room, suddenly too tired to move. Then I sighed and moved out of the kitchen.
A quick search of the house proved it was empty. I was alone in the big, old fortress. I realized it had been silly of me to think my father would be there. Every available angel was probably out trying to deal with the mess in the streets.
I shuffled upstairs to my old bedroom and hit the cleansing tube before donning the ratty, pink nightgown I kept there for emergencies and sliding under the covers of my narrow, childhood bed. I hadn’t even turned the lights on I was so tired.
I think I slept almost before my eyes finished closing.
~SC~
Satan and I walked the narrow corridors of the unplanned care unit. His shadowed face swiveled to take in the spaces bulging with battered humanity and I could sense his pleasure.
My devil came up in a big way at this. “It pleases you to see the humans tearing themselves apart doesn’t it?”
My sister’s face emerged from behind Satan. “Astra! What are you doing in my dream?”
My eyes widened in surprise. “What are you doing in my dream?”
She shrugged and we both looked at the Serpent between us.
I have a lot of work to do. It made sense to multi-task.
Darma lifted her arm and held her mark in front of his indistinct face. “What’s this? What have you done to me?”
Something long and forked flicked out from his face and licked across the mark. Darma squealed and jerked her arm away, wiping it on the filthy medi-fashion she still wore in her dreams. “Ish! You licked me. That’s disgusting.”
His laughter clashed through my head and brought goose bumps up all over my body. I covered my ears despite the fact that the sound was inside my head and I couldn’t stop it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Darma doubled over holding her head and cradling the wrist he’d licked.
Finally I pulled my power forward and gave him an electrical jolt. “Enough!”
His head jerked around and I could see eyes, slanted like a goat’s eyes and purple with anger. You dare to touch me with your power?
The walls around us burst into flame and Darma hit the floor. Her face was filled with pain and she still clutched her arm close. Her body was wreathed in flickering light but the fire didn’t seem to touch her, something else was apparently causing the pain.
“Yes, I dare. You will not have us. Between my sister and I, we share great power. If you don’t leave us alone we will use it against you.”
Darma’s head came up and she looked pissed, “We’ll kick your ass.”
Yikes! Go Darma. Satan and I looked down at her on the floor. Even she looked surprised by her declaration.
Of course I was bluffing. I had no idea what kind of power Darma carried around with her or if she and I could even work together to do anything with it. But apparently Darma believed me and I was hoping the Serpent believed me too.
He stared at me through the goat eyes. They roiled with anger. Then he opened his mouth, showing me the black, forked tongue he’d poisoned Darma with. The nasty thing was wriggling around in there like an angry snake. I readied my power to stop him if he tried to use it again.
You will be my conduits. You have no power to stop me. And if you try you will live for all time in my fiery pits. Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking otherwise. I know your weaknesses...all of them.
The tongue flicked out and my power came up, creating a barrier between Darma and the Serpent. But he wasn’t aiming it at Darma. It touched a woman on the floor beside us and she screamed. Her limbs went rigid and her body trembled. I watched in horror as her skin turn black, crumbling from the place where he’d touched it to fall on the floor around her.
Her screaming filled the hallway and Darma, still on the floor, scrambled toward the poor woman on her knees, her arm cradled against her middle. My eyes flew to the Serpent. He smiled as my sister reached toward the dying woman and I realized he wanted Darma to touch her.
I grabbed Darma’s hand just before it touched the woman. Darma struggled to get away as the woman crumbled into black dust before our eyes. The unfortunate woman’s shrill, horrified screams hung in the air long after her last, pain-racked breath.
Like a spectral memento of the Serpent’s incomprehensible evil.
Tears flowed from my sister’s eyes. She glared at me as if I’d done something wrong. “You would have died too.” I told her.
A whisper in my ear warned me that the Serpent had moved nearer. His evil voice was like ice against my skin, a death-like touch to underscore his hated words.
And so it begins, Astra Q Phelps. We are at war, you and I but have no fear, the veil slides smoothly into place and I will use you and yours to hold it firmly there for all time. Death will come to all who were born without magic. And you will help make it so.
His final words trickled away on the arctic breeze that shadowed his departure, leaving their glacial imprint on my heart.
I jerked awake, feeling as if someone had hit me upside the head. I looked at the clock and saw that I’d only been asleep three hours. I lay there with my eyes wide open, realizing I’d never get back to sleep again before I had to meet my little street gang at the unplanned care unit.
My thoughts drifted to Dialle. We hadn’t had much time together lately, what with the coming end of the world and all. I wondered how he was and what he was doing. Like magic the air beside my bed shimmered and Dialle appeared to me in his soul form.
He stood beside the bed, his long, silky black hair resting unbound against his shoulders and his golden body completely naked. He wore only a soft smile filled with promise. I licked my lips as my hungry gaze took in the whole enchilada.
The beautiful, dark-eyed face with the square, masculine jaw and a dimple the size of the tip of my little finger in his chin. The sexy stubble that I knew from wonderful experience would leave tingly rub marks on my face and thighs. The broad, golden chest with just the tiniest triangle of soft dark curls between the muscular mounds. And nipples of a soft brown color that pebbled in arousal when he looked at me. The hard, flat stomach that showcased a glossy trail of soft black curls, which led the eye to a truly stupendous...
His soul form reached for me.
“Hey!” I managed to squeak out before I was locked in time and space.
Damn! I wasn’t done with my visual feast!
I landed in Dialle’s arms upon his giant, soft bed. His yummy body was stretched out full length beside me, his head resting on a hand, perched on an elbow. His other hand rested on the breast nearest him. Mine, not his.
He smiled, his eyes making promises his unnaturally heated body would soon keep.
I smiled back. “Hey.” I said.
“Hey yourself, lovely halfling.”
His lush, soft lips lowered toward the breast that was currently being heated by his hand. I licked my lips as his softly parted mouth closed over the happy nipple, encompassing it in a place that was warm and wet and tinged with magic to send electric fire through my veins.
I shivered under a wave of growing lust.
He moved to the other breast, spending a truly stimulating few seconds urging that nipple into a hungry peak and setting the quivering mound of tender flesh on fire.
I gasped and arched my back, closing my eyes in exquisite pleasure. Dialle trailed magic imbued kisses down the underside of my breast and over the quivering plains of my s
tomach, moving slowly, tantalizingly, toward the soft nest of auburn colored curls that clenched in anticipation.
His heated tongue swirled gently around my belly button. His touch sent my stomach into helpless spasms of pleasure, with feather-light touches that made me arch against the warmth pooling between my thighs.
He lingered on my lower stomach, sending a warm blanket of magic through my skin to spread across my body and into the place where my pleasure throbbed. I begged him with my surging hips to give me the release my body demanded.
Finally he moved between my legs and looked up at me, his eyes black as midnight and swirling with the colors of passion. His tongue flicked out, caressing the tender skin below my curls. I moaned with the first touch. Cried out with the second touch. And then the moist heat of his mouth closed over my throbbing flesh and I screamed, arching my back in breath-stealing release as he poured magic into my body and amplified every sensation tenfold.
As my body softened into the aftermath of my climax, strong white teeth nibbled gently on the soft flesh of my inner thigh. Dialle followed the nibbling with gentle sucking and then ran his tongue into the crease between my thigh and my quivering mound and across to the other thigh. Anticipation rode my body like a fever. I quivered with expectation as his hot breath swept across the tender flesh of my other thigh. Then his teeth gathered the soft flesh possessively, followed by the sucking heat of his mouth, and it was enough to send me over the edge again. I cried out with pleasure and tossed my head mindlessly against the pillows.
Dialle didn’t wait for my delirious thrashing to stop before sliding up and into my body. I was so incredibly sensitized at that point that, as he slid into me, I screamed again in climax. I wrapped my legs around his hard, round buttocks and held on, sure that if I didn’t I’d fall away completely into the vortex of feeling and have trouble finding my way back.
Dialle’s magic rose within him and floated over us, coating our bodies in a vibrant cloak of sensual enhancement that made every inch of my skin pulse in response. My magic rose up to meet his and a second layer of sensual mating commenced around our surging bodies.
Flames danced around us like an aura, flickering brightly with the colors of our mating. The flames didn’t consume the physical world. They were a product of our combined magic and rode the heated air we’d created with our lust, tempered by our restraint and fed only by our passion.
Bright reds and deep oranges danced to the rhythm of our joining and crackled in sharp counterpoint to our muted sighs. The fire’s heat amplified the sensual onslaught, sharpening every touch to a near painful edge and enhancing every stroke of hard, heated skin against moist, tender flesh.
As my climax built, so did the wall of flame around us. The flames rose high above our heads and arched over us, creating an arbor of fire to amplify the dance. At last, the sensual music surged, the dance built to its culmination and we plunged, growling into release.
The flames throbbed for a few last moments and then flickered away on a sigh, leaving behind only the natural heat of our bodies to warm us in the aftermath.
I lay there panting, legs and arms splayed unattractively, for several minutes before I thought it was safe to move. When I finally turned my head I was looking into Dialle’s midnight gaze. Worry flashed through the obsidian depths before he hid it behind a smile.
“Well done, my princess.”
I frowned, “Don’t call me that.”
He laughed. “Stubbornness is not your most attractive trait.”
“Oh yeah? What is?”
Faster than a wink, he rolled to cover me again with his body. I gasped as his unnaturally hot skin slid over my sensitive flesh. “Where do I start?” He rubbed himself slowly, sensuously against me and nibbled my lower lip, which felt deliciously swollen from our recent tussle.
I moaned in anticipation, quickly and happily falling back into our sexual rhythm. But alas, I wasn’t destined to find out what my best qualities were. Something large and rocklike pounded on the door to Dialle’s rooms.
Dialle’s head came up with a curse. “Leave us!”
I frowned. Us? I guessed that meant I wasn’t sneaking in and out unnoticed.
“My Prince,” Gerch’s voice sounded apologetic but determined. “The king awaits you in his chambers.”
Dialle’s scowl deepened, “Frunk me to Hades and back again!”
I couldn’t help it, I grinned. Apparently I was rubbing off on him.
Dialle reluctantly rolled away from me and sat on the edge of the bed. His velvet, black gaze raked my sprawled form lustfully. “We’ll have to pick up where we left off later, my princess. My father is in the throes of planning his ascension to King of the world.” He stood up and, with a thought, was fully clothed in bum snugging black slacks and a filmy white shirt that left his beautiful golden chest displayed to my hungry gaze. “He dreams of total domination since this cursed veil started dropping over us.”
I sat up and pulled a sheet around my shoulders, feeling suddenly chilled. “Prophecy does say that the Royal Court will rule when the veil drops completely. Does that mean King Dialle won’t help us fight the veil?”
Dialle’s shoulders stiffened slightly and his gaze slid away.
I felt a sudden surge of panic. I had just assumed my Dialle would help me stop the veil. Had I been wrong to assume that? Emo’s many warnings about Dialle flew unwelcome through my mind. He’d said Dialle would hurt me. He’d told me repeatedly that a Royal Devil Prince couldn’t be trusted.
I hadn’t listened. Hadn’t wanted to hear. What if he’d been right?
“Dialle?”
He met my gaze and his black eyes were shadowed. Leaning close, he brushed the tip of my nose with his lips. “I must go, my princess.” And then his mouth touched mine again and I tasted regret. Pain flashed across his face as I shifted away from him.
I ended up back in my own bed, naked, sexually satisfied and terrified out of my skin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hangin’ Around
A barren bulb hung from above, a ring of shadows ’round,
A single form hung from the wall, her lifeless limbs tight bound.
I dropped the booger into hover outside the unplanned care unit and went inside, feeling jittery and sick. The place was chaos. I hadn’t thought it could get any worse but it obviously had in the few hours I’d been away. I could barely pick my way through the bodies strewn across the floor to get to Doctor Lee’s office, where my small team had agreed to meet.
I entered the hallway leading to her office and spotted Captain Lee at the other end. He was leaning against the doorjamb of his soul mate’s office. The big soldier lifted a large, square hand when he saw me and I raised a fist in Venusian greeting.
He smiled.
I started toward him, carefully picking my way through sprawled bodies and thrashing limbs. A hand clasped my ankle and I glanced down to find a fever bright set of brown eyes staring up at me. “I saw the devil.” The parched mouth under the eyes informed me.
I nodded, “Me too,” and waited for the medi-tech to pry the fevered fingers from my ankle.
When I looked up I was looking into the face of the devil’s mistress.
I opened my mouth to speak and she reached for me. Jerking away from her outstretched hand, I stumbled over a body on the floor, falling backward until I hit the wall behind me. My knees buckled and my gaze lifted in terror, finding Captain Lee.
Realizing I was in trouble, he started running toward us.
She reached for me again.
He wouldn’t be in time.
Her hand closed over my arm and I was gone.
Locked in space and time with my mother, Danika Phelps.
We landed in the shadows. I tried to jerk my arm out of her grip but she held me in an iron grasp, most likely reinforced by magic. My panicked gaze swept the area around us. The shadows were exactly as I remembered them from my previous visit there. It was not a happy memory.
She started dragging me forward, appearing for all the world as if she had a purpose and could tell where she was going. I figured she probably could. Her magic was dark and dark magic thrived in the shadows.
White magic like I carried didn’t fare as well.
“Where are you taking me?” Trying again to break her grasp, I tugged on my magic but found it elusive. Ignoring my question, my mother dragged me through the murky air of the shadows. My panicked gaze swung around, looking desperately for something I recognized. Something that would help me find a way out of there.
There were no landmarks, no guide posts. Nothing but shifting shades of murk.
Thick, lung clogging, mists.
The shadows consisted of nothing but varying shades of black. There was no light at all in the shadows. No geographic form, no rounded outlines, no trees, grass, or flowers, no buildings. There was nothing at all but a gray mist, melting into darker gray, flowing into black.
But the shadows were alive...they breathed...the sound like a heart beating in an open chest. With each thunderous beat my breath became a little shorter and my own heart ceased to work its solitary magic. My own rhythm slowed and merged with the rhythm of the shadows. I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself and nearly choked on the thick, slightly sulfuric air. Coughing, I closed my eyes, fighting to remain calm and pull breath into my lungs.
In desperation, I shuffled my mental drawers. Dialle?
Nothing. The shadows had choked off all communication with the outside world.
I was on my own.
My mother waved a hand and a door appeared, swinging open without a sound. She dragged me through. The door swung shut behind us with a dull thud.
The Devil’s Mistress let go of my arm and stepped away, smiling. “Hello, Astra.”
“Mother.”
She swung an arm around the room we stood in. “Welcome home.”
My gaze swept the room. It was indeed home, or the shadow version of home. The dungeon of Phelps fortress to be exact. I suddenly knew why my mother had insisted they recreate the dungeon when they’d reassembled the fortress on the bluff high above Angel City River. She’d built it on an access point to the shadows.
