by Sam Cheever
Laughing with him, I turned around and blinked. A smallish flying creature was heading directly toward our bubble. The thing looked to be about ten feet across, from wing tip to wing tip, and had very few feathers on its scrawny body. If I didn’t recognize the charcoal-colored scales coating its body I would have thought its feathers had been burned off. The few it retained, mostly on the crown of its pointed head and the end of its pointed butt, were ragged and slightly bent.
The Snape, one of only a very few birds that inhabited the skies of Hell, was a goofy-looking creature, but I’d heard they had razor-sharp claws and beak and could be especially aggressive when hungry or scared. The one heading toward us at that moment had fixed an angry, dark-red gaze on me and was flexing its claws.
Glynus?
She turned her elegant black head toward the much-smaller creature and shuddered slightly. Some creatures are able to see through the magic, mother Tweener.
Can it pierce the shield?
Doubtful, Spence offered. But just in case… The big dragon whipped his tail around and smacked it into the Snape, sending the nasty creature flying through the air in the opposite direction with a husky squawk.
“Home run,” Emo said with a laugh.
Unfortunately the Snape’s strange flight pattern drew the attention of one of Satan’s warriors. He turned away from the rest and started heading our way to investigate.
Watching him come, I started to pull my stored magic forward. “Remember, aim for the warriors, the dragons will take care of the things they’re riding.”
Darma leaned down and spoke quietly to Spence then glanced toward me. “Let me get this one, Astra. You save your magic for when you need it.”
I bit back an angry retort, unused to letting my sister fight my battles for me. But I knew she was right. Unfortunately, my magic was currently finite. While hers was not.
We continued steadily forward, my gaze torn between the approaching warrior and Gerch, who was standing on the back of his red dragon, slashing at the devil’s soldiers on either side. He showed an incredible amount of balance and skill as he continually adjusted his footing to stay upright while the red twisted and lunged at the nasty creatures surrounding it.
While both of them were covered in blood and showed obvious battle wear, they seemed to be holding their own. Scanning the boiling mass of fighters, I was able to spot several more of Gerch’s men still hanging in. That was good.
In about another minute they’d have some help.
The approaching warrior was very close. I glanced at Darma. She had a massive ball of energy spitting in her pale palm and was waiting, her clear blue gaze locked on her target.
The warrior flew on, now only a few dragon lengths away. I resisted saying anything, not sure if Glynus’ magic bubble deadened sound as well as sight.
But as he came within a few feet of us I opened my mouth, unable to hold my tongue any longer.
Darma screamed, “Now!” and Glynus and Spence pulled apart, sucking the warrior into their bubble. Darma immediately planted her magic in the warrior’s surprised face and Glynus and Spence slammed sideways, stunning the gargoyle with dual solid blows to its entire length.
The soldier’s head snapped back and he toppled off his mount, falling silently toward the fire below.
The gargoyle creature didn’t even have enough air left in its body to roar as Spence and Glynus gave it another two-sided body blow and then slipped apart, allowing it to fall toward the boiling ground below.
I glanced toward the battle and was relieved to see we hadn’t been noticed. Darma’s tricky little maneuver had bought us an extra few seconds of surprise. I grinned at my sister, actually feeling proud. “Good job. That was pure genius.”
Her lips twitched but she quickly hid the smile behind a scowl. “Don’t sound so surprised, Astra.”
A pained shout brought me back to the reason for our headlong rush across Hell’s smoky skies and I looked ahead. We were close enough to drop Glynus’ pretty magic and join the fun. I climbed onto my feet, spreading them to balance on Glynus’ wide back. Pulling my sword, I glanced at Emo. “Ready, partner?”
He was already on his feet, a sword in one hand and a long, platinum chain coiled loosely around the other. “Ready, boss.”
I looked at my sister. She was still seated, looking slightly green around the gills but she had energy spitting in each hand and appeared determined to fight the battle. She nodded.
“Good. Then let’s get in there and kick some red hiney.”
* * * * *
My sword slashed down and a quick jolt of power from my left hand sent the warrior screaming off his monstrous ride, to ping against the mutant head of the creature flying just below.
I watched with satisfaction as he was snagged out of the air, caught in the intractable jaws of the gargoyle creature, and flung away again like a chunk of moldy cheese, only this time coated in oily gargoyle spit.
Glynus made quick work of the soldier’s nasty ride just as a sword slammed toward my head from the other side. I turned to meet the heavy-handed thrust with my sword, sucking in a strained breath as the blood-coated blade drove my sword back toward my face.
The attacker’s blade stopped a hair away from my nose. Using a power-enhanced strength I wasn’t sure I could sustain, I looked into my attacker’s beady, black eyes and slowly forced him backward.
Under attack from three riderless gargoyle things at once, Glynus bobbled slightly and I fell backward, my attacker leaping onto Glynus’ back to drive me down. The razor-sharp edge of his sword sliced into my throat, burning like the fire roiling far beneath us.
He held the sword against my throat and looked down at me, a wide smile forming on his craggy, lips. “At last we have you. He will be pleased.”
“You don’t have me yet, gargoyle breath, and trust me when I tell you Satan will be anything but pleased if I ever meet up with him again.”
The soldier’s black eyes widened slightly just as a silvery coil of metal snaked around his throat and jerked him backward and into the air. I looked up and saw Emo, smiling down at me from his dragon several yards away. “Take a load off, boss.”
I shook my head and flipped to my feet. “Thanks, partner.”
Emo flicked his wrist and the magic-enhanced lasso unfurled, dropping its cargo, kicking and screaming, into molten death below.
“To Hades with you fool, for God hath tired of you,” I screamed after him.
Emo laughed, seemingly enjoying himself. I guessed after months in Heaven, surrounded by endless peace and mind-numbing serenity, he was enjoying the chance to kick some ass again.
Glynus finished off the last of the three riderless monsters with a tail-spike to its gut and I looked around. The battle seemed to be winding down a bit, and most of our fighters still stood.
I smiled. Chalk one up for the good guys. I realized it was a good time to go looking for Dialle. Turning to Glynus, I opened my mouth to tell her exactly that. The air behind me shimmered and a strong pair of arms snaked around my waist and throat.
I jerked, instinctively reaching for my power, before I realized who it was.
“Hello, my love.”
Feeling my eyes widen in surprise, I tried to turn in his arms, but quickly found myself locked in a space-shift, unable to move or speak. As soon as our feet touched the ground Dialle’s arms loosened around me. I turned and his sweet, firm lips found mine.
Heat blossomed in my belly from his taste and the feel of his hard body wrapped around mine. His delicious scent surrounded me, creating a heated and immediate response in the pleasure centers of my body. His hands skipped over my hips and breasts, hard and frantic.
My sexy devil’s kiss was filled with so much emotion that, for a moment, I was afraid it would completely overwhelm me. With a soft and desperate cry, I molded my body to his and slipped my arms around him, sliding my hands beneath the softness of his customary white shirt. His skin felt smooth and warm under my fi
ngers—a balm for the mental anguish I’d been nurturing since he’d disappeared.
I pulled my lips from his. “I was so worried about you.”
His lips were everywhere, touching my mouth, my cheeks, my chin. His tongue slipped out to taste my skin and slide a brand over the seam of my lips. His desire was obvious in the hard shaft that pressed against my belly.
My head fell back as he nibbled his way down my throat. “Why did you leave?”
“Shhh, no talking. I just want to make love to you, Astra. I need to make love to you.”
There was something in his voice—a sharp, desperate tone that made my heart nearly break in two. “I need you too, Dialle. But there’s something I need to tell you—”
“Shhh.” His lips descended on mine and all thought disappeared. Nothing was as important as the taste of him against my lips. Nothing could compete with the feel of him in my arms. I shoved everything else away…the rest of the world…my worries…my own insecurities…and just embraced him, heart and soul.
Our clothing disappeared on a whisper of air.
Dialle wrapped himself around me and walked us backward. My legs bumped up against something soft and Dialle leaned into me until I toppled backward, landing on a supple, encompassing surface.
The bedclothes felt cool and slightly rough against my naked body. By contrast, Dialle draped my front in warmth, sliding against me like a cat as his mouth continued to devour mine. He pressed a firm thigh between my legs and I opened for him, my wet, already clenching pussy eager to feel him deep inside.
Dialle grasped my hands in his and pulled them over my head. His hands were like steel bands around my wrists, not painful, but hard and unrelenting. His kisses went from tender to ravishing in the space of a breath and I responded in kind.
As Dialle’s tender tasting morphed into nibbles and then bites, my throbbing, eager body thrashed and pulled against the restraints of his hands on my wrists.
Instead of terrifying me, as being restrained should have done, the restriction of my freedom drenched the act of love in a new flavor. It was a flavor that I’d never fully tasted before, but realized I wanted to explore.
His hands holding me hostage and his legs splayed to hold mine wide, Dialle bit my lip, drawing blood, and then proceeded to suck it until it throbbed. My head thrashing back and forth on the mattress, I yelled his name, desperate to feel him inside me.
Dialle moved down my body, nipping my throat, bathing it in sparks of delightful pain, and then to my breasts. He looked up at me then, his black eyes swirling in dizzying pools of passionate color. Red fought with orange and a deep, vibrant purple in his gaze, telling me more than words how much he craved what we were about to do. “I dreamed of you last night, my love. This was my dream. That I would have you, bound and screaming with lust, and you would bear the bleeding marks of my passion across your flawless skin.”
I writhed under the power of his words. In a deep, dark corner of my mind I knew it was wrong. I knew the restraints that held my wrists and ankles—no longer bound by Dialle’s hands but restrained by something my eyes couldn’t see—were wrong. I knew the painful marking of my body was beyond acceptable, but I didn’t care. My mind demanded more. My flesh blossomed under the strange pull of violence his love had become. My body screamed with need. My skin felt abraded under it. “Fuck me, Dialle.”
“Beg, Astra.”
“Please fuck me. I think I’ll lose my mind if you don’t.”
He lowered his head and encompassed a turgid nipple in impossible heat. I cried out and arched upward, driving the hard nub deep within his mouth. I ground my pussy against the rigid heat of his chest and belly, painting his skin with my scent, my heated cream. My legs wrapped around him, dragging him closer, as if by sheer force of will I could mount him and bury him deep within me.
Dialle’s chest vibrated against my skin as if he were growling and the sensation that created in my desperate pussy was mind-shattering. I pressed closer, squeezing him with my knees until they began to shake.
My body was rabid in its lust. Pain and pleasure had merged into one, all-consuming necessity.
Dialle bit down on my breast, piercing its unsullied surface with ravenous abandon. Pain morphed quickly into delight. Ripples of it washed through me, making my pussy clench hard and sending warm cream sliding down my thigh.
I screamed as he sucked on the wound he’d made, my head thrashing helplessly as I found the release that had waited just beyond my grasp and pulled it, full and shrieking, into my possession.
My hands dragged against the restraints holding them away from Dialle. My legs jerked against the invisible manacles. I jerked and writhed beneath him, my pussy clenching in unfettered delight, and I came over and over and over again, running full-blown toward the siren call of his lips and teeth on my breast.
Every suck on my nipple sent a new wave of joy slashing through me. Every jolt of pain carried me over a new peak, burying me under wave after wave of sensual delight.
When I was weak from my release, Dialle lifted his head from my breast and slipped between my thighs, his swirling black gaze holding mine as he buried himself deep within my pulsing channel.
I cried out again as he filled me, stretched me, and sent me spinning toward a new and building wave of pleasure.
He was deliciously hard, buried impossibly deep. He looked down at me and smiled, the taut curve of lips just cruel enough to make my stomach flutter with fear. He moved within me, the tiniest movement, and sensation exploded. I shuddered under it, too consumed by the sensations ripping through me to even cry out.
I couldn’t imagine the sensation of a full thrust. I started to doubt I’d even survive. A moment later I was sure I had died from the pleasure. He tucked his hips and drove deep and it was like something split open inside me, something that had been keeping me restrained for years, something that no longer had the will or need to confine my overwhelming lust.
Heat surged through me, opening my cells and crashing full force into them. My lungs expanded with Dialle-charged air and everything within me blossomed.
He lowered his head and covered my mouth with lips that ravished and consumed. He thrust harder with every stroke, building an oncoming explosion in my sexual core. Together we built a new fire, forged a different sensual footprint than we’d ever created before.
My hands strained against the magic cuffs, drawing blood. Dialle’s body slipped against mine, creating sparks wherever we touched and sending my world spinning smaller and smaller with every thrust. It was just us. Just him and me. And nothing else existed beyond our tiny sphere.
The flames built around us. Grew. Flashed. Spit with growing intensity.
Dialle’s kisses turned bruising, his body thrusting harder and faster within mine, until he lifted his incredible lips from mine and cried out, his head falling back on a scream.
I felt his cock jerking inside me, felt his skin shudder under the power of his release, and I couldn’t help following him over into my own power-drenched orgasm.
I cried out as my body found that edge and toppled into a pleasure so intense I swooned under its power. Stars burst beneath my closed lids, dizziness swamped me, and my body clenched his so tightly I thought I heard him groan beneath it.
As his body softened out of his orgasm, he dropped over me, panting, and skimmed a damp ribbon of hair off my face. He dropped his head and gently nuzzled my throat, where once he’d forged our connection with a magical daemon hickey that no longer existed. I held my breath, waiting to see if he would do it again. But he only lingered for a second and then lifted his head and rolled away.
We lay, panting, side by side and I realized with a start that my magic manacles hadn’t released. I tugged on them and they held. “Uh, you can release these now.”
He glanced my way and smiled.
Fear slipped cold fingers up my spine.
“I like you that way. I think I’ll leave you for a while.”
“Dialle, this isn’t funny.”
He stood, walked away from the bed, and was fully clothed with a thought. “I agree. It’s not meant to be.” He started toward the door. “I’m off to take care of the rest of your little invading party.”
“Wait. You knew we were here for you? Why didn’t you help us out there?”
The cold look on his handsome face when he turned back made me gasp. “Help you? Who do you think sent those soldiers after you?”
Chapter Seven
Hell-bent
So when our lady finds herself, in handcuffs made of naught,
It’s easy to convince oneself, the devil must be caught.
The only good thing about my situation, if there was a good thing, was that Dialle had apparently decided to underestimate me. He hadn’t given me a chance to tell him about my newly charged battery so he believed he could hold me with a little magic.
Wouldn’t he be surprised when I got loose and went to kick his ass? Lovingly of course. He deserved it for tying me up. And for thinking I was too weak or stupid to escape. He should know better. Leaving me to my own devices was never a smart move, especially when I was desperate.
And fear for Dialle and my friends had made me very desperate.
I pulled power from my core and sent it into the magic cuffs. The silver light of my power illuminated the cuffs and the chain that trailed to the rock wall behind the bed. The newly lit chain was anchored into the wall with a couple of enchanted loops. I wrapped my hands around the chains and yanked harder, infusing my efforts with a little energy.
Nothing. But the power I was using to illuminate the chains was heating them. They were hot enough, in fact, to burn my skin. But they didn’t break or even appear to weaken. With a jolt, I realized what they were.
Angel chains. Formed of both light and dark magic. Impossible for angels and creatures of the light to break because severing the chain required both light and dark magics. We’d used the very same type of magic to hold Dialle’s father captive once.
