by Sam Cheever
Just because she was a devil, Brina twisted the rapier, digging a shallow cut into Slayer’s muscular neck before stepping away. She swiped the deadly weapon across his jeans to clean it and flashed across the hallway before he could grab her.
“Bitch!” Slayer’s face was tight with anger but his eyes held a far different emotion.
The she-devil dropped her deadly rapier back into its sheath and wandered into the kitchen. We followed her into the well-lit room. She moved right to the antique oven and grabbed one of the perfect, golden cookies off the pan on the top. I watched as she consumed the cookie in three bites and grabbed two more.
Apparently the devil liked sugar.
“Did you kill that bird demon?”
Brina glanced at me but didn’t respond, probably because her mouth was full of cookie.
I sent my sensing power around the room and found the tiniest speck of foreign magic. It was an oily magic, cold with malevolence. I didn’t think it belonged to the bird demon.
But, silly me, I didn’t think it had come from Brina either.
“Your enemy was in this house. I tracked him here.”
I frowned. Maybe the magic belonged to the doggie monster, but I didn’t think so. Though the creature had mauled me once or twice, I never really got the impression that it wanted to kill me. “Which one?”
Her smile was slow and smug. “You informed me that you didn’t need my help.”
Okay, she had me there. “I don’t need your help fighting him off, but if you know who it is I’ll take that bit of information from you.”
She picked up a cloth from the counter top and daintily wiped her fingers. “That is very large of you, my queen.”
Oh, that was a good reminder. “And since I am your queen you must aid me as I request.”
She snorted.
That wasn’t exactly the response I’d been looking for. It was a far cry from dropping to one knee and touching her forehead to the floor in obeisance.
Pretty damn far.
“I do not feel the need to follow court dictates. Unfortunately, I am already...how do the humans say...off the reservation just by being here. However, the women of my court wish to know how you marked the king. We wish to perform this ritual on our mates, to bring them under our power. Unfortunately, we must keep you alive if we are to discover your secret. And you are such a bumbler that, at every moment, you are just a breath away from being exterminated. It has been very painful to watch. So we decided that someone would need to stick to you like a sucker demon or you would become room temperature before we could find out your secret.”
I glared at her amid general snickering.
“Har.”
Brina grinned. “It is all true.”
I liked the woman less and less by the moment. “So let me take a stab at this...you will tell me who’s trying to kill me if I tell you my secret for marking Dialle?” Never mind that I had no frunkin’ clue how I’d marked him. I’d deal with that later.
But Brina hadn’t just tumbled off the brimstone truck. She shook her head. “I will learn your secret in due time. My task for the moment is to keep you alive long enough to find and kill the one who wants you dead.”
“And who might that be?” Slayer stepped close, his gaze sliding assessingly down her body.
Brina returned his frank stare with one of her own, her dark eyes sparking with interest. Apparently she wasn’t completely immune to his considerable charms. “I keep my own council, halfling. You may follow me around and aid me if you wish, but knowledge is power and, in this instance, I fully intend to be the one holding it.”
So much for controlling my own destiny.
~SC~
A few moments later, I finally let Mx. Diamon out of the bedroom and left her to entertain my sister and Slayer, both of whom actually seemed to enjoy the old woman’s company.
Go figure.
Figuring she was in good hands for a while, I retreated to my cell block and flopped myself down on the overly soft bed before remembering that it was a succubus nightmare. While I was trying to extract myself from the clutching mattress, the door to the room opened. I glared at it, my mouth opening to expel whoever entered the room.
Brina slid inside and closed the door, leaning against it.
“What the hell are you doing in here? Get out!”
The damnable chit just stared at me, her gorgeous black eyes speculative. “You are very cranky, my queen. Has something twisted your bloomers?”
My lip curled. “You mean besides the fact that someone is trying really hard to kill me and I can’t figure out who because I’m stuck in doily-and-sugar-cookie hell, babysitting a scary old lady?”
Her lush lips curved upward. “That is why you have me, my queen.”
“Don’t call me that.” Something about the way she was looking at me made me distinctly uncomfortable. It was a hungry look, reminiscent of the way she’d looked as she’d gobbled those cookies.
I struggled into a sitting position. The bed rocked and when I looked up Brina was on her knees in front of me. “Hey!”
She reached a golden finger, tipped in a perfect French manicure, toward my face, skimming it across my cheek as she swept a ribbon of hair out of my eyes. I shivered and my Settling roared to life.
Shit!
Her nostrils flared as she scented me and she dropped forward, onto her hands, forcing me back to my elbows on the sucking mattress. “You smell yummy. I am intrigued by this Settling thing you halflings experience. I thought I’d come explore.”
I grimaced. “If you don’t back the hell away right this minute you’re gonna find out a whole lot more about my Settling than you’re probably interested in knowing.”
Her smile made my body tighten around a coil of need. Heat pulsed between my thighs.
“Promises, promises,” she murmured huskily.
I sucked air into my lungs and tried to get myself under control. All I managed to do was pull her scent into my body, where it infused my cells like fine wine, making me slightly giddy. I realized my silence could be misconstrued so I opened my mouth, fully intending to tell her to get the hell away from me. I croaked a few non-committal sounds as she drew closer.
Gulping ineffectually, I watching those perfect bow-shaped lips move closer and closer. My nipples hardened, begging to be touched. My sex clenched with interest.
I licked my lips and waited, for the first time in my life so enthralled I couldn’t react. I’d known the Royals could be bi-sexual. Sex to them was just physical pleasure, many of them were unconcerned with gender. Pleasure ruled the day at court.
Somehow I’d never considered that their liberal views would include me. More importantly, it was slightly disconcerting to realize how open I apparently was to them. I briefly wondered if she’d put me under some kind of spell but then shrugged that off as wishful thinking. What I was feeling was all me. I couldn’t blame any outside force for it...other than my damn Settling.
But I’d learned over the last several months that the Settling was just the outward display of my own sexuality, though exaggerated a hundred fold.
She lowered her lips to within a breath of mine and stopped, apparently waiting for my reaction. I found myself unable to act. Her soft breath smelled of flowers and sensuality. It made my mouth water.
“I find you intriguing, Astra Q Phelps. Unnaturally so.”
Since words had apparently escaped me, I tried to shake my head. Her laughter sent warm, flower-scented air over my cheeks and made my skin tighten with need. Her hot tongue slid across the seam of my lips and I moaned.
Her lips touched mine and I felt what little control I had left slipping away. They were so incredibly soft, and the body that sank into mine on the bed was soft too, the hands that skimmed up my sides were velvet seduction. The teasing scratch of her nails across my ribs made me shudder with lust. At first I froze, my limbs going stiff in defensive denial. But her assault on my senses was too acute to ignore and, aga
inst my will, my body started to succumb. My arms went around her shoulders, my legs wrapped around her hips, and my tongue swept out to tangle with hers. She tasted of sunshine and warm, sweet fruit.
I suddenly couldn’t get enough.
My fingers delved into the thick silk of her hair and I slanted my head, deepening the kiss.
She arched her hips, driving her mons into mine in the most delightful way. I could feel her moist heat even through our clothing. From the way her breath seemed to be coming out in little gasps, I figured she was enjoying our little romp as much as I was.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that what I was doing was wrong. Despite the niggling guilt, the forbidden fruit I was tasting was just too sweet. Before I knew what I was doing, my fingers started to pull on her clothing, suddenly desperate to feel her soft skin against my naked flesh.
Her hands pushed my sweater up, baring my lace and silk bra. I skimmed my palms up her slim back, under her shirt, and found it unencumbered by any kind of underclothing. My hungry fingers skipped to the sides of her body, searching for the soft roundness pressing against me.
My fingers stalled as she dipped her head, pulled the lacy fabric of my bra aside, and captured a rigid nipple in her heated mouth, sucking hard. My lungs clamped down on my breath and I moaned, my body exploding with sensation. I arched my back and wrapped my fingers in the thick cap of her hair, holding her to my breast.
Sparks flared between us, dancing in multi-hued testament to the heat we were creating with our bodies.
Brina’s tongue flicked my nipple before she bit down. Then she soothed the painful nip by sucking the nipple back into her hot mouth. Moving to the other breast, she repeated the process.
She rolled onto her side next to me, taking her weight off my body and giving herself room to play. While she ministered to my breast, one hand slid down my belly, moving toward the soft, unrestrictive band of my pants. I spread my knees and arched into her hand, my body begging silently for her touch.
She wasted no time delving beneath my soft pants and sliding a hot digit into my clutching channel. My head came up off the bed and I cried out, the pleasure of her touch spearing through my belly and exploding across my skin.
Brina looked down at me and her eyes were lidded with pleasure. “I have thought of this for weeks.” She punctuated her words with slow, sensual glides of her finger from my dripping channel and across my throbbing clit, sliding the heated cream from my body over that hungry little bud.
I moaned and tugged on her soft shirt, pulling at it with hungry fingers.
Without warning the air above the bed shimmered and hands reached out to clasp the she-devil’s slim arms, jerking her backward off the bed. I made an outraged sound and tried to climb to my knees on the bed.
Brina’s body flew across the room and smacked hard against the wall. She sprang off the wall with her rapier in her hands, and flung herself at her invisible assailant. She hit something in mid-air and sparks flew amid the sound of grunting.
I struggled against the sucking mattress for a comical few minutes before I managed to get to my knees. With a thought, my hands filled with spitting power.
My eyes widened as Brina disappeared in a shower of sparks and the sounds of fighting continued, furniture spun and crashed all around me as the two combatants battled it out.
Like a marionette on a string, my head turned from crash to crash, watching with my ears rather than my eyes as the fight built steam and grew more violent.
The glass in the room’s only window burst outward.
Someone cried out in pain and, for just the briefest moment, the air shimmered and showed me a tall form with a silken fall of black hair and a pair of broad shoulders standing over Brina, who lay in a damaged puddle on the floor. And then both of them disappeared in a wash of light and the room was silent.
The door burst open and slammed against the wall. My mind finally grasped the fact that someone had been pounding on it for a couple of minutes.
Slayer strode into the room with his sword held in two hands before him. “Where is he?”
I turned to him and blinked, feeling as if I was deep underwater in an ocean filled with jelly, trying to swim to the top. I blinked a couple more times and then said. “You’re hired, Slayer.”
At least I knew where I stood with him.
A scream sounded in another part of the house and Slayer and I flew out of my room, toward the kitchen, where the scream had morphed into a low rumbling, sounding like a feral growl.
I skidded to a stop at the end of the hallway, power throbbing beneath my skin.
Mx. Diamon stood in the center of the kitchen, her pale, wrinkled face slack with horror. She was staring at something circular and sparkly in her hand. As I moved cautiously into the room she looked up. Her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears. “She’s gone.” The woman’s voice wobbled with pain.
I frowned, finally recognizing the object in her hand. It was the fat, orange cat’s collar. “The cat?”
Mx. Diamon shook her head, closing her hand into a fist around the collar. “Betty Davis. She’s gone. They’ve taken her.”
CHAPTER NINE
Get Thee Away from me Satan!
Here kitty kitty, where have you gone?
Did that mean devil do you wrong?
Astra! I need you.
I shook my head and slammed my mental drawers closed on Dialle’s sexy voice. Although my body thrummed with residual need from my interlude with Brina, I couldn’t deal with his issues and possible infidelity at that moment.
The hypocrisy of the stance didn’t escape me, my having locked lips and bumped hips with just about every living thing I’d encountered over the last several hours, but I was too pent-up and pissed off to face up to it.
I’d deal with Dialle later. When I was hopefully calmer and more rational.
Forcing my shaking hands into my pockets, I glanced at Slayer. We’d left Darma to babysit Mx. Diamon and returned to my office to consider next steps. “Any word in the underground about this Davis chick?”
He shook his head, frowning. He’d seemed distant and had been uncharacteristically quiet since we’d left Mx. Diamon’s.
“What?”
He was sprawled in my client chair staring at his shoes. He didn’t act like he’d heard me.
“Slayer!”
His head jerked up. “Huh?”
“What has you bothered? You’ve been weird ever since we left the client’s house.”
He shook his head. “There was something in that house...”
“I know, all those doilies are creepy aren’t they?”
Astra!
I slammed my mind closed on Dialle.
Jumping out of my chair, I started to pace my office. A fine sheen of sweat coated my face. I swiped my sleeve over it and continued to pace.
“It’s not that. There was something there that nagged at me. Something familiar.” He looked up. “But I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
I stopped pacing and stared at him. He looked spooked. I’d never seen Slayer looking anything less than cocky. “Was this a brand new feeling?”
“I...um...you know, now that you mention it I felt the same thing at Mx. Davis’ house.”
My stomach tightened around a painful coil of need and my skin felt abraded, like someone had taken sand and rubbed it all over my body. My nipples were rigid and sore from rubbing against my sweater. I was having trouble focusing my mind on the case, even hearing what Slayer was saying.
My daemon hickey sparked. Damn it, Astra!
Slam.
It sparked again and I cried out, falling to my knees as a wave of pure lust swept me. A roaring sound filled my ears and, in the distance, I thought I heard Slayer’s voice calling my name. But the world had stopped turning and sound slipped away.
I realized with a start that Dialle had managed to yank me out of my office, and was reeling me in. My mind rebelled, sending rage-filled thoughts throu
gh my mental drawers as my body was locked, helpless and inert, in the enforced space shift. I could feel Dialle’s anger in answer to my own, but I ignored that completely. It was his lust that drew my attention.
It matched mine for intensity.
Sound and movement returned as a familiar space formed around me. As soon as I could move I struck out at Dialle, my hand coming within a hair of connecting with his sexy, square jaw.
He caught my hand and yanked on it, slamming me up against his chest. Dialle turned and pressed me hard up against the wall, pinning me there with his body. “I could feel your lust across the distance, Astra. Your need burns at me and weakens the court.”
“Frunk you to Hades! Let go of me!”
Dialle’s pretty black eyes roiled with the colors of passion. Bright purple and luminescent gold fought for dominance in his gaze. With his hands holding mine above our heads, he lowered his dark head and scented my neck. I growled in anger and pulled my power forward. My daemon hickey sparked and the power flowed outward, making my skin throb with the need to release it.
Dialle lowered his lips to my throat and covered the mark he’d given me, swiping his hot tongue across the tear-shaped hickey and, in the process, calming the sparks. The power leeched away, back to its core in my mind. “What the frunk!” I tried to ignore the way my body fired at his touch, despite the squelching of my powers.
Unbelievably, he grinned at me. “That...my love...is what I’ve been doing with the witch. She’s taught me how to control your power so you can’t overwhelm mine.”
I frowned. I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why would you do that?”
He nuzzled my neck, covering the sensitive skin with tender kisses, alternated with sharp nips. “I could not make love to you if I am going to lose myself in the process, Astra. It is too dangerous. Thus, though my body has burned for you these last days, I could not reach out until I’d found a solution. The witch gave me that solution.”
My eyes were closed and, against my will, my body swayed toward his. I felt the long, hard evidence of his desire for me against my belly and nearly moaned with delight over the prospect of soon having him inside me.
