The Devil's Russian Beauty

by Ana Lee Kennedy

  “Let’s do this,” Daffi said and made the turn leading out of Rebellion.

  Chapter Twelve

  Normally Phil only went to his cabin when he wanted away from the chaos of the club, but something in his head was screaming at him to go there now. He drove his pickup too fast. Urgency kept his foot mashed to the gas pedal. Along the road following the Little Muskingum River, he forced himself to slow down. The county had laid fresh gravel, and racing his pickup on sharp turns would quickly deposit him into the creek.

  As another pickup approached, its headlights momentarily blinding Phil, he forced himself to pull over and stop so the truck could pass without mishap. Once it was behind him, he stomped the gas pedal, spraying the air with gravel, and drove past the protected marsh area until he reached the upcoming turn-off leading up the hillside to his place.

  Rounding the slight bend, he slowed, then cursed. Another set of headlights approached. The other car put its signal on to go right up the hill. He frowned. No one used that road except for himself, some hunters who camped on up the mountain from him, and farmers who wanted to cut firewood or reach small hay meadows.

  As the car began to turn, he recognized it. His heart leaped, his breathing grew faster and he stood on the brake, then put the truck in neutral and set the emergency brake. He flipped his signal on. The other car halted. He waited for a good minute, but the Ford didn’t turn, nor did the driver’s door open. She just sat there staring at his truck. There was someone in the passenger seat with her, but Phil couldn’t make out who it was or even if the person was male or female.

  What was she doing?

  He got out of the truck and approached her car with his hands out to his sides so she could see he didn’t have a weapon.

  The driver’s door flew open and she stepped out. Fuck, she looked like death warmed over, but a hesitant smile tweaked the corners of her mouth and some of the fear drained from her eyes, softening the worry lines around them.

  Phil moved to within a couple feet of the driver’s side of the bumper, then halted, fearful he’d scare her away. “Come here, baby,” he coaxed firmly.

  She moved around the door and paused.

  Phil raised his arms, palms facing each other, offering his embrace. Daffodil launched herself at him, and he enveloped her in a tight embrace, burying his nose in her hair. She trembled so hard that the vibrations penetrated his heavy jacket and into his chest.

  “You remembered what I said about my cabin,” he stated.

  She nodded with her face pressed to his jacket front.

  “Were you followed?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied so softly he almost didn’t hear her.

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Jess. She has someone coming for her in a day or two.”

  “Not a problem,” he said and tightened his arms around her. “Are you ready for things to get crazy? You know this Ezra dude will come after you.”

  “I had to get away.”

  At the tears in her voice, he found himself wanting to go straight to the River Rebels’ MC and rip Ezra’s throat out.

  He moved back slightly so she’d look up at him. Before he could stop himself, he brushed his lips over hers once, twice, then three and four times. She tasted so sweet, a combination of peppermint and her own soft, delicious flavor. If he didn’t stop now, he’d kiss her silly.

  When he raised his head, she blinked a few times. She gazed at him in surprise, but stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him lightly, once.

  “Let me protect you, baby. I’ll keep you safe.” Phil willed his sincerity through his eyes, hoping like hell she believed him.

  She smiled, the expression deepening the green of her eyes and erasing stress from her face. “I’d like that.”

  Elation rushed through his blood, and he grinned back at her. “Drive up the hill until you see a lane on the left about halfway up. Turn onto it and follow it to the end, where you’ll see a cabin and a garage near it. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He made sure she was in the car and turning before he got in the truck and drove behind her with just the fog lights on so as not to blind her. He couldn’t believe she’d come to him, but here she was regardless. The haunted look in her eyes, the exhaustion evident in her face and the way she held herself told him something terrible had happened to her. He gripped the steering wheel in anger. His knuckles protested and his fingertips burned with claws that wanted to protrude. Forcing his wolf at bay, he focused on the Ford’s taillights.

  It was wonderful to finally have Daffodil with him, but would she accept him? An even bigger question plagued him. Would the River Rebels declare war on the Werewolves of Rebellion, or just Phil? He figured he had at least a couple days before Ezra figured out where she’d gone. Until then, he’d have to come up with a way to broach the subject with Frank.

  Now that he had Daffodil, he didn’t want to give her up.

  * * *

  Driving her mother home from a shopping trip, Bernadette slowed to make the turn at the gate. Headlights flashed, followed by Phil’s Dodge shooting through the entrance and heading toward the hill leading to the creek.

  “My goodness,” her mother said. “What’s his hurry?”

  Bernadette said nothing, but it wasn’t like Phil to drive so recklessly. Either something had happened at the MC, or he’d been called away on a personal matter. A woman matter.

  She drove silently along the lane and stopped in the center of the community. Tired, she didn’t relish unloading the numerous bags full of items her mom had bought and huffing them up the path and around the back of the main bungalow to her mother’s little home.

  A few minutes later, Bernadette handed her mother the last of her booty at the front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom,”

  “Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?” Her mother placed the final shopping bags on a wingback chair next to the entrance.

  “No, after all the stress of another weird death at the MC and all the running around today, I just want to go home and crash.” She gestured at the bags of cloth, threads and numerous other sewing supplies that her mother had bought that evening. “You sure you got everything you needed?”

  “Well, what I don’t have, I thought you or Luella could help me find and order online.”

  “That works,” she said, chuckling. It pleased Bernadette that her mother had decided to go back to sewing clothes and doing alterations to earn some extra money. Her mom was very talented and had given up her little out-of-home business when she found herself having to support five children on her own. “I’m sure you’ll find some interesting things online that aren’t in any of the stores.”

  Her mother walked over and hugged Bernadette. A blend of citrus and spices, her mom’s favorite perfume, wafted over her. “Thank you for helping me today, honey. Get some rest. Love you.”

  “Love you too. Night!” Bernadette shut the door behind her, then waited for the click of the bolt lock. After it snapped into place, she made her way along the little flagstone path and out to the lane where Frank’s pickup sat idling.

  She reached the top of the hill and parked the truck in front of the workshop’s garage doors, then exited and went straight into the house.

  “I was just getting ready to lock up for the night,” Luella said, meeting her at the porch door. “Did Maeve find what she needed today?”

  “Yeah, but I should’ve rented a U-Haul.”

  Luella laughed, then shut the storm door and locked it behind them. “If you want a snack, Puppy baked a couple box cakes for tonight’s dessert.”

  “Nah, I’m beat. Good night.”

  Luella wiggle the fingers of one hand at her, then sat at the kitchen table, where a cup of coffee puffed steam into the air.

  At the top of the stairs, Bernadette couldn’t wait to crawl into bed next to Frank’s hard, warm body. She paused to take off her leather loafers and thin socks, then wiggled her toes in the carpet piling.
Putting her socks inside her shoes, she wondered if Frank was already asleep, but since he was stressed too, she figured he’d crashed the instant his head had hit the pillow. Maybe she could kiss him on some points of interest and gradually awaken him. She grinned and opened their bedroom door.

  Darkness greeted her save for the hurricane lamp in the far corner, which he’d switched on low for when she got home. Amber illumination spilled over the carpet and kissed the foot of the bed. Frank lay on his back, one arm to his side and the other across his lower abdomen.

  As she undressed, she enjoyed the view of her shirtless mate, his wide shoulders pressing into the pillow, his tattoos only dark patterns in the dim lighting. She sighed. The love she felt for him, powerful and intoxicating, often left her in a state of wonderment. He looked so peaceful, his breathing deep and even, that she decided not to disturb him.

  Disrobing, she kept her gaze on him, then took her laundry to the hamper. She donned a clean T-shirt and panties, then crawled into bed next to him, careful not to jostle him too much, then checked to make sure the dish of table salt still sat on her nightstand. It might not be strong enough to deter anything powerful, but after what had happened to Phil, having the dish nearby for even minimal protection made her feel a little safer. She lay on her side facing him and traced the outline of his profile with her eyes. Soon, sleep touched her and she let herself succumb to it.

  * * *

  Bernadette awoke with her bladder protesting its fullness. She mentally cursed that extra glass of iced tea she’d drunk when she’d stopped at a sandwich shop with her mom. Lying there for a moment, she got her bearings, then flipped the covers back and sat up on the edge of the bed.

  Beside her, Frank moaned. She looked over at him lying on his side facing her. He moaned again, the sound of it erotic, as though he was in the throes of making love. Bernadette leaned over and brushed his hair from his face, then kissed him on the jaw. With a big sigh, he rolled over onto his back again and seemed to settle back into sleep.

  She got up and padded into the bathroom. Upon reaching the doorway, an image of the blond stranger at the courthouse rose in her mind. Desire pooled in her lower belly. She gasped and steadied herself against the doorframe. Power simmered under her skin.

  “Begone!” Bernadette whispered.

  His semblance forced its way into her mind again, his eyes feral and bright blue, smile wide and triumphant. A stab into her pussy, as if a man had truly penetrated her with his cock, sent a hard coil of need into her. The sensation nearly buckled her knees, forcing her to dig her fingers into the doorframe to hold herself up. Something stung her skin under her wrist. She turned her hand over to find the thumbprint-like burn glowing soft red.

  “I. Said. Begone!” She forced her power out and into the man’s image, generating magic to send it on its way. His face shattered, the mirror-like pieces of it twirling in her brain, then fizzling out one shard at a time.

  Shaken, her power drained with the effort to banish the… She frowned. Who or what was the blond?

  By a nightlight, she found her way to the toilet and sat on the seat. As she peed, Frank stirred again, his moans louder, more intense. What the hell? She certainly hoped he was dreaming about her, but after the psychic attack she’d just fended off, she didn’t have a good feeling. Finished, she pulled up her panties, but more throaty sounds now punctuated by little mutterings of “Fuck, yeah” and “That’s it, baby” reached her.

  Bernadette crossed the little room and halted at the threshold. Her power rose within her again, nearly knocking her back against the shower door with its intensity. A weapon. She needed a weapon, but there was nothing she could use save for a lamp or maybe throwing one of Frank’s huge biker boots, but those were at the foot of their bed. She knelt and withdrew the hair dryer from the sink cabinet. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it might give her the edge of surprise. Quietly, she unwound the power cord and stepped over to peek around the edge of the doorframe.

  The scene on the bed ripped the breath from her lungs. Icy fear bulleted through her veins. She jerked back, gripping the middle of the blower’s electrical cord in one hand and the hair dryer in the other as though they would ground her in this world. Heart thrashing painfully, her fear soon gave way to fury, which ignited throughout her body. That bitch was on her man. She stepped quietly past the threshold and paused.

  The demon-woman had drawn the covers back and was deep-throating Frank’s cock. She lay on his legs, her voluptuous form pinning him to the mattress. A sparkling thong, the only garment on her body, parted her ass cheeks. Long, flaxen hair cascaded down her back and around her shoulders, masking her face, but the long, elegant horns sprouting from the sides of her head and curling backward toward her shoulder blades gleamed in the dim light of the hurricane lamp.

  Bernadette panned her gaze along the bitch’s legs to discover cloven hooves instead of feet. Her fear mounted, but her love of Frank knocked it aside. She gripped the power cord in her right hand and swung the hair blower in an arc, bringing it down as hard as she could muster on the demon-woman’s head. The handle hit one horn and shattered, the plastic pieces flying into the air. The rest of the dryer connected with the center of the bitch’s skull with a sickening ka-crunch, but instead of being knocked out, the she-devil bolted upright onto her knees, her hands still firmly on either side of Frank’s pelvis.

  It snarled, the sound something out of Hell.

  Fear fired a surge of adrenaline into Bernadette’s veins that rendered her immobile.

  The she-bitch sat up straighter, her big, round boobs shiny in the faint illumination, nipples large, pert. She hissed, revealing sharp incisors and two bottom fangs that matched.

  Frank murmured something and opened his eyes. He jerked upright, his face registering shock. “What the fuck!”

  The creature hissed at him, this time louder, more forcefully. He began kicking, trying to dislodge her from his legs and wrestle out of the blankets.

  Bernadette yanked the dryer back to her and swung it again. This time it caught the creature alongside the jaw. The setting buttons flew off to hit the opposite dresser with faint plinks. The impact of the blower dislodged the she-demon so that she tumbled off the bed into the space between it and the window.

  The creature jumped to her feet, fangs bared, hands out in preparation to slash flesh, the nails on each finger black, shiny and razorlike. Bernadette scooped up a handful of salt from the bedside dish and flung it across the bed. The salt skittered and pinged across anything hard and covered the bed in glimmering, white granules. The she-thing screamed in pain, blocking her face from a second handful that Bernadette threw across the room. Frank finally scrambled out of the covers and kicked the demon-woman squarely between the breasts. She stumbled backward, arms still over her face, blinded by the salt. Losing her footing, she slammed into the window, which shattered outward. The creature toppled over the sill and out into the dark open space. A hard, hollow thud followed.

  Bernadette dropped the hair blower and leaped over the bed. She landed in Frank’s arms. The sensation of his warm, strong arms around her set the world right again. She sighed, kissed him hard, then asked with a tremor in her voice, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He moved to the edge of the bed and rose with her still in his arms to look out the window. Nothing lay in the illumination cast by the back stoop light except for glass and fragments of window frame.

  “Judging by the way you swung that dryer, I’ll have to start up a baseball team,” he joked.

  “It was the only thing I could think of that could be a weapon ’cept for picking up a lamp or chair, but then I would’ve had to reveal myself to that thing before I had a chance to grab something.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I need to sit.”

  He quickly turned her so her butt hit the mattress. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing, just coming down off my power-and-adrenaline high,” she said, her voice growi
ng shakier.

  “Things are going from bad to worse,” he stated as he rubbed her upper arms.

  “I know. It’s time to bring out the big magic guns. I’ll talk to Mary tomorrow.”

  “Well, until then,” he said, pulling her to her feet, “I should find something to patch this window for the night, but you’re coming with me. I don’t want you here alone.”

  She got a pair of sweatpants from the dresser, then followed him downstairs, already working out what the creature might be in her mind. With Mary’s help, they’d figure out something to protect themselves and the MC.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Phil stood in the doorway to the only bedroom. He still couldn’t believe Daffodil was here in his home, in his bed. She rolled over, flinging one long, shapely leg out of the covers. His cock stirred. Damn, she was a gorgeous woman.

  She hadn’t wanted to talk last night, seeming so tired, as though something had literally drained all the strength out of her except for the tiny bit she was barely functioning on. Jess had told him she was worried about Daffodil, that Ezra had a thing for her and wouldn’t give her any peace.

  “I’m ready to go,” Jess said behind him. “My cousin is here. She just texted me from the driveway.”

  He turned and nodded with a smile. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, my cousin is fly.” Jess donned a thin jacket, then shouldered her pack. She slipped past him into the bedroom doorway. “She lives in Weirton and now has her own house, so once I find some sort of legit job, I’ll help her with the bills.” She inclined her head toward the bed. “I’m gonna tell Daffi good-bye, then head out.”

  “You’ve been a good friend to her, Jess. Stay in touch with her.”

  “I plan on it.” The young woman flashed him a brilliant smile, then strode over to the bed to sit on the side closest to Daffodil.

  Phil made his way to the kitchen to give them privacy.