Darkness Awakened

by Stephanie Rowe

  At that moment, the elevator door opened and six guys walked in. The guy in front was blond, tan, and wearing nothing except boxers and a light splattering of chest hair. He gave Justine a brilliant smile as he casually swung a nicely polished sword from his fingertips. "You look lovely tonight, Guardian."

  "Oh, my..." Justine dropped to her knees, vaguely aware of her machine gun hitting the floor with a thunk, and Theresa growling next to her.

  Becca disintegrated him with a fireball.

  Disbelief and agonized loss surged through Justine as he turned into blue smoke. "Wait! Don't leave me—" The smoke disappeared, igniting a black rage inside her. "You killed him!" She grabbed her gun and jumped to her feet, taking aim at the Rivka. "You can't invite yourself into my house and then go around killing all the beautiful, naked men who show up on my doorstep to service me! You die now!" She pulled the trigger and unloaded a torrent of bullets into the Rivka, who immediately turned into inky black soot that dissolved into the floor.

  "Guardian!"

  Justine spun around to see a second beautiful man walking into her condo. She smiled. "Hi."

  He headed toward her, a sword in his hand. "I’m yours. Come to me!"

  "Yeah, sure, okay." She immediately dropped the gun. "Take me. Now." She held up her arms and ran toward him, but Derek sprayed him and the others with bullets, and all she got was an armful of blue smoke. She whirled on him. "That was completely uncalled for. You'll pay for that."

  Derek had to die.

  Right now.

  Chapter Thirty

  Given the mutinous expression on Justine's face, Derek was guessing that there was a decent chance that their battle to the death was going to happen now. "Justine? Maybe we can talk about this?"

  "No." She stomped back over to her gun and picked it up as the elevator door slid closed, no doubt on its way downstairs to pick up more Penyas. "How dare you shoot a man who wanted to give me an orgasm?" She released the safety on her gun and pointed it at him. "I can't let you kill these gorgeous men."

  He tensed and lifted his gun, vaguely aware of Theresa howling with laughter off to the left. "Theresa? How about a little help here?"

  "Shoot her in the stomach. She'll survive, but that should get her out of our way long enough for us to deal with them."

  He considered the woman standing before him with the twitchy trigger finger, flushed cheeks and slightly glazed eyes. "I can't shoot her. I like her." He put up his gun.

  Theresa snorted. "And you call yourself a man? No worthy man would resist shooting his woman for her own good."

  "She's not my woman."

  "You're pathetic. Clearly, inflicting deadly harm on someone you love dearly is a woman's job." She tapped Justine on the shoulder with her tail. "Hey, sweetie? He's the pretzel king. I'll be very traumatized if you shoot him."

  "What?" Justine glanced at Theresa, but her gun was still aimed in Derek's direction. "I have to kill him. Didn't you see what he did to my new sex toy?"

  "He wasn't a sex toy. He was an assassin. I was saving your life." Derek inched closer, his eye on her gun. A few more feet and he'd be able to grab it. "You don't really want to kill me, I promise. You really like my kisses." Hell, if she wanted sex, he'd try to use that to save both their lives.

  Her brow furrowed. "That's true. I do like them."

  He grinned. "Me too. Maybe we should do some more."

  Her face brightened. "Really? You'll give me an orgasm instead of him?"

  Theresa snorted, and heat rushed straight to his groin. "That's not what I meant—" He paused when he noticed a dark shape appearing around Justine's feet. "Becca, don't—"

  His CEO appeared behind Justine, grabbed her in a headlock and wrenched the gun out of her hands. She gave a quick elbow to the head then dropped Justine on the floor, unconscious.

  "Hey! That was complete overkill." He aimed the gun at Becca. "You touch her again and you're fired." The elevator rattled and he knew it was on its way back up again.

  She tossed Justine's gun to him and gave Derek an appraising look. "Did you notice that she didn't shoot you as soon as you killed one of them? She must be powerful to hesitate for that long, especially when she's that susceptible. And she must have a very strong aversion to killing you. She sure didn't hesitate to shoot me."

  "Who would hesitate to kill you?" Theresa asked. "You're Satan's assassin. I mean, I personally appreciate your violent nature, but as a rule, it's not exactly a job that's going to win you a lot of friends."

  Derek, however, considered Becca's point. She was right. Justine hadn't hesitated to kill Becca, but she hadn't even tried to pull the trigger on him. Was that significant? Maybe he could leverage that into a longer life expectancy...or something.

  "I'll be resistant to the Penyas allure for a few moments," Becca told him, ignoring Theresa's comment. "But then I'll have to go, and even Theresa will eventually succumb to this many." The elevator dinged its arrival and they all turned to face it. "Unless they send women or you're more diverse in your sexual interests than you've let on, you should be fine. So it'll be up to you to take them all out." The door opened and Becca shot a fireball without even waiting for their visitor to speak.

  "How long are they going to keep coming?" Theresa asked. "I mean, they're totally hot and everything, but we can't keep knocking Justine out and shooting them."

  "There's a lot. They'll come until they get the Goblet." Two more came in this time, and Becca hesitated for a fraction of a second before she incinerated them. A thump at the back of the apartment made Becca jump. "They found the stairs. Can't you feel them?" She shivered. "I gotta get out of here. I suggest you do the same." And with that, she vanished into the floor in a slither of blackness.

  Theresa burned up the last two, then high-fived Derek as the door slid shut. "Oh my God. How fun was that? It has been so long since I've been able to kill freely!" She held her front claws overhead and wiggled her hips in a dance that was far more awkward than deadly.

  He picked up a pillow from the couch and tucked it under Justine's head. "Can you stop celebrating long enough to tell me what other powers they have?"

  "Just what you've seen. It's not like they can fly up here or break down the door with a puff of breath, so no need to fret. They're generally peaceful and they have minimal battle skills whatsoever, except the sex thing, which is pretty much all they need with Miss Sexually Deprived here."

  He smoothed Justine's hair off her face, and was dismayed to see her eyelids flutter.

  She was waking up. Not good.

  "Unless they brought axes it's going to take a while for them to get through the back door," Theresa continued. "It's specially reinforced to keep any Mona-stalkers at bay."

  Justine groaned and sat up. "That bitch hit me, didn't she?"

  Derek eyed her carefully. "You want to kill me?"

  She rubbed her head. "Do I want to? No. Do I have to? Well, we both know the answer to that question."

  Relief rushed through him. She was all right. "Good. You're back to normal," he said gruffly. But they needed to get out of there before the next batch showed up. He turned to Theresa as he cupped Justine around the waist and helped her to her feet. "Can you fly?"

  She grinned. "Of course I can, Justine never lets me. She's afraid I'm going to get shot down by an anti-aircraft missile or something equally dire."

  "Well, you get to now." He ignored Justine's grunt of protest. "Can you carry both of us and Mona?"

  "If I was in shape I could, but I haven't flown since we lived in the Amazon. I could carry Mona, but that's it." Her eyes were sparkling, and he could practically taste her eagerness to do what she'd been denied for so long.

  "Take Mona and go to my apartment. Just go through a window. I'll get it fixed later." He jotted the address down and handed it to the dragon. "Now, go."

  "You got it." She grinned. "I can't believe I get to fly."

  "Just don't get shot down," Justine said.

  "I'll do
my best." She danced out of the room, singing about leaving on a jet plane. He couldn't help but smile at her excitement. The dragon was beginning to grow on him. How could he not appreciate someone with such an unrepentant zest for life and acceptance of her true nature?

  The elevator beeped, and he swung around, unloading his gun through the elevator door before it even opened. When it did open, there was nothing inside but a lot of blue smoke.

  A lot of smoke. Which meant they'd packed the men in there. The Penyas didn't need axes to get through. If they kept coming long enough, he'd eventually shoot the door apart for them. He needed a new plan.

  Justine frowned at him. "I don't think I like that you just did that. I'm feeling a little hostile toward you."

  "Resist it, Justine. It's the Penyas. They're getting to you." He pulled the emergency stop on the elevator to keep it from going back to the lobby, but the pounding from the back of the apartment intensified. How long until one of them ran off to pick up a few axes? But at least no more would be coming up in the elevator, unless they knew how to shimmy up elevator cables.

  "Penyas. Right. I got it." She closed her eyes and hugged her arms to her chest, her lips moving in a silent mantra that he really hoped would work.

  Theresa came back carrying the extremely large bottle of massage oil. "I'm okay for the moment. Never thought all my cybersex would come in so handy, but it's helping me. I do feel sort of weird, though."

  "Then go. We'll catch up with you later."

  "Don't rush. I'm going to take the long route. I haven't flown in forever." She got a dreamy look on her face that said she might zip around the New York skyline for hours.

  Derek had a feeling that a dragon sighting by civilians maybe wasn't one of the top ten things they needed to deal with right now. "I have an entire freezer full of experimental flavors of Vic's pretzels. Help yourself."

  Theresa sighed. "That's so cruel. You know I can't resist that."

  He grinned. "It's my gift to you. Get out of here."

  "You got it." She blew him a kiss, then ran toward the window and broke through it, wings sprouting out of her back as she hit the fresh air.

  Incredible. She was graceful and delicate as she soared through the air, with her horned tail flicking and puffs of smoke coming out of her nose. Derek had no idea how he knew it, but he was pretty sure that was happy smoke. Maybe he was getting the hang of Otherworld languages. Go figure.

  "I can't do it, Derek." Justine abandoned her mantra and opened her eyes. "I have to go let them in." She whirled and bolted for the back of the apartment, but Derek managed to tackle her as she went by. "Get off me so I can let them in!" She flung her knee upward. He twisted, and she slammed his inner thigh instead of her target.

  He grunted with the impact as pain ricocheted down his leg. "Justine! They're going to kill you."

  "So what? Death by sex is the only way to go." She dug under her arm, and he blocked the dagger as she thrust it toward his throat. "Release me so I can rip off my clothes and fling my body at their mercy!"

  Dammit. This was not going to work out well if he didn't figure out how to get her out of there. "If you die from sex, it's not going to be with a Penya." He tossed the dagger out of her reach. It clattered to a stop in the corner. "If you let those men kill you and take Mona, you'll go in the Chamber of Unspeakable Horrors, remember?"

  Something moved in Justine's eyes. A faint recognition. "Penyas," she whispered. "They're here for me."

  "Yes." He cupped her face with his hands, keeping her pressed to the floor with his body. "Focus, Justine. Fight it off. We need to get out of here. Just keep it together for five minutes."

  "Oh, sure. No problem." He saw a desperation in her eyes that belied the sarcasm in her tone. A plea for help that he never thought he'd see in the eyes of his independent, self-sufficient Guardian.

  It reached in his gut and yanked free something he'd kept locked up since his dad had died. It surged over him and exploded in his chest, and he dug his fingers into Justine's shoulders. "I won't leave you. I won't let you die." He'd thought those words about Quincy many times, but he'd never actually promised them to anyone. Until now.

  And it scared the daylights out of him.

  Then he heard them shouting her name, and he felt Justine tense under him. "I can't help myself," she groaned. "I need to respond to them. I have to..." And then she grabbed his head and kissed him. "Have sex with me, Derek."

  "Now?" The pounding from the back of the loft intensified, and he thought he heard the sound of wood splintering. Call him old-fashioned, but it didn't exactly seem to be the most romantic situation for a first-time love-making moment. Mid-battle sex for round two? That would be fine. First time? He really wanted to be more romantic than that for her.

  "It's the only way for me to resist them." She twisted under him, shoving at his shoulders. "If you don't, I'll kill you to get free and then we'll both die and Mona will be gone." A Penya shouted her name, and she winced. "Derek!"

  He hesitated. "You're sure it'll be okay? I don't want you to get impounded in hell or anything."

  She hit his shoulder. "Kiss me, you fool!"

  "Well, when you put it that way…" He took a deep breath, framed her face gently with his hands, and then kissed her. For real. With all intention of full follow-through. Damn. Knowing this was going to happen made the kiss a thousand times more potent and electric. He felt it all the way through his body, like a flash of fire.

  "Derek!" She surrendered completely to the kiss, pouring her heart and soul into him.

  The power from her kiss stunned him, and he nearly lifted his head to break from the electricity rushing through him. Jesus. He was going to lose control if he didn't slow down—

  "Guardian!" A Penya shouted for her, and they both tensed.

  "Now, Derek." She grabbed his waistband, yanked the bottom open, and bit the side of his neck. "Make love to me right now."

  "Some men wouldn't respond well to this kind of pressure," he said with a grin, as he raked his hands across her belly and tugged her jeans over her hips. "Lucky for you, I'm not one of them."

  "Prove it, hot stuff." She arched under him, gasping as he slid his hands over her thighs and he slipped the denim off.

  Her skin was so soft, so hot, burning his fingertips. "You feel like you're on fire."

  "I'm burning up." She shoved her hands under his jeans, her hands gripping his ass as she frantically kissed his neck, his throat, his collarbone. "For you. For us."

  There was no mistaking the sound of wood splintering, and a banging coming from the floor of the elevator, along with the constant sound of men calling for Justine.

  "We have about ten seconds," she whispered.

  "I can make that happen. I'm accommodating like that." Hot damn. They were going to do this. He hadn't been with a woman in so long, he was probably lucky as hell that she didn't want a long, leisurely session.

  He shucked his jeans and moved between her legs. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and they came together in a surge of heat, passion, and frenzy, a buildup of all the desire that had been swirling between them since they'd first met. With a low grown, he thrust hard and deep. Her muscles clenched around him, and his body responded instantly. Their reaction was immediate, explosive, and beautiful, branding them both as their bodies convulsed together. One movement, one response, two souls melted into one with a heat so intense he was certain there was smoke rising from their bodies.

  He felt like every muscle in his body had triggered at the same time, and he couldn't stop himself from driving into her as far and deep as he could, and it still wasn't enough, until he felt her soul latch onto his, caressing his spirit, healing it, restoring it, gifting it with a warmth he'd never let himself feel before.

  He had no chance to hold back the orgasm, and they both fell off the cliff together, holding desperately onto each other as they landed, wrapped around each other, gasping for breath.

  He buried his face in her nec
k as she wrapped her arms around his head, holding him tightly to her as they both fought for breath.

  Alive. He felt so alive. God. What had just happened to him?

  He lifted his head to look at Justine and saw the same look of shock on her face he knew was on his. "I know, right?"

  "What just happened?"

  "Penya sex?" He kissed her softly and rested his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes and absorbed her, basking in the moment. "Or maybe just us."

  "Mom says Satan claims to be the best lover in the Afterlife," she whispered against his lips. "That’s only because you aren't dead yet."

  He opened his eyes and smiled. "If I had time, I'd show you what I can really do."

  A crash from the kitchen indicated that the door had finally given way, and a man's deep voice drifted through the loft. "Guardian? We are here for you."

  "Time to go," she said. "Off, off."

  He rolled to his side and pulled his pants on as she did the same thing. "Did it work?"

  She grinned at him. "The only man I want to get naked is you."

  "Excellent." He tossed her a gun. "To save Mona, it was a worthwhile sacrifice."

  "Sacrifice?" She aimed the gun at the kitchen door, and took out the front row of men in a puff of blue smoke. "You'll be dreaming about that interlude for the rest of your existence."

  He killed the next group that swelled forward. "As will you. Got a fire escape?"

  "Yeah. It's off the den." She sprinted to the back of the loft, and he was right behind her. She yanked up the window and sprayed a few more bullets just before Derek shut the door and shoved the armoire in front of it. A puff of blue smoke floated through the crack under the wood. "You first," she said.

  "A gentleman never has sex with a woman and then leaves her behind to face possessed Penyas alone. You first."

  She rolled her eyes and stepped out onto the fire escape. "There's no room in my life for chivalry."

  "Maybe there should be."

  She paused, with one foot on the ladder. "What does that mean?"