by Sam Cheever
I opened my mouth and yelled, “Now!” Just like Astra’s voice, mine emerged as a boom that rocked the walls surrounding the graveyard. As if ignited by the explosive charge of my voice, Slayer and Astra and I released the energy we’d stored in a wash, watching it flash toward the necromancer like a tsunami, tearing up everything in its path as it went.
Morta stopped in her tracks, the flames in her gaze extinguished as her mouth went round and her eyes widened. At the last possible moment she threw up her hands and created a protective wall between her and our magic. The wall held for several moments, but under the continued force of our combined energy it started to melt away, thinning visibly.
Unfortunately, our energy started to soften too. I gritted my teeth and held on, praying we’d have enough to finish the job.
Then suddenly there was a jolt to our system. Like an air bubble working its way through a straw, something punched each of us just once, through the gut, and then smoothed out. Our wall of killing magic rippled once and then thickened, gaining power. I looked over to see that Dialle had rejoined us.
Morta’s barrier melted completely away and she was left magically naked before us. We threw everything we had at her. There were shouts and pain-filled screams as a fiery, scouring magic bubble exploded outward from our foursome, blowing everything in its path to pieces. The earth blasted into the sky in thick geysers of dirt and bone and any last shred of recognizable gravesites were obliterated.
Morta shrank away from our runaway energy and, with a final, terrified cry, lifted her arms and melted away.
It took a moment for us to realize she was gone. It took several more, long seconds to figure out how to pull the magic back. But as soon as we’d extinguished the terrifying force we’d wrought, all four of us fell to the ground, beyond exhausted.
Silence throbbed through the cemetery for a long moment, and then a cheer went up. I struggled to sit up and looked around. The place looked like the site of a laser war. Nothing was left intact. I blinked at the devastation, fearing suddenly that we’d blown our friends up along with Morta’s ugly playthings.
But another shout had me looking outward, where several hounds were sprawled across the top of the thick stone fence surrounding the graveyard. I smiled when I recognized Caninra.
Astra groaned, rubbing her head with the palm of her hand, which I noticed was covered in burns. A quick look at my own hands showed similar burns. She grimaced. “Well, shit. That’s gonna hurt later.”
Dialle kissed her shoulder through a large tear in her sweater. “I’ll make it better, my love.”
She giggled like a schoolgirl and I managed a full breath for the first time in days. Then I remembered. “Slayer!” I turned so quickly dizziness swamped me. I nearly fell over, but I saw him, a distance away and unmoving. I shoved to my feet and screamed his name running. I threw myself down beside him, my hands running over his chest and face, looking for any sign of life. Tears flowed down my cheeks and my world stopped spinning as I struggled to find breath or a pulse. His handsome face was covered in dirt, one cheek swollen with a large purple mark at its center, as if he’d hit a grave marker as he fell. “Oh my god, no, Slayer!”
A hand grasped my arm and, before I knew what was happening, Slayer’s lips were on mine and I was sobbing against them, my hands grappling frantically for him. The kiss felt like a lifeline and, as it relaxed from something frantic into something soft and celebratory, my world finally stopped rocking on its axis and settled back to firm.
When he broke the kiss a moment later I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I punched him as hard as I could on the shoulder.
“Ow!” He laughed, rubbing his shoulder. “What was that for?”
I shoved to my feet. “That’s for scaring the shit out of me.”
He laughed again. Lunging for my legs, he pulled me down to the ground and rolled over me, pinning me beneath his long, deliciously hard body. I could barely breathe from laughing so hard. But it turned out that wasn’t a problem. Because when his mouth covered mine, I didn’t need to breathe my own air anyway. I was just as happy breathing his.
~SC~
I stared at the long list of reports on my televisual and sighed. Since getting back to work after the whole Morta thing, I’d been thinking some time away would probably do me some good. Maybe a few days on the black sands of a Venutian beach. My hand ached where the Nightwhiff had chewed on it and I rubbed it without thinking. The skin was stiff and tight where it had healed, the flesh underneath healthy again, but a residual ache still existed...like memory pain. I figured it was my imagination and was confident it would fade away over time. The good news was that our terrifyingly powerful expenditure of death magic in the cemetery had burned the last vestiges of corruption from my body and Torre’s mark was totally cleansed from my system.
I felt good about that.
My office door opened and I smiled at Ralph, our landlord at The Angel Network and one of the nicest werewolves I’d ever met. In that moment, however, he was looking a little worried. “Hey, Ralph. Is everything okay?” I had a sudden, terrible thought. “The troll’s not back?” I’d recently had a painful and destructive visit from a prospective member of Astra and Dialle’s court, a disgusting troll, and I hoped I’d never experience that again.
Ralph leaned his long form against the doorframe and lowered thick black lashes shyly. Shaking his curly head, he laughed. “No troll. But Slayer called. The Air Vamp is malfunctioning and he wanted to know if you’d come pick him up.”
I tried not to leap out of my chair, happy for any excuse to walk away from an overwhelming amount of administrative work. Seeing Slayer was a bonus. “Serves him right. He’s always lording that fancy air vehicle over me.” I headed for the door, grinning. “I guess my crappy air booger is going to have to save the day again.”
Ralph’s lips twisted slightly as he tried to hold back a smile. “Looks like it.”
I patted him on a broad, muscular shoulder as I walked past. “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Darma. Have a great night.”
I was in the flash lift heading to subterranean docking before I realized something wasn’t quite right. Why hadn’t Slayer just contacted me directly? And how come he hadn’t just spaceshifted to the office?
A bad feeling making my pulse pound, I reached back and pulled Seraphim from her sheath. I kissed the tip of the well-polished blade, happy to have her back. Gerch had retrieved my beloved weapon from the icy grounds around Morta’s castle and returned her to me after the final battle in the cemetery.
The doors to the flash slid open on a whisper of air and I peered through the opening, my senses flaring to check for auras.
There was one. But it wasn’t an evil aura. And it seemed familiar. So I stepped out of the flash and, keeping my eyes trained around the docking area, I moved quickly toward the booger.
I stopped at the spot where I’d left it, alarmed. The booger was gone.
I looked around, wondering if I’d gone the wrong way after leaving the flash lift. No. I was in the right spot.
“So where’s the booger?” I murmured to myself.
“You like it?”
I swung around with a soft yelp and buried the tip of my blade under his chin. A beat later I realized who it was and lowered Seraphim. “Holy gargoyle toes, Slayer. You could have been killed.”
He grinned, moving closer. “I find it kind of sexy when you go all warrior princess on me.”
I fought a grin. “You find everything sexy. What did you do with the booger?”
He reached to tug a blonde curl that had escaped my hair binder. “I’m afraid that crappy piece of Martian refuse went to booger heaven.” He frowned. “Or maybe it was hell. The Big Guy knows it deserves a little time in the fiery pits.”
I was in the middle of dropping Seraphim back into her sheath when his words sunk in. Horror stayed my hand. “You did what?”
Slayer leaned close, his hot
breath bathing my face and turning my knees to soft rubber. He lowered his lips until there was only a hair’s distance between us and slipped one hand beneath my sweater, imprinting the naked skin of my back with Slayer magic. “Open and ignite.”
I frowned, thinking he had a strange way of asking for sex. “Excuse me?”
Slayer’s sexy mouth curved upward. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
A soft whirring sounded behind me and I spun around, Seraphim balanced in both hands.
The door of the sleek, charcoal colored air vehicle parked in the booger’s spot was open but nobody seemed to be inside. Realization sparked. “Oh, you were talking to the vehicle.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Is this a rental? What happened to the Air Vamp?”
He stepped closer, his hands sliding over my buttocks. I forgot to breathe and my sexual core started to melt down. “Not a thing.”
Slayer pressed himself against me and I sucked in a gasp as my belly came into contact with a rigid thickness beneath his soft work trousers. The resulting sensual onslaught melted my brain so that, when his lips found my throat and branded me there, I lost the ability to reason. “I don’t...ahhh...understand.”
His lips climbed my throat, leaving a heated trail all the way to my ear and then capturing my lips. The kiss was hungry and insistent, and I was helpless to resist it. I opened for him, savoring the taste of his talented tongue dancing with mine. He lifted me off my feet, pressing me against the pristine surface of the air vehicle. I wrapped my legs around his hips and gasped, my mouth coming off his as he pressed his erection against my pulsating mons. My head went back on a long, drawn out moan.
“Would you like to go for a ride?”
I arched against him, savoring the delicious wave of pleasure turning me limp. “Huh? What?” I lifted my head and blinked, his meaning coming clear. “Oh, sure. We probably should take this insid...ah!”
Before I even finished the thought Slayer had me inside the sexy vehicle and draped across the backseat, which I couldn’t help noticing was made of soft, supple leather in a creamy white color. He touched a panel beside the door with his thumb and it whirred silently closed.
My hand sliding over the buttery seat, I momentarily lost focus. “This is nice...”
Slayer reached beneath my skirt and, with the twist of a wrist had my panties off. I gave a yelp of surprise and then giggled as he flung them toward the front console.
They landed on the directional stick, a pink lace covering that should have made me crazy with embarrassment. But Slayer had slipped a thick, talented digit along my moist folds and buried it deep, sending bliss razoring through me. I forgot all about my torn undies.
I arched into Slayer’s delicious invasion with a throaty purr and he increased the tempo of his thrusts, sending me quickly into a screaming orgasm.
As the first wave of delight softened into its aftermath, Slayer climbed between my legs and lowered his lips to my still throbbing mons. I grabbed his head as he covered the hungry flesh with his hot mouth and sucked, creating a mind-numbing pleasure that carried me all too quickly into another powerful release.
I lay back, panting and deliciously sated, and reached for him. Cupping his sexy, stubbled jaw in my palm, I smiled up at him. “I wonder what the owner of this vehicle would think about what we’re doing in it.”
Slayer sucked my finger between his soft lips, talking around it. “I can’t imagine. I’ll be sure to ask. Later.” He pressed the thick head of his shaft against my entrance and, his golden gaze filled with heat, captured my lips again as he buried himself deep within me.
I said his name on a need-charged sigh and slipped my fingers through his hair, my body climbing with his into another spiral of pleasure and heat. He thrust deep and slow, every stroke a sweet invasion that savored rather than charged. I twined myself around his hot, hard body and let myself enjoy the ride.
Pleasure blossomed slowly, steadily, bringing me out of my own skin and into my enthralled mind. I forgot where we were, the whys and the hows and the world beyond the foggy ports of the beautiful vehicle and let myself become totally immersed in Slayer’s love. His flesh creating blissful oblivion inside mine.
Slayer’s breath quickened, the heart beating hard against mine sped, and Slayer’s kiss became more frantic as he reached for his own release. But before he found it, he made certain another delicious episode of pleasure found me.
I held back as long as I could, enjoying the blissful sensation of his body claiming mine, but I couldn’t put it off forever. It was inevitable that his talented ministrations would pull me over into the final sweet death.
I gave in with a scream of sheer delight. My body trembling as joy rolled over me, tightening and then softening my muscles as desperate need gave way to satiety.
With my body clutching and emboldening his, Slayer soon followed me into release, my name a husky prayer on his lips. He thrust one last time, deep and hard, and then let himself fall over into pleasure with me.
We lay panting and limp for a long moment, until common sense returned to ruin the moment. I suddenly remembered my panties were on the directional stick beneath the large front viewport, available for everyone to see. And I also realized we were strewn, naked and panting, across somebody else’s backseat. I shoved upright, pushing my long, blonde hair off my face. My lips felt swollen, my thighs were wet with the evidence of our lovemaking, and my clothes were tousled and spread around the vehicle. I grabbed for the sweater Slayer had somehow removed without me noticing. He grabbed my wrist and proceeded to rain kisses along the inside of my arm. I shuddered with pleasure. “Slayer, stop. We need to get dressed before somebody comes.”
His teeth found my nipple and he bit down gently, causing a new wave of pleasure to tighten in my sex. My eyes rolled back in my head. “Come on, you really need to sto....ahhhh!” I tried to ignore the delicious heat of his mouth covering my nipple.
“What’s your hurry, beautiful?”
I couldn’t believe how easy men were with their nakedness. “Whoever owns this vehicle is going to come back and find us. Besides,” I frowned at him. He ignored me and sucked my other nipple into the hot cave of his mouth. My knees knocked together. “Um...” What had I been about to bitch about? Oh yeah, “You need to take me to the booger. I know you hate it, but it’s mine. I paid for it and I don’t need anything fancy.”
“Too bad. You’ve got fancy anyway.” He stopped his delicious torture and looked up with a grin. “This is yours, Darma. Caninra bought it as payment for helping her free her mate.”
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. “Oh hell no.”
His grin widened and, god help me, I wanted to lick those dimples so badly. “Oh hell yes. This is your vehicle. Or, if you prefer, the company vehicle. Either way, your days with that rusty bag of bolts and burnt demon parts are over.”
I shook my head, looking around and trying to come up with a reason to turn it down. I liked to buy my own things. I liked the feeling of having worked hard for something. To have earned it. But then I thought about our horrific time in Hell...the garbage scow...the dragoyles...Torre...and I realized I had earned it. And then some. So I dropped my hand to the buttery white leather and gave it a dreamy caress. “What’s it called?”
“This is the F7000 Space Siren.”
“Space Siren.” I grinned. “I like it.” Then I shoved Slayer off the seat and climbed over him.
“Hey!”
I threw him a grin. “Get dressed. We’re taking the Siren for a test run.”
He frowned. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind...”
I threw his slacks at him. “If you hurry, I might decide to pull off into an empty sky lane so we can christen the front seats too.”
Slayer was dressed, his butt in the front passenger seat almost before I engaged thrust and backed the vehicle out of the docking spot. “Strap in, partner. This might get a bit squiggy.” I leveled the vehicle out and pointed it toward the exit.
“Full forward thrust, engage diversionary protocols.”
Slayer grabbed hold of the seat, his handsome face turning pale as my sexy new vehicle shot forward at a hundred miles an hour.
“Frunk me! Are you cra.....aaaaarrrrrggghhhh!”
We speared through the docking lot gate and shot outside, veering just over the tops of a line of air vehicles moving slowly through the city. A chaos of horns followed in our wake. The Siren flipped them the proverbial bird as she pointed her streamlined nose skyward and barreled toward the stars.
The vehicle’s powerful engines throbbed beneath me, urging me to ask for more. I had no intention of disappointing. As I increased speed, thrusting straight north like a rocket to the moon, Slayer’s screams attained a dolphin-like quality. Unfortunately for him, I barely heard his screeching beneath the delighted sound of my own laughter.
Turned out, I didn’t need to go to the black sand beaches for a little R&R. I’d already found the perfect vacation and her name was Siren.
The End
Visit Sam’s website for buy links and excerpts for all the Bedeviled & Beyond books! http://www.samcheever.com/series.html
I hope you enjoyed Beset & Bewildered. But wait, you’re not done! Here’s a taste of Book 1 in the Bedeviled & Beyond series, Bedeviled & Beguiled!
CHAPTER ONE
BeDeviled, Or BeDemoned?
God, in his wisdom, sent us his angels, to whisper our names on the wind.
God, in his anger, released his devils, to pester our souls to the end.
I mentally cursed myself and forced my mind back to the present. My mind always wanders during training. Especially when my training partner is Emo, my longtime partner and fellow perfectionist in thuggery. Like me, Emo takes our little training sessions very seriously. Unlike me however, Emo doesn’t have any trouble concentrating on what he’s doing. I have a lot of trouble concentrating unless my life is in peril. Which certainly happens often enough, since I make my living hunting devils and demons.
