bedeviled & beyond 01 - bedeviled & beguiled (19 page)

Studiously ignoring her, I kept her in my peripheral vision as I locked my unwavering gaze on the gargoyle leader. I’d decided that, if I could control him, I could control the whole disgusting, slobbering crew. He’d remained flat on the floor, but had begun to scoot backward, keeping his worried leather eyes on me.

“Gunther!” His angry mistress’s bark stopped him cold. His head swung around and he whimpered pitifully. I almost felt sorry for the disgusting bastard. Almost. She spoke to him in the language of Hades.

Not being a student of the language I couldn’t tell you what she said. I was pretty sure she wasn’t telling him to braid my hair for me. He pulled himself off the floor and stood, sniffing the air in my direction nervously before beginning to move tentatively in my direction. His solders, not being all that bright and essentially driven by their need to kill and eat, eagerly moved around him and converged on me.

I braced for the onslaught. As the first gargoyle hit my protective wall the power shuddered but held. The ’goyle bounced off with a snarl and scurried away to think about the zing he’d received when he’d touched my power. Gargoyles are nothing if not persistent, however. When the first one pinged away, his pack members stopped and watched him carefully to see if he was permanently damaged. As he regained his feet and shook it off, the rest of them decided I still looked like a pretty tasty morsel and turned their watery gazes back to me.

I gulped as the first gargoyle left the floor and bounded the eight feet that separated us in a single leap. His thick, heavy body hit my protective wall and hung there, screeching and whining. As he hit three others left their feet and joined him. I felt a tiny breach in the wall and fought the panic. Not two inches from my face, a set of two inch long slimy green fangs gnawed at my invisible barrier and spewed putrid breath into my air space. Although the power was holding them away from me, it didn’t seem to keep their smell out. A highly regrettable fact. I’d have to work on that.

The wall of power started to soften and give under their onslaught. Panic threatened to close my throat as one of them managed to pierce the barrier with a huge, curved claw and plunge it into my back. I screamed and felt the barrier weaken even more. I could feel them against my body, though I was still covered by a thick padding of power. The pack grew more rabid as they sensed my magic giving way and their knife-like claws began to pierce it all around me. The head ’goyle managed to sink one of his huge canine teeth into the barrier just inches from my face. The razor-sharp fang grazed my flesh, opening it like the skin of a ripe peach. I screamed again. Sensing my panic, he began jerking his head back and forth like a dog with a small mammal in its mouth, spraying foul smelling spit in my face as he ripped the seriously weakened barrier away from me in chunks and slivers. When his efforts had succeeded in opening a space big enough to get both canine teeth through, I decided I’d better do something.

I forced myself to calm down and closed my eyes to concentrate. Another fang pierced the flesh of my arm but I willed myself to ignore the pain and continued my efforts to build the power. I concentrated on pushing it in an arc from my body and felt it hum for a moment before it fizzled away. Something was blocking it. I hadn’t had the power long enough to know what was wrong and how to fix it. But, as the power barrier I’d worked so hard to build and hold finally broke away, agony flared over my entire body. My flesh ripped under the knife-like teeth and claws of the gargoyles. With the unimaginable pain, something broke in my mind and I lost it. As it hadn’t done since I’d been the tiniest of ball busters, my devil came out in a big way.

I opened my eyes and snarled into the ice-witch’s pale, beautiful face. Then, as a bloody chunk of my back was ripped from my body, I flung my head up in a scream of rage that shook the walls of the prison around me. I felt the power build again as my rage and pain grew. I was dimly aware that the gargoyles had flown away from me as I’d unleashed my rage. With my emotional explosion, the power shot out of my body and smashed into the nasty cockroaches, driving them into the stone wall with a sickening thud.

The cross prison started to tumble around me but I ignored it, glaring at Princess Rayanne. She had a look of such anger on her face that it managed the impossible. It made ugly a face that was much too pretty to be real. The last thing I heard was her voice in my head.
You and I have many scores to settle, insignificant halfling. Royal or not, you will die before you’ll take my place in his court.

“Definitely another entry for the shitty day book,” I murmured as one of the enormous crosses landed on my broken, bloody body.

Then I closed my eyes to die.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Where Cranky Angels Go

Alas the maiden finds herself in perplexity again,

For death had pounded on her door, but had never been let in.

I awoke in my own bed, with a blanket tucked up under my chin. As I opened my eyes I looked around in confusion for a while, wondering why I was still alive. As soon as I moved I realized that I was wrong, I must be dead because I didn’t feel any pain.

Moving carefully because I couldn’t believe my entire body wouldn’t be broken, I flipped the covers aside and climbed out of bed. The first thing I noticed was that I was completely naked. The second thing I noticed was that I was...completely frunkin’ naked!

So not good.

Moving into the personal hygiene room and ordered the shower jets on full at one hundred four degrees. I climbed under the steaming water and groaned with pleasure as it pounded my skin to a cherry red color. When I emerged, I grabbed the towel I’d flung to the floor the day before and pushed my face into it. A faint whisper of air warned me about half a second before he appeared in front of me, a wicked grin on his gorgeous, golden face.

“Lovely, Astra. How perky you look this morning.”

I pulled the towel around my body with a scowl, trying not to appear as embarrassed as I felt. “Is there something in the devil manual that says you can only haunt your victims when they’re naked and wet?”

Dialle’s smile widened and his velvet eyes twinkled with devilish delight. “Ahh, no my lovely Astra, that rule is one I came up with on my own. It gives me a certain...edge, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah. I know exactly what you mean. Get the Hades out of here and wait for me in the living area. While you’re there, you can make me some coffee. I had a rough night last night.”

Dialle fixed an unreadable black gaze on me. “I see you and I are going to have to have a discussion about how you should show me respect and cower before me.”

I turned my back on him, too tired and stressed out to care if he ate me. “Yeah, yeah, I’m terrified of you. Now go away.”

I continued to ignore him until I heard the whisper of air. Then I let the tension leave my body and closed my eyes on a sigh of relief. “I really need to start hanging out with a better crowd.” I muttered under my breath.

I left the personal hygiene room and returned to my sleeping chamber, hoping to get dressed. Silly me, I was totally not expecting to be blasted off my feet as I entered the room. The force that hit my chest drove me against the wall with an intensity that ripped the air right out of my lungs. My shoulder came into painful contact with my favorite holographic painting of a fake country scene and it fell off the wall, crashing into pieces on the floor.

Before I could regain my breath on a foul curse, invisible hands grasped me around my waist and lifted me three feet into the air, where I promptly lost my towel and my last shred of dignity. Hanging there, legs and arms flailing as I fought my invisible enemy, I heard his voice in my head.

My dear Astra, though I find your company entertaining and your lips quite inviting, It appears I need to remind you that I could kill you more quickly than you can say my name. Do not ever forget it!

He lowered me so my feet could again touch the floor and, shimmering into view with his hands still on my waist, pressed himself against me and kissed me so deeply I thought he was going to eat me after all.

I was intensely aware of my nudity as he started to run his hands over my body. I wanted to pull away and hit him. I really wanted to—in my brain—but my body couldn’t get close enough to his body. My traitorous arms wound themselves around his narrow waist and pulled him more tightly against me, which wasn’t easy to do, let me tell you. He responded by removing his lips from mine and running his tongue down my chin, where he suckled gently until I thought I was gonna die from pleasure.

“Oh god,” I moaned, throwing back my head to give him free reign of my neck. If he’d been a vampire or a werewolf I would have been dead. Since I apparently had no control over my body, I realized it was up to my brain to stop me from mounting him like a horny dog and riding him until I keeled over from exhaustion.

It took only a few, lovely, minutes for my brain to kick in and force my arms to push him away. His hands slid across my buttocks as he let me shove him back, leaving a tingly, warm trail where his fingers had been. He smiled down at me. “Now about that coffee.”

I gasped hot, lust-charged air into my lungs and scooted away on wobbly legs. “I’ll get it. As soon as I get dressed.”

“Thanks, I like mine black, like my soul.”

“Har.”

~SC~

Dialle and I sat across from each other at my small table in the food service area. We sipped coffee in silence, sizing each other up.

I needed to ask him a question but I was too embarrassed. Finally I decided that nothing could be more embarrassing than being accosted, dripping wet and naked from your hygiene unit and then throwing yourself at your accoster like a brood mare in season.

Mentally I shrugged and spit out the question. “Did you put me to bed last night?”

I really hated him when he raised that one, black eyebrow and grinned. “Why lovely Astra, what a strange question to ask. Don’t you even know who you kept company with last night?”

I scowled at him and tried to remember how to kill devil royalty. He was damned lucky I couldn’t think of anything. “Just answer the question, Dialle.”

He took a sip of his coffee. Obviously he was deliberately taking his time answering to provoke me. Finally he set the mug down and gave me his most innocent expression. “Alas, I’m sorry to say it wasn’t me. But, if I might suggest, perhaps it would be best if you took more care for how you spent your evenings.”

“Bite me.”

He shrugged. “If you insist.”

I really had to stop saying that. “What have you and your evil princess done with Prince Nille?”

Dialle fixed me with his piercing, black eyes. “He is not your concern.”

“I’ll decide who’s my concern and who isn’t.”

He became very still and stared at me until I felt the need to say something to diffuse the tension. As usual, I resorted to being a smart ass. “Do I need to kick your ass again?”

He laughed, successfully distracted from killing me. “Why are you so interested in Prince Nille?”

I shrugged in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. “I have my reasons.”

“And what might they be?”

I sipped my coffee. Maybe if I ignored him he’d go away.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me why you’re interested in Prince Nille.” He sat back and crossed his long legs, watching me expectantly.

Setting my coffee down on the table with more force than was necessary, I blew out a frustrated breath. “Oh, okay, dammit, I’ll tell you...”

Two quick chimes sounded before a disembodied voice announced the name of my unexpected visitor. Smiling smugly I stood up, vowing to kiss Kayla for her wonderful timing. “I believe that’s your cue to go.”

He didn’t even bother to stand up. Giving me a spine-softening smile, he ran a spectral finger down my chin and trailed it the length of my throat, stopping at the spot where my breasts started to curve. I shivered under the whisper soft touch. “We haven’t finished this conversation, lovely Astra,” he said, before shimmering away.

I opened the door to a smiling Kayla. Pulling her into the room, I gave her a hug. I was really glad to see her.

She laughed as I let her go. “That was quite a greeting. I know we haven’t seen each other for a while, Astra, but you seem really glad to see me.”

I laughed it off. “I’ve just missed you, that’s all. How’s your love life?”

I knew that would distract her. She started into an hour-long diatribe about the latest “crashin” guy who’d turned out, surprise surprise, to be an asshole. While she explained to me with a bright smile how his desertion had nearly killed her, I ran through my mental checklist of things I needed to do in my search for Prince Nille.

Last on the list was to come up with a plausible story for Dialle explaining why I cared. That was going to be the hardest task on my list. Hence its location at the bottom. I’ve never been real good at tackling things I don’t want to tackle.

I nodded my way through Kayla’s latest love saga and then gave her a hug and pushed her out the door. I could only hope she didn’t notice how distracted I was. She’d been my friend since I was old enough to have a friend and we were like sisters, which was why I didn’t want her anywhere near me right at that moment. It was bad enough I was volunteering to be a pig on the spit for a spiritual hog roast, I didn’t want anyone I cared about getting their porky-pies cooked with me.

As soon as Kayla left I grabbed my coat and headed for the Viper. Finding Deaver’s assistant was my next obstacle. The best place to start was at the Church of the Twined Hands. Maybe there was something in the office that would help me with my search.

I suddenly remembered my missed appointment with DD Raoul and realized he would either be pissed or concerned. The fact that he hadn’t called me would indicate that he was pissed. Sighing over the complications of my life, I touched the fingerprint pad on the Viper’s televisual and said, “Transmission. DD Raoul.”

The screen filled with jagged lines as the transmission went out and then his face swam into view. He looked tired. “Hey, pretty lady. You stood me up last night.”