Love and Demons (6 page)

"They have concerns
that they will not be able to find their Zi mate before our time here is done,"
he told her. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips. "And that
if they were to know our true form, they would not accept them." The look
in his eyes said he shared this concern, and Kat knew there was only one real
way to alleviate the insecurity in the room. She just hoped she was able to
handle the truth.

"Well, let me see
your complete form, not just the horns. Show me your true form and let me be
the judge of what is and is not acceptable." She kept her voice calm and
confident, though her heart was pounding so hard it echoed in her ears.

"You are certain?"
he asked. His companions all looked at her hopefully.

"I wouldn't have
asked otherwise," Kat told them before taking a seat and propped her feet
up on the dark ottoman.

Barak stood and nodded
his head at the men who had gathered close. It was like watching one of those
old B movies as the images of each male began to shift and change. Their bodies
became more bulky, which
was jaw
dropping, considering
their human size was already large. The color of their skin morphed until they
all glistened with a sort of bluish hue.

Looking up at Barak, Kat
swallowed the huge lump that formed in her throat. His hair hung along his
shoulders in a thick blue-black fall as the twin horns she had glimpsed before
now pushed out, their color contrasted. His sheer size made her feel dwarfed.
He stared at her in complete silence, his eyes the only window to the storm of
nervous emotion swimming beneath the surface.

Standing, she moved
forward to run her hand along the edge of his jaw that jutted out sharper than
before. His skin was cool to the touch, the texture like soft leather. "You
are breathtakingly gorgeous," she said, smiling and looking around at the
group of awe-inspiring beings now standing before her. Instantly her words met
with a loud, all-inclusive sigh and laughter, each male moving in to hug her to
him in relief. When finally she found herself once again in Barak's embrace,
she snuggled into him, breathing deep the sweet erotic scent that made heat
pool in her cunt. "You did promise to see to my needs earlier," she
reminded him while she ran her nails along the top of his shoulder.

"How will you have
me?" he asked, lifting her against him and carried her toward their room.
She knew what he meant: Would she make love to him as the Zironet he truly was,
or in the guise of a man like before?

"I want the real you,"
she told him, wrapping her legs around his waist and rubbed herself against the
bulge of his pants. This position was becoming a habit.

Reaching into the front pocket
of his jeans, he pulled out a silvery shackle-like bracelet and latched it around
her narrow wrist. "I want you on all fours in front of me," he
growled, sitting her on the mattress before he turned to shut the door. By the time
the door had closed and the lock clicked into place, Kat had shed her top and
was sliding the soft running pants into a puddle at her feet.

Turning her back to him,
she climbed across the bed and looked over her shoulder so she could watch him
undress. He was even larger in this form. He moved toward her, his throbbing
cock in his hand, and yet again she worried her lower lip.

"Do not fear me, my
Zi. I promise that any pain will only be momentary. You were made for me and
your body will fit to my own," Barak told her in a throaty voice that
revealed his fragile hold on his own need. He pushed her thighs wide to open
her body to him more fully. Sucking in a deep breath, Kat threw her head back
as he licked the moist folds of her hot pussy. She spread her legs further
apart for him while he lapped at the edges of her tremulous cunt lips, coaxing
her release with slow, calculated perfection.

****

Using his fingers, he
held her open and thrust his tongue deep into her hole, feeling her muscles
contract around him. His mouth receded to give its full attention to Kat's rigid
clit. He rolled and tugged it while fucking two fingers in and out of her. The
motion of both increased. Kat began to moan out her coming orgasm, drawing her
further and further over the edge. She screamed, cream flooding across his
hands and mouth.

Giving her body no time
to recover from her first release, Barak slid forward and pressed the head of
his cock tight against her wet opening. Kat cried out in an odd mixture of pain
and pleasure. He moved inside her, feeding himself inch by throbbing inch deep
into her cunt. Once he had himself buried completely, he leaned forward and
pulled her upper body against his own.

Certain she was accustomed
to his size, he began slowly moving in and out of her, drawing out and pushing
a bit further each time. Fucking her from behind, Barak reached around to
stroke her trembling clit in time to his pace.

****

Another scream filled the
air and it took a moment for Kat to realize it was her own. Her body clenched
and milked him while the strength and speed of his thrusts increased. With his
fingers biting into her flesh, he pushed her forward so her head rested against
the mattress and her lower body, speared with his cock, was in the air. With
what sounded more like a roar than a yell, he grabbed Kat's hips and slammed one
last time into her hot depths, spilling his seed deep inside her.

As they lay in a heap of
heavy breathing, sweaty arms, and legs, Kat smiled and stroked her fingers
across his cerulean skin. "I think I've died and gone to a heaven of blue angels,"
she said with a yawn. Cuddling against his chest, she closed her eyes and
slept. She could make the calls she needed in the morning. For now she wanted
to lay wrapped in Barak's arms and stay safe from the world.

"Fort
Todd Holt Military Base.
How may I help you?" the male voice asked through the phone line. Kat
sat with her legs drawn up in the chair, holding the cheap throwaway cell phone
to her ear. Barak and all the males
except
the
youngest —Herron, she thought his name was— had left earlier to visit some
voodoo witch deeper in the city. Evidently, they planned to try to bargain with
her for more time. Barak told her the spell giving them their glamour was set
to expire in two days, which would put serious glitches in his plans to find
mates for the other males who had accompanied him to this plane.

"I need to speak
with Sergeant Childers in building MTF5 West Wing," she told the voice. While
she waited Kat watched Herron look through an old issue of a cheap smut
magazine, amused by his wide-eyed amazement.

"I am sorry, Miss,
but she is currently off-base at a LUA," the voice informed her.

"Patch me to her
cell.
Access code Echo, William, Tango, one, three, five."
She rattled the code off. She stifled a chuckle at her companion smelling the
pages of the magazine.

"Straight away,
stand by," the voice said before a series of pops and clicks sounded
through the receiver.

"Kat, what the hell
is going on?" Sara's voice yelled through the phone moments later.

"I can't explain
right now, but I promise what you are hearing is not the truth," Kat told
her friend, hating the fact she was dragging the woman into the mess. "I
need your help."

"When and where?"
Sara asked, making Kat grin widely. She could have guessed that her longtime
friend would jump in headfirst if she asked. After giving Sara the address and
agreeing to meet in about an hour, Kat hung up the phone.

Barak and the others had
been gone a long time, and their extended absence was starting to make her a
bit nervous. Playing a dozen scenarios through her head, she fingered the
silver bracelet secured about her arm, rubbing the heart-shaped lock with her
fingers. It was not as if she could tell who came and went this far up, but it
did give her something to do.

"Shouldn't they have
been back by now?" she asked Herron in a very irritated tone. She was not
angry with them for being so long as much as she was with herself for worrying.

"The witch is not
very accommodating to our kind. I am certain she will ask a very high price for
additional magic to maintain our glamour," he responded, sitting the
magazine down and joined her in looking out the window. "If they cannot
reach an agreement, then we will be forced to return to our plane."

She figured as much, but
allowed him to continue to muse over the idea. Better for him to prepare now
should it happen. It also brought to mind another question. What would become
of her relationship with Barak? She assumed he would stay here in her plane,
but now, in retrospect, she thought she had perhaps misunderstood what he wanted
from her.

"Unless you kill the
witch and absorb her magic," he added with a sigh, as though he had not
even realized he had spoken aloud.

"What do you mean?
How can I absorb her magic? I am not a witch," Kat asked, confused.

"Magic lives inside
her, but it is not part of her. It is like a separate being that must have a
host to manifest. So if you kill her and offer yourself as the new host, you
will absorb her magic," Herron told her, returning to the table and his
magazine. "Of course, Lord Barak would never allow it, because then you
could not cross to our plane."

"So witches can open
portals between the planes, but not cross between them?" It was more of a
calculation then a question, but still he nodded in confirmation.

The next hour passed
slowly. Kat contemplated what she had learned from Herron, and all the things
she needed to do to take care of her own redemption. The ping of the elevator
caught her attention, and she waited nervously for the doors to open. When they
finally slid apart, Kat gave her friend a thin grin in greeting.

"I take it you were
hoping it was someone else?" Sara asked, stepping into the room still
dressed in her military fatigues, her long red hair pulled into a tight bun
atop her head. It did not escape Kat's notice that the woman still had at least
one firearm strapped against her thigh. If she had to guess, she would bet
there were at least four other weapons somewhere on the woman's body as well.

"I think we might
need to go give my new friends some backup," Kat said, turning toward
Herron, who was eyeing the new arrival with measured curiosity. "Can you
take us to the others?" she asked him, ready for the argument she was
certain was coming.

"Barak would not like—"

Kat cut the male off with
a glare. "Either you take me to him, or I leave here without you. I am
certain someone knows where I can find a witch in this city."

"I have met a few
bitches, but no witches. I'm sure we can dig up someone who has," Sara
threw in for support.

Herron nodded in defeat
and grumbled to himself about human women being too willful, and then made his
way to the elevator alongside them. Kat knew the young male would most likely
catch hell from Barak and the others for bringing them into the situation, but
no more than if they arrived back at the penthouse to find her gone.

After climbing into the
passenger seat of Sara's shiny blue sports car, they tore through the streets.
Herron pointed out directions as they moved, and they had to make more than one
U-turn because they had passed up a street or ally they needed to turn down.
The trio continued through the city, moving further into the dark area known as
the Projects.

"Serena! Let us the
hell out of here, witch, or I swear I will rip you limb from limb!" Barak
bellowed, shaking the thick metal bars of his prison cell. The intention of
this trip had been to barter with the witch for more magic to hold their
borrowed glamour. When they had arrived, the woman seemed far too eager to help
them, but it was not until they were down in the dark, drab basement of the
building that they realized it had been a trap.

Once the final member of
his accompanying clan had cleared the last step, they were surrounded by Obsidian
demons, and then forced into this magic-reinforced titanium cell. Staric, the Obsidian
leader,
stood outside their confinement, taunting them
for their lack of success and promises to eradicate the remains of their clan. Now,
as Barak stood in the dark prison, he could not think of anything other than
Katrina; not even his failure to his clan could steer his mind from her. Had
the Obsidian known about her? Was she in danger?

"Witch, release us
now!" he bellowed again, only to be met with her laughter from the rooms
above. He was not certain what deal she and the Obsidian had worked out, but it
did not bode well for them. Barak had heard rumors that the witches of the
outerplane managed to create an elixir allowing them to invoke and control some
of the lower order demons from the inworld. That in itself was bad, but the
rumor centered on the fact it came from the ground ashes of other demons. Thinking
on that bit of information for a moment, Barak grumbled in realization. Without
a miracle, their clan never stood a chance, even with him finding his Zi mate.