The Nightwind's Woman (15 page)

“That means the
adlet
pack can’t be
far away. They don’t like to hunt more than fifty miles in any one direction
from their dens.”

“Might be a good idea to take to the air
and start looking.”

“Gray wolves like the open tundra,” Cree
said. “The
adlets
prefer plenty of cover. They’ll have gone to ground as
soon as they smelled me. Finding them from the air would be next to impossible.”

“I’ll bow to your knowledge,” the archdemon
said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to catch them before they
munch on any more humans.”

“As would I,” Cree agreed. “If we take Kamloops
as the farthest point they’ve traveled for prey then mark a spot fifty miles
from there in all directions, that’ll give us a starting point.”

“Kamloops could be the center point,”
Kerreyder argued.

“Aye, it could be but we have to start
somewhere.”

“All right.” The archdemon shrugged off the
backpack he had strapped to him and rummaged inside for a map. With it in hand,
he squatted and unfolded the map on the rocky ground.

Cree hunkered down beside him. “There,” he
said, putting the point of his index finger on the map. “That’s where we should
start looking.”

* * * * *

A private airfield off Chumuckla Highway in Santa Rosa
County, FL

The Saurian was unconscious in the cage as
the same men who had placed it in the sedan now removed it. They looked
nauseous as they took in the greenish complexion and deformed features of the
prey inside the cage. With a concerted hiss they set down the cage and backed
away from it.

“What the hell
is
that thing?” one
of them asked. He had a bright-red beard that hung halfway down his chest. The
scruffy thing was tied up at intervals with green rubber bands.

Since the minds of the men would be wiped
clean before Sorn and the Nightwind departed, Randon told them exactly what it
was they were gaping at.

“Part human and part lizard,” he said. “From
a galaxy far, far away.”

“Fuck you, man,” Beard Guy said. “Is she
some kind of circus freakazoid?”

“As good an explanation as you’re gonna
get,” Sorn said. “Just get the thing on the plane and keep your comments to yourself.”

The tallest of the four cargo handlers
stepped up. “Look, dude,” the guy said. “We didn’t sign on to kidnap no woman.
She could be like the elephant man for all we know.” He glanced at his buddies
who nodded in agreement. “This here has illegal stamped all over it.”

“That’s a circus animal or one of them
things from
Ripley’s
Believe It or Not
,” another man spoke up. “Either
way, ain’t right. Ain’t lawful.”

“But if we give you boys an extra Benjamin
you’ll forget you ever saw her, huh?” Sorn inquired.

“Benjamin, my ass,” Beard Guy said. “You’d
better be thinking more along the lines of an additional two Bennies a piece.”

“How ’bout we don’t give you fuck,” Randon
said. He was in the guy’s face before he could step back, his dark gaze going
straight into the man’s mind. “You hear me?”

“Hey man!” Tall Guy complained. “Ain’t no
call to get hostile.”

“Son, you ain’t seen hostile yet,” Sorn
said. He snaked out a hand and took the guy by the scruff of the neck, lifted
him a foot off the ground and shook him like a terrier. “How’s this for hostile?”
His eyes bored into Tall Guy with the same intensity Beard Guy was getting from
the Nightwind. He extended his fangs with a merciless smirk.

The other two men moved back as though they
were getting ready to turn tail and run. Most likely they would have had if Sorn
and Kayle had not tossed the men in their grasps aside and lunged after them.

On the steps of the plane, the pilot—and
the flight attendant—looked on as the two Alphas took care of business. They’d
worked with the Consortium long enough to know not to interfere or even
comment. When the civilians were brought back into line, they turned and went back
into the plane. Neither paid much attention as the cage was brought on board
and stored aft.

“Wheels up in fifteen,” the pilot told
Randon.

The Nightwind nodded and flung himself into
a seat. Normally he wouldn’t have gone back with the Reaper but he was tired
and he’d had no Sustenance in the last two days. The stench of the Saurian had
given him a brutal headache and he just wanted to close his eyes and rest. He
paid no attention to Sorn, taking the seat across from him. Neither of them
watched the four civilians deplane. There was no reason to. As soon as their
feet hit the ground, the four men would remember nothing of what they’d seen or
done in reference to the strange cage and the even stranger creature housed
within.

As the G-4 began its roll down the runway,
the incubus laid his head on the back of his seat and curled his hands around
the chair arms. He intensely disliked the feeling of the takeoff. Why he couldn’t
say. According to Kerreyder, nothing would happen to him even if the jet
crashed and burned everything on it—including him—to a crisp. He wasn’t worried
about death because he couldn’t die. Centuries ago he had longed for it as he
lay submerged in the filth and piss of the Abyss. The archdemon had rendered
him immortal before leaving Tearmann with just a wave of his hand. Now death
was nothing more than an abstract thought.

“Wonder how the Prime is doing with
Kerreyder?” Sorn said, interrupting.

“He’s probably wanting to stomp the shit
out of the archdemon the same way I want to stomp the shit out of you,” Randon
mumbled. “Now shut up and leave me be.”

“Oh fuck you, incubus,” Sorn said. “No one
can carry on a casual conversation with you without you acting like an ass, can
they?”

Randon opened his eyes and turned them to
the Reaper. “I don’t like you, Sorn. Why in the name of the gods would I want
to
talk
to you?”

Sorn clenched his jaw. Although he didn’t
look away from the stony glare coming from the Nightwind the Panthera completely
shut down. His own rigid glower turned the air in the plane as frigid as an
arctic clime. After fifteen minutes of intense staring, it was Randon who
dropped his gaze.

“I’m pissed, okay?” he mumbled.

“About?”

Randon cursed under his breath. “What do
you think?”

The Reaper’s forehead creased then slowly
relaxed. “You mean your lady.”

Turning his attention to the window beside
him, Randon put a crooked finger to the glass. “I’ve waited centuries for her.
Now she’s here and I have to share her with Abaddon? It turns my stomach.” He
glanced around. “What if she gets pregnant by him?”

Sorn shook his head. “Doubt that could
happen,” he said. “I did some research on him and as far as anyone knows, he
has no offspring slithering around out there.”

“As far as anyone knows,” Randon stressed.

Shrugging, Sorn unbuckled his seatbelt as
the plane leveled off and a melodious ping sounded through the cabin. “Can
you
get her pregnant?”

Randon winced. “Only if I transform into a
female and steal the sperm from some unsuspecting bastard.”

The Reaper’s eyebrows shot up. “You can do
that?”

“Aye,” Randon growled. “I can do that.”

“Kewl beans,” Sorn said and when the
incubus shot him a nasty look, he cocked a shoulder. “Not kewl beans?”

“No,” Randon stated. “Not cool. How would
you like to change into a woman, lie beneath a man and have him thrusting into
you? Taking and holding his cum inside you until you can turn back into a male
and deposit it into your female?”

Sorn grimaced. “I see what you mean.”

“I don’t think Kenzi has ever contemplated
having children,” Randon said. “I’ve never intercepted such notions in her
dreams. If she doesn’t want kids, that’s okay, but if she does?” He laid his
head against the cool glass. “If she does, then I’ve got a problem.”

“Unless the archdemon can provide her with
one,” Sorn said softly.

“Aye and if he does, that’s a tie to him I’d
just as soon she not have.”

“I can understand that,” Sorn said. “My
life-mate wants children but I’m not sure I do so in a way, you and I are in
different boats on the same choppy lake.”

“At least you don’t have an anchor tied
around your neck,” Randon said. “If I fuck up one time, that son of a bitch could
send me back to the Abyss.”

“Then don’t fuck up,” Sorn said. “Mind your
Ps and Qs and bide your time until he goes back to Treigeilys.”

“Aye,” the Nightwind said with sigh. “What
other choice do I have?”

Sorn got up to go to the head so Randon
turned his eyes to the passing crazy quilt colors of land passing slowly
beneath the black wing of the jet. He had no idea at what elevation they were
flying but he could see miniature cars traveling down winding roads and caught
the glint of sunlight sparking from silo roofs. In the distance was some body
of water he suspected was the Mississippi River.

Sighing, he closed his eyes once more and
thought back to his childhood when things were so normal, so every day, so…

Human.

He’d learned to swim at an early age and
spent as much time as his chores would allow him swimming in the crystal-blue
waters of Lake Endurie on his home world of Bandar with his friends Uri and
Jaspan. The three of them had been thick as thieves and kept mostly to
themselves—away from the older boys in the compound.

As had Uri and Jaspan, he had been taken
from his mother at the tender age of five years. Along with all the males of
age on his world he had been cloistered in the Southern Zone where males were
trained to serve the females of their race. Little more than servants and
breeding stock, the males were second-class citizens on Bandar. They had no
rights and could be bought and sold like cattle, mutilated on a whim.

They could also be put to death for daring
to break any law set down by the Hell-hags—just as he had.

He could not remember a time when he was
not subservient to some female or another. The only time he’d known any freedom
had been while diving and swimming in the waters of Lake Endurie.

Opening his eyes, he smiled for the plane
was traveling with the serpentine rust-colored waters of the Mississippi
snaking beneath it. He traced the path of the river with his knuckle against
the window glass.

“Excuse me, milord?”

He looked up at the flight attendant.

“May I get you anything, milord?” she
asked, her smile a bit leery.

“Spicy V-8?” he inquired and as her smile
solidified, he tried one of his own.

That seemed to shock her for she blinked
and froze a moment like a deer in headlights. Her lips twitched—as did her
eyelids—then her chin quivered.

“And a bag of pretzels to go with?” he
asked in as soft and seductive a voice as he had in his arsenal.

“Of course, milord,” she said with a blush
then hurried away to fetch the beverage.

He wondered why women found his smile so
surprising. He knew he was a handsome man. Lilith had made it so. Maybe it was
the reputation he had for being a badass at Tearmann. The prisoners and wards
there disliked him but that was to be expected considering the job he had been
given at the facility. He had to be tough, all business.

Sorn came back to his seat and plopped
down, shooting out his long legs into the aisle. In his hand was a magazine he’d
most likely found in the head. Crossing his booted ankles, he opened the
Entertainment
Weekly
and began reading.

Women liked Sorn, he thought, and he had to
admit the Reaper was a handsome warrior. All bulky muscles, flat abs and if the
bulge in the front of his black uniform pants was genuine, the man had
everything a woman could desire. From the thick, curly black hair and deep-green
eyes, to the muscled thighs barely restrained by the pant fabric, Darkyn Sorn
was a prime example of Alpha male. Now that he had met his life-mate, he was officially
off the market but that would not keep women from staring at him and flirting unmercifully
with the Reaper.

Snorting quietly, Randon tore his gaze from
the man across the aisle. Women didn’t flirt with him and they avoided staring
at him for once their eyes met Randon’s, they were quick to divert their
attention from him.

“Must be some vibe I give off without
knowing it,” he muttered.

“Huh?” Sorn asked, lowering the magazine.

Randon shook his head. “Nothing. Just
talking to myself.”

“First sign of senility, incubus,” Sorn
said and raised the magazine again.

“Fuck you,” Randon said, but it was more
reflex than irritation that made him toss out the insult.

Sorn responded on cue, flipping a page. “Right
back ’atcha.”

* * * * *

Following the Thompson River near Kamloops, British
Columbia

“Looks like we need to cross over into
Alberta,” Kerreyder said after learning two more hikers had disappeared. “I’m
thinking the pack is somewhere in the Jasper National Park.”

“Aye,” Cree agreed. “How many does that
make now?”

“Nine males and four females,” the
archdemon answered. “I doubt we’ll ever find any trace of them. We need to
locate that pack before any more people go missing.”

The Prime Reaper dragged a hand through his
hair. “The colder it gets, the more active the
adlets
will get. They’ll
be storing food for winter.”

Food meant human flesh and that disturbed
Cree in more ways than one.

The
adlet
pup stared avidly at the
two males as they moved through the underbrush. He was downwind of the men so
they could not scent him but he had scented them. One had the stench of
something unknown but the other was lupine—a distant cousin to the beasts in
his pack. Their presence confused the pup for he knew these men were not prey.
He sensed they were far more dangerous than the human fare that found its way
into the bellies of the pack and thus should be watched carefully.