The Nightwind's Woman (17 page)

“Pitiful lot,” Kerreyder said. He swept his
gaze over the thin, emaciated bodies of the creatures and felt sympathy for
their plight. “They do not look well-fed, Reaper.”

“They aren’t,” Cree said. He folded his
arms. “Which of you is the pack leader?”

A thin, cadaverous male slunk forward from
the knot of shivering beasts. “I was, Your Grace,” he said in a shaky voice.

Cree’s amber eyes narrowed dangerously. “Did
you not know what these two perverted creatures led you to was wrong?”

“We did, Your Grace,” the male whimpered. “But
we feared them.”

“I didn’t fear them! They are my heroes!”

The Reaper looked around at the young pup
who was standing near the edge of the cliff. It was the pup he and Kerreyder
had trailed to the den. The young one was standing there with his fists and jaw
clenched, his eyes hard and far too old for his actual age. In that moment Cree
knew the pup could not be left on Terra for he had tasted human flesh and found
it to his liking. He glanced at the archdemon.

“I agree,” Kerreyder acknowledged. “You’ll
have to take him or else kill him here and now.”

“No, please!” the pack leader pleaded. “He
is my oldest pup. Please do not kill him!”

“We cannot leave him here to be a danger to
the humans,” Cree told him. “Surely you know this.”

“Aye, Your Grace, but were he your son, how
would you feel?” the
adlet
queried.

“We’re not going to kill him,” Cree said. “But
he will go with the perverts to Prysson.”

The
adlets
looked one to another and
it was clear they had no idea what or where that was. There was low mumbling.
One female wrung her hands as tears rolled down her cheeks. No doubt she had
birthed the pup.

“Wh-hat is this place?” the pack leader
questioned.

“A place where he will not harm humans,”
Kerreyder said. “You have our word—
my
word—no harm will come to the pup
while he is with me and the Reaper.”

Cree stared at the archdemon. In that look
was clear evidence the Prime Reaper had understood the semantics of what
Kerreyder said and had intuited the real meaning behind the duality of the
words. No harm would fall upon the young one until he was deposited at Prysson
where it was every creature for himself. The pup was in for a rude awakening.

“I will trust you, Your Grace,” the leader
of the pack said, lowering his head.

The Reaper made a sound halfway between a
snort and a grunt. He headed toward the pup who immediately took a fighting
stance. He laughed. “You’re joking, right?” he asked the lad.

“I’m not afraid of you, either!” the pup
said but he backed closer to the edge of the drop.

“Son, are you really that stupid?”
Kerreyder asked in an amused tone. “Why did you run if you aren’t afraid of
him?”

What happened next would be spoken of by
the
adlet
pack for years to come. The tale would be handed down from generation
to generation—told in hushed tones of awe. It would become the stuff of legends
among the creatures of the Pacific Northwest.

Brandyse—the foolish pup as he would be
remembered by his people—took one step too many backward. The rocky overhang
upon which he was standing cracked and the shelf buckled. Fear lanced through
the young male’s eyes as they widened with shock. He snapped his head down as
his feet skidded down the lip of the shelf. He threw his hands up then dropped.
His shriek of terror echoed through the canyon.

One moment the Reaper was advancing toward
the pup and the next he shifted into a huge black bird so ebon in color there
were blue highlights on the tips of his feathers. He sprang up from the ground
and over the cliff, diving for the hapless male.

Rushing to the edge of the cliff, the
adlets
peered over the edge in time to see the massive talons of the black bird—some
said it was a hawk while others swore it was a mythological black eagle—connect
and dig into the shoulders of the screeching pup to stop his downward plummet
mere feet from the rock-strewn floor of the valley. The sound of the bird’s
oversized wings as it rose into the air snapped like sheets in a brisk wind. Moving
back, the
adlets
oohed and awed as the Reaper carried the pup to safety
over their craning heads then dropped him unceremoniously on the ground—far from
the cliff edge.

“Stupid little shit,” Kerreyder pronounced.

The huge black bird landed, folded its
majestic wings then shifted into the Reaper once more—a Reaper with a very
angry glint in his crimson eyes and a very naked body.

Randon paused at the door to Kenzi’s office
and smoothed down his hair. He tucked in his shirt then lifted a hesitant hand
to the portal.

“Come in.”

Taking a deep breath, he reached for the knob.
Why he was so nervous he didn’t know. She was, after all, his life-mate. His
other half. His salvation. She belonged to him and he to her. It had been four
days since he’d seen her but it felt like four centuries as he turned the knob
and opened the door.

Kenzi looked up politely then froze. Her
welcoming smile slid slowly from her face to be replaced with one of such heat,
such intense sexual need it staggered the Nightwind. The moment she jumped up
from her chair and flew at him, his nervousness vanished.

“Rand!” she cried out, throwing her arms
around his neck, flinging herself into his open arms.

Arms that clamped tightly around her with
such force she grunted even as she lifted her legs to wrap them around his
waist. His lips came down hard on hers and they staggered across the room until
he could press her against the wall—deepening his kiss as he held her there. Thrusting
his tongue between her parted lips he groaned, surging his lower body tightly
to hers.

“Want you,” he mumbled against her mouth as
he slanted his lips in the opposite direction.

She caught his lower lip between her teeth.
“Need you,” she responded breathlessly.

Growling, he spun her around, used his
powers to lock her office door then carried her to the sofa that ran against
the long side of her office wall. He put his left knee on the cushion and laid
her out beneath him, dragging his cock along the apex of her thighs, rocking
against her as he ravaged her mouth with his tongue.

She clawed at his shoulder—needing the
clothes from his body. It was all he could do to pull his mouth from hers and
rip at his shirt. Buttons went flying. Material ripped as he tore it from his
chest and threw it to the floor. Fumbling with the buckle of his belt with one
hand, he used the other to jerk open her lab coat and insinuate his palm into
the bodice of her blouse. Frustrated he couldn’t get to her breasts, he hissed
and reared up. His fly was undone, the zipper down, his cock straining to get
free but he wanted her breasts bare. He would have ripped open her blouse had
she not batted his hands away.

“I don’t have any more clothes here,” she
told him as she made quick work of opening the buttons of her blouse.

“You’d better bring some,” he said on a
throaty snarl as he slid his hands under the cups of her bra and pushed up the
garment so he could get to her nipple.

Kenzi sucked in a harsh breath as his wet
mouth closed around the straining peak of her breast. His cock had escaped the
confines of his opened pants and was probing at her core. All that stood
between her and what she wanted was her damn slacks.

“Rand,” she said. “I gotta get out of these
pants!”

He was too engrossed in tonguing her
nipples—going from one to the other and back again as he sucked and laved and
nibbled—to hear her. His right hand was molded around the underside of her left
breast while he hotly drew from her swollen bud.

“Rand!” she snapped. “Let me undress!”

With a grunt he removed his mouth from her
breast, pushed away from her and went to work on the closure of her slacks. He
was rougher than he wanted to be—should have been—but he got them undone and
down in record time. Jerking her flats off her feet and tossing them away
before pulling the garment from her. Snagging his hand in the thong she wore,
he destroyed it. Before the hiss of her irritation had barely left her mouth,
his was on her wet center and his tongue deep inside her.

Kenzi groaned for he had wedged his broad,
muscular shoulders between her legs to part her thighs wide, hooked his arms
under her knees to bring her cunt to his lips. She threaded her hand through
his dark hair to anchor his head against her as he lapped and licked, thrust
and flicked his way over all her folds. He made noises deep in his throat like
a starving man at a feast.

Movement behind him caught her attention
and she turned her head—eyes going wide as she saw Kerreyder standing there
watching them. She stiffened and her hands tensed in Randon’s hair. Her soft
cry made him lift his head. Seeing the look on her face, he craned his head
around to see what it was that had disturbed her.

“What the hell are you—” he snarled, lips
drawing back over his fangs.

“Oh, don’t let me interrupt,” the archdemon
said. He came to stand at the head of the sofa—staring down at the two of them
with a half-smile on his handsome face. He leaned over and took hold of Kenzi’s
wrists, drew her arms over her head, pinned her hands to the arm of the sofa.
His hot gaze went directly into the Nightwind’s startled gaze. “Take her,
incubus.” He licked his lips, arched a black brow. “Take her hard for me.”

Randon glared at Kerreyder for a long
moment then glanced down at Kenzi. He watched her sweet lips part and desire
darken her green gaze. She gave him a look that seared him to the core.

“Do it,” the archdemon whispered. He
hunkered down so he was at eyelevel with the Nightwind, never breaking eye
contact or so much as blinking.

Something very primal, very mean and very
intoxicating engulfed Randon. He forced his stare from Kerreyder to give Kenzi
a questioning look.

She nodded slowly.

Yet he hesitated, flicking his gaze once
more to the archdemon.

Then the scent of Kenzi’s arousal floated
around him. He clenched his teeth, took hold of his cock then dug his knee into
the sofa cushion before placing it at the wet center of his life-mate’s body.

“Take her,” Kerreyder ordered.

Lust flared hot and heavy between his legs
and within his balls. He eased the head of his shaft into her softness then
something wild overtook him and he thrust hard and deep.

Kenzi cried out—not in pain but in pleasure.
He rammed his hands under her ass, lifted her and began to piston his hips
against hers. All the while his eyes were on the archdemon who was looking back
at him with a frightening desire of his own. He knew as soon as he came, as
soon as he spilled his seed inside Kenzi, Kerreyder would want his turn.

And Kenzi wanted him to have it.

That should have disturbed Randon on so
many levels but he found himself caught up in the intensity of it. Kenzi was
writhing beneath him, tugging on the hands that held her captive as though she
wanted to get free but the Nightwind knew she didn’t. She was enjoying what was
happening. She was
thriving
on it. For some reason that only underscored
the pleasure he was taking from sliding in and out of her wet heat.

So, he thought in that part of his mind
that hadn’t been completely taken over by the sheer enjoyment of the moment,
this was the way it would be. This was how the threesome would work. This was
the sharing the archdemon had decreed.

He was shocked to realize it didn’t bother
him at all. If anything, he felt the keenness of the intimacy even more powerfully.
His desire, his lust had intensified to a height he never knew existed. As he
released into her, he kept his stare steady on Kerreyder. The slight smile with
which the archdemon awarded him was a climax all of its own. He felt it all the
way to the tips of his toes. He felt it even more keenly when Kenzi climaxed
with a piercing shriek of pleasure and her entire body bowed off the sofa
cushion as her inner muscle began milking him.

“Mother of the goddess,” he gasped as the
orgasm went on and on until he shuddered so violently he pulled free of his
woman. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and she collapsed like a broken toy
with her thighs splayed and her head fallen to one side.

Kerreyder’s fingers were sensuously
massaging Kenzi’s captive wrists. He did not take his eyes from the Nightwind
until the last shiver rippled over the male’s now-limp body. Randon broke the
contact when his head sagged to his chest.

For a long time the archdemon said nothing
then he slowly released his hold on Kenzi’s hands. “Did you enjoy that,
incubus?” he asked.

“Aye,” Randon heard himself say.

“Good.”

The archdemon got to his feet and came
around the end of the sofa. He stretched out his hand to cup Randon’s shoulder.

The Nightwind looked up into glowing red
eyes that leapt with flame.

“My turn,” Kerreyder said.

Randon nodded his agreement and moved off
the sofa. He stood aside as the archdemon took his place. When he would have
turned away, Kerreyder bid him stop.

“I took your place now you take mine. Hold
her while I take her,” the archdemon commanded.

A chill of disquiet undulated through
Randon. He quickly cast his attention to Kenzi’s face and was surprised to see
her looking at him. Her arms still lay above her head, her fingers lax. Silently
he lifted his eyebrows.

“Yes,” she said with a slight nod. “A
thousand times, yes.”

He hesitated only a fraction of a moment
then straightened his shoulders and went to the end of the couch. Bending over,
he wrapped his hands around her slender wrists, flexed his fingers and
tightened his hold, then as she stared up at Randon, the archdemon slid into
her waiting channel.

* * * * *

“The
adlets
are in separate cells,”
Cree informed the Supervisor.

“The Saurian is secure in her cell, as
well,” Randon reported.

“I understand you’ve have had some trouble
with her,” the Supervisor observed.

“She managed to escape within an hour of
being locked up but hopefully that situation is under control,” Sorn stated. “She’s
a slippery piece of work.”

“As are all Saurians,” Kerreyder said. “That
is their nature. Give them a crack and they can wriggle through it.”

“About this key for which she was searching
in the graveyard,” the Supervisor said, leaning back in his chair. “What have
you been able to find out about it?”

“We interrogated her for five hours and she
refused to say anything,” Sorn replied.

“I want to know what kind of key and what
it is to,” Kerreyder said. “Schedule her for a visit to the med unit later
today. I’ll have my—” He stopped, gave Randon a quick glance then cleared his
throat. “I’ll have Dr. Delaney administer a hefty dose of
fírinne
. Let’s
see if that loosens up the Saurian’s long tongue.”

“
Fírinne
will certainly do the
trick,” the Supervisor commented. “No creature has ever been able to fight off
the properties of the drug but it does have some rather odd side effects.”

“I’m aware,” Kerreyder said. “The ends
justify the means in this case.”

“Mayhap but a Saurian’s physiology—”

“She’ll be fine,” Kerreyder interrupted. “I
don’t care if she starts glowing in the dark and sprouts mushrooms from her
cunt, her head swivels completely around and she spews green pea soup, I want
to know what she was searching for in that graveyard!”

* * * * *

Sitting rigidly in her cell, Tuatara Avatás
stared fearfully at the door. If there had been a single crack around it, she
could shift her body into lizard form and wriggle her way out. Unfortunately,
there was no opening through which she could squirm and that infuriated her.
Saurians did not like to be trapped. Her species was cleithrophobic—an intense
fear of being trapped, freedom taken away. Unlike claustrophobia, which is a
fear of small, enclosed places, those who suffer from cleithrophobia fear the
actual loss of freedom.

Nauseous, dizzy, sweating profusely, her
three-chambered heart racing, blood pumping painfully from her two aortas, she
was on the verge of opening her mouth and screaming. She had cried until there
were no tears left. She had lashed out at the door—scratching furiously until
her claws bled. She was close to losing her mind as she sat there willing the
door to open so she could draw a decent breath into her depleted lungs.

It wasn’t just the fear of the cell that
had put her into such a terrible place. She now knew the Warden was here and he
would be taking her to Prysson for her part in the botched assassination
attempt on Yn Drogh Spyrryd’s life. The adlet twins would suffer for trying to
kill the demon but she would suffer worse for having castrated the male.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she whimpered,
beginning to rock back and forth. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her, her
cracked and bloody claws digging into her sides as she tried to hold herself
together.

If she could get her hands on that fucking
Nightwind…

She knew now he wasn’t Syntian Cree but
another of his kind. The bastard had woven his spell around her like a spider
its web and she hated him so virulently she could taste blood in her mouth.

And the Reaper?

Aye, she hated him too. Her vengeance would
be swift and telling if she ever got the chance to confront the two again.

She’d listened carefully to the things
being said as she was dragged to her cell. She’d touched both the Reaper and
the Nightwind and could enter their thoughts as easily as drawing in a breath.

Each had a mate, she thought—trying to push
her mind away from where she was. Surely they cared for those mates. What she
wouldn’t give to be able to annihilate, mutilate, cripple those pathetic
females who allowed the males to use them. It would be a blessing to rid the
bitches of their servitude while at the same time causing the males great heartache.
If not heartache, at least fury at losing something they owned.

But it was the knowledge that one of those
women was also the Chosen Blood-mate of the Warden that excited Tuatara. If she
could get her claws on that one—who just happened to be the life-mate of the
lying Nightwind…

“The things I would do to her,” she said
through trembling lips. “McKenzi.”