The Nightwind's Woman (21 page)

Or else the succubus didn’t care what she
was thinking. Perhaps the being was so supremely sure of her plan and of her
powers she did not believe anything could derail them.

* * * * *

Kerreyder lay awake atop the silken
coverlet on the too-soft bed with his hands behind his head, legs crossed at
the ankles, and stared at the ornate tray ceiling. Syntian Cree had spared no
expense to make the home he had prepared for Lauren Fowler as beautiful and
comfortable as possible. It seemed almost sacrilege to pull the lush covers
back and crawl into what were no doubt nine-hundred thread-count Egyptian cotton
sheets.

What men did to protect and care for their
women, he mused. To show the women they were loved and cherished. To provide
every little thing their feminine hearts could want in exchange for a smile, a
kiss, a touch, a moment between their silken thighs.

He would lay the world at McKenzi’s feet if
she but asked. Hell, he would lay all the worlds at her feet. That was what men
in love did.

“Men in love,” he said aloud.

He had joined their ranks, he thought with
a slight smile. To provide and protect. To please and pleasure. There was
nothing he wouldn’t do for McKenzi.

He closed his eyes as he thought of her
smile, her low, soft voice that sent chills of pleasure tripping over his
senses when she spoke. Her touch—as gentle as a gossamer web tracing across his
skin—could make his body tremble. The sound of her laughter was precious but
the sound of her purring with pleasure was priceless. The sight of her, the feel
of her writhing beneath him on her bed filled him with such raging desire he
ached.

And Randon Kayle felt the same way.

His smile faded. Just knowing he would have
to leave his woman behind in the care of another male—powerful or not—rankled.
It was like a sandspur prickling at his heart.

So, he decided as he lay there listening to
the storm raging outside his window, he would need to make sure it was him she
saw, she felt, she wanted every time the incubus took her. Kayle would have her
body but Kerreyder vowed he would have her heart and soul.

It was only natural as he fell into the
arms of the goddess of sleep that he would dream of his woman…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“What is that?” she asked.

They were on the banks of a moon-shot
stream with a gentle breeze flickering over their naked bodies.

“A rune stone,” he said. He opened his hand
to show her the talisman laying on his palm.

The heart-shaped stone was made of rose
quartz and upon it was a Thurisaz symbol, the one that looked like the
thorn
letter of the ancient alphabet.

“What does it mean?”

“Rose quartz is a love stone,” he said. “The
rune is a protection symbol of defense against an adversary,” he explained. He
extended his hand. “Take it.”

She plucked it gently from his palm—her
nails grazing his flesh to start a tremor of desire racing through him—and held
it up to the bright moonlight.

“Who is the adversary?” she queried. The
breeze picked up to blow a lock of her hair across her face.

“I think you know,” he replied.

“You believe I need protection against
Randon?”

He shrugged. “He’ll not hurt you but I want
to ensure he can do nothing to push me out of your life. You may trust him. I
don’t.”

“What am I to do with the stone?”

He circled his hand twice—palm down—over
the stone and a fine white-gold chain attached itself to the stone. “Put it on,”
he said. “And never remove it.”

She pulled the chain over her head and the
stone came to rest between her bare breasts. She looked down at it, touching it
lovingly with the tip of her middle finger. Her gaze lifted to him.

“I will wear it always,” she vowed.

He reached out to run his hand behind her
head to cup her neck then gently brought her mouth to his. He slanted his lips
over hers and when she parted her lips, he slowly thrust his tongue between
them. Her low groan of pleasure made his shaft harden.

“I need you,” he whispered against her
mouth.

“Then take what is yours,” she offered.

He lay her back on the cool damp grass,
spreading her body in the moonlight. He eased his naked body over hers and
nudged her knees apart with his own. Bracing himself on his elbows, he stared
down at her. His heart clenched at the sight of her beauty positioned there to
be plundered. The tips of her breasts were a beacon drawing his mouth like a
ship to shore and he partook of their honeyed sweetness—lapping at the
hardening little buds. Laving them. Flicking his tongue across the puckered
nubs. Suckling gently then pulling a bit harder as she arched her back beneath
him.

She wriggled under him, thrusting her lower
body to his in invitation. He could smell her arousal—the growing dampness
between her thighs—and it was a heady scent that made his cock leap and his
head spin. Reaching down, he took hold of his shaft to position it at the sweet
entrance to her body. His gaze bored into hers when he lifted his head.

“You are mine, McKenzi,” he said with a
throaty growl. “I only allow him to use your body in my absence to prevent you
from being lonely and in need. Do you understand this?”

“Yes,” she whispered, grinding against him.

“Do you accept this?” he pressed.

“Yes,” she answered. Her voice was strained
as she writhed. “Please, Kerreyder. I need you.”

His answer was a slow, deep slide into her
slickness that filled her channel completely. Her long exhalation of pleasure
as his shaft stretched her, settled his weight upon her, thrust his hands under
her ass to lift her up for his pleasure, made his maleness as hard as stone.

With long, deep strokes he moved in and out
of her body. Her legs came up to lock around his hips, her arms around his
neck. She pulled his head down and took his mouth greedily, using her tongue in
cadence with the timing of his insertion and retreat. She was ravishing his
mouth as he swiveled his hips against hers. Each downward push brought a sweet
moan from her questing lips.

He held still for a moment—filling her,
branding her—then slowly pulled back. Another downward push. Holding. Holding. Holding
until she groaned with frustration then another leisurely withdrawal.

“Kerreyder!” she pleaded against his lips.

“Shush,” he said, plunging his tongue into
her sweet mouth.

Another deep thrust.

Another moment of holding.

She squirmed—trying to impale herself even
deeper on his shaft—and when he began to pull out, she clawed at his bare back.

“No!” she snarled.

He smiled around her blistering mouth
taking his and snapped his hips forward brutally.

“Oh!” she gasped, eyes widening.

And he took her like the warrior he was. Brandishing
his rod like a battering ram, he thrust deep into her quivering flesh until she
was grunting with each hard lunge. Her legs tightened around him. Her nails dug
into his flesh. He pulled his mouth from her for her lips had peeled back from
her teeth and she was all but snarling as he pummeled her with quick, deep,
savage stabs. He could feel her release building. Her inner muscles were
grabbing his cock and at the moment that first wave of quivers overtook her, he
pushed as hard and as deep into her body as he could—intoxicated by the strong
pulls of her vaginal muscles that milked him like velvet lips wrapped around
his cock.

“
Kerreyder!
” she screamed. Her eyes
rolled back in her head and her body stiffened as wave after wave of pleasure
rippled through her.

He waited until the last little tug had
faded away then spilled his seed into her. The force of his climax was so
powerful it made his entire body tingle, his heels itch, his balls throb as spurt
after spurt shot into her body.

Love, he thought. Not just sex. As good as
that sex had been it could not compare to the love in his heart. As powerful as
his release had been it could not compare to the love filing his body. None of
it would have been possible without the overwhelming love that was flooding his
tainted soul—cleansing it, making it pure once again. In his heart of hearts he
knew—
knew
—he could battle any evil and win for he was no longer one of
the Fallen but had been drawn once more into the Light.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kerreyder shot bolt upright in the bed.

Where the hell had
that
thought could
from?

He wasn’t pure. He hadn’t been pure since
the nanosecond he was conceived. His mother was a succubus, one of the Fallen
Angels cast down by Alel for the evil of which she and her sisters had been a
part.

Dragging a trembling hand through his hair,
he stared at the bold flashes of light that were still strobing across the
heavens. His heart was pounding; his blood racing. He could barely draw breath
into his burning lungs.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” he asked.
He swung his legs from the bed and stood. His limbs were weak. His knees
threatened to buckle beneath him so he plopped down on the mattress. There was
a taste in his mouth that he could identify and a lump in his throat he couldn’t
swallow. He was trembling. He was icy cold and blisteringly hot all at the same
time. If his heart beat any faster, he feared it would break through his chest
wall to land quivering on the floor at his feet.

Love, Kerreyder
.

It was his father’s voice that spoke to
him. Soft and gentle, as fleeting as a breath of wind floating through the
room.

Love can heal anyone, my son
.
It can cleanse any man who embraces it.

“Do you know why I am here?” he asked aloud.
“What we are going to do in the morning?”

Well, of course He did! The archdemon
thought. He was
Jee Yn Ayr
, the Father-God. He was all-knowing. He was
the Right Hand of Alel, the Guardian of the Megaverse.

All will be well, Kerreyder. The trite
human saying of love conquers all has never been more meaningful than it will
be tomorrow.

“My love for McKenzi is that great?”

There was no answer to that question. Only
silence.

“Father?”

Though he called out to his father several
more times,
Jee Yn Ayr
did not answer. The only sounds he heard were the
tick of rain against the window panes, the shriek of the lightning and the
skirl of the fierce wind around the eaves.

He got up from the bed and walked to the
window. Pushing aside the curtain, he looked down into the backyard. He spied a
gazebo off to one side and when lightning flared, he saw someone sitting within
its octagonal structure. The copper roof gleamed each time lightning forked. He
couldn’t make out whether the person sitting in the gazebo was male or female.
Human or creature. Though he tried to sense that entity, he could make no
ironclad judgment of who and what it was. All he knew was that it was alive and
staring back at him through the dark.

The hair on his arms stirred and he knew
whomever or whatever was there was evil.

“
When you look into the Abyss, the Abyss
looks into you
.”

Another trite human saying that was, unfortunately,
all too true.

Humanity needed to be protected but first
among them was his Blood-mate. Not only her body and soul needed protection. So
too did her heart.

“I must find the rune stone from dream and
give it to McKenzi,” he thought. “I must!”

Twice a technician had come into the morgue
yet neither time did he notice Kenzi lying strapped to one of the three autopsy
tables. Both times she’d tried to call out to him but could not move or speak
or make the slightest sound. Once he’d glanced her way and she thought sure he’d
seen her but he had turned and left. It became clear to her that Naamah had
cast some kind of spell over her so she could not been seen.

Frustrated, angry and more than a little
afraid, she tried to send cries of help to both Kerreyder and Randon but she
was fairly sure neither had intercepted her plea. They were unaware she was in
deep trouble, being held by a psychotic succubus who had disappeared a couple
of hours earlier.

And she had to pee.

The thought of urinating and then lying in
it for only God knew how long brought tears to her eyes but the discomfort was
growing. Perhaps if she did pee, at least the smell and the physical evidence
of it would be detected the next time Mr. Oblivious came bebopping in.

Or would it?

She couldn’t be sure and the burning
pressure was getting too much to endure. Pretty soon she would have to shame
herself and piddle away.

Fuck
, she
thought.
This sucks big hairy monkey balls.
She felt like crying but
wouldn’t give in to it. Digging her nails into her palm, she tried to ride out
the discomfort.

For another ten minutes she suffered the
building pressure then sighed with resignation. The wet warmth that spread
under her ass then up to the small of her back made her wince and mentally
groan but the relief was instantaneous.

“You pissed yourself, human.”

Kenzi turned her head to see a short, squat
creature with a mane of long, shaggy red hair staring at her. She’d heard of
this one. Her name was Arika and she was a
baginis
—a sexual predator who
was forever getting out of her cell. According to Randon, the creature was the
bane of his existence. She was supposed to be at Baybridge under lock and key. Apparently
the
baginis
had found a way to slip back to Tearmann. Perhaps she could
be salvation if handled in the right way.

“Undo these straps and I’ll make it worth
your while,” Kenzi told her.

Arika sidled closer. “How?” she asked.

“Obviously you prefer to be here,” Kenzi
said.

“There are better pickings here,” Arika
said. She took a few steps more toward Kenzi. “The pricks at Baybridge are not
afraid of me.” She thrust out a pair of thick, rubbery lips. “It’s no fucking
fun when the males are not afraid of me.” She quivered. “Arika is afraid of the
brutes at Baybridge.”

“Arika, is that your name?”

“Aye.”

“What if I could get you sent back here?”

Arika shook her head. “Your bastard lover
wouldn’t allow it.”

“He will if he finds out you saved me from
whatever fate Naamah has in store for me.”

At the mention of the succubus’s name,
Arika’s heavy-lidded eyes widened. “She’s here?” Her face filled what could only
be fan-girl awe. “Here at Tearmann?”

“She was. She left me here hours ago so my
guess is she went after Randon,” Kenzi answered.

The big rubbery lips made a raspberry. “What
would a goddess like her see in an asswipe like the Nightwind?” she challenged.
“He’s got a tree limb up his butt.”

“Randon and Darkyn are trying to stop her
from getting hold of something called Hades’ Key. They—”

A wild shriek nearly pierced Kenzi’s
eardrums as the
baginis
backed away with her hands up as though to keep Kenzi
from attacking her. The red mane whipped side to side as Arika shook her head
in denial.

“No, no, no, no, no! The Nikkeson cannot be
set free! It will kill us all!”

“Then help me, Arika,” Kenzi pleaded. “I
think Naamah intends to use me as a bargaining chip to make Randon hand the key
over to her. We can’t let that happen.”

“No, no, no, no, no, we can’t!” the
baginis
cried, her body trembling. She came rushing over to the autopsy table but as
soon as she got within a foot of the stainless-steel slab a bolt of electrical
energy blasted her and she was knocked backward a good twenty feet to crash
into the white-tiled wall hard enough to shatter two of the tiles. Her back hit
the wall at the midway point and she slid down to the floor in a heap—out cold.

“There she is.”

Kenzi looked past the unconscious
baginis
to the two security guards who appeared in the doorway.

“Whatcha doing, bag lady?” one of them
smirked. “Sleeping off a rape or two?”

The men came forward to grab the
baginis’s
arms and lever her to her feet. Her shaggy head lolled on her chest as they
pulled her away from the wall and started out of the room with her—her long
toenails dragging along the floor.

“Hey!” Kenzi yelled. “I’m over here!
Please, look at me! I’m over here!”

But she knew it did her no good. Though the
baginis
had, human obviously couldn’t see her.

Whimpering with defeat, Kenzi growled like
an enraged animal and cursed, trying desperately to break free of the straps
that lashed her to the autopsy table.

“Kerreyder!” she screamed at the top of her
lungs. “Randon!”

* * * * *

The incubus couldn’t sleep.

Especially not under the roof of a house
Syntian Cree had once called home and from whence he had been flung back into
the Abyss by a vindictive woman. Being where he was made him edgy, nervous and
unable to think of anything save the betrayal of Syntian Cree.

“Your pacing is keeping me awake,” Coulter
complained. “Either park it or I’m going to hogtie your ass to the bed, demon.”

“Were you of my race you would be
uncomfortable in this mausoleum as well,” Randon snapped.

“She’ll leave you alone,” the Gravelord
told him. “She’s not as powerful as she thinks she is. Plus there are two
Reapers and an archdemon who can magnify my own rather formidable powers should
it be necessary to go against her.” He turned over, pounded his pillow into
submission then dragged the covers over his bare shoulder. “Trust me, Kayle.
She’s not going to fuck with you.” He chuckled. “At least not until the key is
safe.”

“It’s not just her that concerns me,”
Randon said, loathe to admit any weakness to the Gravelord. “I’m on edge and it
has nothing to do with the key. I’m worried about Kenzi.”

“Your woman is safe,” Coulter said. “Stop
borrowing trouble.”

Yet Randon could not do so. His
apprehension was like a metallic taste in his mouth. He tried reaching out to
her but the witch had a spell woven around the mansion for he could not use his
sight to view Kenzi or send her a message. He’d tried twice only to have
Kerreyder snarl at him the last time that he too had tried and could not scry
their lady.

The witch has a cloaking spell of some
sort wrapped around the house. You might as well give it a rest.
I can’t get through to McKenzi, either, and I’m a helluva more
potent power than you.

“Gods, I hate witches!” he growled. “I
fucking
hate
witches!”

Coulter flipped over in the bed, propped
himself up on his elbow and glared at him. “If you don’t sit down or lie down,
I’m going to
put
you down,” he warned. “Are you hearing me, demon?”

Randon shot him a look that would have
felled a human but flopped down on the bed with an arm draped over his face. He
was grinding his teeth so hard he knew the Gravelord could hear him but he didn’t
care. He felt as though he were coming out of his own skin and he knew that was
a sure sign something really bad was looming on the horizon.

* * * * *

Naamah stared down at Kerreyder as he slept
fitfully. The covers were wrapped around his long, tanned legs, barely covered
his naked hips. She smiled at the thick spread of black curls revealed just
above the edge of the sheet and longed to rake her fingers through that
triangular patch then grip the thick cock that sprang from it. She could almost
taste him in her mouth as she watched his shaft flex with each rise and fall of
his abdomen. A fierce desire to press the tip of her forked tongue into his
slit made her shiver with need and it was all she could do not to fall on him,
force him into submission and take what was rightfully hers.

Instead she stood there beside the bed with
her claws curled into her palms and her fangs dripping, her body on fire with
wanting him.

“Protection spell,” she mentally scoffed. “Some
witch you are, Fowler. I slipped as easy as water through fingers to breach
your so-called security.”

Kerreyder sighed in restless sleep and she
smiled knowingly.

He vastly underestimated her powers and
that was as it should be. Long before he was old enough to get an erection of
note she had begun training him to think of her as less powerful than he. It
was to her advantage he believed it for that was a major control she had over
him. As long as he thought he could best her—in magic or in sex—she had the
upper hand. It was always good to allow your opponent to undervalue your
abilities so when the time came, their defeat was all the sweeter.

Though she ached desperately to have him
inside her mouth, inside her body, she decided to torment him instead. If she could
not have him, she would cast him into a cauldron of boiling need she would make
sure he could not satisfy.

“Turn to your back,” she whispered, sending
the command firmly into his sleeping mind.

She saw him frown but he did as she
ordered, turning from his hip to his back.

“Push the covers from your body.”

His frown deepened but he kicked the covers
from his legs. His naked body—for that was how he always slept—was revealed in
all its masculine beauty.

“Spread your legs.”

He obeyed.

“Wider.”

There was a moment of hesitation then his
tongue slipped from his parted lips, curled over the bottom one and he moved
his legs farther apart. He tucked his bottom lip between his teeth. His intakes
of breath became audible.

“Take hold of your cock.”

He moved his hand down to his shaft and
flexed his fingers around it, holding it without moving.

“Slide your thumb to the tip.”

A flicker of unease rippled over his face
but he did as she commanded.

“Run the pad of your thumb along the slit.”

He obeyed.

“Do it again and again until I tell you to
stop.”

His cock was already thickening within the
confines of his hand.

“Take you other hand and cup your sac.”

He groaned as he did as he was told.

“Squeeze firmly.”

His breath was coming quicker, shallower.

“Work you hand up and down your cock as you
squeeze and release your sac.”

His body tensed, his hips arched upward.
His lips parted as he drew in ragged breaths.

“Tighten the grip on your cock and thumb
the head with each upward pass. Slowly.”

He groaned again and his head turned slightly
to one side.

“Tighten your grip more and increase the
speed of your up and down motion.” She moved closer to the bed until her thighs
pressed against the edge of the mattress. Her gaze was locked on his cock.

“Faster.”

His breath was heavy. He growled low in his
throat.

“Harder, Kerreyder,” she ordered. “Harder!”

His hips started to lift rhythmically with
each downward tug on his flesh.

“Faster. Stroke faster!”

She sat down beside him. Laid her palm on
his tense thigh. She circled her lips with her tongue, her eyes never leaving
his taut cock.

“Come for me, my love,” she whispered. “Come
hard for me.”

His back arched from the bed. His heels
braced against the mattress as he pumped his hips upward.

As the moment neared when she knew he was
about to jettison his seed, she leaned over him.

“Remove your hand!” she hissed. “Move it!”

He obeyed and she took his burgeoning cock
deep into her mouth and began to suck the cum from his shaft, slurping like a
starving woman at a feast.

He cried out as she drew painfully on his
flesh but he did not awaken from the spell under which she’d placed him. He
gathered fistfuls of the sheet in each hand and pulled, his body going rigid as
spike after spike of intense pleasure throbbed from his balls, struck through
his cock and exploded into her eager, ravaging mouth. His balls tightened and
he opened his mouth to gasp in breath, panting, moaning. When she’d taken the
last drop of seed from his flesh, he collapsed on the bed like a broken doll
with the side of his face pressed tightly to the pillow. His entire body was
covered with sweat.

Naamah let his depleted cock slip from her
mouth and straightened up. Daintily wiping the edges of her lips with her
middle finger then licking away the wetness that clung to the tip, she stared
down at her victory.

“You belong to me, sweet cocksman.”

She got up from the bed and turned to go
but stopped. She faced him again, leaned over and drew the sharp nails of her
left hand down his thigh—leaving five long, deep furrows in his flesh. Watching
the blood well around the gouges, she smiled.

“And don’t you ever forget it.”

* * * * *

Viraiden Cree woke from a bad dream he couldn’t
quite recall. As lightning strobed at the window, he cursed the rain and the
pressure on his bladder. Swinging his legs from the bed he frowned and turned
to look at Darkyn Sorn. The young Panthera Reaper was snoring loud enough to
wake the dead. Grinding his teeth, the Alpha had a fleeing desire to snatch the
pillow from under the little Reapling’s head and smother him with it.

“Or stuff it down his throat,” he mumbled
as he made his way to the door.

He didn’t need a light to guide him for his
Reaper sight was that of a wolf’s in the dark. He went unerringly to his
destination and opened the door in time to see a beautiful woman floating
through the door behind which the archdemon slept. He blinked, lifted his
eyebrows then stared at her as she turned to face him.