'Tween Heaven and Hell (25 page)

Finally, one of them picked me up and threw me over his
reptilian shoulder like I was a sack of feathers. I grunted softly as my
stomach hit the unyielding flesh and pain, bright and jagged, seared across my
brain again.

As they carried me out of the room I could feel something
warm and thick running from my nose to drip a trail across the floor. I could
only hope it wasn’t my brains leaking out. “Here I come Granny,” I murmured
from the depths of my stupor, “follow the trail…”

My world faded to black. I drifted through dense clouds of
fog and finally emerged into a haze of pain. I tried to form my thoughts around
an idea of where I was and how I got there but all I knew was that I was lying
on my side and something long and soft was waving under my nose, tickling it. For
a moment I thought I might be lying in a cornfield in Kansas. Auntie Em, I’m home.

Suddenly I sneezed and thought I was gonna die. My head felt
like it had knives sticking out of it and something dry but gooey was crusted
on my upper lip. Dang, another entry for the shitty day book. The thing must be
approaching a thousand pages by now.

Before I could pry my poor eyes open, a deep, cool voice
assailed me from a few feet away. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.”

I rolled over onto my back so the tickly stuff couldn’t
reach my nostrils and groaned as the contents of my head slammed against the
back of my cranium. I could hear breathing from several places in the room and
was suddenly struck with the desire to pull something over my face and play
dead. Maybe the things in the room around me didn’t like their food if it was
already dead.

With a heroic effort of will I managed to pry first one and
then the other eye open and focus them in the direction of the voice. A blurry
image of dark hair and golden skin danced among the pinpricks of colored light
for a moment until my eyes managed to focus, finally, onto a very jaunty male
package, dancing around behind and under a large slab of black marble.

Long, muscular legs were splayed carelessly to showcase the
inviting package at their juncture. The legs and package were as nature had
intended them. But not as I would have preferred them to be.

I forced myself into a sitting position so I could look at
Nerul’s face instead of his naked package, not that I hadn’t enjoyed the view
from the floor, but I try real hard not to be that kind of girl. “Didn’t your
mother ever tell you to dress for company, your Highness?”

He laughed, his black eyes twinkling enticingly. “I always
choose my dress very carefully according to the company I’m receiving, lovely
Tweener.”

“I was afraid of that.” I sat with my head drooping between
my knees until the wave of dizziness and nausea passed. Sweat poured down my
face and I found that I was gulping for air. With my head pointed toward the
floor I suddenly realized what I was lying on.

With a gasp of disgust, I recognized the “carpet” beneath my
butt. It was a multicolored patchwork of black, red, yellow and brown. Here and
there a silver patch reflected the bright overhead lighting like fire. The
patchwork was thick and soft and of varying lengths and textures. As I examined
it in horror, it started to flutter as if it had been caught in a gentle
breeze. I shrieked and leaped off the floor and it moved more determinedly,
waving this way and that in a discordant dance that almost gave voice to the
horrendous cruelty that had gone into making it.

“Holy shit! This is human hair!”

Nerul laughed. He got up from behind his marble desk and
walked around to stand in front of me. For the first time I noticed he was
wearing a long, deep green velvet robe along with his package. The robe hung
open on either side of his body, swept back by his hands, which, like his
fingers were long and tapered. The ends of his fingers sparkled in the brassy
light and appeared to be neatly clipped and polished. The almost feminine hands
rested on golden hips that were just the slightest bit rounded like a woman’s. I
tried
really
hard not to look at the thing below the hips that was
definitely not like a woman and which seemed to be waving at me in a sickening
imitation of the hair carpet.

“Isn’t it wonderful? I know of no other like it in the
world.”

I snorted and forced my eyes away from all things waving. “I
assume you’re talking about the carpet.”

He grinned at me, the twinkle deepening. “Of course, lovely
Astra, what else would I be referring to?”

“Yeah. What else my ass.” Casting around for somewhere to
plant my eyes so that I didn’t have to look at human hair carpets or
insistently waving packages, I realized that, aside from Nerul and myself,
there were four other creatures in the room.

The lesser devils were dressed in the guard uniform of Nerul’s
court, which consisted mainly of a knee-length black tunic of some kind of
rough material. The guard’s tunics sported gold braid on the shoulders and were
clasped around their thick, red bodies by a wide, black belt with a pentagram-shaped
buckle. Each of the guards had a knife sheath hanging from the belt of his
tunic and, from the top of each sheath protruded a huge, intricately carved
ivory handle that looked like it could be part of a sword from the size of it.

The guards were stationed two at each door. Four guards plus
Nerul—only five of them and one of me. Not bad odds if I was at my best.

I forced my attention back to my “host”. “It must have taken
you quite a while to assemble it.”

He shook his head and stepped closer to me. It took all of
my will not to step back. “Not all that long really. I have many enemies.”

“Oh I don’t doubt that.” I narrowed my eyes at him as he
moved closer still. I was becoming increasingly aware of how happy he was to
see me and, for the first time, I began to fear for something other than my
life. I decided it was time to wrest control of the situation away from the
dark world’s version of Lord Godiva.

Putting my hands up in front of me, palms out, I scowled at
him as fiercely as I could. “Okay, whatever you have in mind, I’m not
interested.”

He stopped moving toward me and cocked his slick, black
head. “Not interested in what, Astra?”

The way he said my name was a caress. It smoothed down my
body like a cool, soft, phantom fingertip, making me shiver. “Well, actually,
in whatever you had in mind. I don’t appreciate being clubbed over the head and
dragged here. I also don’t appreciate waking up to find myself lying on the
hair of a lot of dead people and then being waved at by naked male parts. It’s
a little…disconcerting to say the least.”

Nerul’s lips formed into a soft pout. “Yes, your abduction
was most unfortunate. I have already punished my overzealous messengers for
their unacceptable behavior. Please accept my sincerest apologies for their
brutish treatment of you.”

He grinned at me like a child. I wasn’t sure how to handle
this speech. It certainly wasn’t what I had expected. Finally, I just shrugged
my acceptance of his apology. “Can you please put that away? I know you guys
are real comfortable with nudity, but I’m not.”

Nerul laughed and, rather reluctantly I thought, allowed the
robe to drop from his hips so that it almost covered everything. In any event,
I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, I’d made my point about
his…uhmmm…point. I thought.

I sighed and had about ten seconds to feel relief before he
was on me. I remember reading something in my books about how members of the Royal
Court could move at superhuman speed, like the vampires of ancient fiction. Still,
I wasn’t expecting to find him standing suddenly just mere centimeters from me.
One second he was a few feet away and the next his breath was hot on my face
and his cold, black eyes were drilling into mine.

Before I could even react I was slammed onto my back again
and the gentle movement of the carpet beneath us swelled to gale-like roils. I
wasn’t sure what terrified me more, the royally evil thing on top of me, or the
disgustingly bewitched thing dancing beneath me. I wasn’t going to be given
time to make a decision on that.

Nerul ground himself against me and laughed softly at the
look of horror on my face. “Do not worry, lovely Astra, you will enjoy the
experience of mating with me. You and I are more alike than you can guess.”

Before I could stop myself I said it. “Bite me.” I tensed
immediately and felt my eyes grow wide. Shit. I really shouldn’t have said
that.

Nerul’s laugh rumbled against my chest and sent shivers
through my body. “Yes. I will definitely have to do that. But before the
finale, let’s get to the foreplay. Foreplay is my favorite part.”

Casting about for something devastatingly scary to say that
would get him to stop, all I could come up with was, “Well at least you
understand the importance of pleasing your partner. I wouldn’t expect that from
a leading member of the dark world.”

Nerul’s eyes darkened but he chuckled. “Oh Astra. I assure
you, your pleasure is of utmost concern to me. Second only to my own of course.”
Then he stuck out an absurdly long red tongue and ran it wetly across my cheek.
Where his tongue touched me my skin began to burn and pulse. It wasn’t exactly
painful, but it was definitely disturbing. I could swear I heard a sizzling
sound. I flinched at the sensation and he moaned, grinding his groin harder
against me. Bruising me.

That was when I became horrifyingly aware that my nightgown
had ridden up above my knees and there was nothing between my flesh and his
flesh but my resourcefulness. And as my mind began to cloud and my body began
to react traitorously to his attentions, I wasn’t at all sure there was
anything at all between us.

I was working really hard to move past the magic he was
using on my brain when his tongue found its way to my neck and worked its way
down to the throbbing spot at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I was
feeling the panic that comes from being at the mercy of something delicious and
evil at the same time, when Nerul’s body suddenly jumped and his head darted
upwards so that he could glare at me. His eyes were black spears on my face,
his teeth bared menacingly. The magic fog quickly evaporated from my head and I
was on instant alert. Somehow we’d gone from foreplay to cat playing with mouse.
Where I’d been, only seconds earlier, fearing for my chastity, I was now
looking death in the face. Shit. I really needed to consider some other career
options. A career de-radiating nuclear refuse was looking really good.

Chapter Twenty-
Two

And your Little Dog Too!

Quickly she did find herself, on a feather bed in
Hell,

In flame the Phoenix thrives and grows, but young
ladies fare not well.

“You scheming bitch!” he roared. I sensed rather than saw
the bodyguards moving closer and my heart stepped up its SOS in my chest. I
concentrated on meeting his venomous glare with a calm front, trying not to let
the fear into my eyes. Members of the dark world feed on fear. It excites them.
The last thing I wanted at that moment was for Nerul’s excitement level to
increase.

“You let him mark you!” I simply looked up at him, frowning
slightly in feigned confusion. Just as suddenly as he’d deposited me on the
disgusting hair carpet, Nerul leaped off me and began to pace the room angrily.
“He’s beaten me again!” Stalking from side to side with Hell’s fire on his
countenance, he began mumbling to himself. All I could hear were the words, “He
could still…there must be something…I won’t let this happen…”

I took the opportunity to scurry to my feet, pulling my very
un-heroine-like fuzzy pink nightgown back down over my knees. As I gained my
feet he flew at me. I backtracked quickly until I came up hard against the
uncompromising bulk of one of the guards. Fear and a feeling of being trapped
made me want to fight back. “Back off, Nerul. Who the hell do you think you
are? First you beat me over the head and drag me down here, then you nearly
rape me, now you’re pissed off at me because one of your own kind mind-raped me
before you could do it.”

Surprisingly this seemed to cool him down a bit and the
fierce glare faded from his golden face to be replaced by a questioning look. “You
were marked unwillingly?”

I tried to keep my face from turning a guilty red as I
responded, after all, I wasn’t entirely sure that what Dialle had done was
rape. “Of course. You don’t think I’d let one of you touch me by choice do you?”

He stared at me for a really long moment. His emotions
tangled across his near-perfect features as he appeared to be weighing what I’d
said. Then he smiled at me in a way that made me think I might have made a
fatal mistake. But thankfully he looked away from me at last and toward the
waiting guard. “Take her to the room that’s been prepared for her. And if she
even looks like she’s going to try using those powers of hers, knock her over
the head again.” So much for his “sincere” apology of only moments before. He put
a hand under my chin and pulled my face toward his. I shivered and tried to
pull away as he ran his tongue from my chin to the tip of my nose. Then he let
go of my face and smiled at me. Somehow the tongue thing was less invasive than
that smile. I longed to wipe my face but I was determined not to give him the
satisfaction.

“You can’t keep me here.”

He cocked his head at me and laughed. “Can’t I, lovely
Astra? We’ll see.” He signaled to the nearest guard. “Take her, I need time to
think about what is to be done next. Dialle’s perfidy will cause us some
difficulty I think, but our plans can still be salvaged if what she says is
true.” He turned away and then, almost as an afterthought turned back. With an
arrogant wave of his hand toward my very uninspiring attire he sneered, “And
get rid of that damned thing. Have the Princess give you something
more…suitable for her to wear.”