Demon's Embrace

by Devereaux, V. J.

  To secure that, Ash would risk much.

  But not Miri.

  Nor would his brothers or his Prince ask it of him. They would find a way. For which he was grateful. All he had to do was defend her until then.

  He scanned the parking lot for the danger he knew awaited.

  “Hargrove didn’t lie,” he continued. “If I’m right, the person, the man Hargrove likely works for – Gordon Templeton – is as he stated quite powerful. So powerful he dared kidnap a Federal Agent from her own apartment building without fear of reprisal.”

  He had to make Miri understand the danger.

  In his mind’s eye, he pictured Asmodeus’s mate, feisty Gabriel, with a fond mental smile. She was a woman to be reckoned with, truly. As was the one beside him, he was beginning to believe.

  Miri knew Gordon Templeton, or rather she knew of him. Everyone did. More by reputation than anything else.

  Wealthy financier, flagrant self-promoter, dedicated to the occult according to the more select circles especially the darker aspects of magic or so she’d heard. Some found him charismatic. Miri had found him disturbing. It wasn’t difficult to picture him doing almost anything. Something in his name resonated within her, in echoes of her visions.

  “Gordon Templeton,” she said.

  Ash nodded.

  “What does that have to do with me?” she asked.

  “Templeton used an ancient grimoire called the Book of Demons to Summon Asmodeus to this plane of existence,” Ash said, his hand on her elbow to hurry her, “and trap him in a magic circle.”

  “To keep the Book from Templeton’s men, Gabriel – the FBI agent I spoke of – threw the Book between the rings of the circle, consigning it to one of the planes of existence. Your temporal planes. At the time it was the only alternative but the Book is too dangerous to leave where Templeton could perhaps find it again. It appears he’s now actively searching for another way to locate it. So both he and we have come to you. The question is, does he know you can see the other planes? If he does it makes you even more of a target.”

  Suddenly Ash had a sense of movement around them in the darkness, of men closing in.

  If they could reach his motorcycle first…

  Somehow, Ash doubted those around them would allow that.

  He didn’t mention that the Book had once been used to Summon him as well. And what he’d suffered for it. It was neither the time nor the place to talk about the past. If ever.

  Miri looked at him, sighed worriedly. “I don’t know. It’s not something I tend to talk about much. A good search of the internet, though…?”

  Nothing was truly private there. Many of her contacts with the metaphysical community took place there.

  The bright orange sodium vapor streetlights illuminated the parking lot, his motorcycle and her car. Both vehicles were alone, the light harsh on them, erasing the image painted on the side of his bike.

  Neither had parked close, not anticipating the need for an emergency exit. His motorcycle was closer but not close enough.

  “Stay close to me, Miri,” he cautioned.

  “Don’t worry about me, Ash,” Miri said as they started across the parking lot.

  A part of her still didn’t believe she was in danger.

  Not until the men in their black armor stepped out of the shadows.

  Then she believed.

  With one arm, Ash swept her behind his back to put himself between her and the intruders.

  More closed in all around them.

  There was no safe place.

  There was no safe place to run.

  “Let’s do this easy,” one of the men, clearly the leader, said. “Dr. Reynolds, if you don’t want anyone hurt, including yourself, just come with us quietly.”

  “Ash,” she said, softly.

  “They won’t take you,” he said, evenly, certainly.

  Only over his dead body. It was there in his voice, Miri could hear it.

  Looking at the grim faces of the men, her breath caught. Fear shot through her. Not for herself but for Ash.

  Foresight didn’t help.

  The time was here, now, the decisions made in these next few minutes, hours, days and weeks would change the course of history both human and Daemonae but there were too many variables for her to See her way clearly.

  Only one thing was clear to her.

  “Ash,” she said, her breath shuddering in her breast. “Go. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “No,” he said.

  She understood. He was a warrior, he could do and be nothing else. It was no more than she expected but she’d had to try.

  Looking from one hard face to another Miri knew this was as real as it got.

  Most of them carried automatic weapons, Ash noted. By the way they moved they were professional soldiers, mercenaries, skilled in battle and not hired thugs. Likely Hargrove had called them in response to him and to Miri’s threat to call security.

  Yet another sign Gordon Templeton was behind this.

  He knew it was unlikely they’d shoot Miri, they wanted her too badly but they weren’t going to get her without going through him first.

  Far stronger than these in whatever form he wore, his Daemonae body could sustain a great deal more abuse than men, as the priests had found. However, there was enough iron in those steel bullets to do a lot of damage both to this form and his natural one if they lodged anywhere within him.

  He thought he might have a way to…unsettle…them first and perhaps gain an advantage. They might have been warned about him but it was unlikely they’d never truly seen one of his kind in the flesh. Few had survived their last encounter.

  “Miri,” he said quietly, “when I say go, run to my bike.”

  The only other vehicle in the lot it was much faster than hers or most cars, more maneuverable, more vulnerable, too, but easier to get onto and get moving.

  He glanced over his shoulder quickly. Miri nodded.

  Turning, Miri faced the approaching men with her hand against the solidness of Ash’s back.

  Fabric tore.

  A shiver of magic washed over her skin and she felt armor come between her hand and the hard muscle beneath it.

  To her astonishment, great leathery wings unfolded from his back to each side of him and her. Seeing them in vision and seeing them for real were entirely different. Those wings spread like the fingers of a hand and a long sinuous tail curled around her waist as if to assure him she was still there, safe behind him.

  Startled, she turned her head to look over her shoulder and her breath caught, completely and utterly, in amazement. She’d seen it in vision, it was nothing to the reality.

  Beauty didn’t even begin to describe what she saw.

  Ashtoreth was incredible, magnificent in his true form, ancient and primal. Every part of her body reacted to him, her pussy clenched automatically in a rush of pure animal lust as appreciation shot through her at the sight of him in all his masculine glory.

  Scarlet armor covered almost all of him. A helmet shielded his face, while the linked mail secured at the edges protected the nape and sides of his neck. More armor covered his chest, thighs, shins.

  In his big hands was a sword straight out of her fantasy, the wavy black surface of it rune-covered. His big hands clenched on the wrapped leather hilt. Every muscle in his magnificent body, those of his back and what she could see past his wings, were rigid, clenched in preparation for battle.

  He was shockingly fast.

  Ash moved/

  The surprise of his shift was enough to startle those around them as well, taking them aback for one fatal second. Clearly whatever they’d expected they hadn’t expected this.

  Two steps and he spun. His sword flashed to separate one of the men from his gun. Along with the hand that held it.

  Still there were a good number more of them than of him.

  “Go,” he said.

  For a moment, Miri was frozen. She could only watch him, incr
edulous.

  He moved like the panther she’d imagined him to be, powerful, swift, precise, with no wasted movement, stunningly graceful and fluid. Now she truly knew the meaning of the phrase ‘poetry in motion’ as he moved to the attack in that precious moment of astonishment. He moved like water flowing, like trees bending. His sword caught the moonlight, flowed like a wave, not stopping as it cleaved through metal, bone and flesh. Blood sprayed, dark in the harsh orange light. It was incredible to watch.

  Then she shook herself, did as he asked, and ran.

  They opened fire, closed on him.

  A part of Ash thrilled to the simple joy of battle with worthy opponents. Were it not that the situation was so dire, that so much depended on him, and he wasn’t so severely outnumbered, he might have enjoyed it more.

  They’d clearly been warned about him, they weren’t taken completely off guard. It didn’t take long for the men to recover from the initial shock of his shift. If they hadn’t believed in demons before, though, they certainly did now.

  Bullets hammered into his armor, each a blow. One or two seared over his skin.

  For all his speed, for all his skill, there were just too many of them.

  A glance over his shoulder as they closed sent a chill through him.

  Miri saw the men move to intercept her even as Ash fought the others. With her hand in her laptop bag, she pulled it off her shoulder and ran for her life, not bothering to hide from them the fear she felt as they closed on her. She had a surprise for them all. She waited for her moment, knowing what agony it would be for Ash to see the men drawing close to her but she needed them close.

  The wind was in the right direction.

  In one motion, she spun and sent the heavy laptop bag with the laptop in it flying toward one of the men even as she pulled her other hand free to direct the burst of pepper spray into the face of the one closest to her. He swore furiously, temporarily blinded as she dropped to her hands and swung her legs around in a leg sweep, taking his out from under him. Caught off guard by an attack from an unexpected quarter, he went down.

  She had her own surprises to offer. Years of self-defense classes.

  Even as she scrambled to her feet again, she ducked and dodged away from another of them. Trapping his arm as he grabbed for her in the crook of her own, she turned into his motion as she threw her shoulder into it, used his momentum to keep him going as she bent to throw him, slammed him to the ground. As he went down she spun into a flying back kick that took out the next.

  The one thing they hadn’t expected was a fight from her.

  A part of her was exultant that all those lessons had paid off.

  Her foot hit the man’s armored helmet jarringly but it was still enough to knock him off balance for a moment.

  Ash, seeing another come at her from the corner of his eye, spun and took that one with a quick slash of his sword before joining her.

  Their eyes met for just a second, Ash’s clearly surprised and, Miri thought, quite pleased.

  She grinned, absurdly happy with herself. She’d taken martial arts all her life and been forced to use it a time or two.

  “When you’re the smallest and smartest kid in third grade you’d better be able to fight,” she gasped, setting herself as she looked briefly into his sharp handsome features. “I couldn’t then. But I learned.”

  Ash smiled. It was good to know. They fought, he and his mate, back to back. Like Gabriel, she was a force to be reckoned with all on her own.

  Pain burned in his arm where a bullet had pierced and across one thigh but it wasn’t hopeless. Not now. Not with Miri with him.

  Now with all these out in the open where he could see them he could chance the use of magic and must if they were to have even a chance at escape. With a gesture, he gathered lightning in his hands and loosed it.

  The parking lot lit up with blue-white light, arced from one gun to the next, the men holding them jittering as the muzzles of the guns rose to empty harmlessly into the night sky as he and Miri backed toward his motorcycle

  Shifting back to human form – a tail and wings being difficult to manage on a motorcycle and a tail being uncomfortable in jeans – he dressed himself with a quick spell, swung on and started it in virtually the same motion as he mounted while Miri scrambled up behind him. The moment her arms wrapped securely around his waist, he gunned it and shot for the exit.

  The question was whether the enemy had had time to block it.

  “No, that way,” Miri shouted, pointed to one of the narrow concrete walkways with their dips to accommodate wheelchairs.

  With a nod, he turned the bike. She knew this place better than he.

  Ash shot them down the narrow walkway through the trees into the heart of the campus.

  At this hour of the night, it was too late for the studiers and too early for the partiers to be returning. With the chill in the air only the most dedicated students would be out.

  They burst out into another parking lot, the orange glow of the sodium lights illuminated them clearly. There was no help for it.

  Steering for the exit, Ash gunned the bike, shot them out onto the narrow street between the school buildings, taking the bike over the grass of one of the commons as a car raced to cut them off. He burst out in front of it by inches. Few cars could come close to the speed and horsepower of the bike, it had been custom made just for him, the body of composite materials stronger than steel, with the best engine they could find.

  He left the car in the dust but another popped out ahead of them, tried to cut them off.

  Dodging and darting past those who tried to intercept them, weaving the bike through and around the cars, Ash headed for the open highway. There would be traffic there, not much at this time of night but no stop signs or turns. It was a straight shot, he could open up the bike there, use its speed and power to their advantage.

  Everywhere he turned, though, there was another car racing to try to cut them off.

  Miri clung to him on the bike. She forced herself to keep her arms wrapped loosely around his waist so she wouldn’t hamper his movements, moving with him, all too conscious of the hard muscles of his body beneath her hands. Despite the outer cold, his body radiated heat, kept her warm despite the chill of the night.

  They raced through darkness broken only by moonlight and streetlights. All Miri could do was trust to Ash’s skill, tightening her hands only slightly as one car came that fraction of an inch too close, so close she swore she felt the chrome brush her leg but then Ash whipped the motorcycle around it to shoot down the ramp and onto the highway.

  Ash opened the motorcycle up and her head snapped back as the bike accelerated.

  Chapter Four

  Taking the risk that no police officer could keep up with him on the bike, rounding a curve Ash turned off the headlights and taillights to give their pursuers one less means by which to follow them and crouched low over the handlebars to present less of a silhouette. He was grateful they were in less traveled territory where the streetlights were farther apart.

  Even so, they’d have to take a brief rest soon, if only for Miri. The excitement of battle and flight would be wearing off now and exhaustion would follow. Already he could feel her hands loosening a little, her body not as tense against his back.

  He was fairly sure they’d lost their pursuers though and there were a dozen exits those who chased them would have to search, in case they’d turned off the highway once they’d lost sight of them. That would force the hunters to check of them, he hoped.

  Pain had long been a part of Ash’s world but it had been a while since he’d been in such a fight and even he felt hammered where the bullets had battered his armor. He bore numerous small wounds from ricochets, not to mention the wounds in his bicep and thigh, both of which still bled sluggishly. They had to find a place to rest and soon. With the loss of blood, exhaustion from the fight and the use of magic, he was very nearly spent, with no way to restore the loss except to find som
e brief respite to allow the magic inherent in his body to do its work.

  Despite Miri. Someday she’d be able to relieve that need but not yet.

  If that was the path she chose to take… Nothing was sure, that was life.

  The thought of her filled him. He was all too conscious of her body against his back, her arms around his waist. It seemed as if he’d been hard from the first moment he’d seen her. The connection with her was there but the choice hadn’t yet been made. There’d been no time. It was and had to be hers to make. He wouldn’t force it.

  Almost involuntarily, he glanced into the rearview mirror to look at her.

  She’d laid her head against his back. All he could see of her in the mirrors was her pretty hair swirling in the breeze.

  Somehow, he’d manage despite the pain. It would hardly be the first time. He was too tired to consider food at the moment. Besides, it would only help a little, some fuel came from the world around him, food gave him little. His true mate…she would provide all the sustenance he would need.

  In the distance, he spotted the sign for a small picnic area ahead. Beneath the trees it was heavily shadowed. Behind the picnic table there was enough space for the bike and that was all that was necessary. There was a clear view of the highway in both directions. It would do.

  He dared not take them to a conventional hotel, motel or some such. It was far too easy for someone with Templeton’s money and power to track them to such a place.

  “We’ll have to sleep rough,” he called over his shoulder.

  Against his back, Miri nodded.

  He drove the bike beneath the trees and turned it off, glancing each way to be sure he still had a clear line of sight along the highway.

  Miri was almost too tired to care but she was grateful for Ash’s hand in getting off the bike. She was even more thankful for the port-a-potty tucked discreetly beneath the trees. When she exited from it she was almost ridiculously relieved to see a sleeping bag laid out beside the motorcycle, only barely visible by the light of the single streetlight illuminating the entrance to the little parking area.