“Don’t make me call you twice.”
He dropped his hand from the door handle and walked to her. His handsome face was filled with hatred.
Angeline stretched, lifting her slender arms over her head. The movement thrust her breasts into prominent relief beneath the silk of her wrapper. She looked up at him for a long moment, a smile playing across her lips.
“What is it you want?”
She pointed to the floor at her feet, saw his face blaze in warning, and shook her head. “You are mine to command, Syntian.” Her voice became cold. “Do as you are told.”
His jaw set, muscle twitching in his cheek, he knelt before her, going to his knees in one fluid motion. She heard his angry expulsion of breath as he spread his legs apart, bracing himself more comfortably in the awkward position into which he had been forced. He glared at her.
“There are two reasons I sent for you today, Syntian.” Her gaze locked with his. “The first is not that important, but it is a command I insist you obey.”
He didn’t speak. His look was dangerously cold, infinitely bored as he watched her. The hands on has thighs were balled into fists.
“There will be no more killing.”
“That is not a decision you may make!”
Angeline bent toward him, not surprised when he turned his face away from hers. Her voice was a soft, quiet threat. “This is my domain into which you have inadvertently chosen to play your latest little game, Syntian. These are my subjects with whom you are toying. When I tell you there will be no more killings, I mean just that. Do I make myself clear?”
He turned his head back and his lips twisted into a sneer. “As long as I serve you—”
“The key word here is serve, Syntian,” she reminded him in a stern voice. “And in serving me, you are blood-contractually bound to do as I tell you, are you not?” When he stubbornly refused to answer her, she reached out and gripped his chin, her lids flaring wide as he put up a hand to knock hers away. She beamed with victory when he slowly lowered his hand. Her grip tightened on his chin. “Are you not blood-bound to do as I command you, Syntian?”
“Aye,” he spat, his lips drawn back over his white teeth. He snatched his chin from her grasp.
Angeline leaned back on the loveseat. “Then we are agreed there will be no more killings,” she stated. “If there are, you will be severely punished, Syntian.” She heard him sigh angrily in defeat. “Now that’s settled, let’s move on to the second order of business.” She put out one foot and rested it on his shoulder.
His head jerked around at her touch. He knew better than to move away from her, to push her leg from him. The look on her face made it clear that she was not going to relinquish her hold over him until she was ready to do so.
“You will stay with me until the new moon has passed,” she told him and saw him flinch with surprise. He opened his mouth to protest, but she drove the stake deeper in his heart. “And you may remain here even after that if I decide I desire you with me. You will learn you are not to destroy human life whenever the mood strikes you.”
“You bitch,” he growled, knowing full well what she was doing. “I came to you and asked—”
“Be quiet!” Angeline cocked her head to one side. “Who is your mistress, Syntian?”
He ached to wipe the taunting grin from her ripe lips. His entire being throbbed with the need to demolish her; to tear her body apart with his bare hands and teeth. Her scent filled his nostrils and that part of him that gloried in defiling and debauching and degrading, that corrupted and contaminated and consumed, screamed out to him to take her in his natural form, to rend her limb from limb in the way of his ancient heritage. To drink her blood and devour her flesh, to take unto him all the meager power inside her puny body, to rid him of her once and for all.
“Be very careful, Syntian,” she warned him. “You may not think so, my sweet incubus, but I have as much power as I need to cast you back into that primordial ooze from which you were conjured. There are thousands of others slithering in that vile muck who would gladly come forth to take your place at my side.” Her foot slid seductively down his chest. “I can be your most steadfast champion this side of the Abyss, my love, or I can be your most formidable enemy.” She smiled. “What will it be?”
“I will not be your plaything, Angeline. That was not part of the bargain I made with you!”
“You were conjured to be a woman’s vengeance, demon. And yours is still a binding oath although no ancestor of mine ever required it of you.” She pushed against his chest with her foot. “And you are blood-bound to me as you were blood-bound to your first mistress!”
Syntian tuned out her words as she berated him, reminding him of things he knew all too well and wished he didn’t. His mind slipped past the warmth of Earth’s realm and flew to the land of his birth.
To the place where his hell began.
There had been a time, he thought with true regret, his mind swirling with conflicting emotions, when he had been part of the human race. It was a long time past; many millennia removed from this time and place in which he was now trapped. He had walked among those of his own kind: smiling and laughing, loving and living, enjoying the companionship of other males, the attention of the female members of his tribe. He had known what it was to look forward to the glow of the hot sun, the cool of the nights on the plains. He had known the pleasure of the hunt, the taste of raw meat on his tongue, warm blood oozing down his throat as he ate. He had known the frenzy of bloodlust and the intoxication of tracking his enemies and destroying them. He had thrilled to the scent of a female in heat, of falling upon her to satisfy the lust building in his genitals, of impregnating her. He had experienced the wild elation and ego-satisfying joy at the births of the many children he had sired; had delighted in teaching his sons to hunt and kill and war; had watched his daughters grow into women. And when his tribe had settled upon his shoulders the mantle of chieftain, he had sought out and become one with Tsahan, the last woman he would be allowed to mate with and bear children by according to the laws of his tribe. He had grown to love his dark-haired mate. Their love became the brightest light in his life. But when an envious female whose advances he had shrugged aside murdered Tsahan, the light vanished from his existence, plunging him into a darkness far beyond that of the night and he had howled with a grief so intense even the were-tigers had run away in fright. He had known true, overwhelming agony as he had held his mate’s lifeless body against his own, her thick blood running unheeded down his bare arms. He had turned his eyes to the heaven, cursing the entire female race for the actions of one. In his wild-eyed grief and misery, he had sought out the murderous vixen who had taken Tsahan from him and in a frenzy of rage had torn her body apart, his fingers dripping with her hot, sticky blood as he had devoured the still-pulsing heart he had ripped from her chest.
But the female he had killed had been the first-born daughter of the tribe’s High Priestess, Uxumia. Uxumia’s own raging sorrow had called upon her to punish the male who had so callously and violently taken her daughter’s life. With the womenfolk of the tribe gathered around her, Uxumia had summoned the minions of the Abyss, bidding Them come to her to avenge the death of Uxumia’s daughter. And the powers had come, Their beastly wings flapping about Them as They dove out of the howling heavens.
“Take him!” Uxumia had entreated the beasts of the Abyss. “Take the murderer of my child and confine him to the loathsome pit beneath the Abyss. Bind him there for a thousand, thousand years in the piss and vomit and pustulence, the cesspool of all the wastes of all the living things. Show him no mercy and grant him no surcease from the punishment my sisters and I have passed upon him!”
The beasts of the Abyss had sought out Syntian, laying repulsive talons on his cringing flesh; clasping heavy chains to his wrists and ankles and dragging him—kicking and screaming and crying out his vengeance—to the noxious, lightless cavern that oozed beneath the bowels of the Earth. It was in that horror as
he was plunged beneath the pernicious surface of the pit to the very depths of it, that he sought a higher power, a mightier master than the One served by those he had offended.
“Hear me!” he had pleaded, his shackled hands thrusting up through the sludge and slime to make entreaty to whatever Source might hear him. “I will serve him who takes me from this wretched place. I will gladly do the bidding of he who will rescue me from this accursed existence! I will sell my soul, such as it is, to be free of this hell!”
And One had come, red eyes gleaming, forked tongue slathering over scaled lips, cloven hooves striking fire against the stone barriers of the pit.
“And will you sign with your own blood that you will obey Me?” the demon had asked, Its slit mouth stretching wide over fang-like teeth.
“Release me from this place,” Syntian had begged, “and I will do anything. Anything!”
Anything, he had promised and the demon had taken him at his word.
“Rise up, Cree,” the hiss had slithered from the demon’s slathering mouth. “Rise up and hand me your soul and you will find the place to which I have assigned you.”
The lair had been cold, colder than any snow that had fallen on the high mountains of his homeland. And it had been barren of light or sound. But it did not smell of animal excrement; it did not slime his skin with its loathsome, poisonous touch. It was a place for him to hide, to lick his wounds and heal his soul, to await the call promised when he could once more return to the world of light and sound and warmth. Little did he know, or guess, that when the summons came, it would be from the very gender he had cursed; nor that when he was able to look at what he had become, he would view in horrific silence the image of the master he had sworn to serve.
His terror had been so great, so overpowering, he had nearly begged to be returned to the pit; but such was his joy at once again seeing the light of day and feeling the warmth of it against his skin, he allowed the female to do as she pleased with him.
At first, his main purpose had been the settling of scores. With his vile looks he curdled milk, made sterile the herd, caused all manner of problems among the human race. At the death of the woman who had called him, he had flown back to his lair to await the next call. When it came, his purpose for that female became more sinister. He caused stillbirths, gathered for her potions to kill and maim and destroy, all the while crying deep in his lost soul at the things he was forced to do. When that woman was burned at the stake for her evil deeds, he escaped once more to the lair that had summoned him.
It was not long after that time that he heard the first faint call for his help.
Although he could not act upon that call, he could not escape it, either. The harder the tears fell; the louder the sobs of loneliness and heartbreak; the longer the misery continued, the deeper the pain of the woman’s wretchedness affected him. He soon began to realize that he might well have found a way to escape the vengeance Uxumia and her tribeswomen had thrust upon him.
What better way, he thought with sinister glee, than to aid the weakly females who called out to him? To take all they were willing to give and give pain and suffering to those who abused them in return for the pain and suffering he had been forced to endure? To avenge the weak and helpless with a vengeance so exacting it destroyed those upon whom he unleashed it? He dwelt upon his plan, brooded upon it, seeking a way to go forth on his own, to find the one seeking his aid, to punish those who preyed upon the weak, but the lair was a prison, binding him in its cold, cold walls.
It was not until he was summoned again, this time to murder and cause mischief across the land, that he was able to bargain with his new mistress, slyly hinting of untold delights he could visit upon her unresisting body if she would but make him presentable to the human eye once more. And in return? she had asked.
“You have enemies, milady. Enemies you want destroyed. I will reap the vengeance you seek. In return, grant me what I need to sustain me,” he had asked. “Allow me to go to those lonely women like yourself who need protection; who need the touch of a gentle hand upon their bodies. Let me seek out and destroy those who have hurt that woman, who have oppressed women like yourself.” His hooded eyes had gleamed in the dark. “Let me punish those women who have turned their noses up to you and your kind; who have sought your misery and downfall with the priests and inquisitors; who have laughed as your sisters have burned and drowned.” His hissing voice had lowered to a seductive coo. “Let me be the vengeance of all the sorceresses from all time!”
And will you remain faithful to me and mine? she had demanded. Will you come when you are called?
“Aye,” he had agreed, sensing her capitulation. “I will serve you and be at your command for all eternity.”
She had demanded he sign his name in blood—binding him contractually to the vow—and he had gladly taken the athamé and slashed his palm, dripping his mark upon a page in her Book of Shadows. “It is done,” he had whispered. “Now make me a man once more.”
The witch had agreed and had cast a spell that peeled away from him the scales of the viper he had become; that had rounded his slit eyes; had stitched together his forked tongue and turned his cloven hooves to human feet; had given him fair form and face so remarkably handsome it dazzled all who beheld him.
“You will serve me and mine,” the woman had sighed as she looked up as he stood before her in all his naked glory. “Do what you will to those of our enemies, but it will be me, and mine, you will obey.” She had touched him. “Now make good on your promise, demon!”
For the vengeance he sought, he was more than willing to pay the price of lying with the woman and pleasuring her body with his own. It had been thousands of years since he had coupled in human form and the pleasure far outweighed the price he had to pay to achieve it.
Through the centuries, he had taken his revenge on those women who had dared to hurt and cause hurt for the weaker of their gender. He listened for their call: the wounded ones, the ones in pain, and he had sought them out, able now to leave his lair whenever his mistress did not need him, and destroy, body and soul and mind, those who—because they had hurt the weak ones—had become his enemies. His revenge was exacting and final and the acting upon it gave him pleasure such as he had not known since he lay in sweet Tsahan’s arms.
As for those whom he championed, he left them better off, stronger than they ever thought possible. He gave them self-pride and knowledge. He gave them strength and bravery to face a world set against them. He gave them the will to endure and to carry on. He made them a part of him and he, a part of them. The only price they ever paid for his intervention, his schooling, was the induction into that secret sisterhood that controlled him.
“Before you leave them, you must recruit them into the art,” his mistress had made him vow. “These women you champion must become One with Us. There can be no other way. And when you have done all you can for them, you must leave them and never seek them out again.”
That part of it hadn’t bothered him.
Not until he had championed Lauren Fowler.
“You came to me, Syntian.” Angeline’s words brought him back from the past. “I had not called you in years. It was you who sought me out; not the other way around.”
“You never wanted me,” he reminded her. “Why now?”
She shrugged. “I was young when I signed the pact with you; inexperienced with not only men but with those of your kind. It never occurred to me to have your sexual favors as part of the bargain.”
“Until now,” he snarled.
“Your touch gave me immense pleasure, Syntian. More pleasure than any human male ever has.”
His lips twisted with triumph. “That is the way it has always been with my kind. A bonus for all the other joys taken from us.”
“ I want you, Syntian. And just as you were willing to promise our master anything in return for being taken from the pit, I was willing to do anything to have you.” She shrugged. “Even going to so much trou
ble to put temptation in your path.”
His brows drew together as he looked at her. Her lips were stretching into a challenging smile, her face glowing with humor. There was something in her look that told him she had somehow manipulated him, forced him into doing something he would not ordinarily have done. His eyes searched hers, probing, seeking. As the truth of what she’d done finally shown itself to him, it hit him with the force of a physical blow, rocking him back on his heels as he stared at her with stunned disbelief. His lips parted, his eyes narrowed with pain, and he slowly shook his head as if the action would negate what she’d done to him.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, assuring him.
He hung his head, his face registering all the hurt he was feeling in his being. His powerful shoulders slumped and blood-red tears formed in his eyes. “Why?” he whispered.
“I knew you couldn’t resist helping someone like Lauren Fowler. It was only a matter of time before you rose to the bait and fell into my net.” She saw him flinch. “The moment you touched her, you were lost. Weren’t you, my sweet demon?”
A ragged breath, a tired sigh came from his bent head. “Aye,” he replied tonelessly. “I was.”
“When you came to me and asked to break your vow not to kill a human female, I knew I had you, Syntian,” she said in a throaty acknowledgment of his pain. “You gave up much for Lauren and I pray she was worth it.” Angeline shrugged. “It would be nice to have Lauren be one of us, but it isn’t necessary. I rather like her. If you hadn’t come to her aid, I’d have eventually done something myself. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy seeing her hurt.”
His head snapped up, fear turning his brown eyes black.
“Don’t worry, lover,” she told him. “As long as you behave, Lauren will be just fine.”
“What do you want from me?” he whispered, his voice rife with hurt.
“Your strong arms around me,” she said as she sat forward on the loveseat. “Your body atop my own. Your hard shaft within me, pleasuring me.”
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 9