The Nightwind's Woman

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Aye, he almost felt sorry for the male.

  Another brutal taunt struck the defeated demon’s shoulders and Kerreyder had heard enough.

  Leave him be, Naamah, or suffer the consequences, he ordered and smiled hatefully at the startled gasp that came from the whore’s throat.

  He snorted. Did the bitch actually believe she and her sisters—including his malicious mother—could hide anything from him? Did they think he was unaware of their nasty little conspiracies?

  Stupid, arrogant females, he thought. He had the power to nullify their abilities and render them completely unable to wield magic of any kind. It was only out of a minute drop of respect for the female who had birthed him that he didn’t. He’d never hear the end of it from her if he took away or diminished their puny powers. They served their purpose and as long as they did, he’d leave them alone to hatch their nefarious plots.

  But oh, how he wanted to trash Naamah’s! For eons he’d wanted to strip her of any semblance of control she had over the males of the Megaverse. Her love of cock—of wood as she termed it—was sickening. She, alone, had caused so much grief, so much agony, and so much self-loathing for his gender. To make her sexually frustrated would be one helluva punishment for a bitch who well deserved it.

  Although there had been a time when she hadn’t been quite so bad. Well, she had, but it was a type of badness that serviced him well…

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Of all his mother’s sisters, Naamah was the one of whom he was the most wary. The female was not blood kin to his mother so thankfully not related to him. She was a Fallen like his mother—one of four females cast down with the archangel Samael—and they had labeled themselves sisters. Each female had been handed a quadrant of Treigeilys to rule. His mother received Talamh in the South. Lilith was given Uisce to the East. Agrat’s northern dominion became Gaoth and Naamah took Tine in the West as her kingdom.

  One morning, his mother sent him to deliver a chest of spells to Naamah. The journey from Talamh to Tine was long and arduous and meant he needed to cross the Barrens of the Midland beneath which lay Prysson, deep within the bowels of Treigeilys.

  He had been on the road for three days when he camped near a waterfall for the night. The air was chill and smelled of rancid meat, the ground strewn with pebbles. The fire he managed to build was meager at best and gave off very little light and hardly any warmth. Cold jerky and a dried-out biscuit became an unsatisfying supper that he washed down with bitter coffee for he had forgotten to add sugar to the supplies in his saddlebags. Irritated, sore from riding and with his belly rumbling, he spread his blanket beneath a rocky overhang, using his saddle as a pillow and huddled in his great cape to keep warm. Around him the night sounds of things moving among the boulders above him and in the craggy cliffs off to one side kept him from sleeping. His keen hearing picked out scuttling insects and slithering creatures, the cheep of bats and squeals of rats as predators munched them for their meals. Far in the distance he could hear the rumble of thunder and worried the rain would come before morning light. Beneath him the ground shook now and again. All in all, it was a miserable way to end a tiring day.

  When he woke the next morning, the stallion he had tied to a scrubby bush was gone and with it his hat and saddlebags. Furious, he had gone looking for the beast and for whomever had stolen the saddlebags. There were no footprints and no hoof prints either for that matter to show him which way the culprit went. It was as though the beast and his belongings had been snatched up by an unseen hand. Thankfully, the robber had not pilfered his canteen. He was grateful for that small favor.

  Grumbling dire threats aimed at the thief should he or she be caught, Kerreyder set out into a morning that rapidly became as hot as the night had been cold. The sweltering sun beat down on his head. Soon he was sweating profusely as he trudged across the desert landscape with the great cape slung over one shoulder for he knew he’d need it come nightfall.

  At least, he thought, as he began a steady climb up a slippery incline, the rain had held off but he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. He would have welcomed a light misting to cool the sweat running down his temples and soaking his underarms.

  By the time he reached Lake Loghtalid he was beginning to feel uneasy. The sky to the west was a strange yellow color across the horizon. Overhead, the clouds were mostly blue with only a few streaks of opaque white. There was a distant rumble and he wondered if that had been what he had heard the night before instead of thunder. The hair on the back of his neck bristled and his gaze kept returning to the west.

  His inaugural trip to Tine was proving to be a disquieting trek across inhospitable vistas, intensified by a scorching sun and abrading wind, and by his calculations he had another two days of travel before reaching the palace. Between where he stood and the kingdom was a vast wasteland of nothingness save for mesquite and an occasional oasis from which to fill his canteen.

  The first indication something was far from being right came when the mountains to the west suddenly began to shift, to roll and grow higher as though they were being punched up from the desert floor. He stood still, watching them, growing more troubled by the second. Mountains did not shift nor did they roll unless there was an earthquake yet the ground beneath his feet was motionless.

  Nor did they grow darker in color and began to move toward you.

  “What the hell?” he mumbled.

  Realization hit him like a sledgehammer to the back of his head. It wasn’t a growing mountain he was viewing but a rapidly advancing dust storm that stretched all along the western horizon. It was getting higher and higher, more condensed as it spread across the sky—billowing, growing to gigantic proportions and rapidly increasing in speed as it came toward him.

  Fear undulated down his spine and he whipped around, searching for somewhere, anywhere to hide. He was immortal. He could not die but he could be buried alive, trapped beneath the progressing ocean of sand, pressed down by tons of blistering hot silica. The thought of the sand flowing up his nose, into his mouth to choke him, to fill his lungs, sent a spiral of pure terror racing through him.

  “Eisheth!” he bellowed.

  His mother would hear. Surely she was attuned to her son’s dilemma and would come to his aid. He had yet to attain his powers—those would not come until he was no longer a virgin—and could not will himself from his predicament.

  “Eisheth, I need you!” The shrieking panic in his voice shamed him but the storm was roiling, churning and agitating the sand as it picked up speed.

  Eyes as wide as saucers as he gaped at the juggernaut rushing at him, he fumbled in the pocket of his pants for his kerchief. The wind was whipping mercilessly at him—slamming brutally against him—as he struggled to tie the bandanna around his face. He was being pushed back violently as though invisible beings were shoving against his chest. He stumbled, fell flat to his back just as the monstrous cloud of dust rolled over him. Throwing his hands over his face as the sharp shards cut into his forehead, he squeezed his eyes tightly closed and screamed once more for his mother.

  * * * * *

  Something weighty touched his forehead and he snapped his eyes open, crying out as he flung his arms over his face to block whatever was bearing down on him. He closed his eyes again for a bright light blinded him. He gasped—drawing air deep into his lungs—surprised that he didn’t choke. The air smelled of perfume and it was cool, not hot as the desert had been. Tentatively he opened his eyes again, giving them time to adjust to the strong light beating down on him.

  “You’re safe, Kerreyder.”

  The voice was feminine, sultry and filled with humor. He slowly lowered his arms—squinting against that invasive bright light—and looked up at the speaker. As his eyes met hers he had a strong sensation of being trapped, caged, owned. A nagging pain pinched at his wrists and ankles as though tight iron were clamped around them yet his arms and legs moved freely. He lowered his arms to the bed, raised his knees to make sure he wasn’t
shackled.

  “Where am I?” he asked, wincing at the hackneyed question.

  “Safely ensconced at Geay Neear Ayn,” she replied. “Don’t you remember me, nephew?”

  “Naamah,” he said and wondered why he didn’t feel relief at awaking in her palace. Instead, his foreboding only increased, which made no sense since this was where he had been bound.

  “Your mother should have warned you about traveling at this time of year. This is the season of the Stoirm Deannach, the dust storms. A very dangerous time to be traveling across the Barrens,” she said. Her perfectly smooth forehead creased. “What happened to your horse? Surely you did not decide to walk from your mother’s kingdom to mine.”

  “Someone took him during the night,” he said.

  “Aye, that happens in the Barrens from time to time. The nomad tribes wander through there in search of travelers.”

  Her explanation didn’t ring true. Had it been a nomad, surely there would have been footprints and how could the animal had disappeared without leaving indentions in the sand and loose gravel?

  “At any rate, you are here now and all in one…” Her pale-green eyes raked over him. “Gorgeous piece.” She smiled and her scarlet-painted lips glistened as she ran her tongue over them. “Once you have seeded your first woman, you will be able to wield the powers that are latent within you and the next time you visit me, you can will yourself from Eisheth’s palace to mine.”

  He sincerely doubted he would ever venture to her abode again. There was something very unsettling in the way she stared at him. Her eyes bore an intense heat that made him want to squirm under her perusal.

  “We can talk later,” she said, turning from the bed where he lay. “I will have my servants draw you a bath. I’m sure there is sand in places it shouldn’t be.”

  Her laughter made the hair on his arms stir and when she stopped at the door and turned to look back at him, he was stunned to see hunger staring at him.

  “Join me when you are finished. I will be in the solarium,” she said then puckered her lips and blew him a kiss before she exited the room.

  “Mother of the gods,” he whispered. That simple gesture she’d thrown his way had made his cock stiffen. He looked down at his lower body, shocked to see the wicked thing was poking rigidly at the coverlet. He stared at it in horror.

  A sound at the door made him jerk up his head. When the portal began to open, he slapped his hands over his erection as two male servants entered. They stopped, bowed deeply, then without him giving them permission to do so, advanced on the bed. He shook his head.

  “I d-don’t need help, thank you,” he said, feeling the heat flaming in his cheeks.

  They either did not understand his words or were ignoring them for one went to one side of the bed and one to the other. Before he could protest, the one on the left side reached for the coverlet. He pressed his hands tighter to the material.

  “I said I don’t need any help,” he stated in as firm a voice as he could.

  The servant ignored him and tugged hard at the coverlet, wrenching it from him as though he were a stubborn child. The coverlet was flung to the foot of the bed and the servant on the other side of him slid his arms under Kerreyder’s back and knees without so much as a by-your-leave.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kerreyder hissed. “Put me down!”

  The arms clamped around him were as strong as iron bands and though he wiggled to get free, the servant acted as though he were completely unaware of Kerreyder’s struggles.

  “The gods-be-damned, put me the hell down!” he shouted, but the servant merely turned from the bed and headed to a door through which the other had disappeared.

  What followed was a humiliating lesson in not being able to prevent his body from being violated in a way that was both frustrating and infuriating. He was taken into what he discovered was a bathing chamber with a very large, deep tub sunken into the marble floor. The man undressed him despite Kerreyder slapping at his hands, cursing and hissing at him, and trying to wriggle free. His erection hadn’t gone down but to give the man credit, he didn’t so much as blink an eye when it popped out of Kerreyder’s pants as they were tugged down.

  “Son of a whoring Diabolusian bitch!” he snarled at the man who then picked him up and carried him—carried him!—down four steps and into the deep tub without a thought to being fully dressed himself. Sputtering with outrage, Kerreyder was gently lowered into the warm water. The man smiled at him then straightened, exiting the tub without a backward glance.

  The men left him gaping after them with his mouth sagging and his eyes bulging. By the time he found the wherewithal to snap his mouth shut, his jaw was aching from hanging open for so long. His teeth clicked together, he growled fiercely and his gaze narrowed into pinpoints of indignation. He would have a thing or two to say to his aunt when he joined her!

  * * * * *

  Those things went completely out of his angry mind the moment he found the solarium—after getting directions from a wandering servant who barely acknowledged his query—an hour later.

  Stomping barefoot down the hall—for they had taken his boots—he shoved open the glass door with as much authority he could dredge up from his offended soul and strode in with the intent of letting his mother’s sister-in-arms know just how vexed he was.

  He never got the chance.

  The room was so bright, so warm it felt as though he’d stepped into a sauna. The white shirt and black jeans he’d found laid out on his bed when he’d left the bathing chamber felt as though he had donned triple layers of thick wool. Perspiration sprang up on his forehead, under his arms, between his shoulder blades and over his chest from one breath to the next the room was so unbearably hot.

  Which might have explained the fact Naamah was reclining on her side on a brightly colored chaise lounge without so much as a single piece of jewelry to cover her nudity. Her long burnished-red hair was hanging loose over one shoulder and partially obscuring one large breast. She was bracing her head on her fist as she smiled coyly at him.

  “Hello, lover,” she greeted him.

  Kerreyder’s eyes widened and his cock shot up again to tent the fly of his jeans. He had just enough presence of mind to slam his hands over the treacherous little beast to hide his tumescence from his aunt.

  “We are no kin, Kerrey,” she said in a sultry, throaty voice. “It will not be incest when I do it.”

  “When you do what?” he managed to croak although his cock was throbbing so hard, so painfully it was a wonder he could find his voice.

  “Fuck you senseless,” she said. She lifted an elegant, slender white arm and crooked her index finger at him. “Come here, pretty boy.”

  Kerreyder didn’t move. He couldn’t take his eyes from her naked body but he couldn’t have moved a muscle—except for the one that kept pulsing in his pants—if his life depended upon his ability to do so.

  When he didn’t respond to her command, she turned to her back, drew her knees up, opened her legs then reached down to spread her labia apart, revealing her glistening sex to his view.

  He sucked in a shocked breath, swallowed hard—his blood pounding furiously in his head and his cock. His mouth went dry as she began to stroke herself. All the while she held his stunned gaze with hers.

  “Can you smell my need?” she asked, idly running her fingers along her folds.

  Aye, he could, he thought. The scent of her cunt was permeating the air.

  “It is such an intoxicating perfume, don’t you agree?”

  He opened his mouth to berate her for her actions but no sound came out. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t control the blood rushing to every part of him. He couldn’t take his eyes from her.

  She slipped a finger inside, withdrew it, slipped it in again then smiled wickedly as she removed it and held the wet digit up for him to see.

  “Sweet as cream,” she said. Her eyes dipped to his crotch then lifted slowly upward aga
in. Her smile turned predatory. “And just as good for a growing boy.”

  He heard the groan that he couldn’t stop come out of his mouth and when she lifted her finger to her nose, sniffed, then parted her lips to place her finger into her mouth, he thought his knees would buckle. The sound that came out of him then was something he’d never heard any humanoid make.

  “Umm,” she said, licking the juice from her finger. “Don’t you want a taste, Kerrey?”

  Panic shifted over him for she was sitting up, swinging those long, elegant legs from the chaise.

  He put up a staying hand as she got to her feet. “You shouldn’t do that,” he chastised her.

  “What?” she asked as she took a step toward him.

  Alarm spiked through his body and he moved back.

  “You want it, Kerrey,” she said in that low, seductive voice he was beginning to fear. “You know you do.”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re my mother’s—”

  “Sister?” she finished for him then shrugged. “In name only. Not in blood. And you, dear child, I intend to make mine this night.”

  From some inner strength he didn’t know he possessed he turned to flee her advance, but the moment he did, he heard her hiss, and in that moment, something fierce and restricting wrapped around him to hold him in place. He felt his body being turned by unseen hands until facing her. He groaned for she was only a few feet away. Of their own accord, his eyes dipped to the brief patch of glistening red hair at the apex of her thighs.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, pretty one,” she said as she reached him. She stopped bare toe to bare toe with him and the contact sent an electrical shock directly to his hard-as-steel shaft.

  The glass door behind him closed though no one had touched it, trapping him inside the room with her.

  “No,” he said.

  She arched a titian brow.

  He shook his head more forcefully. “No.”

  Her lips pursed then parted. She put out her tongue and curled it over her bottom lip and he would have sworn on his mother’s life that tongue had swept over his straining cock. He could almost feel the wetness of it as she pulled it back inside her mouth.