The Nightwind's Woman

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  For a moment Randon hesitated then he glanced around. His amber eyes went directly to Lauren. “I’ve done no harm to any woman,” he said, “but for you I could make an exception.”

  “There’s no call for that,” Cree said. “I understand your anger, Kayle, but reel it in. The stakes are too high to let this shit get in the way of us doing our jobs.”

  “Do you even know how he came to be a Nightwind?” Kerreyder asked quietly.

  “No, and I don’t care,” Lauren said.

  “You should. All he did was keep a Temple Virgin from falling to her death and for that the Hell-hags slaughtered him. Should he have let the bitch die?”

  Lauren’s eyebrows drew together. “Why would they have killed him for saving a woman’s life?”

  “He dared put his filthy male hands on a woman who was never to be touched by a man. For that his life was forfeit and he was condemned to the Abyss as punishment. Think you that was fair, milady?” Kerreyder queried.

  Speculation settled on Lauren’s face as she stared at Randon. He was glaring back at her with defiance.

  “He is not Syntian Cree, milady. He’s never killed anyone in his life,” Kerreyder said. “He is feared but only because he is exceptionally good at what he does—tracking and catching creatures who would otherwise terrorize or harm humans. Will you condemn him for that, as well?”

  “He bound a line of witches to him,” Lauren said, her jaw clenching. “He enslaved those women.”

  “The first called him, drew him from the Abyss,” Kerreyder said. “He offered himself to her and she accepted. She didn’t have to.”

  “She was alone, lonely!” Lauren defended the long-dead female. “He offered her—”

  “Power and aid. Companionship,” the archdemon interrupted. “Things she wanted. He was the one enslaved, milady. Not the woman. I repeat. He is not Syntian Cree.”

  She stared at the Nightwind for a moment or so longer then nodded. “All right. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.” When Kerreyder started to walk away, she put out a hand to stop him. “But you keep him on a tight leash or I will.”

  Kerreyder inclined his head. “Duly noted.”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Coulter said, walking over to Randon. He didn’t give the Nightwind a chance to argue but snagged his arm and pulled him toward the stairs.

  “I don’t like to be—”

  “Touched,” Coulter said with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Me, neither.” He looked around at Jaleel. “Which bedroom, dude?”

  “Top of the stairs,” Jaleel replied, glaring at Randon’s back. “First door on the right.”

  “Much obliged,” Coulter said. He released Randon’s arm, put his palm to the incubus’s back and lightly pushed him forward. “Night all.”

  “Up at dawn,” Cree called after, them and when Coulter waved a hand in acknowledgement of the order, he turned to Jaleel. “Our room?”

  “Second door on the right,” Jaleel stated in a voice that held a touch more courtesy. “Prince Kerreyder, your room is the first door on the left.”

  Kerreyder thanked him, gave Lauren one last meaningful look then followed the other men up the stairs.

  “Do you want me to handle Kayle?” Jaleel asked as they watched their guest climb the stairs.

  Lauren shook her head. “No, leave him be. If the archdemon vouches for him, I’ll accept it.” She narrowed her eyes. “Besides, I believe he has thrown a protection spell over the incubus. We wouldn’t be able to touch him even if that was my wish.”

  “But once the key is secured?” Jaleel pressed.

  “Something tells me I won’t have to worry about punishing that particular Nightwind. Trouble is brewing, my demon.” She looked toward the windows where lightning flared repeatedly. “Nasty, nasty trouble.”

  * * * * *

  Kenzi woke up in a strange place lit by an eerie green light. Where she lay was ice cold and there was a peculiar smell in the air. It took her a moment to recognize the smell for what it was—formaldehyde. The stench burned her eyes and clogged her nostrils. Her head was swimming unmercifully. Her body was stiff. When she tried to move to relieve the cramps in her legs, she realized she was strapped down.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to extrapolate she was in the morgue on a stainless-steel autopsy table. The odd green light emanated from the two emergency lights on either side of the acoustical ceiling.

  Fear raced through her chilled blood as she turned her head to look around her. Her vision was blurry and the movement added to the lightheadedness that made her sick to her stomach. She had no doubt she’d been given something to induce unconsciousness. She also knew it would do her no good to struggle for she was firmly confined to the cold table.

  Despite the nausea and the dull ache in her head, she tried to think back to how she came to be a prisoner. Everything before she awoke was strangely indistinct. She remembered opening the door to the security guard but after that it was a succession of rippling, undulating images that she could not grab hold of. Sounds were distorted but she seemed to recall the squeak of wheels and reasoned that must have been a gurney upon which she’d been placed—no doubt with a sheet thrown over her so those who saw her abductor would have thought she was a cadaver.

  She opened her mouth to call out but thought better of it. Her captor would have made certain there would be no one to hear her and she wasn’t sure she should draw attention to herself just yet. All she could do was lie there and scream her head off anyway but she was in the bowels of the facility. The chances of being heard by the right person was slight.

  Who could have taken her? She wondered. And why? As far as she knew she’d yet to make any enemies among the inmates. The only logical explanation was one of the malevolent creatures had gotten loose and if that was the case only God knew what he or she had in mind.

  “You are immortal, now,” Kerreyder said. “You cannot die unless someone takes your head or burns you to ashes and the ashes are scattered to the Four Winds. If you are injured, your body will rejuvenate, heal quickly. You will not succumb to any injury no matter how grave.”

  But she could experience pain even if it didn’t kill her. Obviously a great deal of it if she was reading her lover’s meaning correctly. Fear of pain was one thing but the fear of being raped, mutilated, grievously tortured made her shudder.

  “Kerreyder?” she whispered. “Randon?”

  Why did they have to be hundreds and hundreds of miles away?

  “Please help me,” she pleaded. “Your woman needs you.”

  “Call them all you like. They can’t hear you.”

  Kenzi whipped her head toward the sound of the gloating voice that had intruded and wished she hadn’t. The nausea leapt up her throat to gag her.

  “Triso does that when given in a large dosage,” the woman coming toward her said. “I suggest you lay very still else you’ll puke.”

  Swallowing convulsively, Kenzi felt a very cool hand come to rest on her forehead. Expecting pain, brutality, she was surprised when the woman gently moved her head back to a straight position.

  “I’ll not harm you, girl, though I hate you with every drop of blood flowing through my body,” the woman said. “You are a means to an end. Nothing more.”

  “Hate me?” Kenzi repeated. “Why would you hate me?”

  “For being Kerrey’s Blood-mate,” the woman said. “He belongs to me!”

  Naamah! Kenzi thought. She had to be the fallen angel, the demoness of whom Kerreyder had told her. The female who had made him a man but thought to keep him her slave.

  “Why are you doing this?” Kenzi asked. “What is it you hope to accomplish?”

  “You are the key,” Naamah said then laughed. “Aye, you are the key!”

  Kenzi knew why Kerreyder, Randon and the one they called the Gravelord, as well as the two Reapers had gone to Florida. The fate of the Megaverse rested on Randon’s shoulders. He had to find and take possession of some
thing called the Hades’ Key in order to keep a great evil locked deep within the bowels of the Abyss. Should that evil escape and with the only way to lock it up again in the hands of the succubae who hated humankind, all living things within the Megaverse would be exterminated.

  “He will not risk losing you,” Naamah said. “I have the power to keep you from him for all eternity. I can take you to my kingdom in Tine and though he is beneath the scorching sands of the Barren of the Midlands, overseeing his designation as Warden of Prysson, he would never see you again. So close yet as far away as the Moons of Avalyn. He cannot touch me when I am safe inside Tine.”

  The succubus trailed her cold fingers down Kenzi’s cheek.

  “And as for the Nightwind? Lilith will draw him back to the Abyss and there he will remain for as long as time continues.” She smiled hatefully. “There to suffer in the cold and dark and oozing filth that will be his prison once again. Both males will suffer greatly because of you while life ceases to exist throughout the Megaverse.”

  “Kerrey will hate you for it,” Kenzi said. “You do this and he will—”

  “Oh, if he does what I order him to do,” Naamah said, her voice as slithery as any viper’s, “I will grant him one day a year with you. To use you as he sees fit from sunup ’til sundown. Trust me. For that one day, he will do as I bid. The remainder of the year, he will service me as I desire to be serviced.”

  “You believe he’ll forsake all living things across hundreds of worlds just for one day out of three hundred and sixthy-five for me?” Kenzi scoffed.

  “A year on Tine is over nine hundred days on your pitiful world,” Naamah informed her. “And aye, he will. Think you he cares anything for any mortal save you?” She snorted. “I assure you he does not.”

  Kenzi knew better. She had seen the horror in her lover’s eyes as he’d explained to her why he had to join Randon in Florida. Why he had to make the journey to ensure the Hades’ Key did not fall into the wrong hands. Why the creature secured behind the Gate of Caighean must never be set free.

  “We’ll see,” Kenzi said.

  “Aye, we will,” Naamah sneered. “As soon as he learns I have you, he’ll bargain with me for your release. Until I have the key, he will not see hide nor hair of you.”

  Though terror filled her soul, Kenzi turned her face from the succubus and stared blindly across the room. The stink of the embalming fluids only made her headache worse but she suspected the pain in her temples was preventing Naamah from reading her thoughts.

  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 complet
ely. 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.