The Nightwind's Woman

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Love, he thought. Not just sex. As good as that sex had been it could not compare to the love in his heart. As powerful as his release had been it could not compare to the love filing his body. None of it would have been possible without the overwhelming love that was flooding his tainted soul—cleansing it, making it pure once again. In his heart of hearts he knew—knew—he could battle any evil and win for he was no longer one of the Fallen but had been drawn once more into the Light.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Kerreyder shot bolt upright in the bed.

  Where the hell had that thought could from?

  He wasn’t pure. He hadn’t been pure since the nanosecond he was conceived. His mother was a succubus, one of the Fallen Angels cast down by Alel for the evil of which she and her sisters had been a part.

  Dragging a trembling hand through his hair, he stared at the bold flashes of light that were still strobing across the heavens. His heart was pounding; his blood racing. He could barely draw breath into his burning lungs.

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” he asked. He swung his legs from the bed and stood. His limbs were weak. His knees threatened to buckle beneath him so he plopped down on the mattress. There was a taste in his mouth that he could identify and a lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow. He was trembling. He was icy cold and blisteringly hot all at the same time. If his heart beat any faster, he feared it would break through his chest wall to land quivering on the floor at his feet.

  Love, Kerreyder.

  It was his father’s voice that spoke to him. Soft and gentle, as fleeting as a breath of wind floating through the room.

  Love can heal anyone, my son. It can cleanse any man who embraces it.

  “Do you know why I am here?” he asked aloud. “What we are going to do in the morning?”

  Well, of course He did! The archdemon thought. He was Jee Yn Ayr, the Father-God. He was all-knowing. He was the Right Hand of Alel, the Guardian of the Megaverse.

  All will be well, Kerreyder. The trite human saying of love conquers all has never been more meaningful than it will be tomorrow.

  “My love for McKenzi is that great?”

  There was no answer to that question. Only silence.

  “Father?”

  Though he called out to his father several more times, Jee Yn Ayr did not answer. The only sounds he heard were the tick of rain against the window panes, the shriek of the lightning and the skirl of the fierce wind around the eaves.

  He got up from the bed and walked to the window. Pushing aside the curtain, he looked down into the backyard. He spied a gazebo off to one side and when lightning flared, he saw someone sitting within its octagonal structure. The copper roof gleamed each time lightning forked. He couldn’t make out whether the person sitting in the gazebo was male or female. Human or creature. Though he tried to sense that entity, he could make no ironclad judgment of who and what it was. All he knew was that it was alive and staring back at him through the dark.

  The hair on his arms stirred and he knew whomever or whatever was there was evil.

  “When you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks into you.”

  Another trite human saying that was, unfortunately, all too true.

  Humanity needed to be protected but first among them was his Blood-mate. Not only her body and soul needed protection. So too did her heart.

  “I must find the rune stone from dream and give it to McKenzi,” he thought. “I must!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Twice a technician had come into the morgue yet neither time did he notice Kenzi lying strapped to one of the three autopsy tables. Both times she’d tried to call out to him but could not move or speak or make the slightest sound. Once he’d glanced her way and she thought sure he’d seen her but he had turned and left. It became clear to her that Naamah had cast some kind of spell over her so she could not been seen.

  Frustrated, angry and more than a little afraid, she tried to send cries of help to both Kerreyder and Randon but she was fairly sure neither had intercepted her plea. They were unaware she was in deep trouble, being held by a psychotic succubus who had disappeared a couple of hours earlier.

  And she had to pee.

  The thought of urinating and then lying in it for only God knew how long brought tears to her eyes but the discomfort was growing. Perhaps if she did pee, at least the smell and the physical evidence of it would be detected the next time Mr. Oblivious came bebopping in.

  Or would it?

  She couldn’t be sure and the burning pressure was getting too much to endure. Pretty soon she would have to shame herself and piddle away.

  Fuck, she thought. This sucks big hairy monkey balls. She felt like crying but wouldn’t give in to it. Digging her nails into her palm, she tried to ride out the discomfort.

  For another ten minutes she suffered the building pressure then sighed with resignation. The wet warmth that spread under her ass then up to the small of her back made her wince and mentally groan but the relief was instantaneous.

  “You pissed yourself, human.”

  Kenzi turned her head to see a short, squat creature with a mane of long, shaggy red hair staring at her. She’d heard of this one. Her name was Arika and she was a baginis—a sexual predator who was forever getting out of her cell. According to Randon, the creature was the bane of his existence. She was supposed to be at Baybridge under lock and key. Apparently the baginis had found a way to slip back to Tearmann. Perhaps she could be salvation if handled in the right way.

  “Undo these straps and I’ll make it worth your while,” Kenzi told her.

  Arika sidled closer. “How?” she asked.

  “Obviously you prefer to be here,” Kenzi said.

  “There are better pickings here,” Arika said. She took a few steps more toward Kenzi. “The pricks at Baybridge are not afraid of me.” She thrust out a pair of thick, rubbery lips. “It’s no fucking fun when the males are not afraid of me.” She quivered. “Arika is afraid of the brutes at Baybridge.”

  “Arika, is that your name?”

  “Aye.”

  “What if I could get you sent back here?”

  Arika shook her head. “Your bastard lover wouldn’t allow it.”

  “He will if he finds out you saved me from whatever fate Naamah has in store for me.”

  At the mention of the succubus’s name, Arika’s heavy-lidded eyes widened. “She’s here?” Her face filled what could only be fan-girl awe. “Here at Tearmann?”

  “She was. She left me here hours ago so my guess is she went after Randon,” Kenzi answered.

  The big rubbery lips made a raspberry. “What would a goddess like her see in an asswipe like the Nightwind?” she challenged. “He’s got a tree limb up his butt.”

  “Randon and Darkyn are trying to stop her from getting hold of something called Hades’ Key. They—”

  A wild shriek nearly pierced Kenzi’s eardrums as the baginis backed away with her hands up as though to keep Kenzi from attacking her. The red mane whipped side to side as Arika shook her head in denial.

  “No, no, no, no, no! The Nikkeson cannot be set free! It will kill us all!”

  “Then help me, Arika,” Kenzi pleaded. “I think Naamah intends to use me as a bargaining chip to make Randon hand the key over to her. We can’t let that happen.”

  “No, no, no, no, no, we can’t!” the baginis cried, her body trembling. She came rushing over to the autopsy table but as soon as she got within a foot of the stainless-steel slab a bolt of electrical energy blasted her and she was knocked backward a good twenty feet to crash into the white-tiled wall hard enough to shatter two of the tiles. Her back hit the wall at the midway point and she slid down to the floor in a heap—out cold.

  “There she is.”

  Kenzi looked past the unconscious baginis to the two security guards who appeared in the doorway.

  “Whatcha doing, bag lady?” one of them smirked. “Sleeping off a rape or two?”

  The men came forw
ard to grab the baginis’s arms and lever her to her feet. Her shaggy head lolled on her chest as they pulled her away from the wall and started out of the room with her—her long toenails dragging along the floor.

  “Hey!” Kenzi yelled. “I’m over here! Please, look at me! I’m over here!”

  But she knew it did her no good. Though the baginis had, human obviously couldn’t see her.

  Whimpering with defeat, Kenzi growled like an enraged animal and cursed, trying desperately to break free of the straps that lashed her to the autopsy table.

  “Kerreyder!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Randon!”

  * * * * *

  The incubus couldn’t sleep.

  Especially not under the roof of a house Syntian Cree had once called home and from whence he had been flung back into the Abyss by a vindictive woman. Being where he was made him edgy, nervous and unable to think of anything save the betrayal of Syntian Cree.

  “Your pacing is keeping me awake,” Coulter complained. “Either park it or I’m going to hogtie your ass to the bed, demon.”

  “Were you of my race you would be uncomfortable in this mausoleum as well,” Randon snapped.

  “She’ll leave you alone,” the Gravelord told him. “She’s not as powerful as she thinks she is. Plus there are two Reapers and an archdemon who can magnify my own rather formidable powers should it be necessary to go against her.” He turned over, pounded his pillow into submission then dragged the covers over his bare shoulder. “Trust me, Kayle. She’s not going to fuck with you.” He chuckled. “At least not until the key is safe.”

  “It’s not just her that concerns me,” Randon said, loathe to admit any weakness to the Gravelord. “I’m on edge and it has nothing to do with the key. I’m worried about Kenzi.”

  “Your woman is safe,” Coulter said. “Stop borrowing trouble.”

  Yet Randon could not do so. His apprehension was like a metallic taste in his mouth. He tried reaching out to her but the witch had a spell woven around the mansion for he could not use his sight to view Kenzi or send her a message. He’d tried twice only to have Kerreyder snarl at him the last time that he too had tried and could not scry their lady.

  The witch has a cloaking spell of some sort wrapped around the house. You might as well give it a rest. I can’t get through to McKenzi, either, and I’m a helluva more potent power than you.

  “Gods, I hate witches!” he growled. “I fucking hate witches!”

  Coulter flipped over in the bed, propped himself up on his elbow and glared at him. “If you don’t sit down or lie down, I’m going to put you down,” he warned. “Are you hearing me, demon?”

  Randon shot him a look that would have felled a human but flopped down on the bed with an arm draped over his face. He was grinding his teeth so hard he knew the Gravelord could hear him but he didn’t care. He felt as though he were coming out of his own skin and he knew that was a sure sign something really bad was looming on the horizon.

  * * * * *

  Naamah stared down at Kerreyder as he slept fitfully. The covers were wrapped around his long, tanned legs, barely covered his naked hips. She smiled at the thick spread of black curls revealed just above the edge of the sheet and longed to rake her fingers through that triangular patch then grip the thick cock that sprang from it. She could almost taste him in her mouth as she watched his shaft flex with each rise and fall of his abdomen. A fierce desire to press the tip of her forked tongue into his slit made her shiver with need and it was all she could do not to fall on him, force him into submission and take what was rightfully hers.

  Instead she stood there beside the bed with her claws curled into her palms and her fangs dripping, her body on fire with wanting him.

  “Protection spell,” she mentally scoffed. “Some witch you are, Fowler. I slipped as easy as water through fingers to breach your so-called security.”

  Kerreyder sighed in restless sleep and she smiled knowingly.

  He vastly underestimated her powers and that was as it should be. Long before he was old enough to get an erection of note she had begun training him to think of her as less powerful than he. It was to her advantage he believed it for that was a major control she had over him. As long as he thought he could best her—in magic or in sex—she had the upper hand. It was always good to allow your opponent to undervalue your abilities so when the time came, their defeat was all the sweeter.

  Though she ached desperately to have him inside her mouth, inside her body, she decided to torment him instead. If she could not have him, she would cast him into a cauldron of boiling need she would make sure he could not satisfy.

  “Turn to your back,” she whispered, sending the command firmly into his sleeping mind.

  She saw him frown but he did as she ordered, turning from his hip to his back.

  “Push the covers from your body.”

  His frown deepened but he kicked the covers from his legs. His naked body—for that was how he always slept—was revealed in all its masculine beauty.

  “Spread your legs.”

  He obeyed.

  “Wider.”

  There was a moment of hesitation then his tongue slipped from his parted lips, curled over the bottom one and he moved his legs farther apart. He tucked his bottom lip between his teeth. His intakes of breath became audible.

  “Take hold of your cock.”

  He moved his hand down to his shaft and flexed his fingers around it, holding it without moving.

  “Slide your thumb to the tip.”

  A flicker of unease rippled over his face but he did as she commanded.

  “Run the pad of your thumb along the slit.”

  He obeyed.

  “Do it again and again until I tell you to stop.”

  His cock was already thickening within the confines of his hand.

  “Take you other hand and cup your sac.”

  He groaned as he did as he was told.

  “Squeeze firmly.”

  His breath was coming quicker, shallower.

  “Work you hand up and down your cock as you squeeze and release your sac.”

  His body tensed, his hips arched upward. His lips parted as he drew in ragged breaths.

  “Tighten the grip on your cock and thumb the head with each upward pass. Slowly.”

  He groaned again and his head turned slightly to one side.

  “Tighten your grip more and increase the speed of your up and down motion.” She moved closer to the bed until her thighs pressed against the edge of the mattress. Her gaze was locked on his cock.

  “Faster.”

  His breath was heavy. He growled low in his throat.

  “Harder, Kerreyder,” she ordered. “Harder!”

  His hips started to lift rhythmically with each downward tug on his flesh.

  “Faster. Stroke faster!”

  She sat down beside him. Laid her palm on his tense thigh. She circled her lips with her tongue, her eyes never leaving his taut cock.

  “Come for me, my love,” she whispered. “Come hard for me.”

  His back arched from the bed. His heels braced against the mattress as he pumped his hips upward.

  As the moment neared when she knew he was about to jettison his seed, she leaned over him.

  “Remove your hand!” she hissed. “Move it!”

  He obeyed and she took his burgeoning cock deep into her mouth and began to suck the cum from his shaft, slurping like a starving woman at a feast.

  He cried out as she drew painfully on his flesh but he did not awaken from the spell under which she’d placed him. He gathered fistfuls of the sheet in each hand and pulled, his body going rigid as spike after spike of intense pleasure throbbed from his balls, struck through his cock and exploded into her eager, ravaging mouth. His balls tightened and he opened his mouth to gasp in breath, panting, moaning. When she’d taken the last drop of seed from his flesh, he collapsed on the bed like a broken doll with the side of his face pressed tightly to the
pillow. His entire body was covered with sweat.

  Naamah let his depleted cock slip from her mouth and straightened up. Daintily wiping the edges of her lips with her middle finger then licking away the wetness that clung to the tip, she stared down at her victory.

  “You belong to me, sweet cocksman.”

  She got up from the bed and turned to go but stopped. She faced him again, leaned over and drew the sharp nails of her left hand down his thigh—leaving five long, deep furrows in his flesh. Watching the blood well around the gouges, she smiled.

  “And don’t you ever forget it.”

  * * * * *

  Viraiden Cree woke from a bad dream he couldn’t quite recall. As lightning strobed at the window, he cursed the rain and the pressure on his bladder. Swinging his legs from the bed he frowned and turned to look at Darkyn Sorn. The young Panthera Reaper was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Grinding his teeth, the Alpha had a fleeing desire to snatch the pillow from under the little Reapling’s head and smother him with it.

  “Or stuff it down his throat,” he mumbled as he made his way to the door.

  He didn’t need a light to guide him for his Reaper sight was that of a wolf’s in the dark. He went unerringly to his destination and opened the door in time to see a beautiful woman floating through the door behind which the archdemon slept. He blinked, lifted his eyebrows then stared at her as she turned to face him.

  “Reaper,” she said, her voice low and throaty.

  “And you are?” he asked, a frown furrowing his brow.

  She took a few steps toward him. “I can be anything you want me to be,” she whispered.

  Cree stiffened for the scent of succubus reached his nostrils. “I want you out of my way,” he said for she was between him and the bathroom.

  “Mayhap the feeling in your cock isn’t piss needing to be spent but cum needed to be sucked,” she said, taking another step. “I would be more than happy to rid you of it.”

  “Hag, I’ll be more than happy to piss down your throat if you don’t step aside,” he growled.

  She lifted her chin, her eyes flaring. “Do you know to whom you speak in such a disrespectful manner?” she demanded.