“Kalushia, I told you we would be a family again. If you return to Earth, my love, that must wait. I didn’t know then about this swift ascendancy of the dark forces on Earth.”
Kandace reeled, devastated. Her mother and father took hold of her arms, steadying her. Suddenly numb, she couldn’t feel her feet.
Scenes of the immediate future flashed before her mind’s eye. “Rise of the witch,” Kandace whispered. “The time has come on Earth.”
Speeding by faster, the scenes morphed and became more and more horrific. “They’re coming for us,” Kandace burst out. “The witch hunts pale in comparison.”
Her father gently hugged her shoulders. “Yes, daughter. Every witch and those humans with paranormal abilities are being targeted for capture and extermination on Earth.”
Sickened by the thought of her friends and acquaintances being rounded up, or hunted to extinction, Kandace cried out, “I must help them. I will help them. Somehow. I will.”
Almost immediately, Kandace felt another life force envelope her. Not sensing any harmful intention, she asked, Who are you?
I am Gaia. Do not let them destroy me. With her essence body, Mother Earth spiraled around Kandace. Those who would destroy you, Enduoir witch, and your kind…those of limited mind and no soul…they murder me. They murder me.
Staggered by the direct appeal, Kandace had no chance to respond. Like a brushing wind, Gaia slipped from her.
Kandace struggled to see her way clear. Thoughts and feelings whipped through her at hyper-speed with confusion leading the way.
“You must choose, my beloved daughter.”
Her mother’s voice penetrated the trance-haze around her mind. Conflicted to the max, she murmured her favorite quirky phrase. “You might as well nail Jello to the wall.”
Time wound around her, squeezing like a python. Beset by indecision and panic, Kandace covered her face with her hands.
“Oh,” she wailed. “I don’t want to leave you, mother, father. I’m home. I want to see Enduoir. I want to know what it’s like to live here. I want…”
Before she finished speaking, Kandace dropped her hands. Needing to see Zin and Zol, she gazed over her shoulder and followed the bridge’s flowing arc.
“Omygawd!” Not understanding, Kandace spun around. “What’s wrong with them?”
Zol and Zin stood waiting for her, as suavely elegant as ever. However, they appeared to be slowly vanishing. Beside them, Vresc became translucent, as well.
Fading away, she thought. They look like they’re fading away. “Unless it’s an optical illusion.”
“No, beloved, it is not an optical illusion.” Her father had spoken tenderly, but with complete seriousness.
In a state of shock, and also bewildered, Kandace asked, “Why didn’t my guaruvyr come with me?”
“Your guardian has adapted to Earth’s energy matrix and cannot return to Enduoir without your altering spell,” her mother answered.
“Goddess, no! They’re still disappearing? Are they leaving the bubble, going back to Earth’s dimension?”
“No, Kalushia. I would know if they were.”
Her mother’s quiet tone clanged like the fire alarm bells of an old movie inside Kandace’s head.
“It must have something do with their connection to you, daughter.” Her father’s hand gripped her shoulder in an effort to comfort her.
“Our bond.” Our Triad.
As she watched, Zol and Zin’s frequencies wavered. For a split second, they vibrationally phased out before reappearing.
Zin! Zol! Kandace mind-screamed.
She willed them to answer her. Zol! Zin!
She heard nothing.
Chapter Fifty-Five:
Sexcitations, Good, Good Vibrations
Oh no! They’re dying. My hellhounds.
Kandace sprinted toward Zol and Zin as they continued to phase in and out.
Why, Goddess, why? She raced down the bridge
Snatches of memory fell together like a jigsaw puzzle. Kandace recalled the hints they’d given her. For some reason she had no clue about, Zol and Zin had obviously been forbidden to tell her that if she left them, it would cause their deaths.
Kandace ran for all she was worth. Goddess, oh Goddess, what if she couldn’t reach them soon enough?
Don’t let them die. Great Goddess, no! Please!
Giant waves of darkness streamed past her unexpectedly, then became a tunnel, as if she’d breached another dimension. Yet she could still see Zin and Zol.
Instead of disappearing, and reappearing, her hellhounds remained visible now, even if they looked like ghosts.
“Zol, Zin!” she yelled. But, Kandace couldn’t hear her own voice.
Frightened by the black void closing in on her, she attempted to magickally transport herself. Her witch powers failed.
Beloved, you are moving too swiftly. Slow…
Her mother’s voice faded to silence, and Kandace heard an eerie whine. Then a grayish vibration completely surrounded her like the flip of a cosmic switch.
Sluggish in the extreme, her body barely moved. Her skin felt as if it stretched, just like images of jet pilots she’d seen at g-force.
When her bones started aching, Kandace stopped trying to move. A shroud of blackness consumed her.
It felt as if she existed inside a sort of nothingness.
Purgatory!?
No…I want my hellhounds. Zin, Zol…
With her head spinning dizzily, Kandace slumped. She couldn’t see, but her flesh had to be shriveling off her bones.
Oh, no! I am melting. I’m melting like the wicked witch.
Dropping her head back, she screamed bloody murder. She screamed for her hellhounds.
Again, Kandace didn’t hear herself. The silence tormented her.
I must be trapped by some type of containment field devoid of light and sound.
With her soul wailing in agony, she mind-shouted, Zol, Zin…please, oh, please, can you hear me? Goddess…
At the continuing silence, a smothering blanket of despair wrapped Kandace.
Daughter, her father’s voice filled her, we are resurrecting the frequencies.
Father! Kandace heard no reply.
Still, hope flared, even though her skin felt as though it had peeled off her bones. The next thing Kandace knew, her spirit floated free of her body and timelessness captured her.
Despite several desperate attempts, every bit of her magick remained useless. Kandace clung tight to her love for Zin and Zol, repeating their names like a mantra.
Slow, she heard her mother say. Enter your body slowly, my daughter.
White rays unfurled, shattering the black containment. Seeing her body directly beneath her, Kandace concentrated on joining her astral self with her flesh.
Oh, I’m whole. I’m whole. Kandace hugged herself.
“Splendiferous,” Kandace whispered, as a radiant illumination blossomed around her. When the bridge began to appear, she telepathed, Mother, Father, thank you, thank you, thank you.
You have our love always, they spoke together. Your Zol and Zin await you.
Kandace planted her foot to make certain the bridge’s surface was stable again. As she glanced upward, the sight of her solid-looking hellhounds winged a beautiful joy through her.
Vresc stood like a sentinel in front of them. His faceted eyes shone brilliant as diamonds, and Kandace was reminded of a searchlight.
Light of foot and light in spirit, she rushed toward them. Thinking Zin and Zol should be able to see her by now, Kandace waved madly.
No response.
Her hellhounds waited patiently, their devotion obvious. A match for each other, Zin and Zol stood with their hands dashingly placed inside their tux jacket pockets.
Behind them, Kandace saw a slit form in the dimensional bubble. It lengthened fast, and someone’s shoulder slid through.
“Zol, Zin, watch out!”
As she screamed another warning, her heart
threatened to pound out of her chest. Her power surged through her, sparking like fireworks.
Relieved beyond belief, Kandace shot her arm forward. Aiming, she prepared to blast the intruder.
Zin and Zol spun, halting her use of magick. With an elegant execution of martial arts, they handily dropped Major Odarran to his knees.
Busting through in pairs, the DOD team attacked, their guns firing laser pulses. Zol and Zin dodged the first volley, then took on each team, moving like James Bond in a fast-forwarded movie.
In a series of perfectly coordinated countermoves, her hellhounds dispatched their foes. Kandace watched their life force mist away. Oddly, their bodies became cubes, then vanished.
Zin flipped the mini weapon Vresc had retrieved out of his pocket. With an ultra smooth flash of his hand, he pointed it dead center at Major Stiles’ forehead.
“Mind activated, I believe,” he snarled.
With no hesitation, the Major backed away. Behind him, the conjured dimensional bubble dissolved.
Surging forward, Linda screeched like an owl demoness Kandace had heard once. The enraged sound had Zol baring his teeth.
In a split second, he glowed like fiery lava, and Kandace witnessed a red fog form around her hellhounds. One that would make Satan proud, she thought.
Zol growled as the DOD handler drew a Star Trek-looking Phaser. A split second later, a lick of flame, similar to a dragon’s, stopped just short of Linda’s face.
At the same moment, Kandace’s guardian leaped toward her. Wings outstretched, he protectively stood before her, hissing as fiercely as a fiend.
Kandace lowered her hand slightly, glad she’d been able to control her magick—just in case Zin or Zol had gotten in the way.
In slow retreat, Linda walked backward. “Hellhounds,” she sneered like a curse.
“And the day keeps on remindin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail. Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail,” Zin and Zol sang as a duo.
Hearing Robert Johnson’s iconic blues lyrics sung in a Cary Grant croon nearly had Kandace laughing. She remembered the last time they’d sung it to her, and if she hadn’t been intent on keeping her witchy powers strong, she would have cracked up.
With one eye on the invisibly trussed Odarran, she slowly approached, Vresc close to her side. Kandace summoned an energy shield as Linda marched away, stiff-legged as a drenched cat.
To her surprise, the shield surrounded a walled, romantic patio that must have been at the end of the hallway.
“Darling!” Zol and Zin spun smartly toward her, their dragony red blaze disappearing.
Kandace smiled at their enthusiasm. “My hellhounds,” she crooned, watching them fully revert to their human selves. “Ooooh, such dangerous, damn near uncontrollable beasts.”
“Damn near uncontrollable, indeed,” they chorused, causing her heart to burst with love.
The unmistakable scent of burning purple sage wafted inside her nostrils. Kandace quickly recalled them telling her it meant she would know it was truly them.
“Scent-tacular.” She inhaled deeply. “Since I know you are my hellhounds, does that mean you know I am your witch?”
“You are our one witch. You are our darling Kandy Apple.”
Their volatile-as-smoke voices thrummed her blood fast, and all Kandace wanted to do was fly into their arms. Instead, she pointed at the wolfman. “What do we do with him?”
“Freedom.” Odarran barked, his gaze beseeching her.
“Quite innocent of wanting to harm us, aren’t you?” Zin asked.
The wolfman hung his head. “I thought I could slip through and cause no damage. My deep apologies.”
The bridge, my beloved. Kandace heard her mother say. Whipping around, she saw the luminescent outline still arching skyward. Major Odarran is welcome among us. However, he has several minutes only before the unraveling.
“Odarran, do you see the bridge?” His gaze followed her arm, and he nodded half-heartedly. “If you want your freedom, you’ll charge up it. And you won’t look back.”
“Yes,” he woofed desperately.
“Unleash the wolfhound,” Zol and Zin drily crooned.
Bounding forward, Odarran ran as if her hellhounds nipped at his heels with their flaming fangs. “I hope he makes it,” she whispered.
Tears filled her eyes as Kandace spun, rushing into Zin and Zol’s arms. She threw her arms around their necks, hugging them both as hard as she could.
“Zin, Zol, why didn’t you tell me?” Trying to swallow back her torrent of tears, she choked out, “Goddess, why didn’t you tell me?”
They didn’t answer her. Instead, her hellhounds wrapped themselves around her, holding her so close Kandace was left in no doubt about their loving adoration.
When their noses nuzzled her temples softly, she bawled loudly, and clung even more tightly. “Bad, bad hellhounds,” she gurgled out.
“Kandy love,” they stereoed in her ears. “It had to be your will. Your will to be with us.”
“Oohhh,” she wailed, “that’s no explanation.”
Their low rumbly chuckles found her ears despite her sobs.
“So not funny.” Kandace sniffled, the sound very unladylike. Still, her waterworks turned off.
Zin and Zol tenderly nipped her earlobes with their teeth, then swept comforting caresses over the length of her back.
“You were fading away,” Kandace murmured, even with her raw constricted throat. “You were dying.”
“Shush, darling love. From this day forward, we’ll nuzzle you through the night.”
The virile growl of their voices set her desire ablaze. I’m embers brought to life, she thought.
Arching backward a bit, she eyed them both. “You better do more than that with those scorch-this-witch torches of yours.”
“First, we want to lick your tears away. Then, we want to lick our Kandy Apple.”
Their lava-smoldering gazes simmered her cauldron, but good. Kandace whirled so she was sandwiched between her suave hellhounds.
Feeling some of her sassitude return, she tossed her hair before reaching up to stroke their handsome jaws.
“Two, two at once. Zol, Zin,” she crooned, then realized their names were her very breath.
“Amorous intentions, indeed,” they rasped.
Their seduction tender, Zin and Zol caressed her sides, her belly, and hips. The satiny friction of the gown against her skin enhanced Kandace’s sex-licious mood.
“Hellhound kisses,” she throatily sang, pointing to her cheeks.
Bending toward her, Zol and Zin touched their tongues to her face in a tiny tease, then they lapped at her tear tracks with sensual finesse.
Kandace wanted to squirm wantonly, but kept herself still. Unable to contain herself as they slipped their tongues up her neck and beneath her chin, she did a little shimmy.
“Ooooh, sexcitations, good, good vibrations.”
“Indeed, Kandy love, you are sexcitations, good, good vibrations,” her playhounds raspy growled together.
Zol captured her chin with his finger, bringing her face beneath his. He swooped down, his mouth seizing hers in a heart-stopping kiss. Kandace grabbed his lapel to steady herself.
Once their lips separated, Zin claimed the nape of her neck. Swinging her around, he caught her lips with his. His mind-numbing kiss reeled Kandace backward emotionally, and for real.
Trapped between Zin and Zol, she didn’t lose her footing.
After a few moments of recovery, Kandace breathy murmured, “Between my handsome hellhounds, just where I want to be.”
“Always,” they chorused, melting her heart even more.
“Always, one more moon dance with you,” Zol crooned the song lyric.
Slipping his arm around her waist, he whirled her in an impromptu dance around the romantic, rose-surrounded patio. With sophisticated polish, he swung her into Zin’s embrace.
“Always, more romance with you,” Zin sang to her. He waltzed s
everal turns with her, his manner like a gallant hero.
Once she stood between her hellhounds again, Kandace stroked her palm up the lapels of their jackets. “Fantabulous, as the song says. My Zin and my Zol.”
She gazed at their faces, immersing herself in the midnight radiance of their eyes.
“Hey, you two must have fed me pomegranate seeds like Hades fed Persephone,” she teased. “When I didn’t know it. Because I never want to leave you.”
“How did you know, darling?” Zin bantered, his gaze glittering mischievously.
“Don’t tell her pomegranate doesn’t work on witches,” Zol stage-whispered, then winked at his brother.
Kandace fisted their tux jackets, “Come here, you two playhounds. Give your witch what she wants.”
“We are your devoted hellhounds,” they growled like sophisticated beasts.
Tugging them closer, Kandace kissed them each in turn, languidly plundering their sexy talented lips with hers. Soon their tongue-twining kisses made her steamy and wild with need.
Kandace drew in a ragged breath. “Before I magickally strip off your tuxes, let’s go home.”
“Home, darling Kandy Apple.” Their rough but velvety growls were music to her ears.
As Zol and Zin tucked her arms beneath theirs, she gazed at both of them. “I love you so much.”
Epilogue:
Vresc, Winged Cat Guardian
Vresc padded toward the hallway entrance to take up watch. His witch’s happiness coursed through him. He smiled from pricked ear to pricked ear, his being nourished by her essence.
Ever vigilant, Vresc sat at his tallest. Even though he was at ease, he remained ready to pounce, to ferociously attack. Also, he would make certain the shield his Kalushia had created remained strong while she enjoyed the attentions of her two canine consorts.
Vresc wished he could have assisted his witch with more of his abilities against those who had been a danger to her. Those who had tried to defile her.
Vresc didn’t doubt his Kalushia would need him in the future. Her High Powers, as they were known on Enduoir, would be a beacon to those who walked evil’s path.
Kougar, Savanna - Kandy Apple and Her Hellhounds (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 31