by Brenda Huber
He carried her to the closed door.
“Put me. Down.”
Bracing her, alarmed by the way she swayed on her feet, Xander sent up a prayer for the strength to protect her and the power to get her through this. Her face was as pale as the plaster dust clinging to her hair. But her jaw clenched with determination. In a reedy voice, she recited the incantation to lower the enchantments. At the same moment, she kicked one of the stones on the floor away with her bare foot, winced. Swearing out loud, Xander swept her up into his arms once more.
She’d been hurt. Again.
Just once. Was it too damned much to ask that one prayer be answered?
Dashing through the doorway, he swept the room. Bed. Dresser. Closet. Desk.
Lifting a trembling arm, Kyanna pointed at the desk. Xander rushed across the room and lowered her only enough for her to snatch up a slim, aged leather book. Clasping the book tightly to her chest, she curled into him.
“The stone,” she whispered. He could barely hear her above the growing whoosh of crackling fire.
“Stone? You have the scrolls. I have to get you out of here. Don’t worry about some damned rock.”
She began fighting him, wiggling to be set free. “Need. The. Stone.”
Damned obstinate woman. “Where?”
“Office.” She was wheezing, inhaling too much smoke. Worry coiled around him, squeezing till he could hardly breathe himself.
“No time. Have to get you out of here.”
“The stone. Must get.” She began thrashing again. Coughed so hard she gagged.
“Okay. Okay.” He forcibly stilled her. His injured hand, where it hooked beneath her knees felt as if it were on fire. Dipped in Ralsha venom.
The building groaned around them, a God-awful sound that Xander felt to the depths of his soul. Whatever was going on, this building wouldn’t take much more. Clutching her tightly against his chest, curling himself around her as best as he could, Xander hurdled the flaming beam in the living room, and flew down the stairs, his bare feet hardly touching a single step.
At the entrance to the office, he froze. The room was engulfed in flames. A complete inferno.
Once more, she began struggling. “Have to—”
“Leave it,” he said, turning away. “Lower the enchantments.”
“No. Sworn to—protect the—stone,” she panted, shoving at his shoulder in a desperate bid to free herself. “Have to—” Coughing wracked her body, and still she fought.
Letting out a furious roar, he gently lowered her to her feet and braced her against the wall. He gripped her shoulders. “What’s the stone look like?”
“Long. Cylindrical. Dark reddish.” He remembered the rock she’d threatened him with that first time they’d met. “Desk.”
“Stay here,” he barked. Then, after pressing a fleeting kiss to her forehead, he turned to confront the conflagration.
Drawing in a ragged breath, raising one arm to shield his face, he threw himself through the doorway. Voracious flames licked greedily at him. Heat seared his skin. Black smoke curled through the white-hot, raging inferno. The scent of singed hair rolled his stomach. Blisters erupted across his flesh.
Sweeping burning ledgers from the desktop, he frantically searched for the rock. The skin on his forearms cracked in the heat, splitting open. He ripped drawers from the desk and rifled through them before dropping them to the floor. And then came a deafening bang. The building shuddered as if it were a living thing about to die. Xander’s chest heaved. If the building started to collapse, could he get to her in time? He’d nearly made up his mind to say the hell with the damned rock and force her to open the enchantments when he jerked another drawer open. It was heavier than the others. Something rolled, clunking against the side.
Too late did he recall the damage that her precious ward stones had done to his hand.
Bracing himself for a fresh round of pain, he reached in and grasped the stone.
Kyanna blinked at the bright flames filling the doorway as the haze in her brain slowly cleared. Oh God. She’d sent him in there? What had she done? Tears poured down her face. How could she have put something else, an inanimate object, above Xander’s life? It didn’t matter what that stone was—what it was supposed to be capable of. Nothing was worth losing Xander.
The building shuddered. Her legs shook beneath her. The wall behind her, the one she was leaning on, began to buckle. A triumphant Xander burst from the flaming room, the stone clutched in his hand. He ran to her, thrust the stone into her hands and swept her up in his arms, barking, “Lower them. Now!”
More grateful than words could express, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. He’s alive! He survived!
An entire wall collapsed in a shower of roaring flames less than fifty feet away.
“Kyanna!”
“Sheptaé cali hwez.” She rushed to lower the enchantments and set them free. Syllable after syllable spilled forth.
The instant the enchantment dropped, horrific looking creatures began pouring into the building from every direction. Dozens of them. Terrifying screeches and hissing filled the room. And there in her arms, Xander morphed into the nightmare from the alley. His body growing taller, bulking up with bulging muscle, right beneath her hands. His skin turned blood-red. Wicked black horns sprouted from his head, and razor-sharp onyx claws sprang from the tips of his fingers. He roared. Jagged teeth filled his mouth. His chin and ears drew to points. And his eyes glowed, blazing-red.
But she clung to him and prayed there was still some semblance of the man she’d come to know buried in there somewhere.
A lethal plasma ball hurled from one of the monsters near the doorway. Xander juggled her, tucking her against his side while the other hand lifted, palm out. He caught the plasma ball in his hand like a baseball, then slowly closed his fist, extinguishing the pulsing sphere of raw heat.
“Cantartu eti zyph shamwin morte!” Xander’s voice was layered now, and so deep. As if many voices spoke at once. And this time, the words shivered through her in the language she understood. The language of the angels. “Come and dance with death,” he’d said.
As Xander spoke, many of the demon intruders shrank back. Fear radiated from them, a palpable thing. Until one stepped forward, regal as a king. He looked like a walking corpse, dressed in medieval garb. Extremely tall. Emaciated, gray flesh. Long, red dreadlocks knotted wildly around his head, and soulless black eyes.
Lifting his arms, he began a low chant. The intonations similar to those issued by Xander. A huge boom echoed through the building and the whole structure rocked. The floor shook once again, more violently than before. Hardwood buckled, erupting here and there in wild sprays of splintering wood. But Xander stood firm. Walls crumbled, toppling to the floor. And Xander grinned wickedly. Tipping his head back, he laughed, taunting the invaders. The sound sent ice through her veins.
Holding his free hand out at his side, palm out, his body stiffened. Thrummed with energy. Light pulsed from his palm. Growing. Heating. Xander gave another roar, and it was if something inside him came unleashed. An unnatural evil.
She cringed and backed away. This was wrong. Something had gone very wrong inside him. But his arm tightened around her like a band of steel. Caging her to his side.
Four of the demons surrounding their dreadlocked leader exploded from within, blood and viscera splashed the room. The dreadlocked demon drew a deep breath and roared, expression livid, as though he were about to go crazy.
Screaming, Kyanna buried her face against Xander’s chest. She felt him shift, and she glanced up. He stared down at her through flame red eyes. Blinked. Frowned. There was no light of recognition. No sign whatsoever that he knew who she was, or why she was in his arms. Kyanna saw him glance down between them. She followed his gaze, assuming he was looking at the book and the stone. Panic
welled inside her. How was she to keep them safe, keep them from him, if he chose to take them by force in this state? And if he took them, then what? Would he leave her here to face her fate at the hands of these monsters alone?
But no, he wasn’t looking at the book. Or the stone.
He was staring at the generous swell of her breasts, where they all but spilled from her spaghetti strap tank. A sound rumbled up from deep in his chest. A dark, wicked purr. The rumble of a lion. Her eyes widened when she realized the bulge in his pants was swelling. Huge and rigid as steel.
“Xander.” Wedging the book more firmly between them, she lifted her shaking hand and cupped his cheek. “It’s me, Xander. Kyanna.”
Sweat trickled between her breasts, soaked the hair at her temples. The heat had become unbearable. Smoke was filling the lower floor now.
“Remember me,” she coughed. “Remember what you were sent here to do.”
His frown deepened and he shook his head as if trying to clear it. Then he drew in a sharp breath and looked around the building, took in the demons creeping steadily closer.
Kyanna was dizzy, and her vision had blurred. But suddenly, cool air washed over her. Fresh air. But Xander’s heat still surrounded her. She tipped her chin to the sky. A canopy of leaves rose high overhead. Glancing back to him, she blinked in surprise. He was human once more. But his blisters, his wounds were…gone? How? Each and every last one of them completely healed. Aside from sweat streaked soot, he was utterly unscathed.
“We can’t stop yet.” His voice was still the same though. Still rough. Still hoarse. Still Xander’s voice…no longer that deep layered voice of death. He palmed her head and gently pressed her face to his chest. His arms closed protectively around her. “Close your eyes.”
Trusting in him, too weak to argue, she did as he instructed, even as she felt the bottom of her stomach fall away again. Like that first frightening drop on a rollercoaster. Long moments later, her feet landed on solid ground, and she no longer experienced that belly dropping sensation. He immediately let go of her. Her knees wobbled.
They were in a darkened kitchen. A plain, ordinary kitchen. Nothing fancy. The scene out the window gave her pause. No houses or stores nearby from what she could see, only an old barn in the dim circle of light. The dark shadows of trees danced in the distance, beyond a meadow of gently swaying grasses and flowers. It looked like an ordinary farm.
She turned back to him. Kyanna opened her mouth to ask where they were, but he caught her by surprise. Sinking his fingers deep in her hair, cupping the back of her head, he hauled her up against him. His left arm came around her waist and his lips slanted over hers, his mouth wide and devouring. He branded her. He tasted of sultry summer nights. Of sizzling fantasies come to life. Of untamed passions and of desperation.
Over and over his tongue plunged. His body was a granite wall of need against her, around her. She melted in to him. The book in one hand, the stone in the other, she wrapped her arms around his neck and accepted him, giving everything she had to the kiss, and to him. He released her hair, his hand sliding down her back. And then his hand was on her bottom. His fingertips digging in, squeezing, guiding her, rocking her up on her tiptoes as the solid length of his erection rode against her hip.
Xander groaned into her mouth. Slanting his head again, he took the kiss deeper still. His breath became hers. His need her own. His left hand fisted in the back of her shirt. His right hand pushed up her hip, bold, possessive, until the heat of his palm cupped her breast beneath her shirt, kneaded and stroked. Her body came alive in his arms. Deep in her core, a hollow ache grew.
Xander’s hand flattened, splayed over her chest. Heat tingled there between them, just this side of pain. And he froze. Abruptly, he drew back, stepped away from her, dropping his hands to his sides. The kiss over as quickly, as impetuously as it had begun.
She staggered back without his support. Cradling the book and the stone, she caught herself on the edge of a counter. Her head was still spinning from his kiss. Alarm flared in her chest when Xander reached for the back of a chair, bracing himself, head bowed, panting.
Had he been hurt after all?
“Xander?” She moved forward, her legs slowly steadying, and stretched a hand out to him. “Where are we?” Turning her head, she peered up at him through the darkness. “Did we shimmer?”
“Sebastian!” Xander yelled, ignoring her.
Okay. So they wouldn’t be discussing that kiss either.
She stood immobile, unsure of what to do. What to say.
“What the hell, Slayer?”
Whirling, Kyanna gasped and then launched herself into Xander’s arms. A man had materialized only a few short feet from them, from completely out of nowhere. Xander tucked her to his side, but he didn’t tense, didn’t morph back into the nightmare, so she took that as a sign this might be a friend. Feeling a bit foolish, she released her death grip on him. But his arm stayed anchored around her waist so she stayed put and observed the newcomer—presumably this Sebastian that Xander had called for. He reached over and flipped on the light switch. Kyanna blinked, squinting until she became accustomed to the light.
“We came in hot.”
Sebastian’s face hardened. His body tensed, as if preparing for battle. “How many are following?”
Shaking his head, Xander took a breath and drew himself up to his full height. His face wasn’t quite so pale anymore. The lines around his eyes and mouth not so strained.
“Don’t know. We bounced first,” he replied.
“Well, if any have the balls to follow, we’ll deal.”
Giving a negligent shrug, Sebastian leaned back against the far counter, crossed his ankles, propped the heels of his palms on the granite on either side of him. Fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled. He’d materialized—shimmered, she amended—just like she and Xander had. Was this another demon then?
Xander’s friend was tall, extremely so. And very good looking. Tousled blond hair, white-blond stubble upon his jaw with a slightly longer goatee, and twinkling blue eyes highlighted a face beautiful enough to grace the cover of Maxim. His skin tone was several shades lighter than Xander’s, but his body was lean and rippling with muscle and very naked to the waist. A well defined six-pack tracked down his abdomen, disappearing into the unbuttoned waistband of his jeans, tempting the lips to follow. He was sexy in a boy-next-door kind of way…provided your boy-next-door was the hunky stuff of highly erotic movies.
But something about the way he carried himself, something about the set of his jaw and the glint in his eyes screamed hazardous to your health. Strap a fur pelt and thick leather wristbands on him, put a battle ax in one hand and a shield in the other, and you had every woman’s fantasy of a Nordic conqueror come to life.
“Put on a shirt,” Xander growled.
“You put on a shirt.” Seemingly unaffected by Xander’s hostile attitude, Sebastian checked her out, appraising her with undisguised interest. His intrigued stare lingered on Xander’s arm, the arm that even now tightened possessively, pulling her closer into his side. Sebastian’s eyes gleamed as he pushed away from the counter. Holding his hand out, he offered her a broad, sultry smile.
“Hel-lo, beautiful.”
Xander snarled. He actually bared his teeth and snarled.
“Shirt, Vengeance. Now.”
He didn’t wait for her to shake Sebastian’s hand. Instead, he marched past Sebastian and through a doorway, pushing her ahead of him.
She gasped and scolded, “Xander.”
On his way by, Xander snapped, “Sebastian, this is Kyanna. Kyanna, meet Sebastian, the Demon of Vengeance.”
Sheesh. They were obviously going to have to work on more than “please” and “thank you.”
“Nice to meet you, Sebastian,” she called over her shoulder.
“Right back at ya, gorgeous.
Make yourselves at home.”
Kyanna surveyed the living room. Decorated with hunting-cabin flair, the area was cozy. A fire crackled to life in the fireplace. The overhead light blinked on. She allowed Xander to guide her to a long, plaid sofa. He sat down in the middle, then pulled her down beside him, making certain there wouldn’t be room for anyone else on her other side. She tucked the book and the stone between them. In some ways, it comforted her, this possessive attitude of his. But it was also mildly irritating.
He was blatantly giving Sebastian the wrong idea about them.
But why?
As he sat down in an armchair near the fire, a shirt suddenly appeared upon Sebastian’s person. A neon pink, puff-sleeved, silk shirt. With a ruffled collar. Kyanna blinked.
Whoa. How?
“Harsh, dude.” Sebastian chuckled, glancing down.
He dropped his ankle on his knee and settled back in the chair. The pink shirt became a plain, white muscle shirt. Kyanna gaped. She glanced to Xander, who was now wearing a V-necked T-shirt.
Where’d that come from?
And then suddenly she, herself, was wearing different clothing. Gone was the smoke-stained, sweat-drenched spaghetti strap tank. Gone were her baby-blue, cloud patterned PJ bottoms with the draw-string waist. In their place, she wore baggy—ugly—dark blue sweatpants and an oversized matching sweatshirt. She even had a bra on now. Admittedly, the sweats were far more comfortable than the revealing PJ’s, particularly considering the way Sebastian’s gaze kept sliding to her chest. But this was the very definition of overkill. The only way she could be better covered was if she were wearing a snowmobile suit. Or a nun’s habit.
“You know, Slayer, you’re a real prude.” Sebastian shook his head, clearly disappointed.
Sebastian seemed so normal. Had the book been wrong about everything?
Kyanna was seized with a bout of coughing, remnants of smoke inhalation, no doubt. A glass of water suddenly appeared on the coffee table in front of her. Without thinking, she picked it up and chugged. And then it clicked. Something else had just appeared from out of nowhere. She had to force the last swallow down.