Manaconda

by Sherri L. King

  “I almost forgot, Desondra brought this when she came for Armand.” Sid’s deep, sexy voice snapped Cady out of her wandering thoughts.

  She reached for the piece of folded parchment he held out for her. “Ah.” She nodded when she realized what it was. “I’d meant to ask you about this earlier.”

  It was the main reason they were going up to the surface world, this piece of parchment. Or rather, what was written on it.

  “Let’s see…Edge wants some peaches, Emily wants some new handcuffs—how the heck am I going to find ‘official police handcuffs’? Steffy wants some hot dogs and the new Hooverphonic cd, Cinder wants some clove cigarettes and,” she paused, incredulous, “a DVD of The Three Stooges. You gotta be kidding me. No wonder the generators keep running out of fuel…Steffy and Cinder are hooking up goodness knows how many devices to ‘em.”

  Sid only chuckled and buckled up his knee-high, oxblood boots.

  “Where was I? Hmm…Desondra wants chocolate, Agate wants—oh lord—fuck-me-pumps!” Cady laughed over that last request on the list. She looked up at Sid, whose Shikar-yellow eyes were wide with avid curiosity over such a request. “She actually wrote ‘fuck-me-pumps’ on here. The woman never ceases to surprise me.”

  “I can only imagine where—or from whom—she learned of those,” Sid rolled his eyes comically. “Grimm bless her, she is always looking for something new to inspire her designs.” Both Sid and Cady had, on numerous occasions, taken great joy in testing out those designs.

  “Yes. Our own resident sex toy and lingerie designer, dear Agate. I just know she’s going to drive one lucky man crazy someday. I’ll bet you anything, once she’s found her mate, she’ll constantly want to use him for ‘research’.” Cady’s laughter subsided into chuckles.

  “If only all warriors could be blessed with a woman so seriously devoted to the joys of physical pleasure.” Sid leered wickedly at her.

  Cady stuck her tongue out at him cheekily before folding up the list and tucking it into a pocket at her hip. “Well, are we ready to go?”

  “Let’s get this party on the road.”

  Cady laughed. “You said that all wrong. You should’ve said, ‘let’s get this party started’, or ‘let’s get this show on the road’. One of these days, Sid, I’m going to have you using slang properly, like any other American.”

  “I use these ‘slangs’ plenty, but only when you are conveniently absent.” He tugged playfully on her long, dark braid.

  “Jerk,” she snorted. But she couldn’t contain the warmth she knew was flooding her eyes. Goodness, but he was a handsome devil—even when he was teasing her so mercilessly.

  “Yes, but I am your jerk, and that makes it all better.” He winked at her and took her hand. “Hold on, love,” he murmured, and the world disappeared.

  When the darkness of nothing flared back into the light of substance they were standing in a wooded thicket of pine trees. Cady immediately recognized the terrain as that of the lands surrounding her former home. She had planned to come here tonight, before moving on to the nearest town in which she felt sure she wouldn’t be recognized, but now…she wasn’t certain why she’d wanted to come and see this place again. It brought with it such painful memories, this old home of hers.

  The very same home that the Daemons had burned down…but that violence was done, and she hardly dwelled on the loss of the home in which her grandparents had raised her. Not anymore. She had a new family now, a new life as a Shikar warrior…but there was a suspicious pang in the vicinity of her heart as she looked about her at the land that was at once familiar, and yet so very strange now that she was no longer a part of it.

  She hadn’t expected to feel so strongly about this place…even after so long a time as five years. But then, time to a Shikar—as she was now—was reckoned differently than time to a human. Shikars lived such very long lives. Five years had passed by so quickly for her, more quickly than she had realized before coming here tonight, and all the pain and loneliness she’d experienced in this place still seemed fresh and raw in her heart.

  “You miss this place, despite your unsavory memories.” As always, Sid seemed easily capable of reading her thoughts. “And it pains you.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, drawing closer to him. “But never so much as now that I’m actually standing here in person. I wanted to come and see it so badly…”

  “This is the only real visit you have had here since becoming one of us. Perhaps now that the wars are over we can visit more often—”

  “No.” Cady stopped him, turning and placing a soft hand upon his mouth. She looked deeply into his eyes—those glowing eyes she loved so much, since she’d first seen them shining out from the dark shadows of her living room—feeling her aching memories subside and fill with the warmth of his presence. She lowered her hand and rested it upon the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. “No. This place isn’t my home anymore. It hasn’t been for a long, long time. Even before you came for me…I wasn’t a part of this land. I’m not sure I ever really was.”

  “You have always been a warrior. That kept you apart from other humans, through no fault of your own. From the moment you saw Daemons killing your parents and brother, your life changed irrevocably into a mad race of fighting and survival. But that is not so terrible or lonely an existence now, is it? Now that you belong to us, to our world? Now that you know and understand your strength and power? Now that you are not so alone?”

  “Everything is perfect, and will always be perfect, so long as you’re with me,” she said at length, and meant every word of it.

  Sid grunted, but despite the show of his seemingly endless male arrogance, Cady knew he was very pleased with her answer.

  “And what about you?” she asked. Broaching a subject she hadn’t dared to in the past few months for fear of upsetting her love.

  “What about me?” he returned. Stubbornly feigning ignorance, even though he knew full well what she meant.

  Cady twisted her lips and trudged on. “How is it for you now that the Horde wars are pretty much over? You’ve been fighting your whole life, born into the war that your parents and their parents before them were born into. Now that it’s over, what will you do?”

  There was a hunted look in his eyes then, a second and no more, before he masked that all-too-telling reaction to her words. He didn’t want to talk about it, it was clear by the look in his eyes. But Cady knew now what she’d been fearing for months—that Sid was indeed cut adrift, almost without purpose since the fighting had ended. He was a warrior through and through and it was in his will and in his blood to fight. To triumph over their enemies, the evil and hated Daemons. Now there was no great war to wage, no battles to engage…nothing that was familiar to him.

  How could he stand it? And she, fighting the same foes since she’d turned sixteen, how would she cope now? How could either of them survive this time of…peace?

  How could any of the Shikar warriors learn to live a life that no longer involved such danger and death, now that a centuries-old war was finally ending?

  “I do not wish to think on such dark thoughts now,” he said flatly.

  “We need to talk about it soon, Sid. You can’t just ignore this. Now that you aren’t fighting every hour of every night, you need to think about where to direct your gifts as a leader of men.”

  “I know what you are insinuating, my love. But I will not join the Council. Only the older warriors, who have finished with their battles, belong on the Council.”

  Cady sighed. “That’s the way things used to be. But everything has changed now. The Council will need young men like you to lead the Shikar race into a new era—”

  “There are still a few battles yet to fight. It may have been almost a year since a Daemon strike, but there are still some stragglers left wandering—you can trust in that. We’ll decide what to do when all the Daemons have been exterminated—all of us. Cinder and Steffy, Edge and Emily—we are still a team, and we ne
ed to decide what to do as a team.”

  “I know that, Sid.” She answered as patiently as she could—which wasn’t very much…she wasn’t known for her patience, after all. “But you need to give all this some thought before going to them. You are their leader—they’ll look to you for guidance above all things. You need to have some idea of where to go in the end.”

  “Bah. Let us forget this sightseeing business and get our shopping done, woman,” he said, in desperate effort to drop the subject. He grabbed her hand once more and tugged her along behind him. She was a small woman—barely over five feet tall, compared to his nearly seven foot height—and it was all she could do to keep up with his long-legged strides as they trudged through the shadowy forest towards the town.

  “Sid, slow down.” She grunted as she stubbed her booted toe on a jutting rock. “We can’t go into Lula, someone is bound to recognize me.”

  He stopped so abruptly that she slammed into him. It was only his quick reflexes that kept her from falling as he reached out and held her steady. “I forgot,” he admitted with a chagrined flash of blazing white teeth.

  “Well, go on then,” she said, softening her tone, knowing he was still unsettled by their conversation. “Travel us there.”

  “Are you sure you want to visit Gainesville? I could take you anywhere, you realize. Paris, Los Angeles, Melbourne—anywhere you want to go.”

  “Yes, but the only place I can get good—really good—dark roast coffee is at the Coffee Shop of Horrors in Gainesville. And I need that coffee, Sid. I mean I really, really need it,” she warned.

  “Yes, of course. I know that, baby,” he soothed her. In fact, he knew better than anyone just how much she needed that boost of energy in the early hours when their energetic son woke them from their slumbers. Cady wasn’t a morning person in the best of circumstances, but the coffee definitely helped. He wasn’t about to come between her and her bean-juice fix.

  “And I know where everything is in Gainesville, or I used to. I grew up around that city. Everything but Emily’s handcuffs should be easy enough to come by there, even Squaker’s senior formula cat food.” Squaker was her beloved cat, older now and living in the world of the Shikars, but still very picky about his brand of grub, and Cady wasn’t about to disappoint him.

  “Then Gainesville it will be, my love.” Sid took her hand, brought it to his mouth for a kiss, and they Traveled for the second time that evening. And though the world disappeared around them, they held on to each other so tightly, not even an army could have separated them.

  Chapter Two

  “Sid, put that down,” Cady hissed.

  “I can think of many uses for this,” he mused, fingering the long, leather whip almost lovingly.

  “Think all you want, but we ain’t gonna buy it.”

  “I think we should,” he insisted, piling the now coiled length of the whip onto the two shoeboxes he already held.

  “Well I don’t think we should,” Cady gritted.

  A look of stubborn determination filled his eyes and twisted his lips. He looked ready to do battle over the damn whip. “We are going to purchase this.”

  Cady let out a whoosh of air and tried a different tactic. She let her eyes soften as she sidled closer to his side in the aisle of the only sex-toy shop in the city. “We came here for Agate’s sex shoes and I just don’t think we can carry all this extra stuff you keep piling on.”

  “I only purchased Squaker a few extra toys—”

  “Seven extra toys.”

  Sid glared at her for interrupting. “And a couple of boxes of Godiva chocolates for us to share, and a stun baton. That’s all.”

  Cady almost smiled at his mention of the stun baton—she’d wanted one of those for a while now. “Alright, we can buy the damn whip. But no way is it gonna find it’s way into our bedroom, buddy.”

  He frowned. “I would never hurt you with it.” He drew closer to her and lowered his voice into that soothing, magical tone that she always succumbed to in her moments of weakness. “I would make you scream…but only with pleasure.” He leaned in so that his breath tickled her ear. “Pure…unadulterated pleasure.”

  Cady shivered. “Okay,” she said shakily, “we’re definitely buying the whip.”

  Sid drew back, smiled into her eyes, and moved on to an aisle full of flavored lubricants, leaving her to stare dazedly after him.

  “How the hell does he do that,” she muttered under her breath, before tagging along after him.

  “This strawberry oil will heat when you blow upon it,” Sid declared, brandishing the jar like a trophy.

  Cady hated herself for blushing when the store’s clerk looked up and winked at her. If Sid had caught such a forward thing from another man…well, at least he could Travel them out of there if the cops dropped by.

  “Hush, Sid,” she growled, drawing up next to him so that he could better hear her lowered voice. Not that he wouldn’t have heard it anyway. He was a Shikar, and all Shikars had exceptional hearing. Sid probably could have heard her loud and clear if she’d whispered to him from the farthest corner of the room. “Keep it down, will you?”

  He only grinned.

  Cady gritted her teeth.

  “Do we have enough monies for five of these jars? They come in so many flavors, I cannot choose just one.”

  “Honey,” Cady rolled her eyes, “it’s not a matter of money. Tryton supplied us all with plenty of dough before he took off for his sabbatical. It’s more a matter of how many parcels we can carry with us back to the park, where we can blip out unseen.”

  “I think I can carry one more bag,” he said with affronted dignity.

  “I’m not saying you can’t, but can you balance it with the dozen or more others we’ve already got? It’s not a matter of strength here, but a matter of balance.”

  Obsidian snorted. “I’ve been shopping with you before, woman. I understand the mechanics of the sport.”

  Cady almost laughed, but managed to choke it back in time. It wouldn’t do to give in to him so easily again…after all, he’d denied her the sniper rifle she’d so wanted back at the hunting supply store. “Just pick one flavor and have done with it. I’m ready to go back home and…” She paused for effect before she played her trump card, a trick she knew would make him putty in her hands for the rest of the trip, “snuggle.”

  He visibly stilled. The bright glow of his eyes intensified, and Cady could plainly see the insistent rise of his shaft beneath the covering of his pants.

  “We’re going,” he snatched the jar of strawberry oil, piled it on with the rest of his purchases, and strode purposefully up to the checkout counter at the front of the shop. He looked back at her with a blazing hot gaze as the man behind the counter rung up their items. “Well come on, love, we haven’t got all night,” he commanded impatiently.

  Men, Cady thought. Shikar or human, when it all came right down to it, they were the same.

  Sid’s black trousers did very little to hide his growing desire, and the ever-growing heat in his gaze was all the warning she received. His long, nearly waist length hair whipped about him, so quickly did he snap his attention back to the shop’s clerk.

  “Where are your bathing room facilities?”

  Cady felt faint.

  “Wha-huh?” The clerk asked in obvious confusion.

  “The bath, where is the bath?” Sid was clearly growing more and more impatient with each second that passed.

  “You mean the bathroom?”

  “Yes, yes of course. Where is it?”

  “We don’t have a bathroom for public use. You’ll have to go to the gas station across the street.”

  Sid reached forward just as Cady moved to get a handle on a situation she knew could easily spiral out of control. Her hand fell on his arm as his hand latched onto the collar of the poor, unsuspecting man’s shirt.

  “Tell me where your bathroom is or I’ll beat the information—”

  “What he means to say, si
r,” Cady desperately tried to diffuse the situation, “Is that we’ll pay you three hundred bucks if you let us use the bathroom for, say, twenty minutes.”

  Sid released the man, who stepped back with mixed look of relief, incredulity, and suspicion.

  “You gonna mess anything up in there?”

  “No, sir,” Cady hurriedly assured him, doing her best to ignore the warm hand of her husband as it fell upon her backside caressingly. “In fact, we’ll pay you five hundred dollars—and you’d better make that thirty minutes,” she blushed, from embarrassment as much as arousal, knowing the clerk—unless he was unbearably dense—must have some idea by now of what they intended.

  It had to be doubly obvious, when Sid bent low and licked the corner of her mouth—he’d apparently already forgotten his displeasure with the clerk. His mind was on other, headier things. Much more pressing things, from the look of the full, heavy cock tenting his britches so demandingly.

  The man grinned lasciviously, and Cady eased, knowing everything would be alright in just a few moments. “The bathroom’s in the back.”

  Cady quickly handed him the money for their purchases, plus the five hundred she’d promised him.

  “If ya’ll mess anything up, I’m calling the cops,” the man warned, fingering the wad of twenties Cady handed to him.

  “I wouldn’t expect less of you,” Sid replied stonily, already pressing Cady towards the back of the store. “You will, of course, guard our bags while we are making use of the facilities?”

  “Sure, no problem,” the man stared with blatant curiosity after them, until the closing of the bathroom door sealed them off from his gaze.

  “Drop your leggings and bend over,” Sid commanded the very moment the door latched shut behind them.

  “Oh baby, I fucking love it when you’re impulsive like this,” Cady panted, more than eager to comply with this particular order given her.

  “You asked for this, taunting me so shamelessly. Hurry.” His hands were none too steady as he unfastened his own pants.