Inching out from under her, he settled her on the bed and covered her. Then he stood, slipped into his jeans and strolled over to the door. Outside the hotel room, he leaned back on the wall and ran a hand through his tussled hair with his eyes closed. This situation should not upset him. It’s what he wanted, what he had intended from the start. To betray Gethin, to get Kai for himself, for his cause.
“To open the barrier,” he muttered.
“To allow underworld creatures to come freely into the human world.”
Donovan opened his eyes. Gethin stood before him.
“So you’ve caught up to us. I hoped for more time.”
Gethin shrugged. “You’ve done what I intended, to ditch you and take the girl. She belongs to me, Donovan. You should give her up now. After all, your power is virtually non-existent next to hers. Next to mine.”
“I’ll protect her with my life.” His heroic utterance sounded lame in his own ears. He wasn’t surprised when Gethin burst out laughing. “I have centuries of knowledge I can share with her.”
His enemy chuckled again. “Yes, you can teach her how to betray one’s family. Did you tell her how you killed your cousin to be head of your family, Donovan?”
“You did that!” Donovan’s stomach turned at the memory of all he had been involved in, at all he regretted.
“Yes,” Gethin agreed. “But you set him up for me. Did you tell her that all creatures from the underworld are basically evil? That you are no different? Did you tell her the consequences of your dream? Letting loose your evil family among innocent humans, those she chose to live among as a human. Only by defeating her father, the great Ove, can the barrier be taken down. A green girl like Kai could never kill a demon of his power.”
“If that’s the case, then what do you want with her?” Donovan countered. His confidence that the spell holding Gethin outside of the wall around their hotel room was faltering. He sensed the shield was weakening. And when it came down, there was nothing he could do to stop Gethin. The bastard was right. Donovan’s power was limited.
Gethin tested the wall, pushing against the invisible force holding him back. His fingertips flashed blue, and he winced in pain before drawing back. “I want her for the same reason you do, to train her to use her abilities, to one day kill Ove.”
A gasp sounded behind Donovan. “Kill Ove?” Kai stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock and fear.
Fuck! “Kai, listen,” he began.
She slapped his hand. “Get the hell away from me, Donovan. You’re no different from him.”
Her words were a punch in his gut. “Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing for you to explain!” she screamed. “I just want to get the hell out of here! I’m beginning to think that thing I killed just wanted to save me from you and your friend, here! No, don’t say a word. I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.”
She was so agitated, her skin began to darken again, turning crimson. Small blackening holes appeared in the sheet she had wrapped around herself. She saw it and ran into the room, slamming the door behind her. He reached for the knob and heard her scream. By the time he got the door open, she was gone.
* * * *
“Mitzi!” Kai cried. “Where did you come from?”
“Shh,” her friend whispered. “They’ll hear us and know we’re still here. Let them leave, and then we’ll get out of here on our own.”
Kai stood still with Mitzi stretched out around her in the form of a column at the corner of the room. The woman was amazing and had come in the knick of time to help. Kai hoped both Gethin and Donovan thought she had somehow been snatched by a demon or something, transported back to the underworld. That way Gethin wouldn’t use his magic to track her down, and Donovan would just check out of the hotel.
The two men argued, and Gethin stormed out of the room. Donovan moved to the bed, picked up her blouse and sniffed it with his eyes closed. His cock hardened, pushing out his jeans at the front. Somewhere above Kai’s head, Mitzi giggled. Kai bit her lip. Donovan must be remembering their time together. Whether they both had different goals or not, they meshed well. At least physically. She would miss him. And here she was having to start over looking for a lover when this mess was behind her. She didn’t want to. She wanted Donovan.
Her lover left the room and locked the door behind him. She and Mitzi held their position for while longer, and then Mitzi slowly reformed her body. Kai watched in awe as Mitzi’s arms narrowed from the off white flat imitation of a wall to the normal thin limbs of a shape-shifter. Mitzi’s grinning face appeared before her, a head shorter.
“It still amazes me how you can do that,” Kai told her, “Stretching all the way up to the ceiling like it’s nothing.”
Mitzi shrugged. “It is nothing.” Her smile faded. “I have to tell you something, what I should have told you from the beginning.”
Kai groaned. “Not more secrets and plots? Can I handle anymore? My life has already been turned upside down.”
“Well, you should know. It might threaten our friendship even further.”
With a sigh, Kai spun away and headed toward the bed, then stopped. “I have no clothes. Donovan took them.”
Mitzi slipped out of her skirt and blouse and handed them over. Kai blinked when her friend reformed her slender figure to look like she was dressed in slacks and a close fitting blouse. If she could do that all the time, Kai didn’t know why she would bother buying clothes.
Kai took the offering and forced her bigger figure into the blouse and skirt. They would have to do until she found something else. “You haven’t seen Bevin have you?” she asked.
“No, I’m afraid Ove called him off you.”
“So it’s true?” Despair hit. Her father really did want her caught . . . or killed. He wanted her in the underworld. What else was true that Donovan had told her or that she had overheard from Gethin? “So what do you have to tell me? Just get it over with.”
They peeked out the curtain at the window, and when the area looked clear, stepped outside. Mitzi had a cheap rental car waiting. And soon they had pulled out onto the highway. Kai glanced at her watch. Three in the morning. She yawned as if her body had just now figured out she should be asleep.
Mitzi chewed her lip until it bled and then spoke. “Donovan is my cousin.”
“What!”
“Yes, third cousin actually.” Kai noted the bitterness come into her friend’s face. “He became leader of my family when my brother was killed a few months ago.”
Kai gasped. She wasn’t about to admit what she had heard Gethin say, that Donovan had set Mitzi’s brother up so Gethin could kill him. She closed her eyes. “I should no longer be surprised. I didn’t know you had a brother or any family. Donovan gave me the impression that his . . . your people are not allowed to leave the underworld.”
Mitzi nodded. “Not without the demon lords’ say so.” She flipped the lever to turn on her signal for switching lanes, although there was no one else out on the road. “There’s more.”
“Of course.”
“Fifteen years ago, Ove found out about the potential to use you, but only if you manifested a demon side. You had great potential, but you showed no signs. At the time, I was begging for permission to live up here. In order to do so, I had to agree to become your friend, to watch you and report back to him if you manifested any gifts.”
“Pull over,” Kai screamed. “Let me the hell out of this car! A spy? You’ve got to be kidding me! Pull over, damn it!” Mitzi kept trying to explain, so Kai reached across, grabbed the steering wheel and yanked hard.
The car swerved back and forth over the highway as they fought.
“Kai, let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain!” Kai jabbed her foot onto the break, and the tires screeched. They were thrown forward against the seat belts and slammed backward. Kai forced the car in park, unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out of the car. She ran along the highway with tears s
treaming down her face.
She heard a growl behind her and looked back to find both car doors open, the hazard lights flashing and Mitzi in cougar form chasing her. Kai ran faster. With no forethought, she aimed a hand back behind her, and flames of fire shot from her fingers. Mitzi leaped and rolled out of the way. Her piteous roar sounded like a plea, but Kai kept moving.
Exhausted and losing speed, Kai turned one ankle in the ditch along the side of the road and tumbled down it. Mitzi pursued her. Huge paws with claws that looked like they could rip her to pieces landed on Kai’s chest. Her body temperature rose. Her skin turned red. She felt an itch in her hair and reached up to investigate. Horns!
“I’ll burn you alive, Mitzi,” she threatened. “Get the fuck off me.”
Mitzi changed back to her human form but rested on Kai’s hips, holding Kai’s hands above her head. “Please listen to me. I love you, Kai. You’re my best friend, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you’re upset. You’re scared.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
Mitzi rolled to the side of Kai but watched her with caution in her eyes. “I know this has all been sudden, and it’s scary. I wouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t report on you at all. But Donovan did tell me he would be at the party and that I could not warn you about who he was. I had no choice. He is the head of my family. I had to obey.”
Kai had heard of the hierarchy of the underworld, how all people, no matter what their background or gifts bowed to the demon lords, and then beneath them, it went on in ranks. The head of a family made the law for that family, and everyone in a particular family had better obey or face death. They were all evil, and she wanted nothing to do with them, including Mitzi. Too bad it hurt like hell to lose the one person she had been able to confide in all these years, the one person who had made Ove’s rejection tolerable.
“You realize that you’ve disobeyed your leader by helping me, Mitzi?”
Her friend nodded with a slight grin. “I’ll be sent back to that dark world and probably be put to death.”
“Dramatic much?” Kai knew it wasn’t drama. She shuddered thinking of it. “Now what? Donovan had claimed to be taking me to some demon who could train me on the off chance I’d develop enough to challenge Ove.” She rolled her eyes.
Mitzi gasped. “Brenton! Of course. I should have thought of that. He lives in the human world. Come on. We’ll go to him. Donovan will never think we would go there. We’ll show them all. You’ll kill them all, and you and I will rule both worlds.” She giggled and stood. Kai thought maybe the girl had snapped, but followed her anyway. She had no other choice. Either she would get strong and defend herself or she’d get caught in the middle of a tug of war between the factions. None appealed to her. Somehow it had to work out, and it was time to let go of her girlish fantasies of being accepted and make it on her own.
Chapter Fifteen
“Kai!” a voice called to her.
She opened her eyes in the darkness of the room Brenton had given to her. After a long three days of his working her until her muscles ached and her head felt like it would split, Kai wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next fifteen hours. Instead, someone was calling her name. And worse, it seemed she couldn’t resist the call.
Coming to a sitting position, she threw back the covers, or intended to. Her legs moved past the blankets, and she slipped to her feet, but in looking back, fear clutched at her throat. She still lay in the bed asleep.
Her hands were transparent at first and then solid. She reached out to the figure lying in the bed who looked like her, hair all over her head and tangled. Her fingers passed through herself into the bed and then out again.
“Okay, I’m dreaming,” she whispered to the quiet room. “Weird dream. Or I’m overtired.”
“Kai, come to me.”
She gasped and looked around the empty room. This time she recognized Donovan’s voice, and wherever he was, he was calling her. Try as she might, she couldn’t get back into her body or ignore him. On instinct, she walked toward the door, but instead of opening it, she passed through. Then time and space sped up and contracted. She was aware of passing over a great distance in seconds, yet not knowing how she was doing it, and fearing that she wouldn’t be able to stop.
There he was, Donovan, sitting on the side of a bed holding the spell book in his hand. He glanced up, an expectant look on his face. “You took your time.”
“I . . .” She glanced around. They were in a hotel room. She wasn’t aware of coming through the door. In fact, she was sure she hadn’t. “You called me. How?”
He stood and faced her, tossing the book aside. For a moment, she thought he would walk over to her or meet her half way across the space between them. He held up his hand and crooked a finger toward her. She wanted to resist but found she couldn’t. Drifting over the floor, she moved to within an inch of him and looked up into his handsome face, half shadowed in the darkness.
He ran a hand down her bare arm, his fingertips skimming her tender skin and sending chills over her body. “Didn’t you realize?” he asked her. “If you know a demon’s name, you can call him . . . or rather her . . . to you. If you know the words to say, you can make her stay forever.”
His lips slanted across hers. When she needed to be, she was as solid as she was in her body. He crushed her against his chest, slid his hand lower to squeeze her ass. She whimpered in his hold, strained inside for more. At last, he drew back.
She would have slapped his face, but hesitated since she wasn’t sure how this out of body experience worked. “I am not yours to command,” she snapped.
“Aren’t you?”
“No! You’re a liar.” She turned to go, but he held onto her arm. “I’m leaving. Play with yourself.”
“I’d rather have you play with me.”
He pulled no punches. That was for sure. He said what he meant, and left the flowery words for lovers who had never pleased her anyway. She didn’t say a word but didn’t make a move to leave either.
“I can make you stay.”
She glanced up at him. “You would do that?”
He turned and sat down on the bed, flipped his legs up and tucked his hands behind his head. “Wherever your body is, were you enjoying yourself as much as you could be here with me?” He shifted his gaze to the window and back to her. “Until just before the sun rises, you and I, here.”
“Our dispute on hold? No Ove, no Gethin?” she asked.
He nodded.
Kai moved closer. She dropped her gaze to her body and was amazed that her nightgown disappeared. In looking up, she caught Donovan waving his hand to the side as if he had caused her to be exposed. She’d underestimated him, or maybe that’s what he had intended all along.
With her knee between his legs, she wondered what else he could do. She traced the contours of his thighs, thrilling at the muscle tensing beneath her touch and the silken dark curls she skimmed over. Could he control fire like he seemed able to control her? Could he suppress her abilities with the same ease that he brought them to the foreground?
“You are mine, Kai,” he told her like he was reporting on the weather. “Come here and please your man.”
“You don’t deserve me!” Her mouth at the base of his cock, she flicked her tongue out and licked. He stroked her hair, catching his breath.
“Take me into your mouth, Kai,” he demanded, although not unkind. “Suck me.”
She parted her lips and took the bulbous head deep. Her moan was unintentional, ripped from her at his flavor. She loved it, refused to think she could love him. And why should she? He only wanted to use her, to gain pleasure from her, to use her power and then what?
Drawing back, she pulled on his shaft, stroked it until it widened beneath her fingers and spilled salty precome into her mouth. She licked the head producing a groan from him. She should tell him what to kiss, but she couldn’t st
op kissing his stiff erection. Sliding her hand down between her legs while she worked him, she came to her swollen bud and began to play with it. So wet, her fingers were soon coated with her own come, and she dipped farther inside herself.
“Ah,” she breathed.
He grinned. “Hey, do you need to be alone with your pussy? I thought you were pleasing me?”
Not for a second did she stop the slow strokes in and out of herself. And watching Donovan, seeing his soft, curved lips, so much thicker than any man she had been with, she imagined him with his mouth pressed between her legs. His long, broad tongue would snake up her opening and scoop out her cream.
She clenched his cock in her hand and cried out at the vision she drew in her mind. Donovan’s eyebrows dropped low on his forehead, and his eyes turned almost black. He lifted a hand, palm facing her, and the hand she had tucked between her legs lifted against her will. Without touching her, he forced her to push her fingers into his mouth so that he sucked the come from them.
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