by Eve Langlais
Going out would mean avoiding them. He would have rolled up his sleeves if he had any because he was about to play the ultimate game. A game of dodge the electrocution.
Rushing to the door, Samael didn’t notice the body until it hurled itself into his side.
The momentum took him into the wall, and air whooshed out of him.
For a second, he sucked hard to get it back. He shoved the heavier body off him, revolted by the stink, utterly repelled by this thing. One of the Jabbas, surely a native of this place.
But it didn’t explain the eyes.
Why do I feel like I know those eyes?
“Get off me, lardo. Or I will wring your fat neck.”
He could have, he wasn’t powerless, not anymore, and yet he didn’t. And before anyone called him sentimental—I should spare my jailor because he never technically hurt me but took care of me in his rough and gruff way—yeah, that thought never entered his mind.
He kept Jabba alive because it was practical. He might need someone with answers about this place. Flipping his jailor onto his back, he pinned him, hand pushing against a throat. The clammy skin had a rough quality to it. It squished as he pushed, and Jabba stopped struggling.
“Do it. Kill me.” An odd request.
Instead, he relieved some of the pressure. “Why do you persist in working for her?”
“Because we have no choice.”
“There is always a choice.” He would know. He usually went with the wrong one.
“For a long time, she was the only choice. And now, she is too powerful to gainsay.”
“Unless you side with someone to take her down.”
“Someone like you.” Jabba chuckled, a rusty, rotten sound. “I’m not stupid enough to ally myself with you. With all the essence the suzerain has imbibed, she’ll be too strong to beat.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Her power. It keeps growing the more she feeds. It heals her. Makes her strong. Immortal.”
“No one is immortal.”
“Because the cost of drinking another’s soul is too high for most people.”
“She’s a vampire?”
“She is much more than that. She is dragonkind’s worst nightmare.”
“The same could be said of you.” He pressed down, and Jabba’s face turned a shade of purple. The stubby arms flailed, and the body under his began to go limp before he eased up. “How do we get out of here?”
“Through the stone portals in the courtyard. But you’re too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“To save your friend. Why do you think she had me waylay you?”
The truth hit him hard. Jabba was a distraction. The suzerain had split them up on purpose in order to go after Deka.
A trumpeting clarion drew his attention. Deka’s battle call.
“Deka will be fine.” The violence in her matched his. Yet, would it be enough to win? “She’s strong enough to handle it. I managed to survive.”
“If you think the suzerain will be content to sip from her, then you are mistaken. She sipped from you in order to preserve you and keep feeding on you. A feeding to the death is the way to madness. But, in your friend’s case, I don’t think the suzerain will care. She’s already gone mad.”
The very thought of someone killing Deka by taking her soul didn’t bear contemplation. No. He wouldn’t allow it to happen. But he had to know one thing before he ran off to save her and then bask in her thanks.
“What is the suzerain? And what are you for that matter?” he asked.
Why the familiarity?
Of course, when Jabba finally told him, it made so much sense. But Deka didn’t know. He had to tell her.
He punched out the Jabba and leaped to his feet. He ran outside, only to skid to a stop on the stone dais. The lightning crackled faintly in the distance.
There was no carnage to see. No dead bodies, but rather a very alive Deka standing in front of a shrinking portal, waving.
Alone.
Also very naked, which meant his dick began waving.
He dropped his hands as he approached and asked, “What happened to the suzerain?”
“Suzie escaped,” Deka exclaimed as she whirled and planted her hands on her hips. “About time you showed up. You missed all my great moves.”
“Not so great given you let her get away.”
“Let her?” Her chin angled. “I fought hard, and valiantly.”
“Says you. When I showed up, you were waving.”
“You mean gesturing rudely because I’d just finished telling her what I would do when I caught up with her.” Deka blinked her lashes—that’s right, muffin, I told her what was what—and he frowned.
“How did she escape? What is that thing?”
He strode toward the stone circle, held upright on a huge dais of rock, the surface smoothed, and yet the lines in it carved deep, inlaid with a burgundy color. Counting, he noted thirteen hoops spread around. The stone felt warm under his touch.
“I don’t know what it is exactly,” Deka explained, “But it worked like some kind of portal.”
“Out of here?” he asked sharply.
“That’s what it looked like. Alas, it closed. Which means, we’re stuck here. All alone. Just the two of us. Whatever shall we do?”
Finish what we started. Duh.
He couldn’t have said if the thought was his or hers. Did it matter?
Chapter Fourteen
“Why in tarnation was Deka grinning like a fool?” Yolanda asked, the slightest of creases marring her brow.
“As if you don’t know,” Babette snorted. “Surely, you’re not that dense, Mother?” Just in case, she might have done a hip sway and sung a few bars of Bow-chica-wow-wow.
The exaggerated sigh was totally worth it.
“Who was the naked man behind her?” Aunt Xylia asked.
“Who do you think it was?” Then again, the scruffy beard made it hard to tell. The fact that they’d seen anything at all was a surprise. With the empty farm field a bust, they’d regrouped at the hotel. It was Aunt Xylia who returned at the insistence of Aunt Valda to set up surveillance in case there was an entrance to a hidden underground base. Those existed a lot more than people realized.
The tripod and camera they’d left behind hadn’t caught a single thing but buzzing bees and butterflies until the interdimensional rip opened!
That caused quite a stir.
“We should have set up base camp in the field,” Xylia grumbled, miffed they’d not stayed behind. However, in their defense, they’d not exactly expected a portal between worlds.
When the dark doorway opened unexpectedly, with a crackle of lightning in a cloudless sky, it set off the alarms on their video surveillance system. Shoving each other out of the way, jostling for position, they’d crowded around the laptop, only to gape in astonishment as the very air itself turned into an opaque portal that gave a glimpse into another world.
A hellish-looking world with a stormy sky split with jagged branches of lightning, ancient-looking monolith-type rings of stone, and the hint of a castle beyond it.
So freaking cool.
A figure, the eyes a bright red, the cloak billowing in true super-villain fashion, swept through the rip.
“It’s that bitch who delivered us Anastasia’s head!” Babette remarked.
As if any of them would ever forget those glowing red orbs.
The woman in the cloak, which danced around her like ephemeral strands of smoke, paused only a moment to look behind through the portal at the world she fled. A doorway that showed—
“There’s Deka!” Babette pointed to the silver dragon that flowed into view.
“Shhh.”
They kept watching, and through the shitty video feed saw Deka pause instead of coming through. Shifting to her human form, she glanced over her shoulder as if looking for someone. Then, instead of stepping through the door, she waved and mouthed something.
&nb
sp; The portal shut. But Babette would have wagered Deka was fine with that because she’d found her Golden prince. Actually, Deka’s exact mouthed words were—as Aunt V later deciphered through the use of video replay and lip reading—“Having the time of my life. Tell Mom not to worry.”
But that was later. In the here and now, they sat around staring at the screen, showing once again a cow field with scraggly grass and flitting butterflies.
Of the red-eyed woman, nothing. Of Deka, also no trace. As for the doorway, examination by the finest equipment couldn’t detect it.
Later that day, hands on her hips, Babette’s mother surveyed the field. “I hate to break it to you, Xy, but I don’t think we’re gonna be able to crack it open.”
Aunt Xylia grimaced. “Bloody magic. Give me a good ol’ potion with actual ingredients any day over metaphysical crap.”
“Auntie!” Babette gasped. Just because it was fun to watch her take out the flask and swig from it.
“Good thing you told your daughter to stay away from that Gold.”
“So predictable, eh?” Xylia retorted. “Nothing like forbidding a child to make them do the opposite.”
Yolanda snorted. “You’re telling me.”
The meaning of the words jolted. Babette eyed her aunt. “You did that on purpose? You wanted her to find Samael?”
“Of course, we did.” Her mother smiled slyly. “Just because Zahra doesn’t want Samael found on account of her daughter being married to a half-breed Gold, and because she’s allied herself with the king, doesn’t mean we don’t want the same prestige for our daughters.”
“Um, I don’t want to marry a guy.” That had been an awkward conversation a few years ago. Babette thought her mother understood her preference.
“Not you, silly. Deka. My girl could be queen.” Aunt Xylia rubbed her hands, and the glee practically dripped from them.
“I can see why Auntie would want to do this, but why are you helping?” she asked her mother.
“You’re Deka’s best friend.” Mother shrugged. “Have I taught you nothing about grabbing power? When you spot a chance, always ensure your hierarchy in the Sept.” Because much as it was about family, even within the family, there was an echelon, and remaining in the top spots took maneuvering.
“I’d say given the lack of clothes on her, and his definite displacement of them”—giving them all an eyeful of his assets, enough to make Babette happy she went another route—“that things are going well.”
“Think he’ll manage to impregnate her before they figure a way out?” Yolanda asked, tapping her chin with a finger.
“Knowing Deka, she’s already screwing him and making sure he doesn’t even think of opening that door,” Babette declared. “But I have to say, aren’t you guys worried at all about the fact that the crazy red-eyed chick is back?”
“Bah. What can one female do?”
Words they would come to swallow as that one chick, and her blazing orbs, sent out her army of humans armed with guns, her wyverns armed with teeth and claw—and Molotov cocktails—to start an Armageddon.
The Septs hadn’t been this excited in years. Decades. Centuries. And the old leather armor and light metal plates were dug out and polished for battle.
Chapter Fifteen
Meanwhile, back in the hellish dimension…
* * *
Despite his massive hard-on, and their previous interrupted make-out session, Samael didn’t immediately pounce on her.
Playing hard to get. It only made her hornier. He insisted on securing the castle—including locking up the Jabbas that Suzie had released—checking all the rooms for more soldiers—none were found, but the remnants of clothing in dusty drawers indicated that, at one time, the castle had more occupants.
He insisted on going through the place, room by room, top to bottom, then through it again, although the second time, she let him go alone. Especially since she’d found the kitchen.
When he finally rejoined her, it was to find her in a food coma on the throne, her hands over her round belly, a sappy smile on her face.
Suzie had left the larder well stocked.
“There’s no one else in this place,” he declared, stalking in wearing an unfortunate amount of clothing, AKA pants. He’d left his upper body bare, which only served to enhance the sheath he’d found to hold the giant sword lying down his back.
“If it isn’t my studly Conan back from protecting the realm.” She waggled her brows. She blamed the wine she’d found.
“Aren’t you curious at all as to what I discovered?”
“Expressing keen interest is for those who don’t know everything. As the center of the world, I know it all.”
“Did you know there’s an abandoned village just past the castle?”
“I do now.” She smiled and scooted over on the throne. “Why don’t you come sit here and tell me more?”
“We should be looking for a way to escape.”
“You’re right. We should. And we will after you take a rest. You must be tired after all that protecting.”
He eyed her, and his damned pants hid what he thought, but his eyes glowed green with a hint of red. “How come you didn’t get dressed?”
“I had more important things to take care of?”
“Like?”
For one, washing her hair, shaving her legs with a sharp knife because, hello, not in Paris anymore, getting some food in her tummy and… She leaned over behind the throne and pulled out the temptation.
A plate with a stacked sandwich. She waved it in front of him, and he took a step forward then another until he could snatch it from her. When he plopped down on the steps of the dais to eat it, she flowed out of the throne and kneeled behind him, feeling the light tremor that went through him when her fingers began to knead the muscles of his shoulders.
“Playing servant?” he said between bites.
“Hardly. I try to exercise my hands daily to keep them limber. Since my usual equipment isn’t available, your body will do.”
“Do?” He chuckled as he reached behind and drew her onto his lap. “Don’t think I’m not aware of your tactics.”
“You’d have to be pretty blind not to see what I’m doing.” She cupped his bearded cheeks. “So, are you going to keep playing hard to get, or do me?”
“You call that being sexy?”
“If you wanted sexy, then you shouldn’t have teased me for so long.”
“We barely know each other.”
“Discovery is part of the fun. And do you always have to know your partners before you screw them?”
“But you’ve said it yourself, you want more than sex.”
“I want you.”
“What if we’re not compatible?”
She slapped him.
It didn’t actually hurt, but his jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”
“Stop with all this Negative Nelly shit. Evil overlords don’t doubt themselves or their allure. Ever.”
“They also don’t let bossy women order them around.”
“They would if I was the one giving the orders.” She smiled and stroked the cheek she’d slapped. “Now, repeat after me. Deka is right.”
“Deka needs to stop talking.”
“You’re supposed to be the badass here.” She cocked her head. “Make me.”
She expected more argument. She could see how verbal sparring riled and roused him. But even he’d finally reached the end of his patience.
His lips smashed down onto hers, a forceful embrace that stole whatever breath she might have had to speak.
Since she was already in his lap, it was easy for him to control the kiss. To demand more.
Instead, he rolled on the raised platform for the throne, his arm anchored around her middle as he shoved her to her knees.
Her hands reached out to grab the rim of the throne. She peeked over her shoulder.
“Is this where you punish me?” she asked huskily.
He crowded her
, pressing in from behind, the rigid length of his cock trapped between her ass and his body.
He still had her anchored with one hand, and the other rose to slide through her hair and grab it, his strength, his grip making her a prisoner to his desire.
The fact that he thought he could control excited.
The reality that he might just be powerful enough almost made her come.
Excitement had her grinding against him, the cheeks of her butt rubbing his erection.
He uttered a low growl.
So sexy. He drew her ass farther out, and her arms stretched as he positioned her. She wore nothing to impede the fingers that slid from her stomach to her hip then stroked over her rounded cheeks. It took only the slightest tickle of his fingers to part her thighs.
Exposing her.
And as was only right, he stared. The heat of his gaze had her panting.
“Tell me why you came,” he queried, his voice low.
“I came for you. Because we belong together.”
“Have you ever done that for a male before?”
“Of course, not.” She went to turn her head only to have the grip on her hair remain tight. She sucked in a breath. “I came for you and only you.”
“I don’t think I can give you what you need.”
“I need you.”
His turn to inhale sharply. “You make me want…”
The thought was never finished as he traced her damp slit with the tip of his finger, a light touch that brought a delicious quiver.
“I want this. Touch me.” With him, she would beg.
He listened and turned bolder. His fingers penetrated her sex, plunging into her heat, and she couldn’t help but moan at his touch.
In and out he pumped as her breathing hitched and she rocked back against him. He thrust his fingers deep, his hand cupping her mound as he shoved into her, roughly. The way she liked it. He made a small noise of pleasure as he did it, in time to his thrusts, and her head bowed as she felt bliss building inside.
Then he stopped.
She might have growled.
Then she cried out in pleasure as he replaced his fingers with his tongue.