bedeviled & beyond 05 - bedeviled & besmirched

by Sam Cheever

  That was when I realized it was coming from a different direction. I peered carefully around the cart and my heart sank.

  The largest of the four babies, obviously a male given his darker coloration and other...erm...attributes, had decided to join the fight.

  Mama was busy with Slayer, but every few seconds she’d send a burst of fire in my direction too, trying to keep me pinned down.

  The baby male’s bright eyes were narrowed on me with childish malevolence and smoke puffed from his small nostrils as he took a deep breath to summon more fire. At his age I was surprised he could even fire up. It seemed doubtful he’d be able to send any more flames in my direction.

  However, I decided not to risk it. If he managed to put me into a dangerous position I’d have to hurt him. That was the last thing I wanted to do. When I looked into his determined little face all I could see was Glynus at his age.

  Pulling my power forward, I visualized the area directly behind the baby and shifted, praying I didn’t embed myself into the air vehicle beneath him. I was still perfecting my space-shifting skills. Amazingly, I seemed to do better work shifting long distances than I did with short, focused jaunts.

  I shimmered back to the physical plane just where I’d envisioned, looking at the backside of the babies.

  Yay me.

  A horrendous roar told me mama had noticed my disappearance. She flipped around, dragging a squashed air vehicle around with her tail, and smashed it into the doorway where Slayer still crouched.

  He leapt out of the way as the car hit the wall with a terrible ripping sound. The vehicle tore a chunk out of the wall and further weakened the roof on that part of the building. With a thunderous groan and a screech, the broken end of the long building started to crumple inward, spraying giant splinters of wood and twisted shards of metal around the space.

  Slayer scrambled away on hands and knees and I looked around frantically for Darma.

  Mama threw her head back and roared, sending a thick stream of fire into the remaining ceiling above her head. Balanced on her haunches, she spun frantically, her short, thick forelegs flailing on the air before her. Her scary red eyes rolled backward, as if she were trying to see something on her back.

  The dragon’s massive tail hit Slayer and sent him flying across the building to crash against a half-crumpled wall on the far side. The dragon’s tail continued its sweep around the room, carrying with it large metal boxes with sharp edges and smashed air vehicle parts. The babies leapt into the air to avoid being smacked by the flailing tail, their tiny wings just barely holding them upright. I leapt upward too, landing on the other side of the thick, spike-covered tail as it continued on its deadly arc.

  When I landed I pulled my power forward, intending to shift onto the dragon’s back. Just before I made the shift, my incredulous gaze found the source of mama dragon’s hysteria and I pulled my power back.

  Darma, are you crazy? Do you even know what you’re doing up there?

  My sister turned to me, one hand on the dragon’s head and the other clutching the large, incredibly sharp spike at the top of the dragon’s back. Amazingly, she smiled. No. But that never stopped you, Astra.

  She sent power into the dragon’s brain and the enormous female stopped, dropped and rolled onto her side, a ten-foot-long purple tongue smacking wetly onto the floor.

  Darma leapt gracefully down and rubbed her hands together, looking way too proud of herself.

  Giving the angry young male a wide berth, I joined her, crouching down to check that the female was still alive. She was, though I wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to form a cogent thought ever again after Darma’s electrical lobotomy.

  I stood up and looked at my sister, confused by the new side of her that I’d never seen before. “Who are you and what have you done with my sissy assed, magic phobic sister?”

  She glared at me. “Where’s Slayer?”

  We heard a groan on the other side of the building. It was coming from beneath a pile of rubbish. Hurrying over to free him, Darma and I pulled huge chunks of wood and metal away and found him, bleeding and pale at the bottom.

  He had a thick splinter of wood sticking out of his chest and was covered in bleeding cuts of varying sizes and depths. He was a mess.

  “You look like hell, Slayer.”

  “Hardy, har, har, Astra.” He yanked the massive splinter ruthlessly from his own chest and then closed his eyes, his chest heaving and blood pouring from the wound as he pulled his power forward. White light, filled with heat pulsed from his skin, sending an electrically charged breeze to spin around us. The breeze was filled with yummy, Slayer scent.

  My Settling rose in a wave to soak me with need.

  As Slayer healed himself, cutting off the bleeding and knitting his wounds with the efficiency of an unplanned injury unit physician, my panties dampened and my nipples hardened in inspiration. My mind formed a picture of how Slayer might look like naked, and proceeded to envision my hand reaching down and caressing his...

  I stood up with a small cry, shaking my head to dispel the delicious vision. Fortunately for me, Slayer was too preoccupied to notice.

  Slayer’s eyes fluttered open and his gaze slid from me to my sister, where it caught and widened in surprise. When his sexy lips tipped upward into a self-satisfied smile, I glanced at Darma and gasped.

  Outside of an actual sexual event, I’d never seen naked lust written across someone’s face...especially when that someone was my cranky, judgmental sister.

  Her lips were parted, her eyes were soft and her hands were clenched tightly at her sides, as if she were fighting some huge, inner turmoil. Her gaze was locked on Slayer and filled with something that made me intensely uncomfortable.

  I cleared my throat and gave Darma a mental nudge. She jerked and closed her mouth, climbing to her feet. She studiously avoided Slayer’s gaze.

  “Okay, what was your idea for getting these things safely out of here, Slayer?”

  He dragged his gaze from Darma long enough to smile at me. “You’re not gonna like it.”

  I sighed. “I’ve known you long enough to be sure of that. But tell me anyway.”

  “I’d rather show you.” He closed his eyes and a moment later a lusty roar sounded outside the building. I jumped and glared at Slayer. “Are you kidding me? How am I gonna explain this to my client?”

  Right on cue, a male shout split the air. “Hey, lady, I’m payin’ you to get rid of the dragons in my shop, not bring more here. No, scratch that, I’ve decided I’m not payin’ you.”

  A massive red head slammed through the mangled entrance. The huge red made a purring noise and inclined its head at Slayer.

  He looked at me. “Do you want me to do this, or not?”

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I nodded. “All right. But let’s get it over with, I have something I need to do.”

  ~SC~

  Fever boiled beneath the surface of my skin. My body thrummed with need. The adrenaline rush from fighting the dragon...and maybe a little bit the close proximity to Slayer...had fired my Settling to a near violent state.

  As soon as we deposited the family of greens on Olympus, I popped away, stepping out of my space shift inside a well-appointed, lushly carpeted hallway. I strode quickly toward the golden doors at the end of the hall, ignoring the surprised, red faces and beady gazes of Dialle’s guards. As I approached, I lifted a hand and threw the doors open before me, barely slowing to acknowledge the guards’ attempts to stop me.

  They were half-hearted attempts anyway. The guards were terrified of me since I put the pretty, little tear-shaped mark on their boss’s neck.

  Dialle turned in surprise as I strode into the room, along with several hundred dark-world types who had gathered there for an audience with the newly crowned King of the Royal devils.

  The special guards flanking his throne stepped in front of him, closing him off from view. Without even thinking, I flicked my fingers toward those guards and sent t
hem flying. My steps barely faltered as Dialle’s loyal soldiers smacked hard against the wall behind the throne.

  Dialle stood, his impossibly handsome face dark with anger. “Astra!”

  I didn’t stop until I stood inches away, only a shallow platform separating him from me as I reached for him, touching his hickey with the tip of my finger. His face went pale. He reached up and clasped my wrist but didn’t wrench my finger from his throat. I need you now.

  This isn’t a good time...

  I don’t care.

  You see, the thing about my Settling is that it isn’t just a sexual thing. The struggle a halfling deals with at age twenty-five, when her Settling sets in, is with the dark and light sides of her nature. Right at that moment my dark nature had bitch slapped my light into submission and my devil had come out in a big way.

  I’ll take you right here.

  For the first time, the hint of a smile curved Dialle’s lips. You wouldn’t dare.

  I sent a small jolt of power into the hickey and Dialle’s eyes rolled back in his head. He jerked my wrist and slammed me hard against his body. My breath escaped from my lips and the burning coil of need I’d been nursing low in my belly tightened, my skin rising in goose bumps under the force of Dialle’s emerging power.

  His black eyes swirled with red and orange lights, making me dizzy when I gazed into them. He lifted his head and cast that gaze around the huge room. “Out!” His power-drenched voice thundered around the room, bouncing off the walls and coming back with teeth-jarring force. He didn’t wait for the room to clear. His lips descended to mine. His hot, talented fingers grabbed at my clothing, tearing the soft sweater I wore into pieces and flinging it toward the floor. I ripped into his gauzy, white shirt and wrapped my arms around his hard, smooth body, plunging my fingers into the waistband of his leather pants at the small of his back.

  My soft slacks fell in a puddle on the floor, nearly torn in half.

  I yanked him into my body, grinding my hips against the hard ridge of flesh that tented the buttery leather of his pants. I infused the leather with power, ripping the pants down the back and scoring his skin in the process. Dialle sucked in a breath at the pain and his head fell back. I covered his hickey with my lips, sucking hard. Dialle growled and picked me up, slamming me into his velvet-padded throne. I hit the soft back hard and before I could catch my breath, he was on me, his long, hard body covering mine. He pulled my legs apart and buried himself in my body. My body stretched delightfully to accommodate his thick, hard length.

  I screamed, my body shattering with pleasure.

  Dialle initiated a steady, aggressive rhythm, the rigid flesh of his shaft scraping delightfully against the super-sensitized skin of my channel. I wrapped my fingers around his arms and held on, gritting my teeth against the pleasure-pain racking my overheated body.

  Sparks built around us. A wall of heat and fire obscured us from the outside world, dancing in time to our sexual rhythm and flaring with the bright colors of passion. Reds, oranges and purples infused the wall of flame, creating heat without destruction, pleasure rather than pain.

  The flames were an extension of our passion, a visible measure of our need. And they had built to massive proportions, threatening to touch the ceiling high above our heads.

  As Dialle built the tempo to a near frantic pace, I reached up and wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him down so I could capture his lips. His kiss brought me another notch higher in the lust scale, turning my entire body into flame. My skin felt as if it had been rubbed raw, every nerve ending firing in an overload of sensation. My clit throbbed painfully, my nipples ached. Heated cream ran from my channel to drench our straining thighs.

  Dialle’s tongue engaged mine in a sweet dance. The scent of his breath intoxicated me, making me dizzy. My lips slid from his mouth and forged a path over his chin, down his throat, to the spot just above his shoulder where I’d marked him.

  He tensed as my lips covered the spot. Electrical energy surged from the hickey as I covered it with my lips, making my skin tingle. I opened my mouth and pulled the area between my lips, nibbling the sensitive flesh in a tease.

  Dialle stopped moving within my body and went into a waiting posture, his muscles bulging as he held himself perfectly still. Only his shaft jumped within my channel, too close to climax to stay still.

  My teeth teased the area, drawing out the moment. Dialle’s breath came shallow and fast in his chest. My fingers slid over the warm silk of his pecs, tweaking the small, brown nipples into rigid peaks. His body vibrated in expectation. I flicked my tongue across the slightly reddened flesh.

  Dialle shuddered and arched his back, sending his impossibly hard shaft deep inside my body on a spine-bendingly slow stroke. I sucked in a pleasured breath.

  The flames around us stopped their frantic dancing and hung, hopeful and still over us. The air was scented with our sexual musk. The heat bathing us in the warmed scent. I need your body, Dialle. But your heart is everything. I want you to come back to me.

  He opened his eyes and fixed me with a silver-spun gaze. Gentle blue hovered behind the silver swirls. He promised me nothing with that gaze. It was warmer than before, but still cold in comparison to the heat we were creating with our bodies.

  Dialle?

  Finish this, Astra. It is all we have right now.

  Tears filled my eyes. I closed them to shut out the cold nature of his gaze and sucked Dialle’s hickey into my mouth. His body arched over me, power speared between us, pulling us into the air, off the throne. Hovering ten feet above the floor, I sucked that hickey hard and sent us both spiraling over the edge, our bodies tightening and twisting under an onslaught of sexual power. My channel clenched and throbbed around his jumping shaft. My breasts felt heavy and swollen, the nipples painful with desire. Dialle wrapped his fingers in my hair and yanked my face away from his neck, covering my lips with a starving kiss.

  There was more than lust in his heated kiss and less than love. It felt almost like an apology. I am trying, Astra. It is all I can do.

  I sighed against his lips as our bodies softened into the aftermath of an incredible experience. It wasn’t enough. But it would have to do for the moment. And as my fingers slid across the warm, silken skin of his well-rounded buttocks, I knew I’d do whatever I could to make it right between us again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Witchy Woman

  Our poor miss has much to churn, not the least of which is death,

  The booger made her body burn...but bleurgh...who nursed her back to health?

  The sky outside my office window was blue, touched with wispy, white clouds. In the distance, air vehicles of all shapes and sizes spun and dipped in an effort to beat the clock and maximize their drivers’ schedules.

  I sighed, feeling all twitchy and at odds with myself.

  At the moment, my relationship with Dialle was a large smoldering turd. I wasn’t sure if he’d ever forgive me for marking him. My sister had lost her tiny little mind. Breaking up with Torre had apparently unhinged her. She appeared to be trying to become mini-me...unbelievable. She used to hate all things me. And now she was demanding that I hire her to help me exterminate evil bugs. Yes, I was shorthanded. And yeah, I could use the help. But I’d rather eat chocolate-covered bidgie bugs than hire Darma to help me on the job. Unfortunately for me, she’d been dogging me relentlessly about it. So I’d been looking for something innocuous and safe to send her on.

  There wasn’t a lot of that in my line of work.

  And then there was the Slayer thing. That worried me too. It was obvious to me that Darma found him attractive. And Slayer was perfectly capable of taking advantage of that. He was even worse for Darma than Dialle’s brother had been because he was all strong, capable male. He’d stomp all over my love-challenged sister...emotionally speaking. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it, other than watch it go down. If I said anything negative about Slayer, anything at all, Darma would la
tch onto him quicker than a fish demon could snarf down a light fairy. I sighed, trying to blank out my mind.

  My thoughts were giving me a headache.

  And then there was Slayer himself. I had to admit he fired my furnace more than he should. I kept asking myself the hard question. If I was committed to Dialle, should I be having sizzling thoughts about another man? My Settling was at fault. I knew that. I couldn’t control the urges that swamped me as long as I was under its control. That was just a fact. It was nothing new. Every halfling went through the process. And it was an ugly thing.

  More importantly, Dialle understood it too and mostly didn’t care about my abbreviated forays into sexual diversion, as long as I came back to him for the final curtain. But Slayer was a sore spot with him. And I knew he wouldn’t be able to overlook a mistake in that particular direction.

  The biggest problem was me. Somehow, I felt as if I should be able to rise above the Settling. I didn’t like ceding control of my mind and body to some amorphous, out-of-control entity. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t seem to have much choice.

  Sighing, I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I wished Emo was back. I really missed him. I wondered how he was doing on his rehab. The last I’d heard he was making progress. Maybe he could return to work soon.

  The all-too-close sound of an air horn made me jump and open my eyes. The wide, silver nose of an air booger was five feet from my window and heading straight for me. I barely had time to notice the dazed, helpless eyes of the driver before I dove into a corner of the office, rolling and coming to my feet just in time to duck as the huge vehicle crashed through the window and obliterated the chair I’d been sitting in.

  The impetus of the vehicle ripped the wood and brick of the wall around the window away with a shriek and a roar, and sent my furniture flying to smash against the wall beside me.

  I covered my face and crouched to minimize myself as a target. But the ceiling started to collapse as the booger blasted through the interior wall of my office and into the hallway. It crumbled down in huge chunks, crashing all around me.