[Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator 03] - Bloody Claws

by Winter Pennington

  All of us turned to look at her. Claire quickly shoved the food dangling halfway out of her mouth, in it.

  Lenorre's hair was still wet from her shower, marking damp spots on the red sweater she wore. A tight pair of black skinny jeans clung to her hips, tucked into knee-high boots.

  "Did you have a good run?" Lenorre asked, directing the question at Rosalin.

  Rosalin nodded. Lenorre affectionately tousled Rosalin's already messy hair.

  "You had a phone call, Kassandra."

  "Who was it?" I asked.

  "Arthur," she said.

  I pushed my chair back and stood. "I'll call him back before I get in the shower."

  "No need," she said, walking around the table to me. She plucked a twig out of my hair. "I took his message and will relay it to you downstairs."

  She stooped to kiss me and I stopped her with a hand high on her chest. "I'm dirty."

  "So?"

  "You're all clean."

  "So?" she asked again, this time with a devious glint.

  I turned on the pad of my foot, gracefully stepping out of her reach in a dance-like move. "I'm going to take a shower, Lenorre. This time, you're not going to distract me."

  Of course, everyone at the table was staring at us, but I didn't care.

  I left Lenorre standing there.

  I was almost to the basement when the ground moved out from under me.

  "Lenorre!"

  She laughed.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Carrying you, my love."

  "I know that. Why?"

  "Mmm, because I can."

  At her mysterious smile, I shook my head.

  "I'm serious. Don't you even think of dropping me on the bed once we get to the room, because sex right now is so not happening."

  "Have no worries," she said, voice light. "I'll escort you to the shower and give you a most thorough scrubbing myself."

  "With a washcloth, Lenorre. Trust me, you don't want what is on me in your mouth."

  She laughed lightly.

  "As you wish."

  "And only if the message from Arthur isn't urgent. Was it?"

  "It can wait," she said, descending the basement steps. "Afterward, we will sit and discuss Arthur's news and the psychic attack you experienced this afternoon. But for now," she mused, "I am going to get what I want."

  "I didn't know you were so into dirty and wild," I said jokingly as the light of the lounge room left me momentarily blind from its brightness.

  "Mmm," she murmured, burying her face in my hair, "only for you, my little forest nymph."

  It was my turn to laugh.

  Lenorre carried me past her room and into the bathroom. I'd thought she would put me down before turning on the shower, but she didn't. She opened the frosted glass door and stepped into the dim lighting.

  She reached for the handle jutting out of the dark stone wall.

  "Uh, Lenorre? You're going to get our clothes-" I closed my mouth when I got a face full of chilly water.

  I coughed, laughing and wriggling in her arms. "You could at least have waited for the water to warm up!"

  She used the arm she had behind my back to swing me upright and I instinctively wrapped my legs around her waist. She kissed me, stepping forward and guiding us out from beneath the harsh spray of water. My back met the wall.

  I broke the kiss. "Lenorre?"

  "Yes?"

  "You're wearing your boots in the shower."

  "So I am." She whispered the words against my mouth before gently nibbling on my bottom lip.

  I groaned, sliding my hands down her wet body. She nibbled a bit harder and I tugged at the wet sweater clinging to her skin, raising it to unveil the incandescent beauty of her. Lenorre lowered me onto a small bench tucked into a corner. She pulled her sweater up over her head and discarded it to the floor. The bra she wore was the same blood red as the sweater. I caught the waistband of her jeans, pulling her to me.

  Lenorre propped her foot on the bench and set about removing her boots. I removed my shirt and shorts and stood under the spray of water.

  When I had completed the task of washing my hair and face, I reached for the bottle of soap sitting on the small shelf. Lenorre touched my arm, giving me pause. She was nude except for a small covering of shadowy lace at her mound. The onyx curls of her hair tumbled down the front of her body and to her hips, covering the mounds of her breasts.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, curious, as she set the bottle aside. Of course, it was a bit obvious what she was doing. She put her hands flat against my stomach, spreading the sweet amber smelling soap on my skin, across my hips. Her fingers brushed downward, tracing the crevice between my thigh and groin in a way that made me nearly lose my balance.

  Lenorre laughed softly, guiding me further away from the spray of water.

  She touched my shoulder. "Turn around."

  I did, placing my hands flat against the smooth marble wall.

  She guided my hair over my shoulder, her hands gliding across my back, slick with soap and water, over the raven tattoo and its knot work.

  True to her word, she was thorough. By the time she was done, I was panting and half tempted to set my nails in the wall. Her fingers played over my breasts and lower, low enough to encourage me to arch my spine and space my feet out. She parted me and I moaned.

  The tip of her finger moved against my clit, tracing it, sending little flits of ecstasy through me.

  I felt her lips at my ear. "Yes or no?"

  "Are you asking me if I want you to bring me right now?"

  "I am."

  "Gods, yes."

  Lenorre obliged and brought me, shuddering and trying to keep my legs from going out from under me.

  She snaked an arm around my waist, her hand cradling my hip as I fought not to collapse with the aftermath. "Mmm, that was not nigh as violent as it usually is."

  I laughed. "That's because I was focusing on not falling on my face."

  "A different position, then?"

  I circled her wrists and I guided her arms close to her body. "Let me rinse," I said. "For now, keep those to yourself."

  "As you wish," she said, not bothering to hide the devilish lilt in her tone.

  I was about to step out of the shower when I ran into a vampiric speed bump. Lenorre barred the door. "You are done rinsing, Kassandra."

  "So you're not going to let me get out and find a towel?"

  "Not yet, no."

  "If we do a repeat," I said, "I'm pretty sure this time I'm going to face-plant."

  "Who said anything about an exact repeat?"

  One second Lenorre was standing in front of me, and the next, she pushed my shoulders. The heel of her foot met mine and down I went. Lenorre caught me before I hit the hard floor as if the move had all been a dance she'd mapped out in her head. She lowered me gently.

  I growled, unhappy about being caught off guard and unceremoniously tripped. Whether she'd caught me or not, I didn't like the fact that she'd put her speed and strength against me.

  I was about to protest when she climbed my body, pressing her mouth against mine.

  I growled again, but when her tongue teased my lips, I opened to her.

  She kissed me, a deep and sensual dance of tongues that made my body melt from head to toe. Her breasts brushed mine and the growl turned into something closer to a moan. I curled my arms around her back, holding her close to me, tracing the curve of her figure with my hands.

  Lenorre broke the kiss and her gaze was cloudy, but not with power, with that look a woman has when she knows you're hers. I sat up and used my body to push her onto her back. I removed her undergarments, dragging them down her thighs. I settled between her legs, pressing my lower body against hers. I shifted my hips, trying to find the position I wanted. Lenorre bent her knees, watching me with lips half-parted. I curled a leg around hers, angling my body.

  Though it felt good, I feared there was too much of a height difference b
etween us.

  Lenorre laughed when I growled my frustration.

  "If you are trying to do what I think you are trying to do"-she sat up, touching my cheek-"allow me."

  I did so and Lenorre used her hands to push my knees apart. She bowed her body and set her mouth between my legs, sucking my clit. I cried out at the unexpected suddenness of it. She sucked harder, threatening to break my skin on the cusps of her fangs.

  Lenorre worked me with lips and tongue, worked me until my breath was ragged and the waves of pleasure rocked my body. The hold of her lips broke before I came, the pulse between my legs thudding like a tiny touch. I could feel myself, wet and engorged.

  I groaned and Lenorre pushed my arched leg up. She lowered her hands, leaving me to hold the position as she splayed me with the tips of her fingers and swung her hips forward to press her sex against mine. When our clits brushed, I thought I heard her gasp. She took hold of my leg like an anchor and began to move against me.

  Lenorre mumbled something and I grabbed her arms before she could change the position.

  "Don't stop," I said and the thrust of her hips became something less controlled and more urgent. I writhed, nails digging into her arms. "Gods! Don't you dare stop."

  Goddess bless her, she didn't.

  CHAPTER nineteen

  was sitting in Lenorre's bedroom with Zaphara, Lenorre, and Rosalin. Zaphara being present had been Lenorre's doing. When I'd asked what Arthur had called about, Lenorre had summoned Zaphara to be present during the conversation we'd yet to have. Rosalin was my doing, as I didn't want to see her fall back into her darkness and hide in her room.

  Rosalin pulled her legs up under her, leaning into me and resting her head on my shoulder. She draped an arm loosely in my lap, across my waist, seeking comfort. I had a brief moment to wonder if Rosalin hanging all over me would bother Lenorre, before I caught sight of Lenorre's expression and realized her mind was elsewhere. I had no doubts that she'd noticed Rosalin cuddle into me, but I knew for sure in that moment, it really didn't bother her. Perhaps when it came down to it Lenorre knew more about wolves than I did, though I was slowly but surely beginning to learn more about them through myself.

  It did make me wonder, however, if Eris's teasing at the club hadn't bothered Lenorre, what did? It was a strange experience for me, being with someone who was so confident and who didn't feel easily threatened.

  If I'd spent over two hundred years watching the world and all its myriad relationships around me, would I have felt the same way? Would I have been able to sit here and withstand Zaphara taking comfort in Lenorre's arms? I shuddered at the thought, as it wasn't one I liked, though it seemed Zaphara and I were on better terms. I wasn't sure how long that would last. Was it simply that Lenorre's and my natures were different in that regard? That she just wasn't the jealous type? When I thought about it, I wasn't sure I considered myself a jealous person. I didn't envy what another person had. I was protective and territorial about what I considered to be mine. Possessive, maybe. I wasn't worried someone would swoop in and steal Lenorre away from me. I didn't consider myself that insecure, and like me, I sensed Lenorre's loyalty was a deep and unwavering thing. I realized that perhaps it was selfish, but in a relationship I wanted the deepest and most intimate part of my significant other to belong to me. I didn't want tidbits or scraps from a lover, I wanted it all.

  Lenorre was watching me as if she were trying to read my thoughts. I knew she couldn't, not unless I projected them to her, as we'd learned, and I was shielding too strongly for that.

  "Are you going to tell me what Arthur called about or are we seeing who is going to break first?" I asked. If that was the case, I was pretty sure I'd just lost the quiet game.

  Lenorre crossed her long legs. "The medical examiner completed her examination of the body," she said.

  "And?"

  "Do you remember the bruising you observed on the woman's neck?"

  I gave a sharp nod.

  "She could not withdraw any prints from the cadaver. She was able to recreate the size of the hand that had strangled the victim."

  "Lenorre," I said, "stop drawing it out. Just tell me."

  "The hand was not human."

  "Okay," I said. "Do you have any guesses what it could have been?"

  "Did Arthur send you the photographs of the sigil?" Lenorre asked.

  I crossed the room to retrieve my cell phone from the nightstand. I went to the album on my phone, pulled up the first picture of the sigil, and handed the phone to her. Lenorre leaned over, offering it to Zaphara.

  "What do you think?" she asked.

  Zaphara gazed at the picture for a long moment.

  "It's a summoning sigil," she said. "Though sloppy and homemade."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Each symbol corresponds to a piece of the summoning spell used," she said. "The symbol in the middle stands for sulfur, which corresponds to the element of that which the person summoned."

  "Sulfur?"

  "Demonic energy," she said. "Consider this symbol the key that goes into the slot and unlocks the door itself. The symbols around it build the room, the door. It all goes together, Kassandra."

  "There were two symbols I recognized in that." I knelt on the floor in front of her, taking my phone and scrolling to the larger images of each smaller symbol that Arthur had been kind enough to provide me with. "Ceres?" I asked. "Why would Ceres be involved in this if it was used to summon a demon?"

  "You do not believe it is demonic?" she asked, reading my tone and body language.

  "I don't believe in demons, Zaphara. So it's kind of hard to."

  "There's more to this world than meets the eye," she said. "You more than anyone else in this room should know that. I am not referring to the demons of Christian folklore."

  "What are you referring to?"

  "Merely a title for those beings of ill intent," she said.

  "And what kind of spectrum does that cover?" I asked.

  "A broad one, but given the psychic attack earlier this day, it's been greatly narrowed."

  "You think what happened was more than a bad dream?"

  "Yes, as well you know it was more than a bad dream."

  I wasn't sure about that, but I nodded anyway.

  "So what do you think it was? Specifically? What kind of… demon?"

  "A night hag."

  I felt my brows go up. "That doesn't tell me much."

  "Perhaps this will. Whatever attacked you was an astral being of sex and desire."

  "Like a succubus?" I asked.

  "Yes, they have been called incubi and succubi, but they are also known as night hags. They appear to their dreaming victims and strangle them."

  "Why would Ceres be a part of the sigil?" I asked.

  "Ceres, as you know, corresponds to the mother and probably represents the summoner."

  "What about the other symbol?"

  "The full moon," she said. "You should know that one, little witch."

  "Completion?"

  "Or fertility."

  Everyone in the room was quiet. I stood, leaving my phone in Zaphara's hands. If what she said was true, what would an astral being of ill intent, sex, and desire have to do with a mother and fertility? Something inside me clicked and shifted into place. It was a thought, an idea, and one that made me nauseous to even consider.

  "You've thought of something," Zaphara said. "Have you figured it out?"

  "It can't be possible," I said, surprise rendering my voice soft. "Is it?"

  "That depends on what you are thinking."

  "In folklore," I said thoughtfully, "incubi and succubi changed their gender to procreate," I said. "A succubus would lay with a man and steal his seed."

  "And then," Zaphara added, "with his seed inside of her, the succubus would alter her shape to lie with a woman, to impregnate her."

  "But," I said, "if they're astral beings, how is that possible? And wouldn't the succubus just act as a vessel, a fert
ility bank so to speak? How would they see the continuation of their species or whatever it is, if they're stealing human semen?"

  "I do not know how to explain it in a way you will understand," she said. "The seed becomes hers. Their species, as you call it, are infertile, but once they steal from a human, she can change the seed inside her by altering her body, shifting her form at will. Her body alters the semen, taints it with her DNA to see the continuation of their kind."

  "That's confusing," I said.

  "And fascinating," Rosalin added. "Who needs a turkey baster? Order a succubus!"

  "Horrible, Rosalin." I laughed. "You should probably steer clear of writing infomercials."

  She smiled, but her eyes were still haunted.

  "Zaphara, is that possible?"

  "Is what possible?"

  "Could the summoner have summoned a succubus to steal a man's seed for her? Ceres, the mother, the full moon, fertility. Could a succubus, or whatever it is, get a woman pregnant?"

  "In spite of being none-too-fruitful themselves, it is possible.

  Once their bodies alter the fluid they've obtained, they're potent."

  "Have to make it count, right?" Rosalin asked.

  Zaphara nodded.

  "What are you thinking, Kassandra?"

  I turned to Lenorre. "Arthur said the neighbor knew the Blevins were looking to adopt. Obviously, as much as I hate to say it, the whole pagan thing opens the doorway to the possibility of one of them creating a spell to summon this kind of thing. What I don't understand though"-I turned to Zaphara-"is how this happens? Surely, if succubi can reach beyond the astral realm there would be more cases of this happening? How are they able to manifest, and can a human actually carry a succubus child to term?"

  "With that title, it would be an incubus child," Zaphara said. "A succubus requires blood sacrifice to manifest. A human woman can carry a child to term, but she will not survive its birth."

  I sat back down on the couch with a flop. I didn't want to ask her how or why a woman wouldn't survive giving birth to the child of an astral being. When I considered the possibilities, none of them were very comforting or pretty.

  "In the dream," I said, "the creature wore Lenorre's guise. When I realized it wasn't Lenorre, it tried to kill me?"