by April Zyon
The jeans he still wore were a rough counterpoint against her skin. While he’d removed all his other clothing, she’d wondered at the jeans. But no more. It was another tool he was using while one of her senses was dampened. Suddenly, music started up and filled the room. It was a deep, dark beat that seemed to be timed to her pulse. His hand slid slowly up the back of her thighs as he turned up the volume loud enough to cover most sounds, but not so loud she couldn’t hear him, or him her, if necessary.
The first swat was timed with the beat of the music. It was amazing—the feelings, the sensations. She whimpered, waiting for more.
Another smack landed on her behind, then another, and another. The music began to speed up a little and so did the slaps. He moved his hand over her bottom and down her upper thighs, never landing on the same spot. He’d started out lightly, but as the music got heavier, stronger, and faster, the hits became more intense.
Holly wiggled just a bit. She couldn’t help it. It felt so good. The intensity of the swats, the heavy thump of the beat, and being blind had her simply feeling.
Suddenly, a smack landed over her pussy and nearly had her coming off his lap. Demaratus put a hand between her shoulder blades to push her back down into position, while the other one smacking her rear end never paused. Another slap to her pussy, this one down lower to land on her clit, sent a shock wave of sensations through her body.
“Oh God, yes. Please, more,” she begged, then added, “Sir.” She gasped, opening her legs wider to give him better access.
A few more hard swats to her behind, then he gave her one last smack to her pussy. His hand didn’t move, though. It remained in place, cupping and holding her intimately. He didn’t stroke, didn’t rub. When she was sure she’d go mad with want and need, he slowly pushed a finger deep into her, curling it to press the bundle of nerves hidden inside. “Come, now,” he ordered in a rough, almost hoarse voice.
Holly squeezed tightly and was soon exploding. She couldn’t have stopped her orgasm if she had wanted to. She felt her pussy drench his fingers and hand as she shuddered.
Demaratus rubbed between her shoulder blades gently as she came back down from her climax. At some point, he’d switched the music. It was a softer song about love and helped to reorient her in the moment. After pulling his hand from between her legs, he rolled her in his lap and sat her up against him. He gently pulled the blindfold off her face before his arms closed around her.
She moved so that she could rest her forehead to his and smiled. “That was incredible. I think I’ll have to run more often.” She was teasing him and hoped he knew it. “What do you have planned for us next, darling man?”
“A hot bath, some fluids, and then a very long nap. I need to get some sleep so the medallion can do its job of healing me. Why don’t you go and run the water while I get us something to drink?”
“That sounds like a great plan.” She rose, touched his cheek once more, nodded, and headed off to the bathroom.
****
Holly had been digging in Helen’s systems for nearly a month. It had been quite a month, too. Sophia had given birth to what they thought was the first child born of a VV and guardian. The baby was completely adorable. Daddy, however, wouldn’t let anyone hold the infant without keeping his eye on him or her and a hand on his gun.
It was a little disconcerting, but she totally understood where he was coming from. They were all still more or less on eggshells because of the early pregnancy miscarriage that Sophia had suffered. They hadn’t even realized what had happened until there was another ultrasound done, and it was clear that one of the children had died and was being absorbed by the uterine wall and the other child. It had been heartbreaking for everyone and something that people didn’t discuss, at all. James was even more protective of Sophia because of the loss.
Now Holly had found a hidden partition in Helen’s personal computer. While she watched her description program running, she leaned back and nibbled on a Twizzler. She nearly choked when the pages started to decode before her eyes.
“Holy fucking shit balls, Batman!” She was standing now, shaking from the shock. “Son of a—” She punched the speed dial for Mercury. “I need you in my office. Now.” When he said he was doing something else, she shouted at him, “I don’t give a flying fuck what you’re doing. This is more important. Now.” She hung up on him, then felt sick.
“Oh shit. Did I just scream at him?” she muttered, then dialed Demaratus. “Hey, honey. I might need you to come and save me here in a bit. I kind of screamed at Mercury and then hung up on him.” She was now watching the door to her office carefully, waiting for the massive leader of the guardians to walk in and tear her head off her shoulders.
Finally, it slammed open and in stalked Mercury. “Shout at me again, and I’ll damn well turn you over my knee. Hang up on me again, and you won’t like the results.”
“Quit growling at my woman,” Demaratus said in a calm tone as he followed. He moved around Mercury, who was practically vibrating where he stood, and came to her. “You really shouldn’t hang up on him, little warrior. He doesn’t like it, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I was so shocked by what I found that I couldn’t help it.” She leaned up on her toes and kissed Demaratus on the lips chastely before pulling back. “I think I’ve found him. At least, something huge.” She moved away from her mate. “Helen had this on her personal computer.” She keyed everything up and chewed her pen topper for a moment, waiting for Mercury to calm down.
“She’s been playing you for, like, three years. She would find you a VV and then find one for Billy, find you a couple more, then Billy, and so on. It’s not good. But this.” She pointed to the file before her. “Krista Reins. She’s a consultant for the police department in New Orleans. She’s damn good at reading crime scenes, and blood, but it’s more than that.”
Holly noticed she had the men’s attention now. “She talks to the dead. And she’s also a descendant of Billy’s. Helen has been keeping tabs on Krista, all at Billy’s request. Helen has been finding the VV’s and sending you just in time to save them, and in the process, helping Billy thin your numbers. She knew just who to send after the VV—who would succeed and who would fail. It wasn’t until you started to send who you wanted that Billy started failing more and more.”
Holly knew she had their full attention now, so it was time for her to break the biggest news. “She has a whole system of tracking the VV’s, but more than that, she has a program put together with which guardian might actually work with the VV, might be bonded to them. She always ensured that those guardians were never sent for the women,” Holly whispered. “She’s seriously fucking sick, Mercury. No lie. This woman was certain she should have been a VV and was pissed that she wasn’t. She wanted you. But you wouldn’t have her. She claims it was because you have a VV out there.”
Mercury’s face went blank as he stared at her. Not a single emotion flickered. But his eyes burned as if lit with hellfire. “What?” he asked in a quiet, deadly, angry tone of voice. One so cold that Holly felt a shiver working up her spine.
“She deleted that from the computer, but as your tech guys will tell you, nothing is ever truly gone from cyberspace.” She was shaking a bit. “You have a VV out there, and Helen knew where she was. She didn’t send Billy to her. Not that I know of. The key part of all of this, though, is that I think I know where Billy is, and I now have a great way to find the VV’s. Her system is actually pretty fucking brilliant.” Holly hesitated a moment before adding, “And I will find her Mercury. I swear I will find her.”
Demaratus put a hand on Holly’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. Rubbing his thumb over her tense muscles, he slid his hand to her neck.
“Find her,” Mercury said. “Find them all. I’m tired of being behind the eight ball in this war. I want this to end, once and for all. We all deserve to be able to just live. Find them all, so we can bring them in. And find her. You find her, and you only tell
me where she is. Do you understand?”
“Yes, completely. I will make sure that they’re all found. For now, I think you need to send someone for Krista. The last message Helen sent to Billy was where he could find her. I don’t know what he’ll do to her. From what I read on Billy’s psych profile, family was big to him, so I don’t know if he would outright kill her, or try to turn her to his perversions, but yeah. The ones that might be best paired with Krista, according to Helen’s files at least, would have been Erik Thorvaldsson, Edward of Woodstock, or Robert de Sable. Send the three of them if they’re free.”
“Not all three are available,” he said. “Send me the file on her. I’ll take a look and figure out who I’m sending. Keep working on finding the others. As soon as you have locations and details, send them to my data pad.” Turning, Mercury headed for the door but paused just inside. “Thank you, Holly. But if you yell at me or hang up on me again, there will be hell to pay.”
Demaratus waited until the door was shut before tugging her up from her chair. Sitting in it, he pulled her into his lap and wrapped her up tight in his arms. “I can’t believe you yelled at him.”
“I can’t, either. I was just so freaking shocked when I read that. Hell, I inhaled my Twizzlers.” Holly leaned into Demaratus and buried her face against the curve of his neck. “Jesus, I was sure that he was going to tear my head off my shoulders.” She felt terrible for the man, though. “Poor Mercury. He put his trust in that woman, and she did that to him. It’s not right. He could have had his VV in his life for a long time now but hasn’t because of a petty, jealous bitch.” She moved so that she could hit a few keys on the keyboard. “Nearly forgot to send him the file. That would’ve been bad.”
“Very bad, indeed,” Demaratus agreed. “We need to find them all sooner rather than later. Especially Mercury’s VV. By the goddess, he’s been in this world longer than I can even imagine. To go it alone for that long, with only the vaguest sense of hope keeping you moving forward every day, is amazing. While I wasn’t sure I’d ever find you, I had gained some hope over the years that maybe I’d be blessed eventually.”
“Well, I’m happy you found me. You needed me as much as I needed you, and now that we’re together, we can do anything, right?” She kissed the side of his cheek. “I need to get to work, babe. Thank you for coming to save me.”
“Of course we can do anything together. We’re the perfect team.” Pressing a kiss to her lips, he gave her a small smile. “I love you, little warrior. Get doing what you do best, and I’ll see you later. I’m going to check on Mercury before I head down to the training room. If you’re interested, I’ll be doing some sword work later this afternoon.”
“Hell yeah, I’ll be there.” She grinned. “Anything to get to watch you half-naked with a sword.” She winked at him. “Go calm him down and I’ll see what I can do here, okay?”
Nodding, he gave her a squeeze and another kiss, then dumped her back into her chair. With a wink over his shoulder, he left her to do what needed to be done.
Holly watched Demaratus walk away and smiled. “Heavens, I love that man.” She turned back to the keyboard then, typed in a few commands, and once more started to look for the lost VV’s that Helen had hidden from them all this time. It was the least she could do for these men who put everything on the line to keep the world safe.
Grabbing another Twizzler, she chewed it and frowned. “I don’t think he even realized that I told him I think I know where Billy is. Silly man.” She sent that information to Mercury as well. Maybe luck would be on their side and they would catch the little bastard.
The End
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