by Sam Cheever
Glynus finished off the last of the three riderless monsters with a tail-spike to its gut and I looked around. The battle seemed to be winding down a bit, and most of our fighters still stood.
I smiled. Chalk one up for the good guys. I realized it was a good time to go looking for Dialle. Turning to Glynus, I opened my mouth to tell her exactly that. The air behind me shimmered and a strong pair of arms snaked around my waist and throat.
I jerked, instinctively reaching for my power, before I realized who it was.
“Hello, my love.”
Feeling my eyes widen in surprise, I tried to turn in his arms, but quickly found myself locked in a space-shift, unable to move or speak. As soon as our feet touched the ground Dialle’s arms loosened around me. I turned and his sweet, firm lips found mine.
Heat blossomed in my belly from his taste and the feel of his hard body wrapped around mine. His delicious scent surrounded me, creating a heated and immediate response in the pleasure centers of my body. His hands skimmed over my hips and breasts, hard and frantic.
My sexy devil’s kiss was filled with so much emotion that, for a moment, I was afraid it would completely overwhelm me. With a desperate cry, I molded my body to his and slipped my arms around him, sliding my hands beneath the softness of his customary white shirt. His skin felt smooth and warm under my fingers—a balm for the mental anguish I’d been nurturing since he’d disappeared.
I pulled my lips from his. “I was so worried about you.”
His lips were everywhere, touching my mouth, my cheeks, my chin. His tongue slipped out to taste my skin and slide a brand over the seam of my lips. His desire was obvious in the hard shaft that pressed against my belly.
My head fell back as he nibbled his way down my throat. “Why did you leave?”
“Shhh, no talking. I just want to make love to you, Astra. I need to make love to you.”
There was something in his voice—a sharp, desperate tone that made my heart nearly break in two. “I need you too, Dialle. But there’s something I need to tell you—”
“Shhh.” His lips descended on mine and all thought disappeared. Nothing was as important as the taste of him against my lips. Nothing could compete with the feel of him in my arms. I shoved everything else away...the rest of the world...my worries...my own insecurities...and just embraced him, heart and soul.
Our clothing disappeared on a whisper of air.
Dialle wrapped himself around me and walked us backward. My legs bumped up against something soft and Dialle leaned into me until I toppled backward, landing on a supple, encompassing surface.
The bedclothes felt cool and slightly rough against my naked body. By contrast, Dialle draped my front in warmth, sliding against me like a cat as his mouth continued to devour mine. He pressed a firm thigh between my legs and I opened for him, my wet, already clenching channel eager to feel him deep inside.
Dialle grasped my hands in his and pulled them over my head. His hands were like steel bands around my wrists, not painful, but hard and unrelenting. His kisses went from tender to ravishing in the space of a breath and I responded in kind.
As Dialle’s tender tasting morphed into nibbles and then bites, my throbbing, eager body thrashed and pulled against the restraints of his hands on my wrists.
Instead of terrifying me, as being restrained should have done, the restriction of my freedom drenched the act of love in a new flavor. It was a flavor that I’d never fully tasted before, but realized I wanted to explore.
His hands holding me hostage and his legs splayed to hold mine wide, Dialle bit my lip, drawing blood, and then proceeded to suck until it throbbed. My head thrashing back and forth on the mattress, I yelled his name, desperate to feel him inside me.
Dialle moved down my body, nipping my throat, bathing it in sparks of delightful pain, and then to my breasts. He looked up at me then, his black eyes swirling in dizzying pools of passionate color. Red fought with orange and a deep, vibrant purple in his gaze, telling me more than words how much he craved what we were about to do. “I dreamed of you last night, my love. This was my dream. That I would have you, bound and screaming with lust, and you would bear the bleeding marks of my passion across your flawless skin.”
I writhed under the power of his words. In a deep, dark corner of my mind I knew it was wrong. I knew the restraints that held my wrists and ankles—no longer bound by Dialle’s hands but restrained by something my eyes couldn’t see—were wrong. I knew the painful marking of my body was beyond acceptable, but I didn’t care. My mind demanded more. My flesh blossomed under the strange pull of violence his love had become. My body screamed with need. My skin felt abraded under it. “Make love to me, Dialle.”
“Beg, Astra.”
“Please take me. I think I’ll lose my mind if you don’t.”
He lowered his head and encompassed a turgid nipple in impossible heat. I cried out and arched upward, driving the hard nub deep within his mouth. I ground my sex against the rigid heat of his chest and belly, painting his skin with my scent, my heated cream. My legs wrapped around him, dragging him closer, as if by sheer force of will I could mount him and bury him deep within me.
Dialle’s chest vibrated against my skin as if he was growling. The sensation the sound created in my desperate channel was mind-shattering. I pressed closer, squeezing him with my knees until they began to shake.
My body was rabid in its lust. Pain and pleasure had merged into one, all-consuming necessity.
Dialle bit down on my breast, piercing its unsullied surface with ravenous abandon. Pain morphed quickly into delight. Ripples of it washed through me, making my channel clench hard and sending warm cream sliding down my thigh.
I screamed as he sucked on the wound he’d made, my head thrashing helplessly as I found the release that had waited just beyond my grasp and pulled it, full and shrieking, into my possession.
My hands dragged against the restraints holding them away from Dialle. My legs thrashed against the invisible manacles. I jerked and writhed beneath him, my sex clenching in unfettered delight, and I came over and over and over again, running full-blown toward the siren call of his lips and teeth on my breast.
Every suck on my nipple sent a new wave of joy slashing through me. Every jolt of pain carried me over a new peak, burying me under wave after wave of sensual delight.
When I was weak from my release, Dialle lifted his head from my breast and slipped between my thighs, his swirling black gaze holding mine as he buried himself deep within my pulsing channel.
I cried out again as he filled me, stretched me, and sent me spinning toward a new and building wave of pleasure.
He was deliciously hard, buried impossibly deep. He looked down at me and smiled, the taut curve of lips just cruel enough to make my stomach flutter with fear. He shifted within me, the tiniest movement, and sensation exploded. I shuddered under it, too consumed by the vibrations ripping through me to even cry out.
I couldn’t imagine the feeling of a full thrust. I started to doubt I’d even survive. A moment later I was sure I had died from the pleasure. He tucked his hips and drove deep and it was like something split open inside me, something that had been keeping me restrained for years, something that no longer had the will or need to confine my overwhelming lust.
Heat surged through me, opening my cells and crashing full blown into them. My lungs expanded with Dialle-charged air and everything within me blossomed.
He lowered his head and covered my mouth with lips that ravished and consumed. He thrust harder with every stroke, building an oncoming explosion in my sexual core. Together we created a unique fire, forged a different sensual footprint than we’d ever created before.
My hands strained against the magic cuffs, drawing blood. Dialle’s body slipped against mine, creating sparks wherever we touched and sending my world spinning smaller and smaller with every thrust. It was just us. Just him and me. And nothing else existed beyond our tiny sphere.
&nbs
p; The flames built around us. Grew. Flashed. Spit with growing intensity.
Dialle’s kisses turned bruising, his body thrusting harder and faster within mine, until he lifted his incredible lips from mine and cried out, his head falling back on a scream.
His shaft jerked inside me, filling me with flame. His body shuddered under the power of his release, and I couldn’t help following him over into my own power-drenched orgasm.
I cried out as my body found that edge and toppled into a pleasure so intense I swooned under its power. Stars burst beneath my closed lids, dizziness swamped me, and my body clenched his so tightly I thought I heard him groan beneath it.
As his release eased away, Dialle fell over me, panting, and skimmed a damp ribbon of hair off my face. He dropped his head and gently nuzzled my throat, where once he’d forged our connection with a magical daemon hickey that no longer existed. I held my breath, waiting to see if he would do it again. But he only lingered for a second and then lifted his head and rolled away.
We lay, panting, side by side and I realized with a start that my magic manacles hadn’t released. I tugged on them and they held. “Uh, you can release these now.”
He glanced my way and smiled.
Fear slipped cold fingers up my spine.
“I like you that way. I think I’ll leave you for a while.”
“Dialle, this isn’t funny.”
He stood, walked away from the bed, and was fully clothed with a thought. “I agree. It’s not meant to be.” He started toward the door. “I’m off to take care of the rest of your little invading party.”
“Wait. You knew we were here for you? Why didn’t you help us out there?”
The cold look on his handsome face when he turned back made me gasp. “Help you? Who do you think sent those soldiers after you?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hell Bent
So when our lady finds herself, in handcuffs made of naught,
It’s easy to convince one’s self, the devil must be caught.
The only good thing about my situation, if there was a good thing, was that Dialle had apparently decided to underestimate me. He hadn’t given me a chance to tell him about my newly charged battery so he believed he could hold me with a little magic.
Wouldn’t he be surprised when I got loose and went to kick his ass? Lovingly of course. He deserved it for tying me up. And for thinking I was too weak or stupid to escape. He should know better. Leaving me to my own devices was never a smart move, especially when I was desperate.
And fear for Dialle and my friends had made me very desperate.
I pulled power from my core and sent it into the magic cuffs. The silver light of my power illuminated the cuffs and the chain that trailed to the rock wall behind the bed. The newly lit chain was anchored into the wall with a couple of enchanted loops. I wrapped my hands around the chains and yanked harder, infusing my efforts with a little energy.
Nothing. Unfortunately, the power I was using to illuminate the chains was heating them. They were hot enough, in fact, to burn my skin. But they didn’t break or even appear to weaken. With a jolt, I realized what they were.
Angel chains. Formed of both light and dark magic. Impossible for angels and creatures of the light to break because severing the chain required both light and dark magics. We’d used the very same type of magic to hold Dialle’s father captive once.
I’d been able to manipulate Dialle the First’s prison then, because I’d been tied to my Dialle through the daemon hickey. But I no longer had access to dark magic. Even my own stores, being part devil, were gone. All I had was the pure, white power I’d gotten from my aunt.
With a sinking heart I realized Dialle hadn’t underestimated me at all. I truly was as helpless as he’d assumed.
The door opened and I lifted my head. The face that peered through the opening was delicate, appealing in a painfully innocent way. I wondered what the attractive young thing had done to get herself sent to Hell. But as she stepped around the door and smiled, I realized I’d been stupid to judge a devil by its beautiful face.
She was obviously a royal. And, judging by her delicate, human-like beauty, I’d say a pretty powerful one. I wondered if Dialle had sent her to me.
She closed the door behind her and swayed toward me, the thick fall of blonde hair dancing on either side of her narrow waist as she walked. She was dressed like a human too, but the swirling color in her black eyes gave her away.
“Creamy skin and blonde hair. Somebody has identity issues.” My little barb didn’t seem to have any effect. Except to widen her wicked smile. Apparently her creamy skin was as thick as a three-horned Martian pedipod’s hide.
“The infamous Astra Q Phelps. This is truly my lucky day.”
I frowned, feeling worse than exposed and unable to do anything about it except lift my chin and pretend I was a smartass. Okay, I’ll admit that didn’t really require an enormous amount of acting ability. “Two points for knowing my name. How about giving me yours so we can start out on a level playing field.”
She stopped next to the bed and slid a swirling gaze over my nakedness. I ground my teeth together and forced myself not to squirm. She licked her velvety bottom lip and reached out to skim a fingertip over my belly. “I’d hardly call you being tied to a bed and me standing beside the bed even.”
Before I could stop myself I sucked in a breath. She lifted a delicate blonde eyebrow and cocked her head. “You’re prettier than I would have thought. Though you’re very small for someone with such a large reputation.”
“I look taller when I’m standing up. Why don’t you release me from these chains and I’ll show you.”
Infused with sensual magic, her laughter slipped over my skin like heated oil. My channel clenched hopefully and my nipples hardened.
Unfortunately she noticed. “Is our king not keeping you happy, my queen?” She lifted her head and looked around, her disturbing gaze taking in the dilapidated state of Dialle’s rooms. “I guess I already know the answer to that...” Her gaze returned to me, filled with angry color. “Don’t I?”
I pulled power forward and held it close. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to do with it but I could almost smell danger in the air around the beautiful Royal and I felt just vulnerable enough, lying chained and naked before her, to overreact.
She sat next to me on the bed, dropping a hand on either side of my waist, and lowered her face close to mine. “Don’t think to use your puny powers on me, halfling. You haven’t enough in you to do me any real harm. And since your bond with our king is broken, there’s really no reason not to squash you like the brimstone sucking cockroach you are.”
“Technically, I don’t suck brimstone. That would be your drug of choice, apparently.”
She bit my bottom lip, hard. Her brutally sharp teeth tore into my skin and pain sluiced through me. I cried out as she jerked her head and ripped a deep rift in my skin.
As she lifted her head, warm blood ran down my chin.
She licked her lips, closing her eyes with pleasure as she tasted my blood. “It would appear your mouth is the only large thing on you, halfling.”
I forced my mind away from the pain in my lip. Her proximity had given me an idea. “I don’t know about that. My ass is pretty big too.”
She stared at me for a long moment, apparently trying to decide if she was going to chew on my nose too, but she finally laughed, shaking her head with wonder. “I can’t figure out if you’re very brave, or just extremely stupid.”
When I grinned, a jolt of pain from my torn lip reminded me it wasn’t a good idea. “Take your pick. I’ve heard both all my life. I prefer to believe that I’m just that good, of course. But you might disagree.”
She slipped her finger over my breast, circling a rigid nipple. I let my body react this time, allowing the scent of my arousal to saturate the air between us. “I’m also very much in my Settling right now, devil. So if you aren’t planning on doing something
about that I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tease me.”
“Then it seems it will be easier to torture you than I’d assumed.”
I shrugged and closed my eyes, letting her delicate touch stir the lust Dialle had fired to life again. I jerked when moist heat encompassed my nipple and my eyes shot open. She had her lips around the rigid peak and, as I looked into her eyes, she sucked hard on the hungry flesh.
I didn’t have to fake the moan that emerged from my throat. My hips arched upward of their own accord. My Settling might be greatly diminished without my magics, but the little store of power within me was apparently enough to keep it alive.
She licked her way down my body and stopped, her hot breath bathing my mons. I held my breath, suddenly afraid of what she’d do. She laughed as if she could sense my fear and opened her lips wide, showing me her elongated canines. “Scream pretty for me, ugly halfling.”
I told myself I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t give her the pleasure. But then she plunged those massive teeth into my mons and all bets were off. I screamed long and hard, my hands straining the magic chains as blood ran down my thigh. She sucked the wounds she’d made and pleasure melded with the pain, bringing me closer to orgasm than I would have thought possible.
My gaze locked on the bright ribbon of rich, red blood running over my pale skin and I suddenly wondered what it would taste like.
She closed her eyes and moaned as she suckled blood through the holes she’d made in my flesh. Too bad her fun was about to end.
“What’s your name?” I asked her in a husky voice.
Her eyes opened and glanced upward. She lifted her head and shimmied up my body, pressing her soft warmth against my throbbing mons as she put her lips close to my ear. “I am Kiri. And I am the last thing you will see or feel in this world, Astra Q Phelps.”
I sucked in a breath as her teeth found my throat. My hips arched upward and I ground myself against her soft belly, the picture of helpless need.