Dialle scowled at me as if I’d done something wrong.
I hadn’t done anything except get dragged into a mess that wasn’t mine.
At first I bristled and my temper flared. My temper had never been a snake with a long tail anyway, but then guilt slid over me like a foul gas as the Slayer’s image flitted through my mind, along with a few choice mind videos of our…erm… recent activities.
Okay, I had done
some
things wrong.
But they’d felt so right.
And I didn’t think Dialle knew about
those
things. “What?”
“Leave us, Gerch.”
The guard threw me a last look before turning toward the door. The look gave me chills. It was almost apologetic, as if he’d just signed my death warrant or something.
I started after him, determined to discover what he was about. I knew Dialle wouldn’t be forthcoming with the information.
And if it concerned me, I wanted to know.
As I reached the door it slammed shut on Gerch’s heels. I heard a yelp through the door that told me Gerch hadn’t quite vacated the space before Dialle slammed the door closed.
The knob wouldn’t turn. The door wouldn’t open.
My temper flared. I turned to give Dialle a piece of my mind and found him sharing my air space.
His breath danced softly on the tiny slice of air between us. His dark eyes probed my face, filled with a wildly fluctuating range of emotions. His scent reached out and grabbed me, closing my throat and, in a flash, stealing away all thought.
He touched my lips with a finger that seared my skin with its heat, pulling my bottom lip downward. “I’ve missed you, Astra.”
Warning bells went off. Something wasn’t right. What was with the rapid change in direction? He’d just told me he didn’t have time for what he was obviously engaging. It had something to do with Gerch’s visit.
I wanted to ask the questions, but he’d engaged my Settling. And my mind was quickly shutting down.
His lips descended on mine, replacing the finger. His tongue took advantage of the space his finger had created and slid inside, to tangle hotly with my own.
I groaned, my body becoming instant flame beneath his touch. My body wept, sending the musky scent of arousal into the air we breathed.
Dialle groaned and flicked his fingers. Instantly we were naked.
He deepened his kiss, tilting his head to consume my mouth more thoroughly. The finger that had pulled my lips apart slid down my belly and toward the hungry flesh at the vee of my thighs.
I gave a little cry as his fingers found my nub, rubbing it gently before sliding into my moist heat. My head went back on a scream of pure unbridled lust as he worked my hungry pussy with his fingers while rubbing my throbbing clitoris with his thumb.
Succumbing to mindless need, I captured his soft lower lip between my teeth and bit down hard, drawing blood. He moaned, grinding his cock against me. It was thick and hard against my belly and I couldn’t get close enough to it.
Reaching for it with one hand, I used the other to grab his delectable backside, kneading it hungrily as I sucked the blood trickling from his torn lip.
A growling sound filled the air and it took me a moment to realize it was me. I’d become mindless in my hunger, rabid with need. Every nerve ending in my body was firing, immensely sensitive.
Attuned only to Dialle.
His touch, his scent, the various textures of his skin were my entire world. The black silk of his hair touched my shoulder as we kissed and my skin screamed from the nearly painful need it elicited in response.
I reached up and buried my fingers in the mass of it, feeling it nearly burn my palm with pleasure.
My body built inexorably toward an explosion of release. Dialle’s fingers kept up a perfect and devastating rhythm, driving me toward that peak, promising a path over it, into relief from the lashing hunger that had ridden me for weeks, unassuaged.
I widened my stance, my body clenching around his fingers, and then fell screaming into orgasm, calling his name as my fingers pulled his head down to a rigid, starving nipple.
Almost as soon as I rolled to the bottom of my release, I found myself on a soft bed with Dialle stretched out over me. His fiery mouth laved at a pebbled nipple and I arched my back to give him better access. “Dialle!”
He lifted his mouth from my nipple. “Tell me what you want, Astra.”
“Oh Hades!” I gasped. “I want you!
He captured the other nipple, sucking hard and driving sharp frissons of pleasure toward the still pulsing core of my pleasure. “What do you want me to do, Astra?” He bit down on the nipple, drawing blood as I had done and sucking it into his hot mouth.
I moaned, thrashing frantically beneath him. I wanted. I needed. I craved. My entire being was wrapped up in an enormous hunger that I couldn’t identify, couldn’t name and couldn’t quite reach.
There weren’t words big enough for my craving.
My mind struggled to find them, even as my body reacted greedily to his touch.
I felt his hard cock against my belly, the heat of it searing my skin, creating actual, physical sparks.
I arched upward, begging him with my body for what my mind couldn’t comprehend.
My daemon hickey sparked, sizzling with the same, unnamed yearning.
Working from instinct and nothing else, I realized the two were related. My mark needed something from Dialle. My pussy demanded it.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, over my chin and trickled down my breasts, into Dialle’s laving mouth. He groaned and sucked harder at my nipple until I bucked with unimaginable desire beneath him.
Suddenly the hunger found a name.
My mind latched on to it, pulled it free and longed to send it into the air between us.
I growled deep and low in my throat and grabbed his cock in one hand. “Do it, Dialle!”
“Do what, my love.”
“Fuck me, Dialle. Claim me, damn you, claim me!”
He growled then too, capturing my lips with his own as he plunged his rock-hard shaft deep within my pulsing pussy, burying himself hard, right up to his balls.
I moaned in sheer delight. “Yes!” And bared my neck for him, offering him my throbbing daemon hickey to suck.
He covered it with his mouth, devouring the sparks that shot from it and thrusting hard as he pulled the fire from my body at my throat.
I wrapped myself around him, meeting him thrust for thrust as his long, lean body ravaged mine.
We fucked like mindless animals, driven only by lust, by ravening need. The world with all its problems slid away as my Settling met his devil and made magic and fire.
Smoke drifted upward as the satin sheets beneath us caught fire.
We rolled among the flames, oblivious and immune to its ravages.
Another orgasm rolled over me and my body pulled on Dialle’s. My pussy milked his driving cock hard.
Dialle followed me into release with a deep-throated growl, which morphed into my name on his swollen lips. And as his cock jerked within my body in final release, his teeth clamped down on the daemon mark, breaking through my skin and sending me spiraling on a room-shattering scream back into orgasm.
A wall of light, power and flame shot away from us, creating a pulsating column that lit up the entire room and caused the very walls to shake.
I threw back my head and screamed, the sound reverberating off the walls and adding to the power already shaking the foundations of the castle.
As the power soaked us, saturating our pores, it became too much for me. And I felt my mind shutting down from an overload of sensation. The room grew dark around the edges and my body sank limp into the smoldering mattress beneath us.
The last thing I was aware of was Dialle’s soft kisses on my throat and face. And his voice, husky with emotion, whispering my name.
Something nibbled at the edges of my quickly fading consciousness, telling me that I’d just entered another layer of Hades. And I would soon be too deep within its fiery confines to escape its terrifying grip.
Chapter Eleven
Back to Business
Her sensual stress is finally staunched, her Settling under wraps,
So now our Lady’s quest for truth, can be assuaged…perhaps.
“What was that all about, Dialle?”
He glanced at me, his dark eyes cold and unreadable again. “It was necessary. For both of us.”
I couldn’t argue with that. At least from my perspective. My body felt warm and liquid, free of the stress that had been riding it before. And my mind felt sharp again.
But a cold band had wrapped itself around my heart. Dialle had pulled away from me in a significant way. And I wasn’t sure I could pull him back.
Or, at that moment, if I even wanted to.
Watching him move around the room, dressing and pulling together an impressive array of weapons, I decided it wasn’t the time or place to discuss our personal issues. There would be time enough for that when we’d beaten back Dialle the First.
If
we managed to beat the crafty and morally bankrupt Royal back at all. He had age and experience on his son.
But Dialle could be ruthless when he needed to be.
And he had me.
I climbed out of bed and started to dress. A moment later I heard the door open and turned in time to see Dialle’s fine ass retreating through the door. Gerch’s expressive red face turned in my direction and he gave me a little smile.
I shook my head and he shrugged.
“Try to stay out of trouble, Astra.” Dialle instructed me before the door slammed closed behind him.
“Yeah,” I responded to the empty room. “I’ll try.” Knowing full well that it was nearly impossible for me.
I straightened my clothing and headed for the door.
First task on the list was confronting Nerul. I needed to know if he was acting as a spy for Dialle the First. And I needed to know where my sister was, so I could get her out of there.
And most importantly, having just had my Settling beaten temporarily back into submission, it was a good time to confront the evil but dangerously charming Royal.
Two stern faced guards turned to me as I exited Dialle’s rooms. I glanced at them before moving past. They fell into step behind me. I stopped, turning to confront them. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The bigger guard spoke first. I cranked my head upward to meet his dark eyes. Unlike many of the red, scaly types, his gaze was filled with intelligence. “We have been instructed to stay with you, as protection.”
I nodded, trying to keep my expression blank.
It wasn’t something I was good at.
I think my blank face must have looked more hostile than neutral because the smaller guard flinched, his thick, red fist sliding toward his sword.
Grinning meanly at him, I responded, “I don’t need a guard. You can stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”
The big one snorted. My smile dropped away as I turned to him. “You got something to say?” Expecting him to back down, I was shocked and a little impressed when he responded.
“Yes. You will not return. You are very crafty. King Dialle warned us about you. We will go with you wherever you go.”
I frowned at him. “Is that so?”
His craggy lips spread in a wide grin. I realized with a start that he was enjoying our exchange. “You’ll be wearing us like a cheap red suit until our King tells us different.”
The other guard cleared his throat but his dark eyes sparked with humor.
Gritting my teeth, I turned and stomped down the hallway, deciding that if I couldn’t shake the guards, I’d make use of them.
Of course, if I
could
shake them I would.
It didn’t take me long to realize I needed their help. I kept moving forward for a full minute after the realization, not wanting to ask them for help. It nearly killed me to stop, turn and ask the question. “Where’s Nerul? I need to speak to him.”
The smaller guard rolled his rocklike lips. The big one didn’t bother to hide the smug smile that popped onto his face. “I will take you to him.”
I fell into step behind him while the other guard took up my flank. I felt like the meaty filling for a small, angry Astra sandwich.
I didn’t like the feeling at all.
And me without any weapons.
After several minutes of twisting and turning and climbing, I realized I would most likely never have found Nerul on my own.
The realization only made me crankier.
Nearly an hour later we finally stopped in front of a wide metal door covered in guards. As we’d approached down the hall Nerul’s well-appointed and well-trained guards straightened away from the wall and converged on the door, obscuring it in a double line of impeding devil.
My guards stopped several feet from Nerul’s soldiers and moved in front of me, obscuring my view.
I tried to step around them but they kept shifting to stay in front of me. Resisting the urge to hop up and down to see over them, I pulled my power forward and shifted to a spot between the two muscular red walls of devilry.
“I need to speak to Nerul.”
Nerul’s guard stood unmoving and silent before me. I focused my attention on the center guard, whose body language told me was the leader.
Well, that and the fact that he had shoulder bling as big as my head on each broad shoulder.
As he continued to glare silently at me I took a step forward, daring him to attack.
My guards stepped forward too, until they were flanking me. Two thick, metal-covered arms pressed in front of me until I felt squeezed and displeased. Turning sideways, I slipped through their restraining arms and glared at the bigger one.
I made a mental note to get their names. I couldn’t keep referring to them as big and less big. I decided to call them Frick and Frack in the meantime.
“Tell Nerul I’m here.” I addressed shoulder bling. “He’s expecting me.” The guard’s dark eyes focused on me without emotion and he continued to hold to his spot before the door without moving. “Do it, or you’ll be answering to King Dialle!”
The guard finally blinked and slowly turned to the guard on his left, flicking his rocklike red chin upward. The guard turned and headed toward the door. It opened briefly behind them to allow the guard to enter Nerul’s quarters.