If only I could kick his ass to show him I was up for the job. But kicking your clients’ asses, even when they’re complete jerks, is generally bad for business.
“I can go in with y’all if you want. I’m armed to the teeth and very muscular under this here fireproof fabric.”
“If muscle is spelled f-a-t,” I murmured. I took a deep breath, ignoring him. “Are you ready?”
Darma didn’t respond, she just started walking toward the building, looking for all the world like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider from oldies night at the holographic films. I shook my head and followed.
The stench of massive reptile thickened the air as we drew near. From my observations I figured there were at least four of them in the building. The female and three babies.
“Do you remember the plan?”
Darma slanted me a look. “You mean we’re not going with the usual plan of kicking ass, blowing shit up and praying?”
I shrugged. “Unfortunately not. This one calls for a bit more finesse. If we want to take them alive we’re gonna have to knock the female out without killing her. The babies will go along with whatever we do at that point.”
“What are we doing at that point?”
“That part of the plan is fuzzy. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“There’s no way you and I will be able to space shift them to Hell by ourselves.”
I tried to ignore her but, per usual, she wouldn’t go away.
“Astra?”
“I’m workin’ on it.” In a huff, I reached for the door handle without thinking and felt my skin nearly sizzle from the heat. “Ouch!” I sucked the burned area on my hand to ease the pain.
The air beside me started to shimmer and panic swamped me.
“Oh shit!”
Darma turned in surprise as a gorgeous male animal shimmered into view between us. Her pretty coral-colored lips formed a perfect O of delight.
He was a little over six feet tall and his hair was midnight black, cut very short, warrior style. The short hair enhanced a very masculine jaw and densely muscled neck. His mouth was wide, with a full, chewable lower lip, and his jaw held the usual dark stubble. His eyes were gold with black flecks. He was dressed in his usual outfit of tight-fitting pants tucked into tall, scuffed brown leather boots and a pecs-snugging short-sleeved shirt with a round neckline.
Slayer smiled at me, showing a long, sexy dimple on each cheek. “Hello, beautiful.”
I pulled my stinging hand from my mouth and grimaced. “What were you doing, sitting on the power wave?”
His smile widened. “When you suck the mark that hard it’s difficult to ignore.”
I jerked my hand downward, guiltily hiding it from my sister’s keen gaze.
“What’s going on, Astra?”
Bleurgh!
I twitched my fingers toward her and turned my back on Slayer. “Nothing. I don’t need you, Slayer, it was a mistake.”
Before I knew what he was doing, Slayer grabbed my burned hand and pulled it upward. I gasped as his tongue came out and swept across the stinging flesh. The skin stopped hurting immediately and the bright red color faded away soon after.
The damage done elsewhere in my body was harder to repair. My Settling roared to life and swamped me with lust. Heat suffused my face and my sexual core throbbed expectantly. The nerve endings on the surface of my skin exploded into sensitivity, turning even the slightest touch of his fiery skin into the most intimate caress.
Slayer’s nostrils flared and he stepped close, as if pulled into my embrace by my rampaging hormones. One thickly muscled arm enfolded me, tucking me into his long, hard body.
His cock pressed hopefully against my belly. His lips lowered toward mine.
My eyes were riveted on those incredible lips. In my mind I was already tasting them. My mouth opened in expectation of his kiss and my body swayed toward his. My eyes fluttered shut and my heart pounded.
Slayer dropped his mouth onto mine in a ravenous kiss, his pretty white teeth capturing my bottom lip and nibbling it before sucking it into the hot cave of his mouth. I moaned under the passionate onslaught, my tongue spearing through to dance with his.
He tasted spicy and masculine and I suddenly couldn’t get enough. My nipples tightened into hard peaks and speared his chest. My panties dampened from his scent.
Slayer threaded his fingers through my hair and held me in the kiss, deepening it under a growl of need. He drove one well-muscled thigh between my knees, and groaned as I dry humped the sexy invading limb.
My mind turned to mush under my Settling. Long weeks of emotional starvation only added to the fire building in my body. My Settling made me crave sexual touch, my place on the emotional precipice made me hunger for passionate fulfillment.
I was sexual dynamite.
And Slayer was a flame looking for something to ignite.
The only thing that could ruin the event was the wall of disapproval and disgust that had been slamming into my mind since Slayer first pulled me into his embrace. After a couple minutes, the invading force successfully bludgeoned the passion from my soul.
I felt Darma’s repulsion before her angry screech of a voice thumped against my frontal lobe.
Astra! Get a grip!
I tried to ignore her. Slayer’s hand was sliding over my hip, cupping one of my buttocks in heat and sensation.
Astra!
I jumped and Slayer lifted his head, breaking his drug-like kiss.
I whimpered, reaching for him with an embarrassing desperation.
Darma reached out and touched my arm, sending a few thousand volts of electricity into the spot as discouragement.
“Ouch! Shit!” My skin sparked and pain stabbed into me. Slayer jumped away, his gaze sliding to Darma for the first time.
I rubbed my arm petulantly as their gazes met.
They stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them blinking. I couldn’t tell if they liked what they saw or were just surprised to discover each other there.
Something surged between them, Darma’s blue eyes softened slightly, and Slayer finally smiled.
Neither of them spoke or moved.
I finally waved a hand in front of Slayer’s face, feeling surprisingly unhappy with his obvious interest in my sister. “Hello!”
Slayer finally blinked and turned. His eyes were filled with heat when they landed on me, his smile seemed genuine.
It was if he’d never seen my sister.
Weird.
“What are you doing, Astra? Whatever it is, I can help.”
I started to shake my head and then realized I was being stupid. He was already there, and the Big Guy knew we needed help.
I bit my lip and sighed. “All right. I need to move this nest of greens out of the building.”
He frowned. “Nest?”
“Yeah. There are babies.”
“Frunk me.”
I nodded. “I think if we can manage to knock out the female the babies will go along. Then we just need to figure out how to get them back to Hell.”
He shook his head. “You can’t send them back, Astra. The greens are leaving Hell because they’re dying in record numbers there. The fires have been growing and the resulting sulfur is killing their offspring.” He jerked his head toward the building. “That female knew what she was doing when she left. She was saving her babies.”
I knew the fires of Hell had been building recently. I didn’t like the trend. It had happened a few times throughout millennia, just before the human realm exploded into massive war.
Shaking my head, I set that aside. A problem for another day.
“Then we’ll need to get them to Olympus. Can you help with that?”
“I think I can.” He touched my chin with a heated fingertip and smiled. My thighs tightened at the sight.
Swallowing hard, I turned away from that smile. “You ready?”
Darma nodded. Her gaze still looked slightly dazed. Her lips were parted and she seemed to be breathing kind of hard. Her pretty blue eyes were locked on Slayer’s fine backside as he turned toward the building.
I smacked her on the arm, finally drawing the dazed look from her face, and then lifted an eyebrow at her hostile glare.
Focus,
I told her.
An unfamiliar grin spread across her face. If I didn’t know her better I’d think it was a leer.
I was focusing.
I couldn’t help it, I smiled with her. No matter where my heart was promised, there was no denying it. Slayer was about as fine a male specimen as I’d ever encountered.
And I couldn’t fault my sister for noticing.
Chapter Two
Slaying the Dragon
The fires of Hell grow harsh and foul, endangering the greens,
Sending them to Earth to nest, amongst the human bein’s.
I took a deep breath and stepped back, preparing to blast the door from its hinges. I could feel Slayer’s heat at my back and his hot breath on my neck.
Darma was loitering behind him. I had a pretty good idea what she was doing back there.
I glanced at him. “I’ll draw her fire and you circle around. If we split up she’ll have trouble engaging all of us.”
Slayer made a noise that I took for agreement.
Darma made a noise that sounded like an orgasm. She’d be worse than worthless in there.
Rolling my eyes in disgust, I sent a focused beam of power into the door and covered my face as it blasted inward, sending splinters and sparks in all directions.
Moving with preternatural speed, Slayer stepped around me and was through the door before I could even stir.
He was immediately engulfed in fire.
Slayer held his hands out in front of him and the fire roared just beyond his fingertips. His power shield was big enough to cover me as I slipped in behind him and moved along the wall, beyond the green’s fiery spew.
As I cleared the thick flame and moved past the roiling clouds of smoke, I scanned the area for the best way to get behind the massive lizard.
The enormous space had been trashed.
The back third of it had been turned into a nursery for giant flying babies. The air vehicles that had been in the building when the dragons arrived were pushed into a semicircle at the back, each one smashed concave at the top and filled with mud, cloth and dried vegetation to create a nest. In the center of each nest sat a baby green, its bright, curious gaze following my progress along the wall with unblinking fascination.
Mama stopped spewing at Slayer and jerked her head toward me. As she sent a thick stream of fire in my direction, Slayer gave her a painful but non-fatal shot to her massive green chest.
The dragon lifted its head in a roar, scoring the wall over my head and the roof with her flesh-melting fire. The ceiling over my head exploded, sending chunks of heavy wood and razor-sharp metal plummeting toward me.
I leapt away, diving behind a large rolling tool cart just as a beam of fire found me again. I was surprised when the cart didn’t explode or melt away in front of me.
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 at me.
No. But that never stopped you, Astra.