My Wicked Enemy (20 page)

“Not some weak-assed mage, either.” The air vibrated with the magic he was pulling. “Rasmus, unless I’m very much mistaken.” Harsh didn’t like that much. Nikodemus felt that right away.

“You’re not. And if Rasmus’s here, then so is Xia,” Harsh said.

“We can probably count on Magellan, too, along with his buddy Kynan Aijan.” He tossed his keys to Harsh. “Get the car and bring it around there.” He jabbed a finger in the direction he meant. “Doors unlocked. Be ready to punch it when we’re in.” He grabbed the other fiend’s arm. “Stay the hell away from Rasmus, you hear me?”

Harsh barely acknowledged him before he went off at a run. Nikodemus hoped he wasn’t sending him to be owned by Rasmus all over again. He didn’t know for sure if Harsh was protected by his link with Carson.

As for him, his body was in fight mode: primed, balls tight, senses alert. Everything felt light. He was walking an edge, all right. He headed for the back of the salon, past the women looking through lotions and oils and poofy sponges and straight for Carson’s room. He had a fix on where she was the last time he felt her, but he got nothing from her now. Nothing at all. It was all he could do to keep his human form.

He pulled power before he burst into the tiny room, as much as he could safely handle and then a little more. He welcomed the edge. If he tipped over, too bad. A human woman lay insensate on the floor, mentally stripped until she’d collapsed. Nikodemus stepped over the human.

Carson sat on the table, her hand on Xia’s chest like she was trying to push him away. Xia snarled at Nikodemus, teeth bared. The mageheld was as close to leaving his shape as any fiend could be and not have changed. Xia reached behind his back and brought out a blade that gleamed with the years of malignant magic poured into its making.

“We’re busy, Warlord,” he said, eyes on Nikodemus. “So just fuck off, all right?” He laughed. A corner of his mouth curled. “Guess your witch likes what I do for her.”

Nikodemus didn’t wait. He had Carson on tap, and that meant he could feel Xia. Not full-on, but enough to surprise the crap out of him. He let loose with a shot of heat focused straight at Xia’s chest. The fiend hit the back wall with a crash, but he shook it off. Too late. Nikodemus saw his opening and was halfway through it. Drawing on Carson, he cut Xia off from his magic. Shit, Xia was a fucking monster. He snatched Carson’s jeans and threw them at her. “We need to get out of here.”

She rolled off the table, jeans clutched in one hand, but turned toward Xia. The mageheld might not be able to use his magic right now, but he was still a goddamned big and powerful freak. Nikodemus figured he had about five minutes, maybe six, before Xia broke the physical freeze he had on him.

“Get dressed, Carson. Now.”

She gave Xia another look before she shoved a leg into her jeans. He had the fiend immobilized, but not much more than that. She hopped a couple of times because she was staring at Xia. At this rate, he was going to have to carry her out bare-assed. At last, she got her jeans on and shoved her feet into her shoes.

“Sweetheart! Let’s go.”

She swung to Xia. “But I can feel him, Nikodemus.”

“Carson.” He reached for her, and when his fingers closed on her he got a blast of her magic, disorganized but rapidly taking on coherence. It didn’t go anywhere. Couldn’t. But the fiend-magic in her was something else, and it was transforming something freaky.

She stood her ground and closed her eyes, concentrating. She leaned toward Xia. The mageheld blinked. “I can
feel
him. I couldn’t before, but now I can.”

“What the freaking eff are you doing?” He tightened his grip on her wrist. She reached for Xia, who was as likely to kill her before, during, or after he was done balling her brains out.

“I can do it now,” she said. “You need to let him go, Nikodemus. I can’t do this if he doesn’t have his magic.”

Xia arched back, bowing away from her as much as he could. “Fuck you, witch. I’d rather die than be your slave.”

Nikodemus was just about at the end of his ability to keep Xia down. “Carson, we don’t want to be anywhere near this guy when he breaks free. In his state, he could take down the building.”

“Let me try!”

“Carson, now!” And he hauled her out of the room.

Xia broke free before they reached the side exit where Nikodemus hoped Harsh was waiting with the car. He wasn’t. Nikodemus scanned the parking lot for his Mercedes. Lots of pedestrians. Cars, too. Too many people around. He didn’t like this at all. Rasmus was here, not far, and that meant his fiends had to be close.

Carson was totally calm. Her gaze swung back to the mall. The change in her, her eagerness to go after Xia, vibrated in her. Her magic was coming up strong now, and it was hard for him to concentrate. He walked her to the west exit, hand on her back the whole way.

Twenty feet past the exit, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Shit,” he said. “Magellan’s here somewhere.”

Neither mage would do anything out in the open. Not in a crowded mall. They’d have to be foolish or damned good or both to think they could pull magic out here in the open. But Magellan wasn’t even trying to hide his power anymore, and that was worrisome. Nikodemus didn’t like knowing there were fiends he couldn’t feel. It made his skin crawl.

He drew on Carson and, through her, got that echo of what it was for a mage to feel the kin. The contact with her opened up a psychic floodgate. This was a lot like what had happened with Kynan. His connection with Carson let him access her magic, and her magic resonated around fiends. There were two on top of the wisteria-covered trellis between the mall and the main parking lot. He looked up. Their black dusters flapped in the afternoon breeze.

Fifty yards away, his Mercedes was stopped behind several cars waiting for a woman with a double stroller to cross in front of them. Crap. The two clowns on the trellis were drawing attention. Rasmus was around, too, but not showing himself.

One of the two on the trellis snarled at them. Harsh was too far away. Nikodemus put a hand on Carson’s back, and at the first break in traffic he walked her onto the parking lot, away from the trellis. The three guys in leather walked along the diagonal walkway. Nikodemus tightened his grip on her elbow. These guys and more somewhere with the mages. “Carson, can you sever any of them?”

Her eyes dilated. Wide open to stimuli. She was on. Totally chilled. Totally focused. Someone had turned on the magic spigot in her. “I think so. But I need to touch them to do it.” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think it works any other way.”

Three more fiends appeared at the other side of the lot. All of them wore leather pants and dusters like they were auditioning for
Highlander.
And then one of them vanished. Fuck. A human teen with baggy pants halfway down his ass froze. His eyes bulged, showing nothing but whites. He screamed without pausing for breath, arms windmilling. Spittle dripped down the side of his mouth as he bobbed and pitched, and then he dashed straight for Carson.

He absolutely could not touch a human, not in the middle of a crowd. The best he could do was put himself in front of Carson and take the brunt of the physical attack. At the periphery of his vision, he saw Harsh corner the Mercedes, keeping in the inside lane. The equivalent of a city block away. The kid shrieked like his head was on fire, and all while he battered Nikodemus to get at Carson. Two of the leather-boys stopped, but a third circled around. A fourth dropped from the roof. Did they think no one was going notice someone jumping from twelve feet in the air and just strolling off? And then Carson juked around him right when he expected the kid to blast them.

She stuck out her arms, and the human boy crashed into her palms. They went reeling, the both of them. Nikodemus caught her in time to stop her from cracking her head on a cement column. His connection with her was enough to feel what happened. Her magic separated the fiend from the kid the way a hot fire incinerated paper. The indwelling fiend burst away, damn near destroyed by the impact. The kid hit the ground hard. He lay limp, barely breathing. The fiend kept shrieking. His fellow magehelds grabbed him when they realized he was losing it. All around them, humans stared. A few pulled out cell phones and started dialing.

“Fucking awesome, Carson.” Nikodemus grabbed her. “Now, run!”

When Harsh saw Nikodemus and Carson running, he gunned the engine and ran the car up the sidewalk. Behind them, the fiend who’d taken the kid collapsed. Two other fiends darted after them, realizing too late they were made and had lost any advantage they might have had. Tires squealed when Harsh hit the brakes, and Nikodemus got a nose full of burning rubber. Carson jumped for the car and yanked open the rear door. Nikodemus dove inside, and she threw herself in after. Harsh floored it.

In the back seat, Carson wriggled around until she struggled to sit up. She stared out the back window, transfixed by the chaos. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“Seat belt, Carson!” He pulled her down and grabbed the belt.
Click
. “You can’t sever even a puny-ass fiend if you get killed going through the windshield.”

As they shot the red light, Nikodemus looked out the back window, too. Magellan was calling back his fiends. The goofs in the dusters were gone. Across the street from the mall, a tall fiend stood next to a man in a suit. They weren’t too far away for Nikodemus to recognize Magellan and Kynan Aijan.

Her head came up, and she took a step back. Her usual serious expression didn’t mask her fear. “What happened to me?” She held up her hands. “I’m trembling still at the thought of what Magellan and his fiends could have done to you. If any of them had touched you, I would have killed them with my bare hands.” She dropped her hands. “I’m not a killer. I’m not.”

“It’s your fealty to me,” he said. He had to work to keep his voice even. No big deal. This was no big deal. He leaned against the door, one knee bent so the sole of his boot was on the wood. “Stronger than I expected, but that’s all it is.” He hooked his fingers through his two front belt loops. No big deal. Right. “I’m bound to protect you, and you’re bound to protect me. That’s how it works.”

She opened her mouth to say something and apparently thought better of it. “I need a drink of water,” she said.

He watched her march to the bathroom, listened while she got a drink.
Clunk
. That was the cup hitting the sink. When she came out, she said, “What happened to that boy?”

“You separated him from the fiend who took him.”

She leaned against the wall by the bathroom door and stared at the ceiling. “Okay,” she whispered in a trembling voice. She ran her hands over her head. “Okay.” Then she looked at him. “But is he going to be all right?”

“Probably.” He walked over to her and slipped his arms around her waist before she had a chance to take a breath. “You didn’t kill that kid. Chances are you saved his life. The mageheld sure as hell didn’t give a rat’s ass what happened to him.”

“Magellan is after us.” Her eyes fixed on him, big and intensely green. “He’s after you because of me. And he’s not going to give up.”

He dropped his head to her shoulder, getting up close and thinking about her being naked in his arms, which he really shouldn’t do. “Look,” he said after a bit. “You don’t make my life any more dangerous than it already was. That’s just a fact, so don’t get all broken up about Álvaro Magellan having a hard-on for me. Mages are always looking to snag a fiend. It’s been that way for longer than I can remember.” He sighed, and Carson put her arms around him, holding him close. “If we don’t figure out how to change that, pretty soon there’ll be more of us who are mageheld than free.”

“So what now?”

He shrugged. “We go on. I meet with the other warlords and do my best to convince them we need to work together.” Her body felt good against his. He nuzzled the side of her neck, breathing in her scent. “You smell good, Carson.” Her body softened against his, and without thinking, he opened his mouth over her. His teeth scraped her skin. Not enough to draw blood, but still, the desire was there. He bit down a little harder. Her arms tightened around him. They could do this. He could control himself enough to have plain vanilla sex with her.

When he lifted his mouth from the side of her neck, he definitely heard the moan in the back of her throat. He put a hand on her cheek. “Don’t look so serious,” he said. Her eyes were pools of still, green ocean. She gazed at him as if she’d fallen overboard and he was the one with a rope. “This isn’t life or death, Carson. It’s not what was going down with Harsh the other day, the three of us. That was serious. Out of hand. What happened at the mall today was serious. You and me like this isn’t. The two of us are just good together.”

Right. Him feeling like she was the only thing that mattered was no big deal. She studied him with that serious look of hers that made him so hot for her. She was back to low tide, so he couldn’t be sure where she was emotionally. Not without going where he shouldn’t. A tiny white scar ran into the lower edge of her bottom lip, a diamond of pale white in the red. She licked her lips, and he stared at her mouth, thinking things he shouldn’t. He leaned closer and invaded her space on purpose. His skin prickled: the hair up and down his arms came to attention, almost like he was going to change form. “For a human woman, Carson,” he said in a voice thick with reaction, “you manage to rev me up on more than the physical level.”

“Is that bad?”

“I like it.” More than liked it. And he liked the way she thought so hard about everything. For her, every decision was a momentous one. She was getting to him. He was thinking more about her than he was about himself. “So,” he said. “Are we going to?”

Very serious again, she said, “Do you have condoms?”

“The kin don’t get STDs.”

Her cheeks pinked up. “What about pregnancy? Do we need to worry about that?”

“I’m not fertile in this form. If we ever make it when I’m shifted, then you can worry about me getting you knocked up.”

She licked her lips again and blinked several times. Her skin went two shades whiter. Nikodemus put his hand on the nape of her neck.
Zing
. The contact went straight to his gonads. Her lower lip rolled underneath her upper one and came out glistening. “Well,” she said. She put her arms around him. “Then I guess we are.”

“How do you like it, Carson? Slow and sweet, or sweaty and rough?”

“That depends on the moment, doesn’t it?”

He pressed his thumb to her damp lip. “We’ll try it both ways, then. I just want it to be good for you.” He dropped his hand to her shoulder and made a circle with the pad of his finger. And while he did, his imagination drifted. He saw himself shifted to his other form, his finger trailing down her body. His back itched with the idea of being in his most elemental form. With more effort than he liked, he brought his thoughts back to right now.

She watched him with familiar caution. What calculus was behind those eyes now? She grimaced, and her gaze locked with his. Yeah. He could definitely see himself shifted, touching her naked human skin with his fingers so as not to accidentally draw blood, gliding along her body, lungs pulling in air, his cock hard and sliding in while he delved deep into her head, soaking up all her emotion. His spine tingled all the way down his back. She had some control, too, so she wasn’t going to just let him roll her like a drunk in a doorway. Not that he would.

He leaned back long enough to jerk his T-shirt over his head and drop it to the floor. This close to shifting, he didn’t like clothes against his skin, and he was close. Convenient, since he needed to be out of his clothes to have sex with her anyway. He stroked her forehead with the pad of his index finger. “You know, Carson, you could come into my head if you wanted.”

“I could?”

“Yeah. Wanna try?” She nodded. His magic wanted to taste the well of blackness churning in her almost as much as he wanted her physical body. His fingertip pressed gently, about an inch above the bridge of her nose, and like that, their link came alive, easier now because the fiend-magic in her was sworn to him. As a warlord, he almost never let someone in like this. “Just think about being in me.”

To his surprise, she came on, soft but sure, no barging in, no breaking down of barriers. Just—insertion. And Carson was there. With him. His blood sizzled with the effect of her being in his head. She was one hell of a rush. Sweet and lush, a siren’s call to the ever-ravenous side of his nature.

She pressed her palms to his torso and spread her fingers, driving him right to the edge of his control. “Is this all right?”

“Hell, yes,” Nikodemus said. Her hands were cool on his skin. Human skin. His skin was still human. “I like that you’re not tall,” he said, because he needed something to keep him from changing. He turned toward the wall, crowding her, pressing her against the cool surface, his palms braced above her shoulders. Much as he liked her hands sliding down his torso—God, did he like it—he was shaking with the desire to change and that would scare her right out of the mood. “Perfect.”

He lowered his head and kissed her. In the back of his head, the alien, human presence of her stirred, shimmering beneath everything else, pulsing through his body. Something in him answered until he felt the burning sensation that meant he was about to lose control. He broke contact and threw back his head, his pelvis pressed against her until the energy that presaged his physical change drained away.

When he was reasonably sure he had himself under control, he went back to kissing her. Hard this time. None of that sweet and tender crap. His tongue swept into her mouth, answering her heat. He got a hand between them and worked at pushing up her T-shirt. This had been coming on for so long it was a relief to know they were finally going to get it done. They separated enough for him to get the shirt off her.

“Oh, hell, yes,” he said when he saw the flash of her skin. Her bra was industrial-strength cotton and hideous. No lace anywhere. But there was no disguising she was stacked. Not obscenely or anything, but nice, really nice. Really, really nice. She was too slender for bombshell status, but he felt like someone had gone and made him a human woman who pushed every sexual button he possessed. Real hips, real breasts, a flat stomach, and skin that had never baked in the sun.

He got a hand behind her, palm to her back. A quick pull forward and she was pressed against him, her soft, bare skin against his chest. Her presence in his head electrified him. He tingled beneath his skin, his back rippled, and again he had to pull away just to keep from going berserk with her.

Her lips parted, and he cradled her face with one hand and with the other worked at the back fastening of her bra.
Pop.
Yeah. Body armor about to fail. “I love your mouth,” he growled. Her pupils were big and black as midnight, pools of black surrounded by green. “I love it so much I’m hoping you like to give head.” He worked at her bra. Three damn rows of hooks, and the last one just wasn’t going to unhook. “Do you, Carson?” His voice went low and soft. She was there in his head, so she knew exactly what he was thinking and feeling. “Tell me you’re a cocksucker.”

But then her bra came loose and he lost track of his bad language and a few other things, too. “God, you’re perfect. Round and pale and all tight.” He put a hand over her naked breast, and she made a sound in the back of her throat that dove him right off the high board. He was taking them along. Too fast. He knew that, but that’s how things were between them. He couldn’t not go there. Then his mouth was on her, licking her, sucking, hot and damp, and her reaction sent him out of his mind. Her nipple came erect in his mouth and under his tongue and, just, Christ, he was in heaven.

He ran his finger along the waistband of her jeans. He hardly knew where to touch her. He kissed his way up her throat, letting his hand take over where his mouth had been, and when he got to her mouth, he slid his lips over hers and kissed her, and her mouth opened under his like a dream. She kissed him back and at the same time pushed his hand away from her pants. With a wiggle, she came in closer and ran a finger up his fly. And then she popped the buttons of his jeans.

He pulled away and turned them so his spine was pressed against the wall, and,
thunk,
his head hit the edge of the door. He toe-heeled his boots off, and she got her hand around him, fingers warm and then tightening around him just so.

“Holy fuck, Carson.” His hesitation about this encounter was living in some other time zone now. She did it. She went down on him, and she knew exactly how he liked it, too. He adjusted his position so it was easier for her. “I’ll return the favor, I promise. Oh, Jesus, that feels good.”

Her tongue went the length of him, magic. He grabbed her hand and extended her arm out. He got a picture in his head that didn’t do much for his good-boy hopes. A picture that, when he peeked at her, was more or less what was in his head except he still looked human. She ended up propping her hand against his abdomen, and he kept himself from exploding in her by drawing another line from her shoulder to the tip of her index finger. He managed it twice more, got all the way to her ring finger before she blew the top off his head.

He lost it. His control dissolved and his body started to change, and he was so close to his natural form that he nearly slid all the way there. Only he didn’t. He caught himself in time. Well, not quite, because when she stood up, he saw a thin line of blood on her shoulder. He kissed the scratch. Her blood tasted of salt. He bit her. Just a little. Just enough to remind him that what he wanted to do was taboo. A fiend wasn’t supposed to take a human who knew he was shifted or who was going to remember afterward.

“My turn,” he said. He walked forward, forcing her to walk backward. All the way to the bed. He grabbed her upper arm when the backs of her knees hit the mattress. His hand slid toward her fingers, letting her lie back. He knelt on the mattress with his knees on either side of her hips. Her body was luscious. He curled his fingers around her wrist and drew another line. He put his mouth by her ear. “I started out thinking this would just be fucking, but it’s gotten a little out of hand. You know, do it and get you out of my system. So, yeah. Maybe it’s be a little more than that. Okay? Just so you know. You okay with that? Because I am.”

“Yeah,” she said, tugging him toward her. “I’m okay with that.”

He let go of her wrist and applied himself to getting her naked. She was already barefoot. Pants, gone. Ugly cotton undies, gone. “You,” he said, breathless with the sight of her, Brazilian and all, “are amazing.” And that was the last thing he said for a long time. She tasted good, and when she got close to orgasm, the link between them vibrated. He let her relax between peaks, took her almost to the edge and backed down until she was writhing. “What happens if I leave you like this?” he said when she was damn near there. He used his knee to nudge her legs apart.