The Nightwind's Woman (10 page)

As if I’d have you.

She would, he thought with a smirk. As
would her sister Agrat, but he belonged—body and soul—to Lilith until the day Kenzi
would claim him solely as her own. With Kerreyder now in the picture, that day
might never come, and he was sure Lilith had known that all along.

Comprehension struck him then and he
reeled. The sisters—no doubt all of them, but with Lilith at point—had set this
in motion. It was by their hand the insurrectionists against Yn Drogh Spyrryd
had fled Treigeilys and come to Terra to hide. The whores had set the beasts
free so Kerreyder would be forced to track them down.

And meet Kenzi, the woman whom the Fates
had decreed his Blood-mate.

“You bitches,” he whispered, feeling the
betrayal, the retribution all the way to the marrow of his bones.

You were never meant to be free,
incubus,
Naamah told him
. We knew to the second
when the Blood-mate was to come into life. That she was also your only
salvation was icing on the cake of vengeance.

“And she is the only one who can control
Kerreyder,” he said miserably.

You are not as stupid as you look.

Another realization hit him—apparently as
the demonesses intended. Kerreyder would be forced to take his captives back to
Prysson and he would be gone a long time. He would return, but in the interim
Randon would have the pleasure of Kenzi’s company, which would make the
archdemon’s future return all the more hateful.

He’s willing to share the cunt. Be glad
for what crumbs you’ll get, Nightwind!

* * * * *

Kerreyder pursed his lips, annoyed at his
aunt and the way she was taunting the Nightwind. He almost felt sorry for the
incubus as he sat there beside McKenzi and listened in on the conversation from
the cells. And he could afford to be magnanimous and show the Nightwind some
compassion for he had his Blood-mate and would make her his at the stroke of
Midnight, the traditional time of Joining, while the incubus would be forced to
suck hind teat.

Aye, he almost felt sorry for the male.

Another brutal taunt struck the defeated
demon’s shoulders and Kerreyder had heard enough.

Leave him be, Naamah, or suffer the
consequences
, he ordered and smiled hatefully at
the startled gasp that came from the whore’s throat.

He snorted. Did the bitch actually believe
she and her sisters—including his malicious mother—could hide anything from
him
?
Did they think he was unaware of their nasty little conspiracies?

Stupid, arrogant females, he thought. He
had the power to nullify their abilities and render them completely unable to
wield magic of any kind. It was only out of a minute drop of respect for the
female who had birthed him that he didn’t. He’d never hear the end of it from
her if he took away or diminished their puny powers. They served their purpose
and as long as they did, he’d leave them alone to hatch their nefarious plots.

But oh, how he wanted to trash Naamah’s!
For eons he’d wanted to strip her of any semblance of control she had over the
males of the Megaverse. Her love of cock—of
wood
as she termed it—was
sickening. She, alone, had caused so much grief, so much agony, and so much
self-loathing for his gender. To make her sexually frustrated would be one helluva
punishment for a bitch who well deserved it.

Although there had been a time when she
hadn’t been quite so bad. Well, she had, but it was a type of badness that
serviced him well…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Of all his mother’s sisters, Naamah was the
one of whom he was the most wary. The female was not blood kin to his mother so
thankfully not related to him. She was a Fallen like his mother—one of four
females cast down with the archangel Samael—and they had labeled themselves
sisters. Each female had been handed a quadrant of Treigeilys to rule. His
mother received Talamh in the South. Lilith was given Uisce to the East. Agrat’s
northern dominion became Gaoth and Naamah took Tine in the West as her kingdom.

One morning, his mother sent him to deliver
a chest of spells to Naamah. The journey from Talamh to Tine was long and
arduous and meant he needed to cross the Barrens of the Midland beneath which
lay Prysson, deep within the bowels of Treigeilys.

He had been on the road for three days when
he camped near a waterfall for the night. The air was chill and smelled of
rancid meat, the ground strewn with pebbles. The fire he managed to build was
meager at best and gave off very little light and hardly any warmth. Cold jerky
and a dried-out biscuit became an unsatisfying supper that he washed down with
bitter coffee for he had forgotten to add sugar to the supplies in his
saddlebags. Irritated, sore from riding and with his belly rumbling, he spread
his blanket beneath a rocky overhang, using his saddle as a pillow and huddled
in his great cape to keep warm. Around him the night sounds of things moving
among the boulders above him and in the craggy cliffs off to one side kept him
from sleeping. His keen hearing picked out scuttling insects and slithering
creatures, the cheep of bats and squeals of rats as predators munched them for
their meals. Far in the distance he could hear the rumble of thunder and
worried the rain would come before morning light. Beneath him the ground shook
now and again. All in all, it was a miserable way to end a tiring day.

When he woke the next morning, the stallion
he had tied to a scrubby bush was gone and with it his hat and saddlebags.
Furious, he had gone looking for the beast and for whomever had stolen the saddlebags.
There were no footprints and no hoof prints either for that matter to show him
which way the culprit went. It was as though the beast and his belongings had been
snatched up by an unseen hand. Thankfully, the robber had not pilfered his
canteen. He was grateful for that small favor.

Grumbling dire threats aimed at the thief
should he or she be caught, Kerreyder set out into a morning that rapidly
became as hot as the night had been cold. The sweltering sun beat down on his
head. Soon he was sweating profusely as he trudged across the desert landscape
with the great cape slung over one shoulder for he knew he’d need it come
nightfall.

At least, he thought, as he began a steady
climb up a slippery incline, the rain had held off but he wasn’t so sure that
was a good thing. He would have welcomed a light misting to cool the sweat
running down his temples and soaking his underarms.

By the time he reached Lake Loghtalid he
was beginning to feel uneasy. The sky to the west was a strange yellow color
across the horizon. Overhead, the clouds were mostly blue with only a few
streaks of opaque white. There was a distant rumble and he wondered if that had
been what he had heard the night before instead of thunder. The hair on the
back of his neck bristled and his gaze kept returning to the west.

His inaugural trip to Tine was proving to
be a disquieting trek across inhospitable vistas, intensified by a scorching
sun and abrading wind, and by his calculations he had another two days of
travel before reaching the palace. Between where he stood and the kingdom was a
vast wasteland of nothingness save for mesquite and an occasional oasis from
which to fill his canteen.

The first indication something was far from
being right came when the mountains to the west suddenly began to shift, to
roll and grow higher as though they were being punched up from the desert
floor. He stood still, watching them, growing more troubled by the second. Mountains
did not shift nor did they roll unless there was an earthquake yet the ground
beneath his feet was motionless.

Nor did they grow darker in color and began
to move toward you.

“What the hell?” he mumbled.

Realization hit him like a sledgehammer to
the back of his head. It wasn’t a growing mountain he was viewing but a rapidly
advancing dust storm that stretched all along the western horizon. It was
getting higher and higher, more condensed as it spread across the
sky—billowing, growing to gigantic proportions and rapidly increasing in speed
as it came toward him.

Fear undulated down his spine and he
whipped around, searching for somewhere,
anywhere
to hide. He was
immortal. He could not die but he could be buried alive, trapped beneath the
progressing ocean of sand, pressed down by tons of blistering hot silica. The
thought of the sand flowing up his nose, into his mouth to choke him, to fill
his lungs, sent a spiral of pure terror racing through him.

“Eisheth!” he bellowed.

His mother would hear. Surely she was
attuned to her son’s dilemma and would come to his aid. He had yet to attain
his powers—those would not come until he was no longer a virgin—and could not
will himself from his predicament.

“
Eisheth, I need you
!” The shrieking
panic in his voice shamed him but the storm was roiling, churning and agitating
the sand as it picked up speed.

Eyes as wide as saucers as he gaped at the
juggernaut rushing at him, he fumbled in the pocket of his pants for his
kerchief. The wind was whipping mercilessly at him—slamming brutally against
him—as he struggled to tie the bandanna around his face. He was being pushed
back violently as though invisible beings were shoving against his chest. He
stumbled, fell flat to his back just as the monstrous cloud of dust rolled over
him. Throwing his hands over his face as the sharp shards cut into his forehead,
he squeezed his eyes tightly closed and screamed once more for his mother.

* * * * *

Something weighty touched his forehead and
he snapped his eyes open, crying out as he flung his arms over his face to
block whatever was bearing down on him. He closed his eyes again for a bright
light blinded him. He gasped—drawing air deep into his lungs—surprised that he
didn’t choke. The air smelled of perfume and it was cool, not hot as the desert
had been. Tentatively he opened his eyes again, giving them time to adjust to
the strong light beating down on him.

“You’re safe, Kerreyder.”

The voice was feminine, sultry and filled
with humor. He slowly lowered his arms—squinting against that invasive bright
light—and looked up at the speaker. As his eyes met hers he had a strong
sensation of being trapped, caged, owned. A nagging pain pinched at his wrists
and ankles as though tight iron were clamped around them yet his arms and legs
moved freely. He lowered his arms to the bed, raised his knees to make sure he wasn’t
shackled.

“Where am I?” he asked, wincing at the
hackneyed question.

“Safely ensconced at Geay Neear Ayn,” she
replied. “Don’t you remember me, nephew?”

“Naamah,” he said and wondered why he didn’t
feel relief at awaking in her palace. Instead, his foreboding only increased,
which made no sense since this was where he had been bound.

“Your mother should have warned you about
traveling at this time of year. This is the season of the Stoirm Deannach, the
dust storms. A very dangerous time to be traveling across the Barrens,” she
said. Her perfectly smooth forehead creased. “What happened to your horse? Surely
you did not decide to walk from your mother’s kingdom to mine.”

“Someone took him during the night,” he
said.

“Aye, that happens in the Barrens from time
to time. The nomad tribes wander through there in search of travelers.”

Her explanation didn’t ring true. Had it
been a nomad, surely there would have been footprints and how could the animal
had disappeared without leaving indentions in the sand and loose gravel?

“At any rate, you are here now and all in
one…” Her pale-green eyes raked over him. “Gorgeous piece.” She smiled and her
scarlet-painted lips glistened as she ran her tongue over them. “Once you have
seeded your first woman, you will be able to wield the powers that are latent
within you and the next time you visit me, you can will yourself from Eisheth’s
palace to mine.”

He sincerely doubted he would ever venture
to her abode again. There was something very unsettling in the way she stared
at him. Her eyes bore an intense heat that made him want to squirm under her
perusal.

“We can talk later,” she said, turning from
the bed where he lay. “I will have my servants draw you a bath. I’m sure there
is sand in places it shouldn’t be.”

Her laughter made the hair on his arms stir
and when she stopped at the door and turned to look back at him, he was stunned
to see hunger staring at him.

“Join me when you are finished. I will be
in the solarium,” she said then puckered her lips and blew him a kiss before
she exited the room.

“Mother of the gods,” he whispered. That
simple gesture she’d thrown his way had made his cock stiffen. He looked down
at his lower body, shocked to see the wicked thing was poking rigidly at the
coverlet. He stared at it in horror.

A sound at the door made him jerk up his
head. When the portal began to open, he slapped his hands over his erection as
two male servants entered. They stopped, bowed deeply, then without him giving
them permission to do so, advanced on the bed. He shook his head.

“I d-don’t need help, thank you,” he said, feeling
the heat flaming in his cheeks.

They either did not understand his words or
were ignoring them for one went to one side of the bed and one to the other.
Before he could protest, the one on the left side reached for the coverlet. He
pressed his hands tighter to the material.

“I said I don’t need any help,” he stated
in as firm a voice as he could.

The servant ignored him and tugged hard at
the coverlet, wrenching it from him as though he were a stubborn child. The
coverlet was flung to the foot of the bed and the servant on the other side of
him slid his arms under Kerreyder’s back and knees without so much as a by-your-leave.