The Nightwind's Woman (9 page)

Shock registered in his blue eyes and he
slumped against the sofa. “They destroy a portion of your heart?”

“It’s a safe procedure.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That will
not be done to you.”

He moved so fast she didn’t see him leave
the sofa, didn’t realize he had until he was leaning over her with his palm
pressed tightly over her heart. Before she could protest what he was doing, she
felt a deep warmth spread through her chest and for just a moment she
experienced a ripple of dizziness. There was a brief flicker of discomfort that
made her whimper then everything went dark.

Kerreyder lifted her from the chair and
carried her into her bedroom. The fleeting pain he had unintentionally caused
her beat at him like a barbed whip. He had not meant to cause her any hurt but apparently
her heart was damaged more than she knew and the healing of it had taken an
extra boost of energy she’d felt. He’d willed her into unconsciousness the
second he realized he’d hurt her. But it was over and done with and her heart completely
healed.

Gently, he laid her on the bed then sat
down beside her, running the backs of his fingers along her soft cheek.

“My pretty lady,” he whispered.

He studied every inch of her face from the
soft curve of her eyebrows and long lashes to the perfect bow of her full
lips—lips he wanted so badly to taste but would not. Such a thing would not be gentlemanly
and to his mind constituted a violation. So he contented himself by staring at
the slightly parted perfection of those lips and contemplating how sweet they
would be beneath his own.

Sighing deeply, he got up from the bed and
went to the armoire in the corner of the room. He opened drawers until he found
a nightgown. With his back to her, he stared down at the garment until it
vanished from his hands. He stood there for a moment with his eyes closed then
turned, knowing he would find that gown caressing the gentle curves of his
woman’s body and she would be beneath the bed covers.

He moved to the chair beside the bed and
sat down, crossing his ankle over his knee and bracing his elbows on the chair
arms as he steepled his fingers, watching the steady rise of her chest over the
tips.

“So long have I waited for you,” he said quietly.
“So long have I known anything but abject loneliness and growing despair that I
would ever find you.”

He closed his eyes and laid his head along
the back of the chair. For the first time in his life, he was experiencing a
modicum of contentment and it was an emotion that humbled him.

“One day your Blood-mate will be
presented to you, placed in your care by Destiny,”
his
mother Queen Eisheth had told him
. “You will know her the moment she is near
you. She will be your consort, your eternal companion, the center of your Megaverse.
When you take her, your seed will render her immortal—never to age, never to
wither and die. Let no man, no entity rob you of your Blood-mate. She is yours
though not yours alone.”

“Now I understand what you meant,” he said
aloud as the face of the incubus flitted across his mind’s eye.

“If there is another with a claim to
her, respect that claim. Do not harm the male for your Blood-mate will curse
you for doing so. You will lose what ground you will gain with her if you harm
one hair on the male’s head. It is important to us he survive.”

But his mother had said nothing about
tossing the bastard into the Abyss, he thought. Though he suspected his lady
might take umbrage should he send the Nightwind back where he belonged.

He knew all there was to know about incubi
and more than he had ever wanted to know about succubae—one in particular—and
he understood the bond between Randon Kayle and McKenzi’s maternal linage.
Kayle had sworn a blood oath generations back with a witch of her line and was
linked to the women of her family for eternity. That was the way of Nightwinds.
He would be made to serve the women until he found the one who would redeem
him, who would return his humanity to him.

Kerreyder smiled. It was ironic the incubus
had found that woman in McKenzi only to have her become immortal, his time with
her finite unless he could coax her into allowing him to sign—in blood—her Book
of Shadows.

A book he doubted she even knew existed.

A soft sigh from the bed made him open his
eyes and lift his head. His lady had turned her face away from him in her
sleep. Tenderly, he used his powers to turn it back to him again so he could
watch her. His gaze roaming lovingly over that beautiful visage, and as it did,
he felt a tugging at his heart. Already he was in love with her—had been the
moment she had appeared at his cell door.

Now he had to make her fall in love with
him.

* * * * *

Naamah sat in her cell and listened with
growing fury to the thoughts of the man she considered her mate. He was mooning
over some human bitch he believed to be his.

Calm yourself,
her sister whispered to her from galaxies away
. His mind is
clouded to you but if you allow your emotions to fester, the ruse will be up
and he’ll know you are there with him.

“I will tear that harlot apart with my bare
hands!” she said aloud.

Bide your time,
her sister cautioned
. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

For a week longer than her mate had been
incarcerated, Naamah had endured the stench and filth of the humans who had
caged her. She had allowed herself to be captured, have offensive creature
hands upon her sacred person in order to be in this vile place before he
arrived.

For billions of years she had loved
Kerreyder Abaddon as much as she loathed humankind. He was the only thing in the
Megaverse she cared about. He was the only male she had taken to her body with
joy.

Into her body with the greatest of desire.
In her eyes, he was her eternal mate and always would be.

She had been his first lover when he was
but a green youth of ten and four. She had made him a man. She had taught him
all he knew of women. Of sex. Of the pleasure the sexual act could give. Though
it galled her to do so, she strove to overlook his experimentations with other
female creatures, his peccadilloes with goddesses who ventured secretly from
Jeeoil—the home of the gods—to lie with him. He was hers and she intended to
see that it remained so.

“Blood-mate, bah!” she snorted. “I will
squash that human toad.”

Be careful, sister,
Lilith warned
. You do not want to risk the archdemon’s ire by
harming the woman.

Naamah flung out a dismissive hand. She and
Lilith were powerful succubae, potent demonesses who had once lain with the First
Man on Terra to corrupt him and had given him children from their bodies. It
had been Kerreyder who had seduced the First Man’s wife in the Garden so it only
had been fitting that First Man get his revenge for the adultery in the arms of
her and Lilith. The three of them—as well as her older sisters Eisheth and
Agrat—had always had dominion over the sexuality of the human race—no matter
upon which planet those putrid weaklings thrived. They were, after all, called
the angels of prostitution, she thought with a laugh.

And didn’t Kerreyder hate being called
that! Tarred by the same brush that had smeared his mother.

But Kerreyder was no saint by any stretch
of the imagination. He could be as cold as the ice on the Plaines of Geschäft
or as hot as the sands on Helios-5. His temperament ran from as gentle as a
newborn to the full-on lethality of an enraged ghoret. To get on his bad side
was never a good idea for he could hold a grudge longer than any male she’d
ever known.

And it had been nearly seven centuries
since he’d lain between her thighs. All because of one silly argument she had
had the misfortune to win.

Use the incubus,
Lilith advised
. Kerreyder dares do nothing to harm him but a cog
in the wheel can only be to your advantage.

“Use him as a wedge?” Naamah asked.

Precisely. Lie with him if you must to
get him on your side.

“Not going to happen,” Naamah growled. The
thought of putting the Nightwind’s rancid flesh to hers was disgusting. Lilith
might not have had a problem with doing it but she would rather slather warthog
entrails between her legs than have the incubus there.

He hates the archdemon,
Lilith reminded her
. His human is being usurped and the Nightwind’s
ire is growing with every breath he takes.

“Serves him right,” Naamah said. “He
deserves whatever hurt can be sent his way.”

She heard the phantom sigh of frustration
that came from her sister’s throat and then there was silence as Lilith pulled
away. They had shared millions of males over the eons but Randon Kayle would
never be one of them as far as Naamah was concerned.

But…

She would work with the worthless bastard
if it meant she might have a chance to take Kerreyder’s mind from the human.

The end game was even more important for it
would see the humans reap their just reward.

* * * * *

In his cell, Randon paced from one wall to
another, growling like the caged beast he was. The uncontrollable fury that
rode him caused him to lose all semblance of humanity, to revert to the
revolting creature he had been in the Abyss. Hunched over, his claws extended,
his fangs snapping at the air, he could think of nothing else save the fact that
the archdemon was at that moment with the woman the Nightwind loved.

Rutting her.

Putting his seed within her.

Giving her pleasure.

The sound of laughter hit his ears.

He stopped, sniffed the air, and then
hissed. Something was close by that was setting his fangs to tingling.
Something he wanted to rend and rip and tear and devour. Not the archdemon—for
he was immortal and could not be hurt—but something that was like a sandspur
embedded in his paw. Shaking his head violently to rid his nostrils of the
stink, he had just enough presence of human mind to understand whatever was
disturbing him was in one of the nearby cells. Any creature that could goad him
so savagely needed to be dealt with once he was free.

As if you
could
deal with me, you slug.

By the gods he recognized that evil voice!
It belonged to Lilith’s youngest sister Naamah, a fallen angel he despised
almost as much as he did Lilith. If the succubus was imprisoned here at
Tearmann, it was because she wanted to be and something evil was about to go
down.

He stopped and dropped to all fours,
shaking his entire body like a wet terrier, then sank his haunches to the cold
floor. Pushing his anger deep down inside him, he willed himself to return to
his human form. If he were to do battle with Naamah, he had to have his wits
about him and that wouldn’t happen in beast mode. Calming his racing heart,
slowing his blood, he slowly got his nature under control and shifted. When he
was fully cognizant he was irritated that he was sitting in the middle of the
cell as naked as the day he’d come from his mother’s womb. His clothes were
shredded and lay scattered over the floor.

“Fuck,” he grumbled and—not for the first
time—wished he had the power to rearrange molecules as the Reapers did so he could
fashion new clothing. He could remove them with a thought but he couldn’t
replace them. Sitting bare-assed when the Supervisor or Sorn came to release
him was an embarrassment he didn’t need and would never hear the end of from
the Reaper. Somehow he had to get Sorn to show him how it was done, yet not be beholden
to the little shit.

He’s fucking your woman right now and
you’re worried about covering your skinny little cock?

“Get the hell out of my mind!” he yelled
and heard laughter skirling through his mind. He slammed his hands against his
ears as though that would help but it only made her vicious laughter louder.

I’ll make you a deal,
she said.
You help me get him away from her and back to
Treigeilys and I’ll see that he stays there.

He knew the demoness had no more control
over Kerreyder than he did. Not even the archdemon’s mother Eisheth had control
over him. It was doubtful his sire, the Father-God, did either. The good in his
father canceled out the evil in his mother, leaving Kerreyder stuck in the no-man’s-land
of ambiguous morality.

I can control him, you warty newt. Have
no worry on that account.

“How the fuck do you think you can do that,
you diseased twat?” he said with a growl.

He came here to find five creatures who
need their paws slapped. Help him find them quickly and he’ll be back at
Prysson torturing them and not between your bitch’s thighs.

He’d always wondered why Lilith had sent
him to work at Tearmann. It was something totally unexpected and beyond his
comprehension. What possible reason could she have for wanting creatures that
frightened or harmed humans to be caught and incarcerated? It was a puzzle he
had never been able to solve. He’d been there since before Kenzi was born—in
between the women of her family who were witches and to whom he could
blood-bond his services. Now it made sense. Lilith had known one day the two of
them—he and Kenzi—would be at the facility together and he was willing to wager
she knew Kerreyder would be there as well. It was just one of her many ways of
punishing him.

I could think of some very painful ways
of punishing you, myself,
Naamah said with a
chortle
. Very painful, long-lasting ways that would take what little sane
mind you have left.

The demoness had once been an angel before
she had taken sides with Samael to war against their Creator. She’d picked the
wrong side and had been cast out, flung into the Drochtom Arc—The Under—with
the other Fallen. Though she had power, it was limited to those with whom she’d
lain or could seduce. Thankfully he had not been one of them.