Deceiver's Bond: Book Two of A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life (54 page)

If I’d doubted it before, there was no doubting it now. Kieran would fight to the death in order to protect me.

By the time Azazel proceeded to curve a bloody talon into Daniel’s grievous wound and disembowel him, I’d reached my limit. That was it—horror threshold overload. I snapped. And it was weird, actually noticing this, because it hadn’t happened that way when I’d lost it and nearly killed Kieran. This time, I felt the shift—an internal vibration, after which I could only stand by while unmitigated fury turned my vision red and any hope of keeping my power in check went by the wayside.

Magic surged through me, impossible to restrain, but for a brief moment, I turned my attention back to Wade. “Please. I don’t want to be sorry. If you can shroud them,
do it now
,” I said, hoping he understood. There was no stopping what roiled within me.

I flew away from him, toward the conflict, as my control began to slip.

“Playtime’s over,” I snarled, plucking up the three sword-wielding FBI ninjas, Michael, Kim, and Jackie. I levitated them past me and deposited them alongside Kieran and Wade.

Agent Fisk, of course, didn’t take his change of venue with any grace whatsoever. “Crazy bitch! What the fuck are you doing?”

If I hadn’t erected an invisible barrier with my telekinetic web, I had no doubt Fisk would have come at me with his sword raised. Satisfied I’d done what I could to make them safe, given the circumstances, I didn’t spare his profanity-laden diatribe any further thought.

Protecting my allies wasn’t the only thing I had to worry about. Overburn, the result of consuming too much magic in too short a time, wasn’t something I particularly wanted to experience first hand. Clairvoyants never encountered it, and since pyrokinesis was new to me, I had no inkling of how far I could push my power consumption. Even so, I had enough of a clue to know that losing complete control probably guaranteed me a ticket to Swedish Hospital’s closest psi-ward. Or worse. So I pegged my psychic shield and hoped it would be enough to contain at least some of the magic that surged within me.

Adrenaline and the rush of rage-driven power flooded my body with its potent cocktail. Hot. Beseeching. And so thoroughly addictive. I clenched my teeth against the onslaught, grunting under my breath. The fiery potential leaked from every pour and undulated over my skin, warming, caressing, seductive in its promise. My hair billowed around my head, a crimson halo, driven by the heated air currents circulating my body. Anticipation fluttered in my stomach. This was my element. Mine. I would not be denied. Weeks of being pushed, scared, frustrated, angry, it stoked my power, consuming me.

And it felt too fucking good to hold back.

Just outside the circle, the three dog-like beasts, which had previously been engaged by the men’s swords, squatted on their massive haunches and then lunged toward me.

So that’s what a hellhound looks like,
I thought distantly.

No wonder they were so infamous. Scary as all get out, snarling and drooling and equipped with enormous teeth, the hounds were about the size I’d expected, twice that of a timber wolf. Artists and movie-makers invariably depicted them with red eyes. Clearly, these people hadn’t seen one for real. Their eyes glowed a disconcerting crystal-blue and their smell was indescribable, which was saying something, all things considered.

Their attack shattered my concentration and my control finally slipped its chain. Magic exploded from my core, lighting every nerve ending along the way, before blasting outward, fully realized, in a deadly, molten tsunami. It rushed over the gore-caked tile, instantly engulfing everything in its path, turning the room into a red-hot inferno.

The snarls of the charging hellhounds became squeals of pain, but my blazing discharge hadn’t stopped their momentum. Just before their flaming bodies barreled into me, I screamed and lashed out with my telekinesis. The force hit the three massive dogs head on, killing them instantly, and catapulted their carcasses away from me. They rocketed across the circle, clobbering two more along the way, and slammed into the rear basement wall. The force of their combined impact punched three monstrous holes through the drywall, all the way to the cinderblock foundation.

I sucked in breath after breath as though I stood on K2 without an oxygen tank, not the in middle of the telepath’s basement. The room constricted to a grainy, overexposed blur, and I swayed on my feet. My heart hammered a deep staccato that anyone standing nearby probably could have heard, even while wearing earmuffs.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

“Red,” I wheezed.

“Break the windows! You need air.” His shout came to me through the bright fog that had blanketed all of my senses.

I snapped a telekinetic pulse at the ceiling-high windows. The sound of breaking glass reverberated through the room, and then cool air and the smell of wet grass drifted over me from outside.

So stupid. Frying everyone wasn’t the only downside of incinerating everything around me. Fire fighters wore oxygen tanks for a reason. Smoke, toxic fumes, carbon monoxide, lack of air.
Duh.

My vision quickly cleared and I spared a terrified glance around me. When my eyes lit upon Kieran and I saw everyone still in one piece—not blistered and writhing in agony—I thought my knees might collapse from relief.

Unfazed by my attack, the monstrous demon chuckled and deliberately fingered Daniel’s butchered body in the lewdest way possible. The action drove me berserk, but this time, I held myself in check. I directed a cone of fire at it, bathing everything in front of me within that carefully controlled inferno. My fire slipped over the circle’s surface, superheating the air, but didn’t penetrate the gateway’s protective bubble.

Completely useless.

Before the ceiling could catch fire, I pulled heat from the area, freezing everything until ice crystals peppered the air. I retained the siphoned energy and readied myself, allowing my fire to cascade just above the surface of my hands, more for show than anything else. I played with it, twined it between my fingers, and reveled in its exhilarating warmth.

“You’re Azazel, aren’t you?” I sneered, “Should have known you’d be a little coward at heart, hiding behind your barrier, sending your minions to die in your place.”

Actually, I wasn’t sure whether it was possible to kill a demon. At the very least, the ones that fell were out for the count until they could summon the power to conjure themselves another envelope of skin and bone.

It laughed, a throaty chuckle that had the baby hairs on my neck standing at attention.

“Goddamn it, Lire!” Fisk railed. “You have no fucking idea what you’re dealing with. Release us!”

The hulking demon stepped closer to me, but remained well inside the gateway’s boundaries. It continued to stroke Daniel’s corpse with the talons of its free claw.

Azazel tilted its head as it considered me with its solid-black eyes, alien and unsettling, like a shark. As far as I could tell, the creature didn’t blink, ever. Probably didn’t even have eyelids. I shivered under its eerie scrutiny but resisted the impulse to rub my arms.

“Battle tactics, my dear. I simply utilize the most effective weapons at my command,” it replied. Unsurprisingly, its voice was coarse and deep. It vibrated the air and beat unpleasantly against my skin. A nasty smile curved its thick lips, revealing bloody, pointed teeth. “Knowing which ones will be most effective,” it continued, chuckling, “well, that’s where the strategy lies.”

Raising Daniel’s body to its face, the demon spiked its impossibly long tongue into the gaping wound. I struggled not to vomit, embracing the rage that mounted inside of me instead, allowing it to fuel my power. I banked my fire, choosing instead to hurl my TK at the gateway. I pushed at it, probed and hammered it.

Tíereachán had said gateways were physical. They could be moved. I refused to believe he’d lied, but no matter how much power I poured into my telekinesis, the gateway refused to budge.

“The entertainment has just begun,” Azazel promised, seemingly unaware of my struggle. It glanced over its left shoulder and shouted, “Come, my son. Come play with our dear friend Lire. We wouldn’t want her to be lonely.”

Tíereachán, splendidly naked, strode out from behind the massive demon’s back where he’d been hidden from my view.

Speak of the devil,
I thought, and the irony of that phrase was so bitter I practically tasted it.

Along with Tíereachán, at least three more hellhounds and a couple of scorpion-things entered the gateway. The demons filled the circle almost to overflowing, trampling the bodies of the dead telepaths.

At some point, the three hellhound carcasses had disappeared. I wondered whether this had been an instantaneous thing, or if minions had dragged them back through the portal when I wasn’t looking. Not that it mattered.

“Lire, let us go! Let me help you!” Kieran shouted.

“No! I couldn’t live with myself if I—” I stopped short before I blurted anything about my control issues. “Just keep everyone shrouded.” Heated air swirled around my body. It was lucky my clothes didn’t spontaneously combust.

Tíereachán smirked. He trailed his fingertips down the center of his torso, stroking himself all the way to the fine line of hair just south of his taut belly button. “Master. I am yours to command. You know how much I like to play.” He raked his salacious gaze up and down my body. “Lire remembers that much, I know.”

Azazel laughed. “Indeed. Consider this a reward for your dutiful service. Show me the games you like to play.”

Oh, God.
I tried not to look, but when an eight-foot-tall demon’s nether-regions get aroused, not noticing is kind of an impossibility. I swallowed down my revulsion and prepared to deal with Tíereachán, who had stepped out of the circle to stroll toward me. Unfortunately, his substantial, eye-catching package proved to be just as difficult to ignore—for completely different reasons.

I should have fried him on the spot, but I couldn’t. And it wasn’t because I hoped he was strong enough to fight his master’s orders, or because he was just too damned pretty to destroy or, even, simply because he was Kieran’s cousin. No. If I was honest with myself, the reason I couldn’t do it was because, at some point—between the nightmares, scenic views, and preposterous discussions—Tíereachán had managed to charm me. Crazy as it seemed, I actually … liked him.

I cared about him.

And Azazel knew it.

“Damn it, Lire!” Kieran pushed against my barrier, but I held it firm. “Kill it! Don’t be swayed by the lies it’s told you. Kill it now!” he bellowed.

While I was distracted by Tíereachán’s approach, two hellhounds bounded out of the circle, charging Kieran and the others. I snatched Tíereachán and swept him to my side before releasing a gout of fire at the formidable dogs. They squealed and yelped, their whiskers and hair burning, and retreated to the safety of the gateway.

“Eager to make things easy for me, are you?” Tíereachán practically purred, but he stopped short of touching me. I’d deliberately positioned him so that his body blocked Azazel’s view of my face.

Red shifted forward on my shoulder, I think to inflict his defensive spells on Tíereachán.

“No,” I hissed and pushed Red backward until he was perched just inside the opening of my backpack.

I hardened my telekinetic web, both to keep tabs on any further demons that might charge out of the circle and to increase my hold on Tíereachán. As I enveloped him from head to toe, I couldn’t help appreciating his muscular form.
Holy cow.
The guy was just as ripped as Kieran, although he stood at least three inches shorter.

I stepped closer, further diminishing the space between our bodies to just a matter of inches, and tried to ignore the fact that he was stark naked.

“Some things are worth moving,” I said, widening my eyes meaningfully, hoping he’d read the subtext in my expression. “I just wish my magic worked on
everything
I set my mind to. It’s always a nasty surprise when it doesn’t.”

My eyes said:
Dude, please get what I’m saying. Moving the gateway didn’t work.

He chuckled and ran his index finger, ever so slowly, down my sleeve. “Even so, I find myself decidedly envious. You don’t have to
physically
move something in order to affect it in all kinds of intriguing ways.”

Did he realize I was talking about the gateway? If so, then his response meant physically moving it wasn’t the answer.
Duh
. I already knew that much. But, what did he mean about affecting it in
intriguing
ways?

“I know you’ve dreamed of it,” Tíereachán went on, crooning in that deep, intensely sexy voice of his. “Somehow, I think you’ve already done it, just not with something of such obvious …
magnitude
.”

For emphasis, and, I truly hoped, purely for Azazel’s benefit, he gripped my hips and ground his pelvis into me. I couldn’t help gasping, and my left hand flew to clutch at his shoulder. His obvious arousal made all my efforts to decode his underlying message come to a screeching halt.

Kieran’s streak of rage-filled curses startled me so badly, I had a heck of a time getting my panic under control.

“I’m sure I can suggest a few … ideas,” Tíereachán said, gazing down on me, and then added, “I enjoy thinking outside the box. In fact, maybe I’ll just put you inside that box and
squeeze
it down until you can’t get away. Close it. Keep you with me forever. We could indulge each other for all eternity. Tell me, Lire, is that something you’d like? I promise you’ll be treated like a queen. I will cater to your every whim. You would want for nothing.”

I heard Fisk cursing along with Kieran.

The fact that Tíereachán continued to avoid skin contact gave me hope. Well, that, and, although his eyes were heated, I got the sense he wasn’t as into the whole ‘come hither’ thing as his voice conveyed. Of course, his rock-hard erection pressing against my pelvis didn’t overwhelm me with confidence.