Demon's Triad (32 page)

She opened her eyes. The clearing still glowed white mixed with blue mixed with green-gold, but something else hovered there, something pale pink and vaguely human-shaped.

Beside her Dorand gasped and sat up. Ferrin followed. She felt the two men clasp hands, felt their sorrow and awe, and knew she was looking at the spirit of Carantha.

“More powerful than we were,” she said, her voice a whisper through the trees.

“Carantha,” Ferrin said. Once again his voice sounded different, but this time it was the tears choking his throat. “Carantha, we miss you so much.”

Carantha nodded. She stood closer to them now but still hovered outside the circle.

Aleeza could not make out her features. “I miss you too. Every day. But I’m moving on now and you should too.”

“We…it’s so hard.” Dorand’s voice was innocent and wounded as a little boy’s.

“Not as hard as it seemed, is it? You have a new woman now, a powerful woman.

Strong and brave. I’ve watched her, watched all of you. It’s time to let me go now.” Still Carantha glided outside the circle, and Aleeza had a sudden, horrible realization that she knew what Carantha was doing here, where she was going. Her gaze shot to Kali at the same moment the other woman realized it too. She leapt sideways, only to freeze in mid-air, caught in an otherworldly power.

Carantha’s ghostly hand was extended, her fingers curled. “You’re not going anywhere.” Her features, delicately beautiful a moment ago, changed, became a parody of delicate beauty. Her rage was terrible to behold.

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“Have mercy on her, Cara,” Dorand said. “She helped save us in the end.”

“Perhaps that will gain her a few moments of peace,” said Carantha. “But you see, I am only here to collect her. Her fate is not up to me.”

Two other shapes appeared at the edge of the circle. Rimer Lorcan and Lymera Brown. The other Fire Festival victims.

“I think we should get out of here,” Ferrin whispered. His unease blew across her skin like a cool breeze. In it she felt his sorrow. Kali was his sister—she read the knowledge in his thoughts. She’d done horrible things to him, things Aleeza could not see because he was resolutely trying not to think of them, but she was still his sister.

“Please show her some mercy,” he said.

“We will show her the mercy she showed us,” Rimer said. Aleeza could not make out his features, but his image flickered and twisted with rage. She shivered.

Ferrin and Dorand did the same, and the three stood up as one. “Carantha, we’re going,” Dorand said. A tear ran down his cheek. “We love you, we will always love you but we cannot watch this.”

“I will always love you,” Carantha said. “But my world is different now. You will understand when we meet again.” She glanced at Aleeza. “All of us. I look forward to getting to know you, Gunera woman. A long time from now. Until then, take care of them. I place them in your hands.”

Responding somehow to the unearthly formality of the dead, Aleeza bobbed in a quick curtsy. It was the right thing to do. Carantha nodded.

“Now go, my loves,” she said. Already she was gliding toward Kali with the other two close behind. “Let the dead handle the dead.”

Kali’s screams followed them as they ran from the clearing.

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Ten Months Later, August 1st, Lammas

Dorand lay back on the picnic blanket, closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the late summer sun. The sounds of the Eagles’ song
Witchy Woman
floated to him from the bandstand, making him smile. The tribute band sounded almost exactly like the real thing, and he was enjoying himself tremendously.

“I still think they should have hired the Rolling Stones tribute band.” Ferrin shifted slightly on the blanket beside him, his first sign of life in nearly an hour. His dark glasses hid his eyes completely, and Dorand had assumed he was asleep.

“I like this song. It reminds me of Aleeza,” Dorand said, watching the small beads of sweat on his lover’s chest roll down to pool in his navel.

They’d spent a good portion of the summer half-naked in the outdoors and Ferrin was looking more like a pirate than ever. He and Aleeza both had amazing tan lines.

Just thinking about running his tongue over where dark turned to light, where what was public and what shown only in private collided, was enough to make Dorand thicker.

“This song’s okay. The rest of the concert has sucked ass,” Ferrin said.

“You suck ass.” Aleeza spoke from Dorand’s other side, a smile on her deep red lips. She’d gotten a bit of a burn and Dorand couldn’t wait to smear aloe vera ChapStick over her lips—and then kiss it right off.

“I do not suck ass—that’s Dorand.”

“I was licking ass, not sucking. I think you’re just jealous because it wasn’t your ass.” Dorand smiled when Ferrin punched him in the shoulder hard enough to hurt.

“Goddess, don’t even start talking about that.” Aleeza propped up on her elbows and took a long swig of the iced tea near her hip.

“Why, does it make you hot?” Dorand leaned over and whispered the words in her ear, inhaling the light saltiness of her sweat and that deep, exotic fragrance that was pure Aleeza. She laughed.

“You know it does, you jerk. Now stop with the seduction. I’m a sure thing when we get home, but right now we’re on duty.” Aleeza pressed a swift kiss to his lips, then pushed him away with a smile.

“On display is more like it.” Ferrin’s tone was dark, but the hand he snaked over Dorand’s lap to pinch Aleeza’s thigh decidedly playful.

“Quit bitching and keep looking like a wonderfully functional and deliriously happy triad.” When Aleeza reached across his lap to return Ferrin’s pinch, Dorand 169

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couldn’t resist lifting his hips, and letting them both know where his mind was headed.

“Dorand!”

“What? We’ve already raised a nearly thousand-year-old spirit and healed half a dozen witches once thought beyond the help of coven medicine. What more do they want?” Dorand asked. Since their magic-fasting, they had become the strongest magical force either of their covens had ever seen. Dorand’s and Ferrin’s death-speaking skills had grown threefold and Aleeza’s healing power was greater than ever before. There hadn’t been a hint of demonic activity in Savior City or the surrounding areas in nearly a year, and the three of them were happier than Dorand had ever imagined he could be.

Other than the fact that his coven had basically exiled both him and Ferrin from the woods they had called home for over thirty years, everything was coming up roses.

“They need to see if our covens can play nicely before they offer any invitations to come back to the woods for the bonfire tonight,” Aleeza said with a sigh that expressed just how much she was enjoying the first annual Gunera-Amiantos Lammas picnic.

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife. The Gunera stuck close to the stage and the beer tent while the Amiantos sat as close to the surrounding woods as possible.

Ferrin, Dorand and Aleeza had spread their blanket between the stage and the woods, across the street from the beach in an effort to seem neutral.

Instead it made both covens unsure of which side they were really on. As a result only two or three people had made their way over to say hello in the three hours they’d been there. No matter how many times the triad had claimed to be both Gunera and Amiantos in power, owing no allegiance to one over the other, no one seemed to believe them. Dorand supposed old habits died hard.

“I don’t really give a fuck if I ever go back to the fucking woods,” Ferrin said, rolling over on his side and reaching across Dorand’s lap again to steal a drink of Aleeza’s tea. If Dorand didn’t know better, he’d think the other man was deliberately trying to drive him to a state of arousal that would be difficult to hide.

“I don’t know. The woods do have a certain power, and it was where we met,”

Aleeza said.

It had been over a year since Carantha’s death and nearly a year since they’d bid her spirit goodbye. It was hard to believe he’d been away that long from what the Amiantos believed to be the source of their power with no ill effects. Or that he hadn’t really missed the woods as much as he had expected when the verdict came down from the Chieftan that Dorand was no longer welcome there if he continued in a triad with Ferrin and Aleeza. Just being married to Aleeza might have been acceptable to the undefiled, as long as he didn’t bring her up into the woods when he came to visit, but not a demon coven abomination.

The Chieftan was a bastard and his entire coven bigger bigots than he’d ever understood. He’d loved Ferrin before he’d known he was Daiesthai, and nothing that had happened changed that. He loved both of his partners and wouldn’t stand for either of them being treated like second-class citizens.

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“We have enough power and we could always make up a story about meeting at the horse races. Let’s tell everyone we were all betting on the same horse, won the jack-pot, and decided to hold a three-day orgy at our new home to celebrate.” Ferrin grinned and pulled his glasses off as he said the word “orgy”, making it clear how he’d rather be spending the afternoon.

“We could say the horse’s name was She Likes It Rough.” Dorand said the words with a completely straight face, earning a giggle from Aleeza.

“But Dorand, I thought you wanted to go back,” Ferrin said.

“I’d like to have the chance to visit from time to time, but I’d never want to live there again. The woods are tainted for me now.” Dorand regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Both Aleeza and Ferrin fell silent, Aleeza plucking her lips with her fingers and Ferrin scowling fiercely toward the stage. Dorand knew how much it upset them, thinking of that night, of Kali, whose body had never been found, and of Raven, whose remains had been identified by dental records.

The demon Reglanus had apparently cast one last spell on his way to hell, a wasting spell that had destroyed Aleeza’s cousin. She and Ferrin had both lost family that night.

Betraying murderers or not, Dorand knew the memory of the loss still haunted them both.

“I think we’ve sunbathed enough. I’m ready for a dip.” Dorand rose to his feet and stretched, pulling his long-sleeved white t-shirt over his head. He burned far more easily than his husband or wife and had to be careful in the sun.

“I’m game, anything to get away from
Hotel California
.” Ferrin jumped to his feet with a grin as the band broke into the acoustic guitar version of the Eagles classic.

“I think you’re both insane. The ocean is freezing cold. Not even the seals are swimming,” Aleeza said, nonetheless grabbing her straw hat and coming to her feet beside them.

“Wimp,” Ferrin teased, pulling her into his arms and stealing a kiss. His hands roamed down to take liberties with her luscious ass, which was barely covered by a pair of short shorts.

Thank the gods for short shorts
, Dorand thought as his thickening cock swelled into a raging erection. He loved watching them touch, kiss. The jealousy that had been present at the beginning of their relationship was long gone. Once they were bound by the magic-fast of the blood keeper knife, and later by the vows of their people, they had fallen into a passionate but peaceful, way of relating. Their love was strong, fierce and equal. No one was ever left out in the cold, emotionally or physically.

“I’m a wimp? You were the one bitching about one little bite on the nipple last night.”

“The little bite when you almost amputated my left pectoral?”

“I could have healed you after.” Aleeza stuck her tongue out and pulled away from Ferrin to give Dorand a hug. Her face was even with his nipple, and her sharp little teeth clamped down hard enough to make Dorand grunt. “See, Dorand can take it.”

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She was right—he could take a little pain and dish it out far more easily than he could have dreamt of before. He’d been worried that his position as “keeper of the blood” in their relationship would taint their union, but his fears were unfounded. He had absorbed as much of Aleeza and Ferrin’s power as they had his, each of them influencing the others equally, no one “in command” of the other. The only thing his position as keeper afforded them was that, within the eyes of the supernatural community, they were all Amiantos now. No demon or any demon magic could touch Ferrin or Aleeza. They were free to love and fuck as they would, with no danger of creating a new race of demon-witches, and for that they were all obscenely grateful.

“No, Dorand can not take it. I want your pussy today, little witch. And maybe he can enlighten me about that whole ass thing.” Ferrin smiled, coming up behind Aleeza and leaning over her head to press a kiss to Dorand’s lips.

Dorand moaned and opened his mouth to Ferrin’s tongue, his cock throbbing.

They’d become so much more free with each other sexually, far more so than they ever had with Carantha. Part of it was that their love had deepened in every way, and part because—

“Goddess, you two, can you wait for that until we’re out of sight? I’m going to start glowing in public, and my mother is right over there on the blanket with Gavyn.”

Aleeza pressed closer to Dorand, her breath fast and hot against his chest. She loved watching them together as much as they loved watching her with each other. Seeing her get excited by his and Ferrin’s contact was nearly as exciting as the kiss itself.

Life was good and likely to keep getting better if he had his way this afternoon.

“Come on, let’s go. I have a surprise for you two.”

“What kind of surprise?” Aleeza asked, her eyes already shining as she tilted her head back to look at his face.

“You’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll race you two down the beach.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Dorand was off, using all his speed to pull ahead of the laughing man and woman behind him. He quickly crossed the quiet street and flew past the public swimming beach. He was going to make sure he reached the cove first, in time to turn around and see the looks on his lovers’ faces.