devil 02 - tween a devil and his hard place (6 page)

Finally I asked the question for which I dreaded the answer. “Aunt, why do you say he doesn’t quite fit the prophecy? What does he lack?”

This time she didn’t hesitate. “His angel, my sweet niece. He has no angel in his makeup. The prophecy says that the great unifier will shape the perfect ties between angel and devil blood to cause the world to stop on its axis and turn on itself, reversing the evil that had been done in his name and bringing the good forward to cleanse the earth’s soul. Your Dialle has shown a certain willingness to strengthen the forces of light when it has suited his purposes. But he has yet to do the same when his own are threatened by his very actions. That is the true test.”

My mouth fell open and I felt my knees trying to buckle in shock. “Hades, aunt. Are you telling me the Prophesied One is a Tweener?”

The smile fell away from my aunt’s face, leaving it cold and expressionless. “The prophecy is unclear. It twists and turns and takes divergent paths built upon the expectations of its reader. I fear we will not know until we know, Astra.”

I suddenly felt dizzy and closed my eyes to stop the world from spinning. When I opened them again I was in my bed, my covers twisted and bunched around my legs and my nightgown damp with a clammy sweat. I felt disoriented and weak, a certain tenderness invading my heart. Everything I’d thought I’d learned about my current predicament and recent events was probably wrong. And everyone I thought I knew and could trust was probably not what I expected them to be.

It hit me suddenly that my “dream” hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been a visitation from my long-dead aunt. I sat bolt upright in my bed as the ramifications of all that she’d said hit me hard right between the metaphysical eyes. I shoved at damp, mangled covers until my legs were free and then yanked my equally damp nightgown off over my head, suddenly feeling as if I would combust if I didn’t get every bit of damp cloth away from my overheated body. I sat there, naked and panting, wishing I could write the whole thing off to a bad dream.

As usual I didn’t know what side I was on, who my friends were, or what I was fighting for.
Frunk me to Hades on the Grim Reaper’s boat.
My life was firmly entrenched on the lowest circle of Hell. I was suspended in a piss ocean on a float made of dung. I was a frankfurter on the bonfire of life. A glowbug splatter on the wrong side of a one-way mirror. A… Well you get where I’m going. I was in my usual place. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit out of luck!

I lay back down on the moist sheets, flinging my arms and legs out to maximize the cooling surface of my body. I lay there like that for what felt like hours, until goose bumps replaced the waves of heat from my skin and my eyes and heart finally slowed and my pulse calmed. Then I drifted back to sleep.

At first I was alone on the bed.

Then thoughts of my Dialle starting invading my sleep and I couldn’t help remembering how soft his lips had been on mine and how they had subjected my rigid nipple to a melting heat when he’d sucked there. I could almost feel him there as I had the thought and I smiled with pleasure as my sexual core clenched and started to tingle in anticipation. Then, on some level, I realized that I couldn’t have been remembering that because Dialle’s yummy, hot lips had never actually sucked at my breast. And for a moment the feeling wavered and faded away.

But then Dialle was hovering over me on the bed, staring into my eyes with the most beautiful blue gaze. The black silk of his long hair teased against my skin, making it twitch. I looked down past the flowing midnight locks and was very happy to see nothing but smooth, golden skin, some of which was pointing right at me with a happy face.

As my gaze returned reluctantly to his beautiful face, his hard body began lowering onto mine. I gasped as I felt the long, rigid length of him against my thigh and couldn’t stop myself from arching against him and spreading myself so that he slipped between my legs.

He laughed, showing long, white teeth and his tongue slid out to waggle suggestively at me before he lowered his head again to nibble softly at my neck.

My daemon hickey throbbed in rhythm with the pulsing between my legs.

I moaned and he moved his lips to mine, pressing himself against me as he ravaged my lips, plundering my mouth with a driving tongue that tasted of sexual musk and sweet promises. Lethal white teeth clasped my bottom lip and nibbled, just to the point of pain, before stopping and being replaced with those amazing lips sucking softly.

I stopped breathing on my own and felt my heart slowing to mirror his.

Dialle moved off me suddenly, resting against my side so that he had one arm free to play. Thinking at first that he was leaving me, I cried out and tried to pull him back between my legs. He reached down and touched me with a finger that felt as if it had been heated under the sun for hours and I gasped, pushing shamelessly against the toasty digit like a bitch gargoyle in heat.

The finger was soon joined by a friend and the two of them slid gently into my wet core and started a smooth, sensuous samba that caused me to arch my hips and join the dance. Their buddy the thumb took up residence on that happy place just above where the finger friends currently danced and made firm, rubbing motions that threatened to take me right over the edge into heaven.

All the while, Dialle’s heated mouth was not idle. His lips and tongue worked their way down my neck, across my collarbone and to the other breast, which was just as happy to see them as my first breast had been. Careful ministrations there brought that nipple out to play and Dialle moved on to make sure all the playmates came out to join in the fun.

As his lips neared the happiest of places, where his thumb had been providing a smooth, sexy massage that was making me see entire constellations, I felt a change in the air around the bed that sent a cooling wash across my skin and told me party time was over and harsh reality, in the form of my cranky angel Myra was about to pee all over my good time.

My dream Dialle raised his head and frowned, as if he recognized my angel’s calling card and, with a final smile filled with soft regret, popped out of my dream and, presumably, back into his own.

A firm smack on my forehead brought me reluctantly awake and I glared at Myra. “This had better be good, angel. I had some dream going on here.”

Myra pursed soft, pink lips and furrowed her flawless white brow. “From the look on your face and your current state of…undress, I’m sure I don’t want to know what the dream was about.”

I pulled the rumpled covers over my naked body and pushed myself upright in the bed, trying valiantly to ignore the frantic throbbing of my dream-ravaged nether regions. It wasn’t easy to ignore something as insistent and painful as that throbbing and my damnable guardian angel was definitely going to pay the price for breaking into what had been the most pleasurable and realistic dream I’d ever experienced.

I continued to sit there glaring at her and she continued to stand beside my bed, glaring right back at me. Finally I realized that I could never beat my angel in a cranky contest and that one of us had better resort to common sense or it was conceivable that we would both still be standing—or sitting as the case may be—there glaring for all of eternity. In fact, if eternity was the finish line, Myra would win anyway because she’d still be there when we hit eternity while I, being slightly less than immortal, would not be.

Sighing, I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed, heading for the cleansing tube. “Talk to me while I cleanse, angel. I need to wash the remains of that dream away, before I lose my frunkin’ mind.”

I didn’t turn around to see if she followed me into the personal hygiene room but I could feel her presence in the room as I climbed into the cleansing tube. “Water on, one hundred degrees, full soap.” As hot soapy water left the spigot on the wall I sighed and turned to face Myra. “Well, what’s up?”

Myra’s perfect pink and white face didn’t change an ion as she lowered her angelic behind onto the chair beside the door and continued to stare at me. “You could at least have made me some coffee.”

I stopped in mid-scrub and stared at her, my mouth dropping open in disbelief. She simply stared back. Once again I sighed and decided on the better part of valor. “I’ll make you some as soon as I get out of here.”

She shrugged, finally looking away, “I can’t stay.” Her clear blue gaze scanned the room as if looking for flaws in its décor she could point out to me.

I waited, knowing that nothing would spur my angel into speaking until she was damned good and ready.

Finally she said, “The demons have made good on their threat to take hostages, Astra.”

I turned off the water and stepped into the drying tube. “What have they done?”

Myra’s waist-length blonde locks swung softly around her shoulders as she turned to face me. “They’ve kidnapped the humans who visited Demonica last night.”

I pushed at my long, auburn hair in an effort to get the thick layers dry. “How many?”

Myra shrugged. “We’re not entirely certain but we believe it’s in the range of twenty to thirty humans.”

I stepped out of the tube and whistled. “Hades. That will certainly get somebody’s attention.”

Myra’s scowl returned. “Precisely.”

I grabbed my warm, bulky robe off the heated rack by the cleansing tube and pulled it on. Shivering in delight as its warmth started soaking into my chilled flesh. “What exactly do you want me to do about it?”

The scowl deepened. “Fix it of course.”

I sighed, “Of course. And how do you propose I do that?”

Myra’s form started to shimmer and fade. “How the hell do I know, Astra. Just fumble and bumble around like you usually do until you get lucky and it gets fixed.”

I watched the damnable creature fade completely away and then took out my favorite string of curses and started filling the air where she’d been with them.

I was up to my third level of foul deprecations and was really gearing up to enjoy myself when I walked through my sleep room door and my heart stopped.

Dialle lay sprawled across my bed, totally naked and in the exact state he’d been when he’d popped out of the dream, his gorgeous black hair spread across my pillow. He smiled at me when my eyes finally made it to his face and said, “Now, lovely Astra, where were we?”

I pulled my mouth shut and fell against the wall behind me, my spindly little knees totally giving out with the shock.
Holy shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

Chapter Five

Hostage Situation Demon Style

Into the demon’s lair she goes, a devil on her arm,

To plead release for those she thinks, the bogyman would harm.

I looked at him for a long moment, considering how to ask the obvious question and then took the coward’s way out and just decided to ignore the elephant and his…trunk…in the room. Shaking my head I grabbed some clothes and started pulling them on. “We don’t have time for games right now, Dialle. Alcott has made good on his threat. He’s got a bunch of humans at Demonica and he’s threatening to kill them one by one in a very public way if your father doesn’t dance to their tune.”

Dialle’s face didn’t change. He continued to lie there on my bed looking all yummy and…expectant. I frowned at him as I pulled skinny black slacks over my legs and topped them with an oversized red sweater. “You and I need to go talk to Alcott, Dialle.”

He extended a long-fingered, golden hand and smoothed it over the sheets for a moment, his midnight gaze fixed firmly on my face. At that moment I would have given anything to know what was going on in his beady little brain.

I sat down in the chair and pulled soft black leather boots on over the slim-fitting slacks. The buttery leather molded around my leg from the soles of my feet to just under my knees and felt oh-so good. I was ready for action if action was required. I stood up and headed for my weapons cache. Pulling a picture on the wall aside, I placed the pinky finger of my left hand against the panel and the door swung silently open. I pulled a belt of tiny platinum crosses out of the wall safe and buckled it on over the sweater. Then I extracted two long platinum knives, which I slid down inside my soft boots for easy access if I should need them and a necklace with a tiny vial of angel blood in case I needed to make a strong impression on any gargoyles. I shuddered at the thought. But knew the ’goyles were particular favorites with Alcott and his gang, as they had been with his brother, Abrine.

When I was fully armed and appreciably dangerous, I turned to a still-naked and…expectant…Dialle and cocked my head. “Are you coming?”

He cocked a sexy black eyebrow at me and gave me a slow smile. “Unfortunately it appears that I am not. However…”

And suddenly he was standing in front of me fully dressed, his lush lips hovering just inches from my own.

“I am definitely breathing hard.”

I watched those devastatingly yummy lips lower toward mine and felt the haze returning to my brain. Just before his mouth touched mine he halted and I soon felt the heated moisture of his tongue against my mouth, gently caressing the seam of my lips and nudging them apart. I couldn’t help myself, my lips opened and he was in.

The kiss pulled the breath from my body and brought my nipples to hard peaks. I melted into him and felt his hands wrap around the backs of my thighs, just under the curve of my buttocks. He pulled me more tightly against his hard body and I soon found myself grinding against him, my traitorous body wanting to get closer and closer when my brain was trying to scream at me to get further and further away so I could think.

His thumbs started to caress that oh-so-tender area where my buttocks round away from my thighs, in a gentle, circular motion that created an incredibly sensual feeling. The unnatural heat of his hands quickly spread inward to touch my throbbing core. I gasped and wrapped one leg around him so I could grind the painfully throbbing area against him.

I’m not sure how or why he did it, given his single-minded pursuit of our mating but apparently he was able to think more clearly than I. Damn it! Without pulling away from me even the tiniest little bit, I felt him gather his power and suddenly we were shifting through space and time, locked in a world that was sensual to the point of pain and heated beyond endurance. I was torn between relief that he had taken the choice out of my hands and despair that we would once again be interrupted.