Summoning Darkness (8 page)

Heidi’s breasts bounced with each movement of the men’s cocks inside her. Their fevered thrusts were unrelenting as they both pulled their cocks nearly all the way out, then sank them back inside her up to their balls. Her entire body quivered, her muscles alternating between tensing and relaxing as their strokes brought her closer and closer to climax. Goddess, but she loved every minute of it. She watched through glazed eyes as Luke grimaced, and she knew he fought to hold back his own release. She didn’t know what Varin looked like, but she had a pretty good idea he was just as close, judging by the heat-filled grunts he emitted when his flesh slapped against hers.

The sound of their fucking was the only noise in the room. Varin’s protection spell had shielded them from every outside force, and now the moans, groans and cries of passion echoed off the walls, making her even hotter and wetter than she already was.

Luke dragged his fingers across her breasts, by turns pulling on her nipples and massaging the sore peaks. Combined with the other myriad sensations coursing through her, it was suddenly too much. She screamed as an orgasm tore through her sex. Splinters of pleasure segmented her body, filling it to capacity until she thought she’d burst from the sheer magnitude of what she felt.

Luke wasn’t far behind. His cock pulsed inside her, his seed spilling out in rapid spurts. She registered every throb through a second wave of climax that caught her entirely by surprise.

And then the room shattered into a million pieces.

Blue flames licked downward from the energy field, sparking her skin.
Varin. Oh, Goddess
.

He didn’t come. He --

The door burst open. At that moment, Varin adjusted his grip on her by sliding a massive arm around her middle, holding her to him. He shuddered and cried out, his climax sweeping through them both. She felt his cum jet inside her, impossibly hot, impossibly
good
. Varin’s hold tightened around Heidi’s ribs in a deeply protective gesture as he came. Luke wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head against her chest, though whether he needed to recuperate from his own orgasm or to shield them both from the energy flames that rapidly spread through the room, she couldn’t tell.

Voices reached her ears. Female voices that didn’t belong in her pleasurefilled cocoon of heat and sex and… love. Heidi’s mind could barely make sense of what was happening around her. The walls glowed with blue-hot flames, rapidly banishing the darkness that had curled in around them as the candlelight began to dwindle. When the first black ribbon tore through thin air, ripping through the mortal realm, Heidi shrieked. She fought against the arms that held her, trying to summon up the words that would fuse the portal back together. Random phrases of power slid through her mind and she grasped at them, trying to recall the ones she needed. Everything was happening too fast. She knew she hadn’t cast the spell that opened the portal, and neither had Varin. Which only left -“Lillian.”

The agony in Varin’s voice rippled through Heidi, making the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. He still gripped her tightly, and his fingertips dug into her ribs.

Lillian’s voice rang out above all others. She chanted with the calm confidence of a demon hunter who’d done this a thousand times, a woman who’d allow nothing to deter her from her goal. She and the other Summoners stood just outside the room, their weapons drawn, their voices joined in a power-filled melodic chorus. Then hands broke through the blackened tear. A dozen long, gnarled fingers with black-tipped claws slid through the opening, reaching for Luke. The spell, having been cast from outside the room through a magical barrier, had gone awry. Wraiths were breaching the gap, along with who knew what other creatures of the Underworld. Heidi sucked in a breath between her teeth, gathered up the energy that remained in the room and struggled to make something of it. Shock waves burst through the portal, knocking her out of the men’s arms. She flew through the air, the magical energy she’d gathered sliding between her fingertips to hover harmlessly in the air. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. The world spun around her, faster and faster, as a vortex of fury picked up everything in the room and sucked it through the opening.

Luke drifted through the portal first. Hot, sulfur-scented air billowed out in his wake.

Tears ran down Heidi’s face and she clawed at the air impotently, reaching for him, grasping for anything that would give her a firm grip on reality.

From out of nowhere, a hand closed over her wrist. She felt herself being pressed against a solid chest, but she writhed and kicked, unable to think of anything but Luke’s face as he drifted through the gap between worlds, his lips silently moving as he mouthed her name.

The whirlwind intensified. She began to slip out of the arms that held her. The hands clutching for her reached out farther, and one wrapped around her ankle.

She almost breathed a sigh of relief. In a few more seconds, she’d be sucked through the opening. She’d be with Luke.

In a heart-stopping burst, pain blossomed in her shoulder. She arched her back, a soundless cry ripping from her throat. Agony flooded her body, filling her veins.

Yet on the heels of anguish came strength. It whirled through her, imbuing her body with a supernatural drive.

The firm muscles that had held her with such fierce possessiveness slipped away and she fell forward, free of any restraining force. Varin’s massive physique shot through the air, like a cannonball fired at its target. He slipped through the opening after Luke.

A moment later, the words of power Heidi had struggled with only minutes earlier came flooding back. She reached for the magical energy and wrapped it around herself, then used it to slam the portal closed. Heidi collapsed onto her knees. The Summoners circled her, soft voices enveloping her in waves of genuine concern.

It was only when Heidi glanced down and saw the blood streaming from her shoulder to trickle between her breasts that she allowed the darkness pulling at the edges of her consciousness to claim her.

* * *

The impact of falling through the portal into the heart of the Underworld knocked the breath from Varin’s lungs. For a moment, he simply lay there, dazed, trying to gather his thoughts.

Wraiths whirled around him, their dark, distorted shapes forming an impenetrable circle of malevolence. They waited for the order to pounce, but judging by the fact they hadn’t attacked yet, Varin guessed the Prince of Darkness wanted a go at him first. That was one encounter he wasn’t looking forward to.

At least Heidi was safe. That was all that mattered. He’d gladly spend an eternity in constant torment now that he knew she’d remained in the mortal realm, never to feel the touch of a Demon Guardian’s whip on her flawless skin.

Whatever punishment he had to endure, it had been worth it. Imbuing Heidi with his essence, turning her into a demon-kin, had saved her life. She’d be able to take on whatever the world threw at her. Including Lillian herself.

Blotches of oozing fungi began to spread under his back, making him itch. Gritting his teeth, Varin rose to his feet, trying to make sense of what he’d seen. With his demon blood surging through her veins, Lillian was practically immortal. He’d known there was something familiar about Heidi, but he never would have guessed she’d been trained by Lillian. But no, Heidi had been nothing like Lillian. Where Lillian had been cruel and filled with anger, Heidi was genuine and eager for his touch. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Varin swayed unsteadily as he tested his limbs. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then relaxed slightly when he realized nothing had been broken in the fall.

“That better not be Heidi’s blood on you.”

Varin spun around to face Luke. The man glared at him with such fierce hatred in his eyes that Varin took an immediate step back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It’s not what you think. I --”

The blow came without warning. One moment Varin was staring into Luke’s eyes, and the next he was looking at the man’s clenched fist before it made contact with his jaw.

With his demonic powers once again stripped from him, his human body couldn’t take nearly as much punishment as it could have otherwise. Varin heard the sickening crack of breaking bone as agony shattered his skull. So much for nothing being broken.

He’d known that luxury wouldn’t last long, but he’d thought it would be Baal himself who’d deal him the first blow. Luke had stolen that little pleasure from the Prince of Darkness.

Despite himself, Varin began to laugh. The sound echoed off the stone walls, eerily foreign in the pit of Hell. Here, where screams and whimpers were the norm, Varin’s mirth-filled chuckles agitated the wraiths, deepening their high-pitched wails. They pressed backward into the shadows, opening up the circular space where he and Luke had been unceremoniously dumped.

Luke’s lips were pressed firmly together and fire danced in his eyes. Unlike Varin, he wasn’t laughing.

“You hurt her, you son of a bitch.” Luke swung his fist a second time but Varin was prepared. He caught it in mid-air and wrapped his arm around the other man’s waist, pulling him close.

“I promise you she’ll be fine.” He quickly explained what he’d done, using his larger, bulkier frame to keep Luke tightly against him as he spoke. Luke dug his fingers into Varin’s back. Varin thought he’d push away, but instead the man only nestled closer, his chest rising and falling with the force of his breath. “You swear everything you say is true?”

“With every beat of my human heart.”

Luke looked up at him, but there was no anger left in his gaze. “No powers down here, huh?”

Varin shook his head. “I’m as human as you are. And just as much at their mercy.”

Luke raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he made no attempt to move away. They remained pressed against one another, hip to hip, soft cocks barely touching.

Luke lifted his hand and tenderly brushed his fingertips along the line of Varin’s jaw. “I’m sorry about this.”

Varin shrugged. “It’ll get much worse in here. You know that.”

“Maybe so. But this time won’t be like the last.” Luke swallowed hard. His gaze dropped to the ground, as though he was no longer able to meet Varin’s eyes. “We have each other now.”

If Luke had uttered those words before the summoning, Varin would have thought them absurd. He’d spent two years sharing an enclosed space with the man, and he couldn’t remember ever exchanging two words with him in all that time. But all that had changed.

Heidi had changed him. And so had Luke.

Varin tilted his head so his forehead leaned against Luke’s. “You’re right. Besides,” he added with as much of a grin as his jaw would allow, “Heidi would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

A narrow crack of light made its way through the black drapes of Heidi’s bedroom to dance across her face. She woke abruptly, words of power already dancing on her tongue.

“
Win delera es
.”

The curtains pulled together, drowning out the only vestige of daylight that dared intrude upon her sanctuary. Heidi sighed, turning on her back to stare at the ceiling. Although there was no visible source of illumination in the room, she could make out the overhead lamp as clearly as if it blazed with the force of a thousand watts.

Just one more of the changes that had wracked her body since the day Varin had marked her.

Memories flashed across her field of vision. She refused to close her eyes, knowing that if she did, she’d only be tormented by images of the men who haunted every moment of her waking life. As it was, she’d barely been able to shut out the pain lodged in her heart long enough to get three hours’ worth of sleep in the last three days. Her eyelids felt heavy as she blinked, and her head swam in a permanent fog.

There would be no rest for her. Not until she got them back. Grimacing against the soreness that still lingered in her muscles, she tossed back the covers and slipped her feet to the floor, careful not to step on any of the glowing runes she’d meticulously inked in magical energy on the navy blue carpet. She picked her way through a disarray of ancient tomes, artifacts and relics, all meant to help her focus her abilities to open a portal into the Underworld.

They’d all been useless. She’d attempted the summoning two dozen times since Varin and Luke had been snatched from her, and each time the result had been the same. The spell slipped from her tongue as though she’d known how to utter it her entire life, yet when the portal began to open, it was as though Heidi slammed into a brick wall. No amount of praying, chanting or frantic begging ever changed the outcome of the summoning. Eventually, the small tear fused back together, leaving her bedroom as intact as it had been moments earlier, the familiar space mocking her inability to bring back her men.

Her men
.

She almost smiled at that as she flicked on the switch in the bathroom and squinted against the harsh light. At least the effects of artificial illumination weren’t nearly as painful as the ravages of sunlight on her heightened senses, though she still preferred pure darkness to anything else.

Her reflection in the wide mirror over the bathroom counter startled her. She leaned in and reached out with her fingertips to touch the cool surface, marveling at her appearance. Outwardly, she looked the same as she had a few days ago. Same blue eyes. Same perpetually untamed red curls. Same pale skin.

But inside, she’d been irrevocably changed, altered in a way she couldn’t describe and had no name for. Aside from the extreme light sensitivity and the constant pull of magic that tugged at her soul and instantly called up words of power just when she needed them, there’d been other side effects.

She’d inherited Varin’s wild strength. Food held little appeal, and she no longer needed nearly as much to gain the benefits of a three-course meal. But by far, the change that unnerved her the most was her newfound ability to feel the existence of the demons who walked the Earth. They called to her, not in words or images but in the constant knowledge of their lust and burning desires. She experienced the yearnings as if they were her own, and the savage hungers gnawed at her soul, scraping against her heart.