The Nightwind's Woman Read online

  The slow, wicked smile that began to spread over his sensual lips should have been a warning but she was too frustrated to interpret it for what it was. He was pulling out of her—was almost out—and the defeat was almost more than she could bear.

  In her misery she missed the strange glint in his amber eyes that flashed for only a second before he snapped his hips forward with such ferocity, such potent intent that it scooted her body up the mattress.

  The orgasm that rocked through her the instant his cock touched her cervix elicited a startled gasp from her lips and before she knew what she was doing she had her legs wrapped tightly around his hips—drawing him to her, pulling him in as far as he would go—as the release went on and on. It was a maddening itch that pulsed throughout her cunt and she ground herself against it, wanting more. Never wanting the glorious, intoxicating feel of it to stop. It wasn’t until he began moving rapidly within her—thrusting hard, deep—that she screamed from the sheer pleasure of what he was doing to her. Her nipples grazed his chest as he writhed atop her and that started another round of such intense sensations between her legs she spiraled completely out of control.

  “Take it,” she heard him command. “Take all of it!”

  When he came, the jerk of his hard cock, the pulse of it as he jetted deep inside her made her arch her head against the pillow until she was afraid her neck would snap. Another orgasmic wave undulated through her with a fierceness she didn’t think she’d be able to survive. Any moment—she thought—her heart was going to burst or stop completely.

  “Take me, Kenzi,” he said as he poured into her—hot seed scalding her tender folds. “Take all that is me.”

  A distant part of her brain told her he was marking her as surely as if he had taken a brand to her flesh. Every spurt of his cum was a marker that flooded her body with his total possession. She was his in ways no mortal man could ever have or make her.

  She belonged body and soul to Randon Kayle, the Nightwind demon who was now her master.

  * * * * *

  “I can hear you thinking,” he told her. “You have a question?”

  She glanced up at him as he lay there with her in his arms. His face was dotted with perspiration and damp strands of his dark hair hung attractively over his closed eyes.

  Kenzi hid a yawn against his shoulder. “The last one you guys showed me…?”

  “The wendigo.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “What of him?”

  “Was he just showing off or was he trying to scare the bejesus out of me?”

  He opened his eyes. “What did you see when you looked at the vid-com?”

  “Before or after the Supervisor stepped up to the screen?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He changed from—”

  “Not possible,” he stated with a shake of his head. “He doesn’t have the ability to shape shift within the confines of that cell.”

  “Well, maybe you should tell him that because he did,” she said.

  The muscle in Randon’s shoulder tensed and he scooted up in the bed so fast it startled her. He looked down at her with such a hard glower it made her uneasy. “Describe to me what you saw,” he ordered.

  She frowned.

  “Tell me!”

  “All right,” she snapped. “He looked like Declan Brady when I first saw him. After that, he was vile-looking with ragged reddish-brown fur, fangs and a purple tongue.”

  “Declan Brady,” he said. “The movie star?”

  “Yes.”

  “The twit who was named the sexiest man alive last year?”

  She grunted. “I’m surprised you know that.”

  He clenched his jaw. “Is that the one?”

  “Yes.”

  His face was rigid as flint, his eyes cold as ice as he stared at her. When he spoke, she thought she caught a glimpse of fangs behind his full lips.

  “He should not have had the ability to change inside an iron-clad cell,” he said. “If he changed from a humanoid to a beast he is something other than a wendigo. Something far more dangerous and unpredictable and uncontrollable.” He moved his arm from around her, swung his legs from the bed and stood. “When we brought him to ground, he bore the appearance of that kind of demon. We had no reason to believe he was anything other than what he presented.” He snatched his pants from the chair. “Obviously he played us.”

  “Then what is he?” she asked, drawing her knees up, encircling them with her arms to hide her nakedness.

  “I don’t know but I’m gods-be-damned sure going to find out,” he snapped as he picked up his shirt and stalked barefoot to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To talk to the Supervisor then I’m going to down to question whatever the hell it is that’s in that cell!”

  Chapter Six

  The demon lifted his head as the Nightwind left the female’s room. He smiled nastily for he knew the incubus would be going straight to the Ridge Lord. It was only a matter of time before the two of them came down to interrogate him.

  His smile widened for he had a surprise for the bastards. One that would wipe the smugness from their faces.

  Threading his fingers together, he put them behind his head and stared up at the matte finish of the titanium ceiling above him. He could almost make out his likeness in the surface. Idly he wondered if he should keep that image—for it was his true reflection—though no one save the beautiful woman who had visited him earlier had ever seen that representation of him in over two thousand years.

  He’d surprised himself by showing himself to her as he truly was.

  “McKenzi,” he said softly.

  She was a beautiful woman and though the incubus believed he had Marked her as entirely his own, the demon knew better. The Nightwind was as chaff in the wind. He was as insignificant as a being could be and was about to be shown just how unimportant he really was.

  As for the Ridge Lord…

  Pricks of that Super Lord distinction believed themselves nearly omnipotent. To them had been given great power—such as being able to send the supreme evil of the Nikkeson back into its Megaversal prison—but their power was limited.

  They—Shadowlords, Deathlords, Ridge Lords and the lone Gravelord—had very limited power compared to his own and he was going to bring that home to them in a way they would never forget.

  “Enjoy your innocence while you can, assholes,” he whispered. “You have no idea what is about to come crashing down upon your pointed little heads.”

  * * * * *

  “You’d better have a damn good reason for barging into my office, Kayle!” the Supervisor snarled.

  “He’s not a wendigo,” Randon said.

  The Ridge Lord looked past Randon and nodded at his assistant. The woman cast the Nightwind an annoyed glare then left the two of them alone, closing the door behind her.

  Alexandru Hesar—the man all but a handful knew only as the Supervisor of Tearmann—tossed his pen to the desk top and leaned back in his chair. “All right. If he’s not a wendigo, what is he?” he questioned.

  “I don’t know but we’d gods-be-damned well better find out before all hell breaks loose!”

  “Calm yourself,” the Supervisor said. “He’s locked in an iron-clad cell, Kayle. He cannot escape and he cannot cause trouble.”

  Randon stomped to the desk, put his doubled fists on the top and leaned toward the man for whom he worked on this plane of existence. “I thought about it on the way down here,” he said. “We caught him way too easily. I’m thinking he let us capture him.”

  “Four men died in that takedown,” the Supervisor reminded him with a sneer. “You think that was too easy? What? Should more men have died?”

  “I regret the loss of your men for the sakes of the women who loved them but they knew what they were getting into when they signed on to go after the creature. They knew their lives might be forfeit, but think about it. Why did we not recover their bodies?�
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  “He consumed them,” the Supervisor stated. “That is what wendigos do, Kayle. They eat human flesh.”

  “Wendigos, aye, but what we have in our prison is not one of that kind. Something isn’t tracking here,” Randon stated. “He spoke to my woman. He called her by her name and told her he’d been waiting for her.”

  That got the Supervisor’s full attention. He sat up. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

  “I took her upstairs and claimed her,” Randon said. “That was a priority.”

  “For you, mayhap, but not for the Consortium!” He got to his feet. “How the hell did he know her name?” he demanded. “Or even know she was here?”

  “Good question,” Randon said. “No one but us has access to that level. Sustenance and food is sent down to the prisoners via a one-way BlackMoon unit. There is no contact whatsoever between any staff member and the inmate.”

  “Which means if he knew about Delaney, he got that information through psi powers that can bypass the iron prevention of magic use.”

  “Aye,” Randon agreed. “And that tells me he’s got powers we can only guess at.”

  * * * * *

  “Powers you can neither predict nor contain,” the demon said as he lay on his bunk listening to the conversation in the Supervisor’s office as clearly as though the two asswipes were standing in his cell. “Nor can you inhibit them.”

  He made himself comfortable as he awaited the arrival of the Ridge Lord and Nightwind. Although it would amuse him to present himself to them as he had when he’d allowed them to capture him then change, he knew his appearance as he really looked would unsettle them even more.

  He had a job to do on this plane and it was a serious undertaking but there was—he mused—no reason why he couldn’t have a bit of fun while he was doing what was needed.

  He gave thought to the men who were reportedly killed during his capture. He supposed he should bring them back from the realm to which he’d sent them. It would be a measure of goodwill on his part.

  For there was the woman.

  His woman, and he didn’t want her thinking ill of him.

  Well, his and the Nightwind’s, although he doubted the incubus was going to see her as anything other than belonging solely to him and him alone.

  “Too bad,” he said aloud. “She is just as much mine as she is yours.”

  Nightwinds were not the sharing kind but when it came to Blood-mates, that ancient concept took precedence over a mere life-mate designation. In order to have the female at all, the incubi would have no choice but to share her else lose her completely.

  “And that’s going to really piss you off, Kayle,” he said with a mean snort.

  Her presence on Terra had been a very pleasant surprise. He hadn’t expected to find her for another century or more. That she was here at this time did not bode well for the inhabitants of the backward little blue planet. Unless he pulled some necessary strings some serious shit was going to go down and he wasn’t ready for it yet.

  “Not a good time for you to be sprung on me, McKenzi,” he stated. “Not a good time at all.”

  He supposed he had his mother to thank. Generally it was she and her vicious henchman who set such evil into play. If only the quaint little two-legged animals strutting around this clueless world knew the truth about what really lay behind what they called their religions…

  He knew the exact moment the elevator engaged on its downward glide to the lowest level. Not only could he sense the two beings headed his way, he could smell them. Neither scent was agreeable to his olfactory senses—the odors barely tolerable—but the stench let him know exactly where they were at any given time.

  Just as he knew where his woman was.

  Her scent was as deliciously enjoyable as the men’s odors were disgusting. The sweet smell of her perfume mixing with the tang of her pheromones not only drew him like a moth to flame but sent coils of unadulterated lust corkscrewing through him. From the moment he had sensed her presence at Tearmann, he had wanted her with a desperation he was finding hard to fight. She’d been near him for only a few hours but that time felt more like years. Seeing her had been the single most gratifying moment of his long existence.

  That he had frightened her—having had no choice since the Ridge Lord had neared the viewing portal—saddened him. It had been a necessary evil since he wasn’t quite ready for the Supervisor to know who—and what—he was but it bothered him that he had caused McKenzi even a moment of distress.

  Ignoring the chatter between the incubi and the Ridge Lord, he zeroed in on his female and smiled when he saw her sitting in the oversized bathtub with a sponge lovingly being pressed across a pair of extraordinarily beautiful breasts. The sight of the soap clinging to her taut nipples made his mouth water and his cock leap.

  “Soon, pretty lady,” he said, reluctantly tearing his astral eyes from her luscious form for the elevator had arrived on his level. He unhooked his fingers from behind his head and sat up slowly, listening to the heavy tread of the incubi as his boot heels struck the concrete floor.

  So much unnecessary noise from an entity who became a cat when he shifted.

  Before the incubus reached the cell door, he got one helluva nasty surprise. He found his way blocked by the spitting image of the World’s Sexiest Man Alive. The look on the demon’s face was priceless as he came to a skidding halt—amber eyes wide as saucers.

  “Shit,” the Supervisor whispered as he too became frozen in mid step, unable to move any of his limbs. He looked to the Nightwind who was similarly immobile.

  The prisoner the two men thought was locked securely behind the titanium door was standing with his arms crossed over his chest—legs spread wide—and the most evil smile either of them had ever seen on his handsome face. Wearing only the prison-issued black cotton pajama bottoms that allowed them to see the massive chest with its sharply defined and cut abdominal muscles, the bulging biceps that rippled down from very broad shoulders, he presented quite a roadblock.

  “How did you get out of your cell?” the Supervisor demanded.

  “There is no cell capable of holding me, Alexandru,” the prisoner replied. “Not even the one on Treigeilys.”

  “That is absurd,” the Supervisor snapped. “Prysson is—”

  “He who holds the key secures the lock,” the other man stated. “And the key is ever in my possession.”

  The Supervisor’s eyes widened and his face turned deathly pale. “You cannot be…”

  Turning his gaze from the Supervisor to the Nightwind, the prisoner grinned. “How fares it outside the Abyss, Randon Kayle?” he asked. “A bit warmer and perhaps better smelling?”

  Randon looked to the Supervisor. “Who is this bastard?” He struggled to move forward but was held fast by some undetectable barrier.

  “You don’t know?” the prisoner queried. “You are not as smart as I thought.”

  The Nightwind whipped his head toward the prisoner. “Get this hold off me and I’ll show you exactly what I am. I’ll fuck your shit up!”

  An infinitely slow, dangerous grin tugged at the corners of the prisoner’s mouth. He uncrossed his arms and when he did, the Nightwind stumbled forward, released from whatever was keeping him immobile. The demon raised a hand and crooked his index and middle fingers at Randon. “Come on, incubus,” he said. “Come fuck my shit up.”

  Randon took two steps then went sailing backward—all the way down the corridor—until his back slammed brutally into the far wall and he slid to the floor.

  “Wanna try that again?” the prisoner inquired with an arched brow. He extended his hand then curled his fingers together as though he were snagging them in the front of the Nightwind’s shirt then pulled his arm toward him.

  Randon left the floor—jerked up by an invisible hand—and came flying toward the prisoner. He was drawn within a foot of the man then was sent crashing back to the wall once more.

  “Wanna try a third time, incubus?”
the prisoner asked with a laugh. “I can do this all day.”

  “Leave him be,” the Supervisor said.

  The prisoner cut his eyes to the Supervisor. “Do you believe me now, Alexandru?”

  “Why are you here?” the Supervisor questioned.

  Lowering his arm, the prisoner folded them once more. “I let you bring me here.”

  “And the men you slaughtered?”

  The prisoner cocked his head to one side. “Did you find their bodies?”

  “You know fucking well we didn’t,” Randon said. He was walking slowly, warily toward the man.

  “That’s because they are alive and well. I’ll bring them back to you without a single hair on their heads having been harmed. I had no quarrel with them but it was necessary for me to perpetuate the ruse, to have you believe me an infamous wendigo in order to be brought to Tearmann.”

  “Where you could not enter unless we deactivated the Duaithníocht Seal to bring you in,” the Supervisor said. “At least there is something that can thwart your powers.”

  “I’m afraid you are wrong on that score, Alexandru. The seal obscuring the building prevented me finding it, not entering it. From now on, I can go and come as I please.”

  “Who is this prick?” Randon demanded.

  “Lord Kerreyder,” the Supervisor replied. “Lord Kerreyder Abaddon, the archdemon who is the warden of Prysson. He who presides over the punishment of those who rebel against Yn Drogh Spyrryd, the Evil of Evils.”

  “He who made it possible for you to be removed from the Abyss,” Kerreyder stated. “Had it not been for me, Lilith could not have removed you from my wardship.”

  “I ask again. Why are you here?” the Supervisor queried.

  “You have creatures here and elsewhere on Terra whom I have come to retrieve,” Kerreyder said. “Punishment awaits them in the bowels of Prysson.”

  “You mean torture awaits them,” Randon snarled.

  “Trust me, incubus,” Kerreyder said. “They deserve what will be done to them once I have them under my authority.”

  “To which creatures are you referring that are here at Tearmann?” the Supervisor asked.