Bayon/Jean-Baptiste (Bayou Heat) (26 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked in a voice unworldly and growlingly low.

Unlike her sisters, Hellen felt no fear when standing in her father’s presence. Only a desperation within her mind to be cautious and thoughtful with the words that came out of her mouth.

“Preparing myself for wedded bliss.”

His scaly-skinned eyebrow lifted. “With a crossbow?”

“Perhaps this male you have sold me to will appreciate my hunting skills.”

There was a flicker in his gaze, a momentary flash of fury, but he contained it. “I allow you to hunt the rogue demons for me because, frankly, you are a far superior shot than any of the male hunters I possess, but it stops the moment you leave my underworld. Do you understand?”

Hellen nodded, but her fingers flexed, ached to hold her weapon.

“You will not shame me.”

“I am rather good at it, though, Father.”

Again the flash of fury clouded his already pale eyes. “Yes,” he hissed. “But after today the consequences will be dire.”

Hellen’s muscles tensed. “Today?” She’d thought she had more time.

The Devil’s grin made the black scorched earth below her feet tremble. “The time has come, daughter. You will leave us and take your place aboveground—”

“With the bloodsucker,” Hellen finished for him, unable to retrain her acerbic tone.

Abbadon’s nostrils flared and he coiled over her like a snake. The air went silent and the rain ceased to fall. It was his attempt at intimidation. There was nothing the Demon King appreciated more than fear in his offspring. Especially from the one before him.

But Hellen remained cool under his taut, red-faced glare. This was never the way to get her to cower, get her on her knees, eyes down and shoulders trembling. Unfortunately, over the past few years Abbadon had found the way in to her fear center.

He cocked his head to one side. “Is that your sisters’ carefree laughter I hear?”

Hellen heard nothing but the deadly silence and the threat that hovered next on her father’s thin, reptilian lips.

“I will do as I am instructed,” she said in a quiet, noxious voice.

In a shock of movement and hot wind, Abbadon rushed toward her. Matching her height now, his face the color of rich, thick blood, he placed one long finger under her chin and lifted. “You had better.”

Or the two lovely demon females waiting for you on the bank of the Rain Fields will feel my true wrath
, he didn’t say.

He didn’t have to say it.

Hellen pulled her chin from his sickeningly warm touch and said in a firm voice, “I will be the perfect little demon.”

Abbadon grinned and gave a wave of his hand to the fields around them. “You will be the perfect little female.”

The clouds instantly released their torrent of hot rain, sound returned to the air, and out of the corner of her eye, Hellen saw a flash of blue light.

“Now,” Abbadon said, his gaze sweeping over her. “Get back to the Dwelling. You leave within the hour, and you must be bathed, combed, dressed, and prepared.”

Prepared
.

Hellen clung to the word as the Devil turned and dissolved into the hot, misty air. She had sacrificed herself, would give herself to this bloodsucker her father had sold her to, but that’s where it would end. And her most important bit of preparation would make it so.

The flash of demon blue hit her peripheral vision once more and she reached for her weapon. Without taking another breath, she stretched back the bow and released. The arrow hit the target, and Hellen reveled in her final kill as she walked out of the Rain Fields and toward her sisters for the last time.

Erion’s lip curled as beneath his feet, the earth rumbled. It was a soft, uncomplicated movement, just a hint of warning to the animals thereabouts.
Flee little ones, get out of the way before you’re run down by an ill-fated traveling party
.

And a mutore paven who would kill anything and anyone who got in his way.

As he stood there, the earth’s easy tremble intensified. Granted, he was still able to hold his ground without issue, but the manic shudder made him not only cautious, but also suspicious.
Is this truly it
? he mused, his fangs descending, his muscles flexing, tensing. Had Raine been truthful with this location? With the arrival of the parcel Erion had come to steal?

The
bride
he’d come to steal.

Cruen’s bride.

Erion’s gaze narrowed on the length of dirt road ahead. For Raine’s sake and the future the
mutore
wished to see, he hoped so.

Suddenly, the shudder escalated into a severe shake that reverberated up through Erion’s feet and calves to his gut, into his chest, and all the way to his jaw, making his teeth rattle inside his mouth. Around him, the trees creaked as their weight was redistributed and the birds took to the air en masse.

Erion dropped into a fighting stance and unsheathed his blade.

This is no wedding party approaching
, he thought blackly, slowly rotating so he could see in every direction. This wasn’t Cruen’s bride. Couldn’t be. This was belowground, nature’s doing, inconvenient though it was, a cry of—

The thought died inside his mind as a massive shudder nearly sent him to his knees. Before him the earth cracked, one long seam, splitting apart with a jarring lurch.
Christ
! Erion jumped back as the plaintive wail of breaking rock and shifting plates stole the forest’s air. A earthquake—had to be. He was on California land, after all.

A few feet away, a mega blast of dirt shot into the air, raining down sharp, black pellets onto his face and body. He should flash. Get out of this particular line of fire. Return to France and demand a new location from Raine. Or maybe a strip of flesh from his lying hide.

He was on his way, his cells nearly transferred, when suddenly from inside the dust geyser came a wail, a shriek so intense Erion felt it deep within his bones. Like a wave crashing against the shore, he heard it again and again. The sound boomed through the forest, pinging against the battered trees, then slammed back into Erion’s ears. He shook his head, attempting to clear the sound. As he did, his gaze caught on the crack in the earth. In the very center, where the sound seemed to emanate from. Though any sane
paven
would’ve gotten the hell out of there at that point, Erion drew closer. He couldn’t help himself. He saw something.

But what? What the hell was it?

His blood pounded in his veins, every muscle inside him tense and ready.

Then he saw it fully, saw
them
fully: two horses, pale as paper and with see-through skin emerging from the ground. They were snorting and sighing as they pulled something, their hooves scrabbling for purchase on the crumbling rock face.

Steeled and ready for a fight, Erion stared, unblinking at the scene before him, nearly thinking himself mad as a gleaming, bride-white, pumpkin-shaped carriage crawled out of the hole in the earth, legs moving like a gigantic white spider.

Erion’s mind squeezed.

No
.

Impossible. Perhaps even insane. This couldn’t be Cruen’s bride. Inside this Cinderella carriage from hell?

As the ghostly team cleared the split in the earth and found solid ground, the carriage came to a halt. One of the horses turned its head and eyed Erion. Its nostrils flared in warning as it pawed the ground.

Erion’s hand tightened around his blade, and in that moment he remembered what he was doing there.

Whom he came to steal—and why.

As if they sensed it too, the transparent beasts shifted their gazes and took off, bolting into the now-still woods, dirt kicking up around them.

Erion exploded forward, his blood fueling his pace. This female, whatever she was, belonged to him. She was his bargaining chip—the ransom he would keep at his side until Ladd was returned. Returned to the ones who knew how to love.

He ran through the black, cool woods, keeping pace with the carriage until it burst forth into an open field. Moonlight poured down overhead, spread its ethereal shards out over the overgrown expanse.

No further, my lady
.

In a burst of speed, Erion shot forward, made a quick right, and stopped dead in front of the horses. The beasts screamed as they came to a halt, rearing up, nearly braining him with their massive hooves. The demon inside of Erion pulsed to get out, tame what was snorting and hissing in front of him, muzzle what was letting loose a cacophony of terrified screams inside the bride-white carriage.

He smiled grimly. The terror was only beginning for his parcel.

He leaped onto the footrest near the carriage door and gripped the handle. A flexible wall of dark magic pushed at him, tried to buck him off, tried to convince his mind that he was seeing a mirage, but Erion mentally shoved back at the sensation and yanked at the door.

It wouldn’t budge.

Not a problem. He enjoyed tearing the gift wrap off a parcel.

Reaching up, he grabbed the metal bar on the roof of the carriage, swung back, and crashed his feet into the door. It went down with a thud. Another feminine scream pierced the night air, and the horses panicked and took off again, barreling across the field. Erion’s gaze was razor sharp now, but all he saw was a red blur with electric green eyes before he was hit in the chest and thrown backward.

He landed on the ground with a teeth-shattering slam, something fierce and flooded with layers of skirt on top of him. He heard the horses scream and snort, saw out of his peripheral vision the coach clattering past, abandoning the meadow for the dark woods beyond.

“Before I kill you, I want to know just who the hell you are!”

The Layers of Skirt spoke.

Wet grass and cold earth at his back, Erion’s brows descended over his narrowed gaze. The female sat astride him, had his arms pinned at his sides as though she were under the impression she had some kind of control in the situation. In truth, he could not only flick her off like a bothersome fly, but also stretch her arms over her head and slit her throat with one fang, all in under a breath. But then he wouldn’t be able to feel her weight atop him. So, for a moment he let her remain where she was.

Miles and miles of pale red hair, illuminated by the moon overhead, draped either side of his shoulders, and those inhuman eyes the color of emeralds in the brightest sunlight gazed down at him with equal parts scorn and I-want-to-rip-your-head-off.

This female
, Erion mused,
the organ between my legs, pulsing with curiosity, may be sixty-five inches of soft, round, sexual pleasure wrapped up in a hundred irritating layers of creamy white wedding costume, but she is clearly one fierce bitch
.

He had no doubt that she would kill him if he gave her the chance.

If he gave her even an inch.

With one smooth, swift roll, Erion reversed their positions. On her back, her arms pinned above her head by one of his hands, her hair splayed like a sunrise around her face, and her eyes flashing in the moon’s light, she hissed at him, struggled against him like a caged animal.

“You have made a grave mistake, Male,” she said, her voice as deadly as her gaze.

“We shall see,” Erion answered, his tone smooth and resolute as he slipped the other hand around her waist.

She kicked at him, tried to get her knee up between his legs. “I am to be mated this night, you fool!”

Erion chuckled softly. “It may need to be postponed.”

“My betrothed will not look kindly on having his bride accosted,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I am counting on it,” Erion said, releasing her pinned arms and yanking her closer to his body. His gaze traversed the moonlit landscape one last time. “Let us hope that Cruen cares enough to come after you. For if he does not…well, we are both doomed to a fate worse than death.”

And from the cold, moonlit ground, Erion flashed away, his parcel still struggling like a feral cat at his side.

Complete Booklist of Alexandra Ivy

Guardians of Eternity

Darkness Avenged

June 4, 2013, Zebra

ISBN 978-1420111385

Fear the Darkness

September 1,2012, Zebra

ISBN 978-1420111378

Bound by Darkness

December 6,2011, Zebra

ISBN 978-1420111361
 

The Real Werewives of Vampire County

November 2011, Kensington

ISBN 978-0758261588
 

Supernatural

September 2011, Kensington

ISBN 978-1420109887

Yours for Eternity

September 2011, Kensington

ISBN 978-1420112283
 

Devoured by Darkness