Courting Darkness (10 page)

All fatigue was forgotten as the three of us moved, one beast, one creature joined together, rhythmically twisting and writhing to the music, a bright aura forming around us as our passion magnified.

Trillian pulled gently out of my mouth and lay down on the floor, and I began to rub against him, as even more of Smoky’s hair reached out and held my breasts tight, a firm passage for Trillian’s cock. My nipples slipped over his skin as I trailed up and down against him, with Smoky still driving me onward, a musky odor filtering through the room from our passion.

Beads of perspiration began to glisten against my skin, dropping in a line to splash against Trillian’s stomach. The music heightened, as did the mood of our union. I closed my eyes, my breath deepening into ragged pants as the feel of Smoky inside me, the tickling of his hair intensified. The friction of Trillian’s cock sliding between my breasts settled into a lathered drumbeat as I pressed against him. A low mist began to rise from the floor, the icy chill from Smoky mixing with my moonbeams and Trillian’s dark fire.

And then, missing Morio, I reached out with my mind—with the bond that connected all of us—and felt him there, on the edge of our union. He heard me and responded, his energy swirling into play with mine. I coiled around him, touching his essence, stroking his aura. We spiraled together, and then Smoky and Trillian were there, supporting us both, helping keep Morio on track.

Here we could see how tired he was, how much energy had been drained off him. And the change that Menolly’s vampire blood had wrought was apparent, too. His youkai side—his inner demon—was afire, stronger in spirit.

Together, Smoky, Trillian, and I poured our focus into bringing Morio into our midst, entwining him in our web of passion. I could feel him catch his breath, could feel him gasp as I coiled around him, merging with his being, and then, as I started to come, soaring ever higher, I grasped all of my men and we bolted, like a group of stallions and their queen.

Sweat glistened on my body. With Smoky’s driving thrusts, and Trillian’s musky gliding between my breasts, I held tight to the spirits of all three of my husbands and went diving over the edge, spiraling into that black void that is
la petite mort
, the little death of orgasm.

 

I slept like the dead that night—at least the dead that Morio and I weren’t scaring out of their graves. When I woke, Smoky and Trillian were already up and my nightgown and bathrobe had been laid out on the bottom of my bed, three red roses gently placed atop the silk. I smiled; they often did things like that—bought me flowers or perfume—and I felt truly loved.

Slipping out of bed, I took a long, leisurely shower, still unable to warm up, then dressed in a warm rayon skirt, a hunter green jacquard bustier, and a light silk see-through shirt over the top as a nod to the weather. I slipped into stilettos and brushed my hair. Placing the roses in a bud vase next to the bed and adding water, I gave them another deep sniff, inhaling the warm scent, before peeking in on Morio.

He was asleep, so I tiptoed back out of the room and headed downstairs.

Delilah and Iris were at the table. I glanced around. “Where’s everybody else?” Menolly, of course, would be asleep, but the house seemed unusually quiet.

“Smoky and Trillian are out patching a hole on the roof. Morio’s asleep—he seems to be resting deeply today. It’s good for his healing.” Iris handed me a plate of waffles, bacon, and scrambled eggs.

“He’s still asleep. I checked on him before coming down.” I took a seat and doused the waffles with syrup, wiping the drip with my finger and then licking off the sweet maple. “What about Shade? Roz?” After a pause, I added, “Vanzir?”

Delilah cleared her throat. “Shade’s off . . . I don’t know where he is, to be honest. He took off early this morning.”

“Rozurial is outside playing with Maggie in the snow.” Iris bit her lip. “Apparently, Vanzir has decided to spend some time hanging around down in the Demon Underground, looking for news of the remaining spirit seals.” She gave me a long look. “You’re going to have to deal with the fallout eventually. When are you going to talk to your men about what happened?”

“How about never?” I mumbled. That was the
last
conversation I wanted to have. Trillian and Morio would manage, but Smoky—no way in hell could I keep him from going after Vanzir.

Vanzir was a dream-chaser demon, and during our last crisis, he’d ended up feeding on my life force. There had been no choice; he was trapped by his nature, and though he tried to break off the attack, he couldn’t.

The only option I’d had to stop him was to fuck him—it put a stop to his feeding on me. Although it was the last thing I’d planned on, it was better than him siphoning off my energy, which was terribly painful and a much more invasive violation.

But try telling Smoky that and making him understand. I knew he wouldn’t take his anger out on me, but I wasn’t so sure he’d leave Vanzir alive. The Moon Mother had already punished the demon—she’d stripped away his powers. She had also stripped away the soul binder that kept him our slave. So he was now a free agent, but without any protection, which was more punishment than I would have come down on him with.

I finally pushed back my plate. “I’ll talk to them in a day or so. But first, we have to meet Aeval and check out what’s going on with that portal.” I stared at my half-eaten waffle, then stabbed at it with my fork. “I’m really hungry this morning. May I have another waffle, please?”

Iris laughed, but slid one onto my plate, along with another egg.

As I dug in with appetite, the phone rang. Delilah answered and when she hung up, she motioned to me.

“That was one of Aeval’s assistants. Hurry up and finish that. She got impatient and is already waiting for us in the park. We’re to meet her there instead of heading out to Talamh Lonrach Oll. What should we take? Will you bring the staff she gave you?”

I shook my head. “It’s more for ritual, or journey. I still don’t know how to use it, so I’d best leave it here. No, she made it clear to me last night. We take iron rather than silver. I’ve got some of my old paraphernalia around here.”

When I’d been younger, a new member of the OIA—although at that time we’d been in the YIA, the Y’Elestrial Intelligence Agency—I’d often used iron. It had been considered illegal by government officials. Or rather
immoral
. But I didn’t care. It got the job done.

I’d worn heavy leather gloves to protect my hands and done what was necessary to apprehend our suspects. Nobody but one supervisor ever made an issue out of it, and he—Lathe—had been determined to fuck my brains out. I kept refusing him, so he made my life hell during his time there.

Delilah blinked. “Iron? You still have that stuff?”

“Yeah, but even if I didn’t, we’d have a much easier time here than back home getting hold of it.” I shrugged as she stared at me. “I never could follow the rules, and hey—it saved me from Roche.”

Roche had been a savage serial killer I’d caught back in Otherworld. Actually, truth was, Trillian had played a big part in his capture. I owed him my life, and he’d won my heart. The chemistry had been instantaneous; we’d ignited like gasoline and a match. But nobody else knew the full story. And they never would. The truth would stay between my alpha love and me. I’d wanted to give him credit, but finally, he convinced me it was best to keep the details of Roche’s capture quiet.

“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. Delilah still tended to bend to authority, although she’d grown out of a lot of her naïveté over the past year and was becoming a strong, vibrant woman in her own right. I was proud of how far she’d come. “We’d better get moving, so if you want to grab your torture instruments, let’s get moving.” Her nose wrinkled, but she grinned at me.

I shrugged. “We don’t have a choice anymore. We have to fight dirty. We do whatever we need to win. Because winning is the only acceptable option.”

“It seems that’s what our life has become. I need to change into my boots before we go. You’d better get out of those stilettos if we’re going through that portal. You said you smelled peat and that means bog marsh.”

I glanced at her. She was dressed in heavy jeans and a sweatshirt with a gray tabby cat on the front, but she was wearing canvas Mary Janes. Her hair was short and spiky, an edgy cut that fit her new found confidence.

Delilah was tall, six one, and lean. Menolly was lean also, but short—five one—and petite. I was somewhere in between—at five-seven, I outclassed Marilyn Monroe in the hips and breasts department by a long shot, with an hourglass figure from a porno king’s fantasy. My boobs and hips could move men to weep.

Which meant wearing a lot of separates so clothes fit me right. But that was okay with me. My closet could have furnished a fetish bar, considering my love of leather, lace, bustiers, and chiffon skirts.

We headed up to the study, careful not to wake Morio. My family trunk was sitting in the corner, and I quietly grasped one handle on it while Delilah took hold of the other. Together, we carried it to my bedroom. Our mother had commissioned hope chests for each of us when we were little girls, and mine was made out of the starblazer tree—a black wood similar to ebony that resonated with strong magic, only found back in Otherworld.

I opened the lid for the first time since we’d arrived here. A scattering of treasures—mostly sentimental—filled the trunk. I picked up an old photograph of our mother. She’d had it taken while still a student in Spain, and I held it up, looking silently at the beautiful blond woman who stared back at me. Delilah draped her arm around my neck, gazing at her with me.

“She was beautiful,” I whispered. “You look so much like her. Only a lot taller.”

“I miss her. It’s hard to remember her, though. I was still pretty young when she died and you took over. But I always remember she smelled like something . . . I don’t know what, but it was good.”

I smiled then. “I know what.” As I pulled a bottle from the trunk and opened it, the fragrance filled the room. Chanel No. 5. “You should buy some. They still make it, you know.”

With a wistful look, Delilah shook her head. “That smells so much like Mother. I remember that scent. But I don’t think I could wear it the way she did. I might get some, though, just to keep on my dresser, for when I miss her.”

Slowly, I capped the bottle again and kissed it gently, a wave of homesickness rolling off me. With Mother gone, I’d clung to Father, and now I’d lost him, too. At least Menolly and Delilah still had his love. Shaking off the sense of loss, I put the bottle back in the trunk, along with her picture, and then pulled out a bag and gingerly opened it.

A spider came crawling out, and I automatically squashed it. Ever since our encounter with the werespiders of Kyoka, we’d left none standing inside the house, still worried that the remnants of his cult might have spies around.

I shook out the contents onto the floor, and we stared at the booty. Two pairs of iron handcuffs. An iron-bladed dagger with an antler hilt that I’d managed to procure. And Trillian’s gift to me—a silver flail with nine thin iron chains. They were long enough to snap back on me, so I needed to aim carefully, but they’d give a world of hurt to any Fae who dared to stand up to me.

“Sometimes I miss the days when we were looking for common criminals, don’t you?” I stared up at Delilah, feeling bleak. Life was a lot harder now, and the stakes a lot higher.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” She sighed and knelt beside me. “You really want to take this stuff with us?”

I nodded. “Considering the Bog Eater’s hanging out in there, as well as who knows what, you want to chance not being able to rescue him? Something like this flail could turn the tide. Your dagger is silver, and as aware as the blade is, Lysanthra can’t stand up to one of the Elder Fae.”

“I see your point. Okay then. We take it. I just . . . fighting dirty has never set well with me.” She scrounged around looking for gloves for the two of us. “Here, these are thin but will give us enough protection to handle the iron.”

Iron burned us—not quite so bad as full-blooded Fae, but enough to leave marks. If we didn’t get the metal off our skin, it could eventually kill us, eating through our flesh like acid.

“Dirty or not, when dealing with the insane, the murderous, and the freaks, I’m all about anything that gives me an edge.” I slid on the gloves and gingerly picked up a pair of handcuffs. “I can’t decide whether to bring the Black Unicorn horn or not. We’re going after Fae, and I have my qualms about whether it would help our enemies or hurt them.”

“Bring it. Please. We might need it and you can’t know how it will affect the Elder Fae until you try.”

“True enough.” I pocketed the handcuffs and flail as Delilah picked up the other set of handcuffs along with the iron dagger. “Let me grab it and then we’re off.” As she headed downstairs to get her coat, I went into my room and changed shoes, then withdrew the horn from the hiding place I’d fashioned in a small space under a trapdoor and throw rug.

I held up the glistening horn. Crystal, with threads of gold and silver running through it, the horn of the Black Unicorn was only one of nine known to exist. Each had been shed as he reincarnated.

And with this horn I’d brought down the Black Beast, sent him into his next incarnation. He was running free now, a young stallion, set for another thousand years. And I—bloody and battered—had earned my spot as a priestess for the Moon Mother by being the conduit for his sacrifice.

I was still leery of using it—each time, it felt like the horn vied for some power over me, though I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. At the core of the horn lived Eriskel, the jindasel through whom the Elementals of the horn channeled their energy. And through Eriskel, their magic channeled to me.

Putting the horn in the deep pocket of my skirt, I closed the hidden Velcro fastener. I’d had Iris retrofit most of my skirts to carry the horn safely, so that even if I wasn’t wearing the Black Beast’s cloak—fashioned out of his hide—I’d be able to carry it with me.