devil 02 - tween a devil and his hard place (30 page)

I nodded. “Just give me a minute.”

Emo hovered anxiously over me until I sat up and then he pulled me to my feet. He kept an arm around my waist until we were both sure the weakness had passed.

“What happened, Astra?”

I looked at the door handle and frowned. “This has happened to me before, when I was hunting Prince Nille. I didn’t like it then either.”

He jerked me around to face him. “
What
happened?”

“I had a vision but more than a vision, it was like I was in his skin…”

“Whose skin?”

“King Dialle’s. He was hanging from the wall in my father’s dungeon and somebody was drilling a hole in my—I mean his—chest with a stream of power. My father healed the hole and that hurt almost as much as the drilling had. Then my father was out of sight again and…” I stopped and looked at Emo, feeling ice crystals forming on my spine. “Holy shit, Emo! My father was torturing the king.”

Emo frowned at me, doubt clearly visible in his black eyes. “Are you sure, Astra? That doesn’t sound right.”

I shook my head and dropped my butt into the nearest chair. “No. It isn’t right. It can’t be.”

Emo looked back at the door. “What should we do about that?”

I followed his gaze and shook my head. “I’m not touching that thing again. You do it.”

Emo walked over and grasped the handle. It opened right up to reveal an empty room. I went through the door with him, taking care not to touch anything and was perplexed to find no magic residue that I recognized in the room. It was a simple conference room with a large table in the center and several chairs arranged around it.

We left the house and walked toward the Viper.

Emo leaned against the vehicle and stretched his neck wearily. “According to your vision he’s at your father’s house.”

I frowned. We’d been through the house from top to bottom and the king hadn’t been there.

“He’s not there.”

“Something’s not right.”

I looked at him. “You think?”

That was when I noticed the fog moving along the ground around our feet.

Emo’s gaze followed mine. “What the hell is that?”

I didn’t know but I sure as hell didn’t want to find out either. “Get in the Viper, Emo.”

He continued to stare at the fog. “It’s kind of purple, that’s weird.”

I smacked his arm. “Get the hell in the Viper, Emo. Now!”

I didn’t wait for him to do what I’d told him. Flinging myself into the Viper I pulled the door shut behind me manually and, as soon as I felt Emo’s butt hit the seat next to mine I screamed, “Seal and climb.”

The fog surged over and around the Viper until it obscured everything outside the view ports. The Viper’s nose tipped up in an attempt to rise off the ground but then the power sputtered and died and the Viper dropped heavily onto its sleek belly on the ground. The impact jarred my teeth and pounded a grunt out of Emo.

It was then that I noticed the fog was inside the vehicle. “Get the hell out, Emo!”

I heard his voice in my head, it sounded all slurry.
Get the hell in, Emo, get the hell out, Emo…make up your damn mind, Astra.

He turned to me, his eyes already looking dazed and incoherent.

“I said…” The thought I’d been trying to express just drifted away and I felt my limbs growing heavy as the fog surrounded and saturated the interior of the Viper.

The last thing I remember before I fell away from consciousness was Emo’s head hitting the view port as he passed out.

Then everything went black.

Voices droned in the distance, tickling insistently at my ears like bees. I wove the sound into my dreams and slept on. I dreamed I was slime wrestling a purple slug monster and fell into the slime, taking the slug monster with me. I pushed as hard as I could against the squishy purple chest above me but my hands just kept sinking into it and getting tangled. No that wasn’t right, you can’t get tangled in purple slug monster flesh. And why was it so silky? Before I could get my mind around that question, the slug opened its pincers and a long, warty tongue slid through to slither down my cheek.

It should have been disgusting but somehow it made me all tingly. And the monster smelled good too. Really good, like…

My eyes flew open and I was staring into Emo’s midnight eyes, my fingers tangled in his silky hair. Having already left a warm, tingly trail down my face, his tongue was stroking my neck, toward my ear. He closed his soft lips over my earlobe and nibbled before drawing it into his warm mouth and sucking it.

“Holy shit!” I tried to push him away and sit up but he just grabbed my hands and held them above my head, pushing his rigid lower regions into me and grinding softly against my most sensitive area.

For the briefest moment in time I forgot the reason I needed to get out from under him and closed my eyes, moaning under the multiple, yummy assaults on my body. A throbbing pleasure radiated out from the place where his hard length pressed against my body, drawing my thought processes into sensual oblivion along with my pleasure center. My stomach jumped in excitement. My lips were tingling where they’d met his and my nipples stood at rigid attention like good little galactic soldiers.

Then I remembered why this was bad, bad, bad and my eyes flew open again.

“Emo!”

He murmured an incomprehensible response and released my earlobe to kiss his way down my throat. Before I could stop myself I moaned and arched toward him. He growled low in his throat and took my breast into his hot mouth, sucking it gently through my soft sweater.

Sweater? My eyes flew open again and I looked down. Oh thank the Big Guy I was still fully dressed.

But not for long at this rate.

I struggled to get my hands free and finally managed to pull one hand from his grasp. I reached down and grabbed his ponytail and yanked it upward, hard.

His head came up and I looked into a pair of dazed and feverish eyes. I’d seen that look before.

Shit!

“Emo! Snap out of it, you’re under a spell.”

He grinned lazily at me and jerked his head out of my hand. A clump of his beautiful hair came away from his head with a ripping sound. I winced but he didn’t seem to notice.

He tugged my sweater up and initiated a warm, wet journey up my belly toward territory that was under the jurisdiction of the Astra Q Phelps sexual permissions committee of one—that would be me!

“Emo stop!” I tried to push him away again but with only one hand it was impossible. Deciding I didn’t have a choice I stopped struggling and concentrated on building my power to use against him.

The sound of chanting grew in intensity, reminding me that we weren’t alone. A quick glance around told me we were on the altar in the clearing where I’d watched Raoul vanquish the fire demons. Although I could only see indistinct shapes just outside the circle of light created by a huge, smoking fire in the center of the clearing, I had a clear perception that we were surrounded.

I visualized the tiny flame at the core of my power and concentrated on growing it. It doubled and then doubled again until it was a respectable campfire but not big enough to do anything with.

That was when Emo’s warm, insistent mouth made it into the more mountainous regions of the territory.

I gasped as his lips closed over a taut nipple through the silk cami that served as my only undergarment. Of its own volition my body responded, causing me to moan and throw back my head, arching my chest to give him better access.

The piddling power flame I’d managed to draw died a sudden death as another kind of heat consumed my body. I was wrapping my legs around his hips, welcoming his probing fingers under my skirt when a niggling memory broke through the sexual haze.

I saw again the back of a sleek, dark head and long, lean body lying over me, pleasuring me as I moaned and begged for more. I remembered the chanting voices surrounding us and I remembered…angel’s tears.

Then I recalled with a stomach lurching clarity what had happened in that prophetic dream when the current activities had been consummated.

Yikes!

Like ice water that thought cleared the haze from my mind and, without thinking about it I reached for my power and threw it outward. Emo’s body rose off mine a couple of inches. He was far too gone to react, except to clutch me harder, pulling me halfway off with him.

I started pounding on his back in an effort to roust him from the spell but he was single-minded in his sensuous assault on my body.

I could feel the black magic coating the air and I knew the witches were using powerful magic to keep Emo enthralled. I briefly wondered why but then I heard a tearing sound felt cool, night air on my nether regions.

I screamed in frustration and felt my daemon hickey pulse and sting.

Oh shit! Dialle!

The first pulse was a small one. But the next one threw sparks into the air and the third one blasted Emo off my chest.

The chanting around me stopped and the resulting silence was almost painful with expectancy.

I threw myself off the altar and into a defensive stance. “Okay, you people have pissed me off now.” In anger I did something I’d never done before, I threw a power blanket toward the shadows where I knew the witches stood.

I spread the power thin and wide so that it covered a large area but didn’t cause too much damage to any one person. I heard it hit a couple of targets with a sizzling sound and an accompanying yelp but for the most part I must have missed. Sensing the end of their fun, they had apparently skedaddled before I left the altar.

I quickly followed my power blast on foot and confirmed that the witches had all made a run for it. Several air vehicles zoomed past over my head as they made a quick getaway.

I returned to the clearing around the fire to find Emo sitting on the altar looking dazed.

Dialle was standing next to him. He didn’t look happy. “You are lucky I recognized the spell, pretender, or I’d have extinguished you on the spot.”

Emo jumped to his feet and sneered, “Afraid I’ll accomplish what you have not been able to do, false Prince?”

The two devils stood nose to nose, power and anger wafting off of them in waves.

I fought the urge to jump in the Viper and run away. But being an extremely brave Tweener and probably a bit stupid to boot, I strode toward them instead.

“Okay, okay break it up boys. I stepped in between them, facing Dialle. Emo jumped away from me as if I were a jolt of electricity. “This was not Emo’s fault, Dialle and you know it. We need to work together if we’re going to figure out what’s going on.”

Dialle’s eyes roiled with colors as a virtual storm of rage flowed through him. The air around him was so hot I felt sweat dripping down my cleavage. Like Emo I wanted to step away too but I knew I had to stand up to him or there would be hell to pay later, literally.

With my own storm brewing, I waited for Dialle to cool down. Finally he looked away from me and the temperature began to drop. I kept my sigh of relief as small and undetectable as possible.

“Good. Now here’s what we’re gonna do…”

Dialle reached out a hand and grabbed my wrist. I managed to yell, “No!” before we were locked in time and space.

We landed in Dialle’s quarters at the Royal Court.

“Damn you, Dialle! I hate it when you do that!”

He just turned and stalked away. “You stink of him.”

Now that just pissed me off. “How dare you, Dialle? Where the hell were you when they snatched us? Why didn’t you do something to help instead of getting all pissed off now?”

He turned back to me, the storm still raging in his eyes. “I did help, Astra! That’s why you’re standing here now instead of lying naked and plundered on that altar!”

“Plundered!” I didn’t know my voice could reach that octave.

I’m coming, Astra. Hang on.

I jumped at the voice in my head and then tried to look normal. Which at that exact moment meant I needed to look outraged and pissed off. Not hard to pull off since those are two of my more natural things.

“And don’t forget you shut me out. You masked your movements from me for two days. You’re lucky I found you at all.”

Well, that
was
technically true. My face gained a slightly pink color. But I wasn’t going to take the whole blame for it. “If you hadn’t tried to do violence to me I wouldn’t have had to go into hiding!” I shrieked back.

He threw his dark head back and roared, shaking the walls and breaking small objects around the room.

I stepped into a defensive stance and pulled a power bubble around myself.

He stalked away from me and started pacing the room.

I waited silently.

Finally he stopped pacing and looked at me. “Did you find my father?”

I couldn’t help it. As usual my smart mouth beat back my good sense and took the lead. “You mean after I helped my parents kidnap him?”

He strode toward me looking like he would kill me the old-fashioned way, with his hands around my neck. I threw my hands up in preparation for battle.

But his steps slowed and he stopped outside my protective bubble. He swiped an elegant, golden hand over his face and blew out a frustrated breath. “Damn it, Astra, you try my patience at every turn.”

A commotion sounded outside the door and I heard an explosion and the sound of someone getting thrown into the door.

Dialle started toward the door but I grabbed his arm.

He looked at me.

“It’s Emo.”

Dialle jerked his arm from my grasp and swore, long and hard.

The door blasted into the room and skidded across the floor. I leapt out of its way with a yelp and watched it splinter against the far wall.

Emo strode into the room just behind the door. He did
not
look happy.

When he spoke his voice had that booming quality that told me he had drenched himself in power. “She’d better be all right, false Prince or I’ll rip your intestines out through your arrogant nose…” He stopped when he saw me standing there, eyes agog and mouth, as usual, hanging open.