Ruby Shadows (46 page)

At that moment something caught my
attention—a swirl of color at the corner of my eye. I turned my
head without thinking and found myself caught in the mirror
again.

But this time instead of showing me loved
ones or monsters or inexplicable things I couldn’t understand, it
simply showed me and Laish. I saw myself on my hands and knees with
Laish behind me. His hands were on my hips and his thick cock was
thrust to the hilt in my open pussy. I was moaning and somehow I
knew we were both close to coming.

As I watched, the Laish in the mirror drew
out until only the head of his cock remained inside me, his thick
shaft shiny with my juices. And my image in the mirror begged him
to thrust in again. To fill me with his cum and make me his
completely—to take me in the most final and irrevocable way
possible.

I should have been horrified by the sight.
It was the loss of my innocence—the loss of half my power and all
my self-respect. Yet I couldn’t look away and as the real Laish
continued to tease my clit with his tongue and thrust into me with
his fingers, I felt a surge of pure lust and my pleasure
intensified, purshing me higher and higher, threatening to make me
come even when I knew I should not.

I tried to stop but I couldn’t. Watching the
illicit images and feeling Laish’s hands and mouth on me pushed me
over the brink. With a low wail, I clamped my thighs tight around
his head and arched my back as my orgasm took me. But as the wave
of pleasure crashed down around me and I felt the familiar ripple
in the air which meant the Sin Tax had been paid, a single thought
echoed in my head.

No, never—I can never let
him do that. No matter how much I want it, no matter how good it
would feel, I can’t. I
can’t!

Chapter
Twenty-eight

Laish

Gwendolyn slept late the next day—I couldn’t
bear to wake her. I lay there in bed watching my little witch,
drinking in the sight of her lovely face relaxed in repose. I
didn’t know if I would ever get to hold her and watch her this way
again—in fact, I very much doubted it. I didn’t plan on getting any
sleep tonight for we would be at the barrier between the sixth and
seventh circles of Hell—between the Sunless Sea and the Abyss. And
once we reached that critical juncture there were things that had
to be done—things I abhorred.

Things that would make Gwendolyn hate me
forever.

I stroked a strand of hair out of her face
and tucked it carefully behind her ear. I didn’t want to betray her
but I had no choice. The matter of the Mirror of the Eye last night
had made some things very clear to me. One was that I cared more
deeply for Gwendolyn than I had ever cared for anyone before. You
might even say that I loved her if I was capable of such an
emotion.

The second thing that had been made clear to
me was that Gwendolyn did not feel the same for me. Oh, she might
care for me and trust me—at least more than she had to begin with.
But she did not love me or count me among those who were most dear
to her. If she had, the mirror would have showed her my face and it
hadn’t.

My heart ached with the knowledge that I
wasn’t as dear to her as she was to me but I couldn’t blame her.
She was trying to hold herself apart—to keep her innocence and
purity. I threatened her closely held virginity and so she felt she
had to distance herself from me, to keep me at arm’s length. I
would do the same, were our positions reversed—or I would try, at
least, I told myself.

If she had cared for me, there might have
been another way through to the end of our quest—another way to do
what must be done. As it was, I saw only one option and it was not
a pretty one. But it had to be done in order to keep my little
witch safe.

I stroked her cheek and watched her nuzzle
against my hand in her sleep, a slight smile playing over her lush
lips. I wanted to hold her forever, to watch her sleep and stand
guard over her dreams. But there was much to do and despite my
efforts to throw the HellSpawn off our scent, I had no doubt that
it would find us again if we tarried in any one place too long.
Especially now that it had seen Gwendolyn in the mirror and had
knowledge of her whereabouts.

I sat up in bed, careful not to wake her
just yet, and took the sacrificial knife and the plate I’d left out
on my nightstand. Carefully I made the cut in my wrist, wincing as
the bitterly cold blade bit into my flesh. I made eggs, pancakes,
bacon, fresh fruit and a grapefruit half appear before placing the
plate on a silver tray I had conjured and wrapping my wrist in a
clean handkerchief to heal. Gwendolyn had missed both lunch and
dinner the night before and I wanted her to have plenty of fuel to
keep going today—we had a long road to travel ahead of us.

And nothing but heartbreak at the end of
it.

* * * * *

Gwendolyn

“
Wake up,
mon ange.
Breakfast is
served.”

The smell of breakfast food, warm and
comforting, tickled my nose and I stretched in the big luxurious
bed Laish had carried me to the night before after he’d finished
making me come. I’d fallen asleep in his arms, my head pillowed on
his broad chest as he stroked my hair and whispered how much he
cared for me.

It was one of the sweetest, most tender
moments I’d ever shared with anyone in my life and it had been with
a demon. I told myself that wasn’t right but then again, I’d also
shared the hottest sexual experience of my life with Laish as well.
Letting him go down on me and make me come had been more erotic
than anything I’d ever imagined and more deliciously addictive than
I would have believed possible. Already I wanted his hands and
mouth on me again—though I knew I shouldn’t.

Just remembering the pleasure he’d given me
made my toes curl and my pussy throb—but it also sent a wave of
guilt washing over me.

Shouldn’t have done
it,
whispered a little voice in my
head.

Had to do it,
I argued to myself.
There was no other way.

And is that what you’re going to say when
you get to the last barrier—‘Oh well, I just have to fuck him?
There’s no other way?’

I pushed the thought away with some
difficulty. It was true, we were getting to the end of our long
road today. Laish had told me the night before that once we entered
the Sunless Sea, it was only a few hours journey to the last
barrier—the one that separated us from the Abyss. And once we were
there I would have to make some tough choices—choices I didn’t want
to think about now.

“
Breakfast, Gwendolyn.
Aren’t you hungry?”

Laish’s deep voice and the warm smells of
delicious food tugged me—I let them pull me out of my worry and
guilt and tried to put my doubts and fears aside.

Opening my eyes at last, I sat up and saw
that he was standing beside the bed, holding a silver tray. He was
wearing another one of his immaculate suits—a black one with a red
power tie that made him look like a Wall Street billionaire. But it
was the tray that drew my eyes. On it was a veritable feast and a
small vase with a single red rose in it. My somewhat battered
Zephyrhills bottle was there too, looking plastic and cheap next to
the gleaming silver and snowy linen napkin.

“
Wow—this looks amazing,”
I said as Laish sat it down in front of me. “Breakfast in bed—what
did I do to deserve this?”

He propped some pillows behind my back and
smiled.

“
Nothing—merely trusted
me.”

“
Trusted you?” I frowned
and then his meaning sank in. “Oh, you mean to…” I felt my cheeks
get hot as I remembered all over again exactly how much trust I had
placed in him, spreading my thighs and letting him lick
me…

“
Don’t get flustered,
Gwendolyn,” he murmured, handing me a fork. “Just eat.”

“
Fine.” Trying to cover my
confusion, I took a big bite of scrambled eggs. They were
delicious—fluffy and light with just a hint of salt and pepper—just
how I liked them.

“
Is it good?” Laish asked,
pouring a little syrup on my pancakes.

“
Amazing,” I said, going
for another bite.

“
I am glad. You had next
to nothing to eat yesterday—you must be starving.”

“
I am,” I said. “I feel
like I could eat a horse. Or—”

Then I stopped with a
forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to my mouth when I remembered
exactly
why
I
hadn’t eaten much the day before.

“
Or?” Laish raised an
eyebrow at me.

“
Did you hurt yourself to
make this for me?” I asked suspiciously. “I know you did, Laish.
You got it all ready before I woke up so I couldn’t protest about
you cutting yourself, didn’t you?”

“
Don’t be silly—I simply
wanted to serve you breakfast in bed,” he said lightly.

I frowned. “I don’t want you to do that
anymore—I don’t like the idea of you having awful pain just to feed
me.”

He frowned back. “Gwendolyn, be reasonable.
I cannot let you starve. And besides, it doesn’t hurt nearly as
much as Belial led you to believe.”

“
That’s not what you said
last night,” I accused. “You said—”

“
Your food is getting
cold,
mon ange,”
he said, rising from the side of the bed where he’d been
sitting. “Think of this, if it
did
give me pain to prepare it for you, then it would
be very remiss of you to waste it in arguing when you could have
been putting my sacrifice to good use.”

“
Fine,” I muttered,
spearing another bite of eggs, since the one on my fork had gotten
cold. “But at least tell me how you do it. Why is it that you can
make food that won’t damn me with your own blood? You never really
explained it before.”

He sighed and sat back down on the bed
again.

“
It has to do with the
fact that I was not always as you see me. And no—I will not discuss
what I was with you now—we have too much to do. But when I make the
Sacrifice of Blood for you, I am drawing on that small part inside
me that is still the original being I was created as. There are a
few—a very few—drops of good still within me. These are what I use
to make the food for you. It is not my blood—though it looks like
it—but the few pure drops of my essence that I am transmuting into
sustenance for you.”

“
But…won’t you use up all
your goodness—I mean, all that you have left—feeding me? If you’ve
only got a few drops?” I asked anxiously.

He shook his head. “Actually, the reverse is
true. Each time I sacrifice for you—each time I bear pain for the
sake of another—the good in me is multiplied. So technically I
could continue feeding you in this way forever. Because good begets
good as evil begets evil.”

“
Oh.” I cut a piece of
pancake and chewed it thoughtfully. “So does it hurt because you’re
having to separate the good out from the evil?”

“
Something like that.” He
patted my knee. “And now, please just eat. We have a very long day
ahead of us. I will leave some clothing for you in the bathroom and
I suggest you take a nice, hot shower before we go. It is likely to
be the last one you get while you remain in the Infernal
Realm.”

I did as he suggested.
After finishing my breakfast—I really
was
starving—I took a hot,
refreshing shower and then changed into the clothing he’d provided.
Today’s outfit consisted of a long, silky sleeveless gown of white
with a pattern of blood red flowers on it. It had a slit up either
thigh to make riding easier and there was also a hooded,
long-sleeved traveling cloak in dove gray to go over it. For shoes
I was still wearing my little black ballet flats but Laish must’ve
had someone clean and mend them thoroughly. They looked like new
but when I slipped them on, they still fit me with the comfort of
perfectly broken in shoes.

Eryn settled on my shoulder, looking like a
delicate snowflake on the dove gray cloak, as I packed the spell
books and the book on angels Laish had said I could keep in my
leather satchel. I was tempted to go back to the library and look
for more but it really wasn’t practical to lug so many heavy books
around Hell. Reluctantly, I decided to make do with what I had.

Descending the spiral stair case I couldn’t
help hearing voices floating up from the bottom floor.

“
I tell you, my Lord,
Druaga is insisting on having a hearing and I think the Council of
Elder Demons is going to agree to it.” It was Belial’s voice—I was
certain.

“
He has no case against
me.” Laish sounded bored and preoccupied. “Once they realize that,
they will dismiss it out of hand.”

“
They may not,” Belial
said. “They do not wish to lose their privileges at the Hotel
Infernal—it is the only decent place to stay in Baator where many
of them conduct business. For that reason alone they will at least
hear his grievance.”

“
I will deal with it on my
return,” Laish told him. “Right now I have no time.”

“
You have no time for
anything but that mortal female.” Was there a faint note of
bitterness in Belial’s tone? “Did you make the Sacrifice of Blood
for her again this morning?”

“
And if I did?” Laish’s
deep voice held a warning growl. “What business is it of
yours?”

“
It is the business of our
entire realm!” Belial exclaimed. “Need I remind you, my Lord, of
how narrow the margin between good and evil is for you? You have
always walked a fine line—if the balance within you should tip in
the wrong direction—”