"Where, exactly, do you think you're taking me?"
"Away."
"Away where?"
"Just away. You didn't wish to be left behind, so you're coming with me."
"Why?"
Alec stopped and shot me a look that probably should have warned me he was at the end of his patience, but I decided that was less important than knowing where he was hauling me. "Do you ever stop asking questions? "
"Not really, no," I said after some thought. "There are so many things to be answered."
He grinned. My inner devil squealed and swooned at the sight of it. I told her to buck up, that he may be sexy as hell, but he was not for us. "I happen to agree with that philosophy, but now is not the time to discuss it. What did you do to get tossed in here?"
"Wrong place at the wrong time, as best I can figure it out," I said, following when he tugged on my wrist. Although the screaming in the distance had stopped, I had an uneasy feeling that something was back there that I'd rather not meet.
Something is. A wrath demon.
How did you hear about that? You were unconscious.
I know the sound of a wrath demon when I hear one. What wrong place?
I sighed. "You're really persistent, aren't you?"
"No more so than you. Why are you glowing?"
I looked down at myself. "I didn't know I was until Ulfur told me - "
He jerked me forward, spinning around. "Ulfur? You know Ulfur? A ghost about my height, with brown hair?"
"He has brown hair, yes, but he wasn't a ghost. He said he was a . . ." I bit my lower lip, trying to dig the word out of my memory.
Alec's gaze flickered to my mouth. Stop that.
Stop what, trying to remember?
No. Stop tempting me with your mouth.
I'm not.
You are. You're flaunting your lips at me. Stop it.
A little warm kernel of feminine pleasure glowed inside me at his mental growl. "I hardly think a bad habit like biting my lip is deliberately flaunting, but if it amuses you to think that, knock yourself out. Lich. That's the word. Ulfur is a lich."
"That's right." Alec looked beyond me, his eyes unfocused. He rubbed his chin with his thumb as he thought, the rasping noise sending little shivers down my back. "Pia said something about them trying to bring him back, but the Ilargi had him by that time."
I couldn't stop looking at him. I tried to look at his shoulder, or the rocks beyond him. I reminded myself that he was a man who didn't think twice about murdering people, not that I didn't feel sympathy with the fact that the ox lady had decapitated me with her cart and left him without his only salvation, but still, he admitted he'd murdered other people. He was bad to the bone, and I didn't give a damn what my swoony inner bad girl thought - I was going to tolerate him only until he got Diamond and me out of this hellhole.
Dear god, I wanted him again. He just stood there, his brain whirling away with some thought, all smoldering sensuality and raw male attraction that made my body hum with happiness.
"Stop that," I said, unable to stand it one minute longer.
He looked startled. "Stop what?"
I stared at his thumb. "Stop tempting me with your manly stubble. And chin. And jaw. But mostly your chin. Did I mention stubble?"
A little frown pulled his eyebrows together. Merciful heaven, even his eyebrows were sexy. I wanted to lick them. "What in the name of the saints are you going on about now?"
It was too much. It was all suddenly too much. "You're too damned handsome, OK? I don't like handsome men! They're always halfway in love with themselves, and they use their looks and their seductive bodies to sway women into doing whatever they want, and I won't have it, do you understand me! I will not have it! Stop being handsome!"
"Corazon - "
"Garrgh!" I yelled, and with both hands, mussed up his hair until it stood up in clumps.
He looked deliciously tousled, like he'd just been engaged in a wonderfully energetic romp between the sheets.
"I hate you!" I yelled, and stomped off, muttering to myself that I would not let him affect me. Sex, I told myself. We just had sex. Not even real sex, more a quickie, just a purely physical reaction to me giving him blood. What right did he have to go around looking all steamy hot and gorgeous?
"I sense that you're angry with me about something," he said drily, falling into step beside me. "But since I also sense it has to do with my hair and beard, I'm at a loss as to how to placate you. If you are through having a temper tantrum, would you mind telling me how you met Ulfur?"
"I might. But first, let's discuss this plan of yours to get us out of here. I assume the exit place is where you're taking me?"
Alec sighed, and stopped. "You're part of my punishment, aren't you? It's not bad enough the council banished me to the Akasha - they sent you here to drive me insane, didn't they?"
"What council? One that oversees the killing of innocent women?"
"No." He started forward again. I watched his back for a moment, absently noting that he had a very, very fine walk, before hurrying to catch up with him. My little devil had me taking his hand before I realized what she was doing, but I figured it would be rude to suddenly drop it like it was full of worms or something, so I pretended I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy when his fingers threaded through mine in a way that made my little devil happy. "I was sentenced to remain in the Akasha for crimes committed against Dark Ones."
"But you're one of them," I said, looking at him.
His jaw tightened. "Yes."
"What did you do?"
"How did you meet Ulfur?"
"How are you getting us out of here?" I countered.
"If you don't stop asking me questions instead of answering them, I'm going to make you stop," he threatened, his voice a low, sexy growl that I felt all the way to my toes.
"You're going to kill me, too? " I asked, surprise kicking in when I realized that I wasn't afraid of him. He was a murderer, yes, but somehow, I knew he didn't pose a threat to me. Not that sort of a threat, anyway . . . my peace of mind was another subject.
"Tempting as that thought is, no, I would simply kiss you until you couldn't think anymore."
My eyes widened as he thought about doing that, my breasts, suddenly becoming strumpets, demanding that I walk them right over to his chest, and let them have their way with him.
"Stop it," I said, looking down at my shirt. My nipples had hardened at the thought of Alec's chest, my breasts feeling heavy and very, very needy.
"Now what have I done?" he asked with a distinct note of exasperation.
"It's not you. I'm having some trouble with my breasts."
His gaze instantly dropped to my upper parts. "Problematic, are they?"
"Right now, yes. They want an introduction to your chest. I've told them no, that what happened before was simply a reaction to me feeding you, but they won't listen."
"Perhaps I can be of some assistance," he said in his polite, slightly accented English. "Would you like me to take up the discussion with them?"
"It wouldn't do any good," I said, shaking my head. "They wouldn't listen. They're headstrong."
"We won't know until we try, hmm?" he said, suddenly stopping, turning me around so I faced him. My breasts cheered as his gaze caressed their upper slopes visible through the lacy part of my top.
"Oh, I think I know . . . hooobah!"
Alec didn't bother to introduce himself properly - he just slid both hands underneath my shirt to cup my boobs, and did a cleavage pe. The sensation of his stubble on my now highly sensitized breasts left me clutching his head, my breath caught in my throat as he snaked his tongue between my breasts, his thumbs gently rubbing where my nipples were trying to burst free of my bra.
This is just the blood, I said somewhat desperately. It's just because I gave you blood that my boobs want you so much.
This isn't due to you feeding me, mi cielo, he answered, his voice rubbing against my brain in a way that threatened to tumble me into another pit of need and desire. This is something else.
What? I asked, shielding from him my secret.
I don't know, but I will enjoy myself fully finding out what. Do you want me to make love to you again?
You didn't make love to me before. We had a mutually desired quickie, brought on by bloodlust.
You just keep telling yourself that, love. He pulled his head from my chest, his grin downright cocky as he pulled down my shirt, giving my breasts one last caress before taking my hand again. "What's this nonsense about me getting you out of here?"
"We have a deal," I said when I was able to pry my tongue off the roof of my mouth.
"We do?"
"Yes. When you were lying there being roadkill, I told you that I would give you blood and you would get Diamond and me out of the Akasha."
"You made a deal with me while I was all but dead due to lack of blood?"
"Yes. You didn't say you wouldn't do it," I pointed out.
He shot me a look.
"All right, all right, I know, it wasn't a fair deal, but it was a deal nonetheless, and if you insist on walking around here looking like sex on two legs, then you can just honor the deal."
"My appearance again," he sighed. "I can't help the way I look, Corazon."
I narrowed my eyes on him. "You could try looking ugly, you know."
His green-eyed gaze cast upward for a few seconds in an obvious plea for patience. "If I covered myself in mud, would that help?"
I had a vision of him standing naked, his body slick with water, as I slowly, gently, carefully moved a soapy sponge over his flesh, cleaning him, leaving all that satiny, hot skin exposed, just waiting for me to touch it, taste it -
"You continue with that thought, and I will make love to you right here," he warned with a growl.
"Sorry. Mind got away from me. What was the question ? "
"Akasha. Getting you out. Me. Someone evidently named Diamond."
"Oh, yes, well, as I said, I made this agreement with your unconscious self, and since you're a big, bad vampire, and everyone is scared to death of you, I figured you could get Diamond - she's the woman who stole my husband, not that I really mind because he's a total dillwad, but still, there was a matter of pride for about five minutes - then I got over it and realized I should be grateful to her - anyway, she was in the house with me when Ulfur and the English Satan dude were arguing, and whammo! Here we are."
It took Alec a minute to work through all of that. "English Satan dude? A demon lord, you mean? Which one? "
"Um . . . Dean? No, Dale."
"Bael? "
"Yes, that's the guy."
"Christ," he swore.
"I gather he's the head bad guy."
"Very much so." He eyed me with speculation. "What did Ulfur do to bring down Bael's wrath on him, and by extension you and the husband-stealer?"
"He stole some gold thing. Oh, and this." I dug into my pocket and pulled out the broken bits of stone and twisted gold.
"Christ," he repeated, staring at it in horror. "That's one of the Tools."
"It's called the Oculus of Lucifer, I think."
"Occio di Lucifer . . ." His gaze snapped up to mine, a sense of disbelief and wonder and amazement all rolling around inside him. "The Tool has been destroyed."
"Yeah. I didn't do it, though, if that's what you're thinking."
He lifted up my hand that he still held. "You're glowing."
"Well, I can't see it on myself, but I did see Ulfur with a glow. How come you don't glow? I mean, shouldn't you, since you were sent here, too?"
He looked confused for a second before shaking his head. "Cora, you're not glowing because you were sent to the Akasha. You're glowing because somehow you've become infused with the power of the Occio di Lucifer. For all intents and purposes, you are the Tool now."
"Hey! I am not a tool!" I said before what he had said filtered through the dim recesses of my mind. I gasped and grabbed his arm. "Oh my god, you don't mean that! Tell me you don't mean what I think you mean! You do, don't you? You mean it! I'm Satan's eyeball! I'm evil!"
"Calm down, you're not evil. You're simply . . . well, I don't know what you are. The personification of the Occio, assumedly, although I don't have a lot of experience in that sort of thing. Still, I would guess - "
I never did find out what he guessed, because at that moment he grabbed me around the waist and literally threw me aside. I smashed into a particularly pointy boulder the size of a small pony, cracking my head against it painfully.
"I am really not having a good day," I groaned as I rolled off the boulder to glare at Alec. Or started to glare, but when I realized that he hadn't just gone mad and thrown me aside because I was now the personification of evil, and had, instead, protected me, I snatched up a couple of rocks and got painfully to my feet.
The woman who had appeared before the English demon lord was now stalking toward Alec, a wickedlooking sword in her hand, pointed directly at his heart. "I have no quarrel with you, Dark One. Cease interfering and you will not be harmed."
Alec, who stood with his back to me, balanced to spring forward, gave a dry little laugh. "I've lived in perpetual torment for the last six hundred years. I have no soul, my Beloved was killed almost before my eyes, I tried to destroy my best friend, was banished to the Akasha by my own people, and the woman sent to drive me insane makes me hard just looking at her. There is nothing you can do that will make my existence any more miserable than it already is, demon."
I make you hard when you look at me?
Now is not the time for this discussion.
The woman smiled a particularly creepy smile. I moved closer to Alec.
Stay back, querida.
You're unarmed. And she has a herkin' big sword.
It's not me she wishes to harm. Stay behind me.
"Move, Dark One," the woman commanded.
I bent to pick up a couple more rocks. OK, you get a little inner squeal for the "hard" comment, and more importantly bonus points for wanting to protect me, but I'm not some delicate little flower who can't protect herself.
"Give it up, demon. You won't get her." You're not up to battling a wrath demon. This woman is second-in-command to Bael. She wields more power than you know.
And you think you're going to fight her unarmed?
I have no choice.
"Do you know who I am?" she snarled.
"I don't particularly care," Alec said, shifting his weight as if he were bored with the conversation. "You're wasting your time. Go back to Bael and tell him he will not have this woman."
Alec truly felt he had no choice but to fight the demon; that I knew. He carefully nursed anger inside him, using its strength to focus his attention on the woman, his intentions quite clear even to me - he would die trying to protect me.
I didn't ask myself why a man who a few minutes ago walked away from me, not to mention so callously killed others in the past, would risk his own life to protect me, a stranger; I just accepted that he felt that way, and started frantically looking around for something he could use as a weapon.
Thank you for not arguing with me.
Hey, I may not be comfortable with taking down Satan's BFF, but I'm not stupid. You have a whole lot more experience fighting people like that woman than I do.
"She is your Beloved? " the demon asked, speculation rife in her eyes as she tried to look around him to see me.
Alec hesitated for two heartbeats before answering, "Yes. Bael will not have her."
I held my breath for a moment, gently feeling around the edges of his mind, relaxing when I realized that he believed he was lying.
"That she is bound to you will make your destruction that much sweeter, but it means little else to Lord Bael. If you wish to amuse me for a few minutes before I take her, then I will indulge you."
Her blade flashed, causing Alec to leap back. I felt the sting of pain in his mind, and knew the demon's sword had slashed him. How bad did she hurt you?
Not badly. Stay back.
Alec, you can't fight her. You don't have a weapon. She'll just carve you up like a rotisserie chicken.
I would thank you for your faith in my abilities to protect you, but I'm a little busy at the moment.
I searched desperately for something that he could use for fighting her. I'm sorry. All I can find are rocks.
The demon laughed as her sword danced around Alec. He moved steadily backward as he dodged the worst of the sword cuts, shielding me with his body. I could feel the pain each time the sword struck true, driving my own level of frustration sky-high.
I don't need rocks. Just stay behind me, out of her reach.
Without warning, the woman suddenly lunged forward, the sword she wielded piercing clean through his body, popping out his back.
"No!" I screamed, flinging my handful of rocks at her head as I jumped forward.
"Stay back!" Alec yelled, twisting to catch me as I tried to fling myself on the woman.
She snarled words that hurt my insides, tearing away something within me. My inner devil screamed in agony, and as Alec's hands closed around my waist, reality seemed to shift and refocus itself, a buzzing sound like that of a thousand hissing voices filling my ears, and I froze, locked in position, as the buzzing grew louder and louder until it burst out of me.
A high, horrible scream tore through the air, followed by the metallic clang of an object hitting the ground. The buzzing in my head faded to nothing, leaving me reeling against Alec, staring in stupefaction at the sword lying on the rocky ground before us.
The woman was gone, a faint black whiff of smoke slowly curling around itself the only indicator of her presence.
"What . . . what happened? " I asked, instinctively clinging to Alec as he bent to pick up the sword. He looked at it curiously for a moment, then turned his head to consider me.
"I believe we just received confirmation of our suspicions. You destroyed Bael's wrath demon."
"I did? How? I was just standing here - "
"I think . . . I think I used you." He looked back at the sword in his hand. "Just as if you were a Tool of Bael, I used the power you harness to destroy the demon's form and send it back to Abaddon."
"Are you saying I've got some sort of demonic powers ? Because I may be a lapsed Catholic, but that's going to definitely send me screaming to the nearest priest."
"No, you don't have the power itself," he said, now examining his stomach.
"Aieee!" I screamed at the blood that soaked the lower half of his shirt. "Oh my god! Lie down! No, don't move! I'll get a . . . a . . ." I spun around, searching for something I could use to stanch the flow of blood. "Good lord, what sort of place is this that they don't have a first aid kit?"
"I'm all right. The bleeding has stopped."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said, coming to a swift decision. I took him by the arm and gently but firmly guided him over to the nearest butt-height rock. "You were skewered clean through. Those sorts of wounds simply do not stop bleeding. Now, you sit here, and I'll go find someone to help you. Try not to move around."
He dug in his heels midway to the rock, his expression alternating between incredulity and annoyance. "You don't want to listen to me, do you?"
"It's not that I don't want to," I said, tugging on him as gently as I could. "You're in shock. You don't know what you're saying. I'm simply doing what's best for you."
A little ripple of surprise claimed him. You're . . . tending me?
If you want to call it that.
No one has ever done that. No one has cared.
Well, sheesh, you're hurt, badly hurt, and although I may not want to have sex with you again -
You do, though. I can feel your interest in me just as you can feel mine in you.
- although I may not want to have sex with you again, I'm not so callous that I'll let you die here. Or come close to dying again.
Why not? You think I'm a murderer and abuser of women.
"I never said you abused a woman. I just said you killed one."
"One day we will discuss why you had a vision of my past, but for now, allow me to relieve your anxiety by showing you this." He pulled open his shirt.
Instinctively I flinched at the blood on his belly, but then I realized that, rather than looking at a great big gaping hole, I was seeing blood and nothing more.
"You . . . I saw the sword. What . . . ?" I touched the spot on his stomach where the sword had pierced him. There was an ugly red line there, hot to the touch, with dried blood flaking off around it, but no open wound.
"Dark Ones have regenerative powers."
I spread my fingers out over the wound, noticing that his eyes lightened a little in color from a dark forest green to jade. "You're hungry again."
"I lost blood. That happens."
"You should feed - "
"No. You've given me too much blood already."
"I feel fine now," I said, waving my arms around in the air as if that proved my point.
Querida, as you found out, to a Dark One, the act of feeding can be highly arousing. Do you really wish for me to bury myself in your body again?
The words, spoken with such intimacy, caused my body to go up in flames. For a few seconds, I was about to tell him to go ahead; then the good part of my brain, the smart part, shoved the inner devil aside and took over. "I'm happy to give you more blood if you need it, but there will be no more sex, Alec. That was an aberration, nothing more."
He said nothing, but I could feel him thinking plenty. He just didn't let me see what it was he was thinking.
I walked along beside him as he rebuttoned his shirt, heading once again to the north. "So, about this Tool thing. I don't like being evil. How do I make it stop?"
"You're not evil; you're simply a conduit to Bael's strength. That's all the Tools are - they have no abilities of their own; they simply allow others to tap into his power."
"So you used me to access the English dude's power to destroy his own demon?"
Alec's expression was bleak, surprisingly so, considering that he had just defeated someone who I assumed was going to make mincemeat of us both. "Yes."
"Why aren't you happy about this?" I asked, nudging him in the side. He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me up next to him. I ignored, for the moment, the fact that I felt extremely secure snuggled against him. "This is a good thing, isn't it? I'm not evil. You got rid of that mean chick, although why she wanted to hurt me is totally beyond me. Assuming she wanted to hurt me. Maybe she wanted to take me out of the Akasha?"
"She's Bael's right hand. I can assure you that for whatever reason Bael desires your presence - and I assume it's because he put two and two together, and realizes what happened to the Tools - it is not going to be something you want to experience."
I shivered at the dark images in his head. "That doesn't explain why you're not happy about taking down his evil henchman."
Alec sighed again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that.
"I can't help it. My life has suddenly become fraught with things to sigh over," he said, his grip around my waist tightening. "I'm not happy because if you are now effectively the Occio di Lucifer, it means every being with half a brain is going to want you."
I stopped and glared at him. "Just because we had sex half an hour after I first saw you doesn't mean I'm a raving nymphomaniac!"
"Want you to use you, Cora," he interrupted, pulling me back up against him. "Or, more properly, to use Bael's power."
Horror skittered along my flesh as I understood what it was he meant. I had a vision of evil being after evil being lining up to use me as some sort of a demonic power source, blasting the world with innumerable cruelties. "Oh, shit."
"And lucky me," he added, his voice as grim as his expression. "It appears you have chosen me to protect you from them all."