devil 04 - the devil you know Read online

  He ignored me.

  Nerul apparently decided my question had been directed at him. “Yes. Technically. Though it would be difficult to retain power under those circumstances. If he has trustworthy lieutenants on Earth he can manage it.”

  I didn’t miss the inflection. “And would you be one of those trustworthy lieutenants on Earth, Nerul?”

  He grinned. “I will not lie to you, my queen, I will side with whomever wins.” He turned to Dialle, who’d stiffened at his words. “But I prefer to pick the winning side.” He bowed slightly. “I pick you, Your Majesty.”

  Dialle stared hard at the nasty piece of work standing before him for a long moment, the temperature in the room climbing slightly as he fumed and mused over Nerul’s offer of support.

  Finally he said, “What do you propose?”

  Nerul lifted his hands, indicating the impressive ranks of soldiers ranged around him. “I have many faithful followers, majesty. I put them at your disposal, of course.”

  Dialle nodded. “Acceptable.”

  “And I offer myself as spy and negotiator. I have access to First and he trusts me. I can give him bad advice, which will put him in the position to succumb to you at the place and time of your choosing. I can work from inside First’s organization to help you win. If I might be so bold, King Dialle the Second, your father won’t even know what hit him.”

  Silence reigned in that room for several moments. Dialle’s thoughts were not clear on his handsome face. I tried a tentative foray into his mind but found myself completely shut out.

  He was angry with me. I knew that. But he was about to go to war with his father. It was going to be ugly.

  Very ugly.

  And he was faced with choosing an archenemy, with proven and professed aspirations to be king himself, as an ally in the war.

  He was alone, with no one he could trust. And, with my Settling roaring down on me and worries about my family pulling my thoughts away, the person he should be able to count on was nothing more than a distraction to him.

  I felt bad. I realized I would have to put my own concerns aside and help him. Of the three Royals vying for power, my Dialle was the only one I could trust to protect the human realm from the dark world.

  Far from perfect, my Dialle at least understood that humans needed protection and saw that they had some value. It was the best I could hope for in a leader of the notoriously nasty and unpredictable Royal Devil race.

  After several moments of tension-filled silence, Dialle finally inclined his head toward Nerul. “I will consider your offer, Nerul. Until we strike a bargain, I expect you to stay within this palace and cease communicating with my father. I will be watching you closely to determine if you are truly willing to help me—or if you are here to serve only as a spy for my father.”

  Nerul’s dark eyes narrowed very slightly in affront but he pushed past the emotion quickly, too quickly, and smiled. “I accept those conditions, my king.”

  He bowed and Dialle stood, offering me his hand. I stood too, placing my hand in Dialle’s. As we moved through the crowd, several layers of Dialle’s soldiers between Nerul and us, I captured the nasty Royal’s gaze and held it. He and I would be having a conversation in the not too distant future.

  Nerul inclined his head slightly as if he understood the meaning of my glance.

  And then we were swept past, and toward the back of the massive room, where we were ushered through a different set of doors and into a wide, silent corridor.

  Dialle turned as several Royals pushed through behind us and flipped a hand toward the door. “Leave us!”

  The Royals sent me looks filled with both curiosity and resentment and bowed their acquiescence.

  But they didn’t go back through the door into the council chamber. I felt their burning gazes on my back as Dialle drew me inexorably toward the single set of doors in the center of the hallway.

  I was used to resentment within the Royal Court. I was an outsider, and Dialle had elevated me to a position of power over most of them. I knew any one of them would kill me in a heartbeat.

  If they thought they could get away with it.

  Fortunately for me, between Dialle’s power and my own, we were a formidable pair. And that had been enough to keep me alive to that point.

  But the power had shifted. I was several layers deep in Hades, and I was fighting off the debilitating effects of my Settling.

  Any devil worth his salt would recognize the elevated temperature, sensitive skin and scent of lust that clung to me.

  I was a walking sex addict, drunk with desire. And they knew it was a distraction that could be my undoing.

  Given the right circumstances.

  Dialle dropped my hand as soon as we entered his chambers. He moved to a long wall of windows that were reminiscent of the windows in his chambers at home in Angel City. But these windows looked out on a bleak and fiery landscape, filled with burning pits and heat-bleached plains.

  Gray, cooling ash floated against the sky like dirty snow.

  I knew that, if I left the safe environs of Dialle’s castle, the world outside would be filled with screaming and the cries of pain and suffering.

  If I’d managed to forget that I was in an ugly place, what I was seeing outside those windows was a stark reminder.

  A sobering one.

  “What exactly is going on, Dialle?”

  He stood staring out the window, legs spread wide and hands folded behind his back, resting on the firm curve of his delectable behind. I licked my lips, thinking about how those yummy buns felt in my hands as he…

  Shaking my head, I berated myself. Damn! I needed to focus.

  His scent wafted to me across the room and my knees wobbled. Closing my eyes, I prayed for strength. It had been too long since I’d released any of the sexual tension throbbing within my body.

  Way too long.

  He finally turned around, his dark eyes flitting over me hungrily. “I can smell your lust from here, Astra.”

  I gasped, biting my lip. “You know I can’t help it.”

  “Normally I would be pleased to help you with that little problem. But I have problems of my own that need to be addressed. Much bigger problems.”

  Disappointment swamped me. A small part of me had been hoping he’d grab me and fling me to the ground and rid me of the soul-eating hunger gnawing at my insides.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, fighting to regain control. After a moment I felt as if I could talk without screaming. “All right. Tell me.”

  Dialle fixed me with his probing gaze and frowned. “My father plots our death, Astra. Yours and mine. He has your sister and intends to wed her. She will be his queen when he regains his crown. And his intermediary on Earth until he can return to the human realm.”

  “Holy shit!”

  That certainly wiped the lustful thoughts right out of my head.

  Momentarily at least.

  Chapter Ten

  The Elephant in the Room

  One matter requires a kingly touch, a serious matter true,

  But our Lady’s needs can’t be ignored, so he’ll frunk her thru and thru.

  “Huh? Dialle the First wants to kill us? Me? He’s planning what with my sister? Has he lost his mind? Has he spent two minutes with the woman? Tell me you’re joking, Dialle!”

  Dialle opened his mouth to respond but a sound not unlike that of bricks hitting the outside of the door stopped him. He frowned at the interruption. “Come!”

  The door opened and a giant, well-decorated guard came through it, looking professionally competent despite his enormity.

  “Your Majesty.” The faithful Gerch, Dialle’s Captain of the Guard and his most loyal friend on the court, bowed slightly, casting me an unreadable glance. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I have news from the court that I think you need to hear.”

  I watched Gerch carefully, trying to read his mood from the movements of his seven-foot-tall, thick red body and wide red
face. He was the consummate soldier, giving nothing away in body language. But his black eyes sparked with emotion as he looked at me.

  “What is it, Gerch?” Dialle paced in front of the wall of windows, looking agitated.

  Gerch’s long red tongue swept across his craggy lips. His eyes danced in my direction nervously. And he shuffled his huge feet before responding.

  I wondered what he could possibly be trying to report that would be causing him such discomfort.

  “Hades, Gerch, spit it out!”

  Gerch inclined his head and, studiously avoiding my gaze, focused on his king. “Your Majesty, do you remember what we discussed a few days ago? The small matter that had me greatly concerned?”

  Dialle frowned, nodding ever so slightly.

  Gerch filled his massive lungs and cast me a flicker of a glance before going on. “I believe it has gone beyond the point where we can ignore it, sire. In my opinion you must take steps, immediate steps, to put it to rest.”

  Dialle scowled at me as if I’d done something wrong.

  I hadn’t done anything except get dragged into a mess that wasn’t mine.

  At first I bristled and my temper flared. My temper had never been a snake with a long tail anyway, but then guilt slid over me like a foul gas as the Slayer’s image flitted through my mind, along with a few choice mind videos of our…erm… recent activities.

  Okay, I had done some things wrong.

  But they’d felt so right.

  And I didn’t think Dialle knew about those things. “What?”

  “Leave us, Gerch.”

  The guard threw me a last look before turning toward the door. The look gave me chills. It was almost apologetic, as if he’d just signed my death warrant or something.

  I started after him, determined to discover what he was about. I knew Dialle wouldn’t be forthcoming with the information.

  And if it concerned me, I wanted to know.

  As I reached the door it slammed shut on Gerch’s heels. I heard a yelp through the door that told me Gerch hadn’t quite vacated the space before Dialle slammed the door closed.

  The knob wouldn’t turn. The door wouldn’t open.

  My temper flared. I turned to give Dialle a piece of my mind and found him sharing my air space.

  His breath danced softly on the tiny slice of air between us. His dark eyes probed my face, filled with a wildly fluctuating range of emotions. His scent reached out and grabbed me, closing my throat and, in a flash, stealing away all thought.

  He touched my lips with a finger that seared my skin with its heat, pulling my bottom lip downward. “I’ve missed you, Astra.”

  Warning bells went off. Something wasn’t right. What was with the rapid change in direction? He’d just told me he didn’t have time for what he was obviously engaging. It had something to do with Gerch’s visit.

  I wanted to ask the questions, but he’d engaged my Settling. And my mind was quickly shutting down.

  His lips descended on mine, replacing the finger. His tongue took advantage of the space his finger had created and slid inside, to tangle hotly with my own.

  I groaned, my body becoming instant flame beneath his touch. My body wept, sending the musky scent of arousal into the air we breathed.

  Dialle groaned and flicked his fingers. Instantly we were naked.

  He deepened his kiss, tilting his head to consume my mouth more thoroughly. The finger that had pulled my lips apart slid down my belly and toward the hungry flesh at the vee of my thighs.

  I gave a little cry as his fingers found my nub, rubbing it gently before sliding into my moist heat. My head went back on a scream of pure unbridled lust as he worked my hungry pussy with his fingers while rubbing my throbbing clitoris with his thumb.

  Succumbing to mindless need, I captured his soft lower lip between my teeth and bit down hard, drawing blood. He moaned, grinding his cock against me. It was thick and hard against my belly and I couldn’t get close enough to it.

  Reaching for it with one hand, I used the other to grab his delectable backside, kneading it hungrily as I sucked the blood trickling from his torn lip.

  A growling sound filled the air and it took me a moment to realize it was me. I’d become mindless in my hunger, rabid with need. Every nerve ending in my body was firing, immensely sensitive.

  Attuned only to Dialle.

  His touch, his scent, the various textures of his skin were my entire world. The black silk of his hair touched my shoulder as we kissed and my skin screamed from the nearly painful need it elicited in response.

  I reached up and buried my fingers in the mass of it, feeling it nearly burn my palm with pleasure.

  My body built inexorably toward an explosion of release. Dialle’s fingers kept up a perfect and devastating rhythm, driving me toward that peak, promising a path over it, into relief from the lashing hunger that had ridden me for weeks, unassuaged.

  I widened my stance, my body clenching around his fingers, and then fell screaming into orgasm, calling his name as my fingers pulled his head down to a rigid, starving nipple.

  Almost as soon as I rolled to the bottom of my release, I found myself on a soft bed with Dialle stretched out over me. His fiery mouth laved at a pebbled nipple and I arched my back to give him better access. “Dialle!”

  He lifted his mouth from my nipple. “Tell me what you want, Astra.”

  “Oh Hades!” I gasped. “I want you!

  He captured the other nipple, sucking hard and driving sharp frissons of pleasure toward the still pulsing core of my pleasure. “What do you want me to do, Astra?” He bit down on the nipple, drawing blood as I had done and sucking it into his hot mouth.

  I moaned, thrashing frantically beneath him. I wanted. I needed. I craved. My entire being was wrapped up in an enormous hunger that I couldn’t identify, couldn’t name and couldn’t quite reach.

  There weren’t words big enough for my craving.

  My mind struggled to find them, even as my body reacted greedily to his touch.

  I felt his hard cock against my belly, the heat of it searing my skin, creating actual, physical sparks.

  I arched upward, begging him with my body for what my mind couldn’t comprehend.

  My daemon hickey sparked, sizzling with the same, unnamed yearning.

  Working from instinct and nothing else, I realized the two were related. My mark needed something from Dialle. My pussy demanded it.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks, over my chin and trickled down my breasts, into Dialle’s laving mouth. He groaned and sucked harder at my nipple until I bucked with unimaginable desire beneath him.

  Suddenly the hunger found a name.

  My mind latched on to it, pulled it free and longed to send it into the air between us.

  I growled deep and low in my throat and grabbed his cock in one hand. “Do it, Dialle!”

  “Do what, my love.”

  “Fuck me, Dialle. Claim me, damn you, claim me!”

  He growled then too, capturing my lips with his own as he plunged his rock-hard shaft deep within my pulsing pussy, burying himself hard, right up to his balls.

  I moaned in sheer delight. “Yes!” And bared my neck for him, offering him my throbbing daemon hickey to suck.

  He covered it with his mouth, devouring the sparks that shot from it and thrusting hard as he pulled the fire from my body at my throat.

  I wrapped myself around him, meeting him thrust for thrust as his long, lean body ravaged mine.

  We fucked like mindless animals, driven only by lust, by ravening need. The world with all its problems slid away as my Settling met his devil and made magic and fire.

  Smoke drifted upward as the satin sheets beneath us caught fire.

  We rolled among the flames, oblivious and immune to its ravages.

  Another orgasm rolled over me and my body pulled on Dialle’s. My pussy milked his driving cock hard.

  Dialle followed me into release with a deep-throated growl, which morphed
into my name on his swollen lips. And as his cock jerked within my body in final release, his teeth clamped down on the daemon mark, breaking through my skin and sending me spiraling on a room-shattering scream back into orgasm.

  A wall of light, power and flame shot away from us, creating a pulsating column that lit up the entire room and caused the very walls to shake.

  I threw back my head and screamed, the sound reverberating off the walls and adding to the power already shaking the foundations of the castle.

  As the power soaked us, saturating our pores, it became too much for me. And I felt my mind shutting down from an overload of sensation. The room grew dark around the edges and my body sank limp into the smoldering mattress beneath us.

  The last thing I was aware of was Dialle’s soft kisses on my throat and face. And his voice, husky with emotion, whispering my name.

  Something nibbled at the edges of my quickly fading consciousness, telling me that I’d just entered another layer of Hades. And I would soon be too deep within its fiery confines to escape its terrifying grip.

  Chapter Eleven

  Back to Business

  Her sensual stress is finally staunched, her Settling under wraps,

  So now our Lady’s quest for truth, can be assuaged…perhaps.

  “What was that all about, Dialle?”

  He glanced at me, his dark eyes cold and unreadable again. “It was necessary. For both of us.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. At least from my perspective. My body felt warm and liquid, free of the stress that had been riding it before. And my mind felt sharp again.

  But a cold band had wrapped itself around my heart. Dialle had pulled away from me in a significant way. And I wasn’t sure I could pull him back.

  Or, at that moment, if I even wanted to.

  Watching him move around the room, dressing and pulling together an impressive array of weapons, I decided it wasn’t the time or place to discuss our personal issues. There would be time enough for that when we’d beaten back Dialle the First.

  If we managed to beat the crafty and morally bankrupt Royal back at all. He had age and experience on his son.