Touch of the Demon (55 page)

“No,” he replied. “Gestamar is in Katashi’s summoning chamber, but the other ritual is in the adjoining room.” He paused. “Tsuneo is still with Gestamar.”

Crap. So much for waiting for the most opportune moment. “Mzatal, how’s Gestamar doing? He needs to be calm and quiet, maybe even feign weakness.”

Pain flickered over the lord’s face. “Thrashing. I cannot quiet him. The bindings are draining him, and he is in agony.”

“If we wait any longer, it’s going to get ugly,” Idris said, worried expression deepening. Neither one pulled attention
from their surveillance, but I could sense as clearly as if both stared at me, that they waited for my instructions. Considering the disruption in the essence bond, Mzatal was doing everything he could to stay focused. I had the most experience as a summoner. I was lead on this, and it was up to me to call the shots. It made sense, but it still felt weird as all hell.

“Fuckballs,” I muttered. “Okay. Plan B, folks, since we may not be able to wait for them to leave him alone. Any shift of focus off of him will do. Idris, you give the word and hold the conduit, Mzatal, you slip bindings, and we’ll yank his big ass out. With any luck at all we should be able to make it one perfectly coordinated movement, because we are awesome like that.”

Idris suddenly grimaced. “Shit, all three in the room now.”

Damn it! “Fine. Plan C it is. Fuck stealth. Mzatal, can you send any sort of strike through the conduit?”

A smile ghosted across his lips. “I can.”

“Good. On three then. Idris hold the damn conduit wide, and I’ll focus on the call. Mzatal, you zap and unbind, then we’ll pull. One, two,
three!
”

The word was barely out of my mouth when Mzatal unleashed power through the conduit. I damn near lost hold as part of it reflected back on me, but Idris managed to steady the strands.

“Now!” Mzatal shouted, and we
puuuulled.
The diagram shuddered, and then with a
crack
that shook the beach, Gestamar appeared sprawled and bleeding.

“Idris, seal it!” I shouted as I quickly anchored and watched for any attempt to follow the reyza. Together, Idris and I shut down the flows and dropped protections, allowing Mzatal to go to the stricken demon. Gestamar was alive, I could see that much. He was a mess, but he was back and in what appeared to be one piece.

“Mzatal?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

The lord dropped to one knee beside Gestamar, then looked back to me, relief swimming in his eyes. “Nothing permanent.” He looked up as Helori and Ilana joined him to crouch by the reyza. I blinked. Where the hell had they come from? Had they been here this whole time?

Idris and I finished shutting everything down and
cleaned up residuals. After a few minutes the two syraza disappeared with Gestamar. I grinned over at Idris. “Dude, we kicked ass.”

He gave a whoop of delight in response.

“Recalling the blade will be a walk in the park after this.” I laughed as I said it, yet at the same time, I meant it. We’d worked superbly as a team. Even if Rhyzkahl showed up, we could handle him.

Still grinning, Idris loped over to the big rock to retrieve his shirt and boots. Mzatal sat cross-legged where Gestamar had lain, head lowered. I crouched beside him and slipped an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, you okay?”

“I am tired,” he said without lifting his head, and for an instant I had the impression that he spoke of a fatigue that went far beyond the physical, a weight comprised of millennia of schemes and plans and plots. I had to resist a sudden weird urge to stroke his hair back from his face, which made no sense since it was still perfectly braided as always.

“C’mon, Boss,” I said, taking his hand. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Mzatal remained utterly still for another moment, then squeezed my hand and stood. “Were it all in your control, Kara Gillian, I would know that to be the truth.”

“I’m a tenacious bitch, remember?”

He began to smile, then abruptly straightened and turned fully to the beacon diagram, grip tightening on my hand.

My fatigue dropped away as excitement flared. “Did it find it? Is it working?”

He didn’t answer, barely even breathing as he kept his full focus on the beacon. A few seconds later the ritual flared, the sigils carved on the columns flickered to life with a faint blue glow, and a single clear tone sounded.

I sucked in a sharp breath as the tone seared through me, seeming to set every cell in my body alight. The sensation faded after a few seconds, though I still felt a bit strange, as if someone was watching me from the inside.

Idris came up beside me, face alight with wonder though he didn’t seem as flattened by the tone as I was. Then again, I was the focus, the one who’d be calling the blade. Made sense that it would hit me the hardest.

Mzatal released my hand and draped his arm over my shoulder. “Rhyzkahl knows now.”

I nodded. Mzatal had warned us earlier that the beacon would be impossible to hide. “When do we go?”

“Tomorrow. We will arrive at Szerain’s palace at dawn.”

I smiled. “Does this mean I can take a bath tonight and sleep in a real bed?”

He dropped his gaze to me, gave me a smile haunted by concern for Gestamar and possibly more. “Yes. We both need—” He took a deep breath. “Yes. Bath and rest for you.”

“You need to sleep too,” I said with a glare, though I had to admit, he already looked way better than while Gestamar was gone. “Make tonight your weekly nap.” I swept my gaze around, taking in the beacon ritual and the disturbed sand that was all that remained of the battle for Gestamar. “This is going to work. We’re a damn good team. I mean, look at what we just did. We kicked those asstards in the goddamn balls.”

A measure of the morose pall seemed to lift from him. “Yes, it was truly harmonious.”

“Harmonious asskicking,” I said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

I came fully and suddenly awake, as if a switch had been thrown, then lay perfectly still, listening and cautiously sensing with othersight as I tried to figure out what had roused me so thoroughly. A light breeze drifted through the open balcony doors, bringing with it the scent of the sea and of the demon-realm equivalent of pines. Far in the distance some sort of night creature called and received an answering cry. It was still full night, but the moon was higher in the sky than when I drifted off. I’d been asleep for a few hours at least.

But nothing seemed amiss. None of the wards had been tripped. No intruder or danger, as far as I could tell. Mzatal wasn’t in the bedroom or bath chamber, and I didn’t sense his presence in the main room. I looked to the balcony, but I didn’t see him in his usual spot by the railing either. Most likely he was with Gestamar, or in the summoning chamber, in final preparations for the morning.

The grove shimmered in the distance, casting a scintillating aura of green, purple and gold unlike anything I’d ever seen from it before. I pulled the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around me as I moved out to the balcony. When I reached the rail, I tucked the sheet a little more securely, then spread my hands on the cool stone. The starry sky glittered in a cloudless expanse above, and the moon drifted high, half full. I gazed across at the curiously activated grove and carefully extended, touching the semi-sentience, gently exploring its ancient power and beauty. It responded in kind, extending questing tendrils. Still and silent on the
balcony, I communed with the grove, pulled power and let it flicker over my skin in green and gold iridescence.

My understanding of it grew, as did my grasp of how to best use its potency, and, most importantly, how to control it. It wasn’t “mother nature” or “Earth power” or anything like that, but more like a strange, alien power source that had been nurtured and shaped by beings long gone from this world.

And how long will I be gone from my own world?
I allowed the feelings to rise of how homesick I was, how desperately I missed my aunt and all my friends. I swallowed against the lump in my throat and felt the grove respond like a song in my essence. “I miss them,” I whispered. Its potency swirled around me whispering back. Though I couldn’t translate what it said, I knew what it meant for me to do. Inhaling deeply, I gathered more power, enough to coalesce into a radiant orb before me.

I want them to know I’m safe.

Lifting my arms, I pulled the power into a tight coil, breathed my wish into it, then released it and watched it disperse across the balcony and to the grove and beyond in a transparent shimmering wave. Slowly the grove subsided to its usual softly glowing quiescence, though I still vibrated with the energy.

After several minutes the power settled to a gentle and peaceful resonance, and I shivered in the faint chill of the night breeze, unnoticed while I’d communed with the grove. Smiling, I turned and headed back inside.

Three steps in I stopped dead in my tracks.

Mzatal stood at the end of the bed, radiating potency, and without a trace of the earlier weariness. He wore only his robe: sumptuous deep red silk with sleeves and hem adorned in intricate silver stitching. His thick braid hung over his right shoulder, and, as I stared, he deftly unwound the silver cord that bound it. His eyes stayed on me as he dropped the cord and ran his fingers though the bottom half of the complex braid, separating the shining black strands.

My pulse made a weird double-beat. I’d never
ever
seen his hair unbraided.

“You are exquisite,” he murmured, gaze devouring me as he slid his fingers through the twists of hair, freeing more of the thick fall until it hung loose below his shoulder. I
took a slow step toward him, heart pounding at the effect those three words had on me.

Mzatal lowered his head, eyes intense as he lifted his arms and reached back to unweave the last of the braid. His robe parted as he did so, and…yeah. He ran his fingers through his hair, then shook it out over his shoulders, gaze never leaving me.

“Exquisite,” he murmured again, and I damn near forgot to breathe. Unbound, his hair hung past his ass in a perfect, rippling fall straight out of a shampoo commercial. Holy shit, but he was gorgeous. Not beautiful like Rhyzkahl, but hot and male and…wow.

I let the sheet fall to the floor. It was a totally cliché move, but, yep, had to be done.

Mzatal smoothly shrugged off the robe and dropped it onto the chair beside him. The air between us crackled with the potency he held and the grove power that still hummed within me. His eyes traveled over my body as I slowly moved toward him, every inch of my skin tingling in acknowledgement of his gaze.

He closed the distance between us, cradled my face in his hands the same way he had when he’d kissed me to place the recall implant. The tip of his erection brushed my belly as he murmured something in demon.

“Goddamnit,” I said in a rough voice. “Kiss me already.”

Smiling, he did so, gently at first, then with more intensity. There was nothing pure or weird about this kiss, and that was damn fine with me. His hair fell over us as he held my head with one hand and slid the other to the small of my back. He pulled me close against him, erection hard between us as he near growled into the kiss. I knew I didn’t need to ask him not to get me pregnant. Not only did I know in my essence that he would not without my permission, but I had my own means now, my own power to make certain of such things.

Groaning low, I skimmed my hands over his hips and back to cup his ass. His glutes tightened deliciously in my grasp as he rocked against me. His hand tangled in my hair, holding my mouth to his in an uncompromising assault on my senses. I welcomed it eagerly, moaning with pleasure.

His other hand moved to cup my breast, caught my nipple between thumb and forefinger and lightly squeezed. My
breath quickened, and a low whimper escaped my throat. My hands stroked up his back, heat rising in my belly at the play of muscle beneath his skin. I reached higher and fisted my hands in that glorious mane.

Mzatal broke the kiss, breath shuddering as he throbbed between us. I smiled and raised an eyebrow. The big bad scary mofo demonic lord liked having his hair pulled? I tightened my grip and he groaned in response. I chuckled low in my throat, ridiculously pleased that I’d discovered something that could fire him. Despite all the time I’d spent with Rhyzkahl, I couldn’t name a single thing that I knew turned him on or fired a deeper reaction. He’d always been in perfect control, never revealing himself. That Mzatal would open himself to me like this touched me deeply. Desire lit his eyes as they met mine, and he smiled, acknowledging.

In the next heartbeat he lifted me as if I’d never eaten a donut in my life, near shoving me onto the dresser, then dropped his head to my right breast. Heat flared through me as his teeth found my nipple, and I gasped in a breath. I’d found one of his buttons, but he sure as hell knew what mine were, too.

“Mzatal,” I groaned and wrapped my legs around him. He was thick and hard and more than ready, and holy shit I wanted him inside me. He continued to suck and bite my breasts, wringing a variety of incoherent noises from me. I clutched at his hair, grinding against him, my breath coming in ragged gasps. “Come on, damn it.”

He lifted from my breasts, gaze smoldering as he positioned against me. Passion, dangerous and heady, seethed behind his eyes. Both hands slid down to grip my ass, yet maddeningly he still didn’t pull me onto him. Instead, he bent his forehead to mine, went perfectly still for what felt like forever though it was probably only a second or two. The physical retreated, and we entwined in utterly silent dreamlike spaciousness, the whole universe too small to contain us. Timeless. Transparent. He lifted his head from me, and the glorious sensations rushed in again, intensity and awareness impossibly heightened.

In a swift motion, he pressed in hard to full depth and held me there while I whimpered, nearly overwhelmed by the sensations and need.

A smile curved his mouth, and his hands tightened on my ass as he began to thrust, pulling me onto him with each deep stroke. I locked my legs around him, urging him on. His potency resonated deep within me, echoing with elusive familiarity. Instinctively, I touched the grove, pulled that power to meld with his, then sucked in a sharp breath as everything about him leaped in response. Our potencies merged in exquisite perfection, like the tone that sounded when a ritual came into alignment, but more. Every sensation, every movement, every mental touch snapped into breathtaking clarity.