Darkness Burning Read online

  She pulled a silken rope to ring the bell and bring a chambermaid to attend her. When the girl bowed her way inside, Inanna asked for her husband to attend her.

  Dumuzi arrived moments later, looking annoyed, dust still clinging to his boots and ankles. He halted when he saw the aging wizard inside her room. “What do you want?” he asked, his tone curt.

  When they’d first wed, he hadn’t spoken to her in such harsh tones. He’d been attentive, insatiable. She would never admit to missing the forceful warrior. “Can a wife not request the company of her husband?” she asked, her voice sliding like silk.

  Still handsome, despite the years that had carved harsh lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes, she felt a moment’s sensual thrill at the lift of one of his dark brows as his gaze swept her body.

  Knowing she retained a remarkable beauty, she touched her bottom lip with her tongue, wetting it. Perhaps she would take him one last time….

  Impatience stamped his cold features. “I’m tired and dusty, Inanna. Can this wait?”

  She glanced back at the wizard. “We are done.”

  The wizard raised the crystal, warming it in his hands, and began the incantation Irkalla had included with the relic.

  Dumuzi’s glance slammed into hers. His mouth opened to speak, but suddenly a glimmering circle, like a vertical pool of pale blue water, opened beside him. His head turned to peer inside, and long, slithering arms reached through to wrap around his legs and arms, pulling him toward the opening.

  His scream was sucked into the glowing circle as his body disappeared. The light blinked out and the room looked as it had before, undisturbed by the bright storm that had engulfed it moments before.

  Inanna let out a breath, staring at the place where Dumuzi had disappeared.

  The door to her bedchamber opened and her son stepped inside. “Where is father?” he said, his gaze wary and hard as he eyed his mother.

  “Gone, son,” she said. “You just missed him.” She smiled briefly, knowing one more task lay ahead of her before she could seek her next mate.

  Alex withdrew his teeth, breathing hard and trembling as he clasped the backs of Simon’s shoulders. “The bitch! She consigned her husband to Hell and murdered her own son. Why could I not see it before?”

  Simon reached back to pat his hand. “This memory was particularly well guarded. Perhaps by Inanna herself. What woman would want to remember her own hideous crimes?”

  Feeling sick to his stomach, Alex strode to the window overlooking the boulevard, staring sightlessly out into the darkness. “I hate that they live inside me now.”

  “Alex,” Simon said softly, “the memories give you infinite power. You have delivered us the means to defeat her.”

  Alex’s gaze swung back to Simon, whose lips curved into a half smile. “You mean the black crystal? Can it be used again? Do you think she still has it?”

  “With her thirst for power, do you really believe Inanna would ever let such a powerful instrument out of her possession?”

  “Of course not. How will we find it?”

  “Now that I know what I seek, the rest should be simple. But I’ll need certain herbs for such a spell.”

  Alex straightened, knowing his moment had finally arrived. Seven centuries of waiting and preparing, and now he had to react on the fly. “We don’t have any time to lose. Inanna has more help than she wants in broadening her search for me. I can almost feel them closing in around me.”

  Simon’s expression sharpened, seeming to gauge his determination. “You have your special key. You can escape at a moment’s notice.”

  Alex drew his lips into a snarl. “I don’t want to run and hide. I want to face her, to confront the whole damn council. They all hold responsibility for helping her maintain her power through murder. Other males have been born, yet none survived.”

  “Only you.”

  Alex caught sight of Miki’s expression. Her green eyes were narrowed, but she leaned forward in her chair, curious and probably confused. But where was the fear? “Miki, you’ll remain here in Simon’s home. You should be safe.”

  Simon nodded, pushing himself up from the chair. “I won’t be gone long, but Alex, you must get to Nicolas right away. Let him know it’s time for him to make a choice. He has access to her.”

  Alex felt his jaw grind tight. “Do you think he’s ready? Could he really do Inanna harm?”

  “He loves Chessa. There is no other choice.”

  Alex stepped around the chair and reached down, pulling Miki up into his arms. “I know you’re feeling a little lost,” he said, smoothing his hands over her back. “Bear with us. Don’t go out. I don’t need to be worrying about you.”

  Miki bracketed his face with both hands. “Alex, I only caught part of what the heck’s going on here, but I’m not dumb. You both look worried as hell. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  His kiss was hard and over way too soon. Without a backward glance, he headed to his car. A stop by his parents’ house for a couple more reinforcements, then he’d go straight to Ardeal.

  The time had finally come to beard the lioness in her den.

  Nicolas dragged the end of the leather belt down Inanna’s slender back. “Tell me, Mistress,” he said softly, “can you hold back your cries?”

  “If that’s what you wish,” she replied in mock submission, her buttocks flexing, anticipating the sting of the leather that had already produced a thin trickle of cream to coat her inner thighs.

  The ancient bitch hadn’t a clue how much he hated her. She thought this was a sexy game he played. He lashed out, leaving a long red mark that spanned both cheeks.

  Air hissed between her teeth, but her jaw tightened, and her brows lowered in pretended rage. She flung back her head, letting her hair settle along her shoulders like a pretty mane, and stared straight ahead.

  While she bit her lips to still her cries, Nicolas didn’t curb his anger or the strength of his blows. He let the belt fall fast and hard—snapping the leather to raise welts that crisscrossed her tender bottom until her breaths gusted fast in jagged sobs. The raised, reddened stripes gave him a deep, growling satisfaction, but they only assuaged a small part of the bitter enmity he found welling inside him.

  Inanna had lured his brother and himself into her realm, seducing Armand with the promise of a higher purpose to serve, seducing Nicolas himself with a glimpse of life served with endless lust and happiness. Both promises had proved empty.

  Armand had been murdered, his body invaded by the beast, who’d used the face they’d shared as a means to seduce Nicolas’s wife, who’d had no clue she’d lain down with a demon.

  Inanna had then failed to steer his sweet wife, Anaïs, from destroying herself after The Devourer had raped her, never offering her another option. Instead, Inanna had waited in the shadows after Nicolas had pulled Anaïs from the sunshine to offer to fill all the lonely places in his soul.

  Yet Nicolas admitted he shared responsibility. He hadn’t wanted to look too closely at Inanna’s actions and motives because he’d been alone, without family for solace. He’d stayed with the powerful matriarch, becoming her paramour, her right hand as she’d dragged the clan and the monster’s sarcophagus to the New World to find a place they could rule without competition and without long memories of what she’d done.

  Now, because he’d finally fallen in love again, finally found the woman who would be his last love, he could no longer turn a blind eye to her machinations. He would not continue to service her and serve her ambition.

  Nicolas gave Inanna’s bottom a casual, passionless caress, noting the warmth beneath his palm. “Open your legs wider. I would see whether you’ve learned your lesson.”

  She stomped her feet apart but raised her bottom, inviting his inspection. Her labia were swollen and moist. Her clit peeked from beneath its hood, slick and red.

  Nicolas dangled the belt between her legs, then flicked it upward, catching her pussy with a sharp, glan
cing slice.

  Inanna screamed, and her knees buckled. She caught herself and straightened her knees, her legs and buttocks quivering as she waited for another slap.

  Instead, Nicolas rolled the belt into a tight circle and pushed it inside her vagina.

  Inanna moaned, but her cunt clasped the balled, warmed leather, holding it inside her.

  Nicolas pushed two fingers behind the roll and pulled the buckle to unwind the belt, until it finally slipped free. With the leather slippery from her juices, he painted her thighs with quick, wet flicks before giving her one last sharp crack against her cunt.

  He dropped the belt on the bed in front of her, then guided his cock to trail the crevice between her buttocks. He paused at her tight back entrance. “Shall I fuck you here, Mistress?” He slapped her with his penis.

  Her buttocks squeezed, trapping the head of his cock, then releasing it as she widened her stance again. “Please, Nico. Fuck my ass,” she hissed.

  Gathering his cock inside his fist, he held it against her tiny puckered hole and flexed his hips, pushing against her opening until it eased around the blunt tip of his cock.

  Heat surrounded him, and he pumped inside, pushing past the ring that banded his cock, squeezing around him like the caress of a tiny mouth. Finally mounted, he began to stroke inside, tunneling deeper, closing his eyes to savor the clasping, pulsing sensations that engulfed him.

  He speared deep, ignoring the shudders and whimpers that racked her slender body, concentrating instead on the pleasurable sensations that stoked a smoldering fire in his loins. Inanna didn’t provide him pleasure; any woman’s ass would have done.

  His hands clutched her warm bottom, his fingers splaying and digging into her soft flesh to pull her buttocks apart so he could sink deeper. His hips pistoned hard and sharp, thrusting his cock into hot tissue while his balls banged her slippery cleft.

  Inanna’s head sank further between her shoulders and she rose on her toes, tilting her buttocks higher, inviting him to slam inside her body. She rocked on the balls of her feet, forward and back, countering his quickening motions, gasping and grunting with each of his forceful strokes.

  It wasn’t enough. Not enough punishment. She enjoyed it too much.

  Nicolas pulled out and stepped back, smiling mirthlessly when Inanna’s legs crumpled and she knelt, breathing hard beside the end of the bed.

  He tore the scarves from her wrists and bent to lift her from the floor, tossing her into the middle of the bed. He leapt onto the mattress and stared down at her, letting his rage paint his features with heat, letting her see the glinting anger in his eyes.

  Her gaze widened, and she scrambled backwards, trying to escape, but he planted a foot in the center of her belly to pin her. “Open your legs wide, Mistress.”

  Inanna’s entire body quivered and her lips trembled, but she slowly unfolded her legs and opened them wide atop the plum and gold coverlet.

  Nicolas reached for the long, scrolled finial at the end of one bedpost and pulled it free. He knelt quickly, lifting her thighs and pressing them forward until her knees met her chest. Then he placed the end of the finial between her folds and shoved it inside her vagina.

  Inanna’s lips drew away from her teeth, her face tightening against the pain of the harsh invasion, then easing as he pulled it out and shoved it deep again. Her cunt sucked it inside, clasping moistly to hold it.

  Nicolas cupped her buttocks, lifting them. He placed his thumbs on either side of her back entrance, stretching it open, then leaned toward her, fitting his cock against her and pushing inside. With the wooden end of the finial snug against the top of his groin, he began to stroke into her again, ramming the finial into her cunt, and his cock deep inside her rectum.

  Inanna keened, her hands clutching the backs of her thighs, her knuckles whitening as he hammered her. He drew his knees closer to her body, rolling her hips upward so that both entrances pointed toward the ceiling and he dropped his hips hard, slapping his groin against the slick saddle of her sex with each harsh thrust.

  “Nicoooooo!” she screamed as her orgasm exploded, tightening her asshole around his dick, and cutting off his own release with her strong inner spasms. Nicolas shuddered, continuing to slam into her, while her cries grew hoarse, until at last the clasp of her inner muscles eased and cum jetted from his cock deep into her ass.

  Nicolas fell over her, pressing her knees tighter against her chest while she gasped and shuddered beneath him, her screams dying away into noisy sobs.

  Suddenly, he went still, his gaze slamming into hers as silence fell around them. “Inanna,” he said softly, “what have you done?”

  Her gaze shuttered, her features tightened as wariness crept across them. “What do you mean? I wasn’t the one doing anything.”

  Nicolas planted both fists into the mattress beside her shoulders and leaned closer, trapping her with his cock still embedded in her ass and the wooden dildo shoved deep against her womb. “As close as Pasqual has hovered around you these past few days, I expected him to burst through those doors at your screams. Why didn’t he?” he asked softly, a clawing fear tightening every fiber of muscle in his body.

  Her mouth opened, perhaps to tell him a lie, but his gaze stabbed, daring her to try.

  Her shrug was a casual affectation. “He does what you will not bring yourself to do, lover.”

  “What have you done?” he repeated between clenched teeth.

  She licked her lips, then curved them in a little smile. “Pasqual is making a sweep. Gathering up the traitors who harbor the daywalker.”

  Nicolas pulled slowly out of her body, his muscles quivering hard because he fought the temptation to shake her, to fly at her and rip open her throat. “What traitors?” he asked carefully.

  “For a start…Simon.”

  His breath caught. “You’ve made a mistake.”

  “We don’t think so.” Inanna’s chin came up as she lowered her legs slowly and reached between them to pull out the finial. “And why would you care? You have said yourself he’s no longer your friend.”

  “I would not have him harmed.”

  “And he won’t be, if he cooperates. You know yourself that he protects the daywalker. All signs point to a powerful mage—he is the strongest on this continent.”

  “And that didn’t give you a moment’s pause? Do you know what he can do to you? What his Order will do to you? They have always been neutral.”

  Her lips twisted in an ugly snarl. “He crossed the line when he helped Natalie escape. You think I didn’t figure that out? And that Chessa helped her and the human? And now he aids this abomination—this daywalker.”

  Her expression turned remorseful, pleading—so quickly that it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “The secrets you’ve kept from me, Nico,” she whispered. “They make me weep. I had hoped you would see how dangerous your path is and that you would seek my help to make amends.”

  Nicolas shook his head, disbelieving. “You conspired with Pasqual. Did you use my own Security Force?”

  “Those who are resentful of the rogues you brought. They are with him now.”

  Nicolas rolled from the bed, striding straight for the door. He had to warn Simon…and Alex.

  “You won’t be allowed to leave. It is already too late.”

  With his hand on the doorknob, Nicolas leaned his head against the door, calling himself a fool. He’d let her do this, manipulate his emotions to distract him. “You purposely seduced me. Made me linger here so that he could sneak away and take care of your dirty little business.”

  “I did what I must,” she said hoarsely. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy it. When this is all over, you will be glad, lighter of heart. I know how keeping secrets from me weighs on you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to meet her gaze. “If you believe I’ve betrayed you, why not just kill me?”

  “Because I love you, Nico.” Her smile was beatific, made eerier because he knew she meant it. “Beca
use you’re mine. Forever. For now, go back to your Chessa. You will be called when the sabat reconvenes. Darling, think hard on which side you will choose. You risked much for the power you craved. Do not waste it. You must side with those who know better, who’ve lived longer than you.”

  Because he needed to think, as well as the freedom to move around the compound, he nodded and left the room…and her alive.

  CHAPTER 18

  Miki didn’t mind being left behind in Simon’s home. Her curiosity prickled into hyper-drive as she circumvented his apartment. There were too many intriguing secrets for her to discover among the books and objects crammed into his shelves and on every table in the sprawling, high-ceilinged rooms. Books and papers lay opened everywhere, long passages underscored in red. History books sat next to astrological charts. Metaphysical treatises and mythological works with dog-eared pages and notes scribbled in the margins held more clues to Simon’s preoccupation with the occult. Some books were dated editions; some were so old that the yellowed pages spoke of their age.

  The scent of dusty books, sandalwood incense, and a dozen burning beeswax candles, as well as a pleasant cologne and male musk, permeated the place. Simon had lived here a while.

  His scent, his personality, was stamped on every frightening and playful object. In a cupboard behind his desk, she found bones—small animal bones, human finger bones, some intact, some crushed and splintered. Mortar dishes held ground powders and dust; she guessed that some of the “spells” he concocted used more than the herbs he hunted now.

  She didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty rummaging through his things. She’d been invited to make herself at home, but, as far as she could recall, she’d never been in such a curious one. She found a drawer filled with small cloth bags and opened a few to find crystals and polished gemstones. Everything pointed to an inescapable and tantalizing conclusion—Simon must be some sort of witch.

  Besides his strange collection and the aromas that tickled her nose, there was also a subtle femininity underlying everything. A mirror perched above a sofa—ornate, gilded, a little ostentatious—hung below Simon’s height. Feminine toiletries were bunched on a mirrored tray on the dresser in his bedroom, immaculately dusted, as though waiting for the woman to return to pick them up and apply them. A lady’s robe in thick embroidered silk hung on the back of the master bathroom door.