Nocked Senseless Read online

  She was heading toward the demon clubs where I’d been spending my nights watching for her. I wondered that the two of us could haunt the same spots night after night and I could never find her.

  The answer suddenly came to me and it was ridiculously simple. I’d been lurking within the establishments, while she’d stayed in the shadows of the streets, watching and waiting for the soul sucker to appear and attempt to grab a victim.

  Nidras moved quickly and stealthily down the quiet streets of Olympus. I kept her within sight but it wasn’t always easy. She was very good at staying invisible.

  A well-dressed couple emerged from a building across the street. The door they emerged from emitted the sound of laughter and music and spread a fan of bright light across the street as Nidras passed.

  She stepped into the deep shadows just as the light found the spot where she’d been.

  As the door shut behind the couple, closing off the light and festivity, they turned toward each other and kissed. The woman’s hands rested on her partner’s hips as he pulled her close. Their lips met and crushed, passion flaring immediately in the warm, Olympian night.

  The woman’s hand slid to cup the man’s tight, round butt cheeks as his slid upward, to bury itself in the thick fall of her light brown hair.

  Very soon moaning sounds travelled across the street toward me.

  I rolled my eyes, murmuring, “Get a room, people.” Stepping out of the alcove, I moved in the direction I’d last seen Nidras. After a few moments of searching for her in the shadows, I realized I’d lost her.

  “Damnation!”

  I ranted for a few minutes and then, taking several deep breaths to calm myself, headed toward the demon clubs. I was pretty sure I’d find her there.

  I didn’t make it to the clubs.

  Two streets over I heard sounds of a violent altercation. It was a street that catered to business and it was dark and closed down at night. Nothing and no one moved on those empty streets and the pavement was lit only by the light of a stingy moon above. I could hear the sound of cries and the impact of flesh against flesh somewhere down the narrow street but the lack of real light hampered my vision. I pulled my sword and my gun and blinked, trying to adjust my vision. Finally, I could just make out Nidras, rolling and leaping and fighting a larger, formless shadow several blocks down the street.

  I started running.

  I fired into the black mass as I approached and was happy to see the creature jerk and turn toward me, momentarily forgetting Nidras.

  I was less happy when it shot toward me.

  A less than manly scream of surprise emerged unbidden from my throat. I hadn’t been expecting the monster to turn on me that quickly. Lifting the sword clumsily, I lunged at the thing as it approached. The sword’s blade sliced through thick, wet flesh, twisting my wrist painfully as my feet left the ground.

  I flew backward and hit the street, sliding several yards across the sharp stone and feeling it rip the skin of my back.

  Nidras sent a jolt of power into the monster and it turned from me to address her. She quickly sent another jolt into it and leapt onto its writhing form before it could recover enough to retaliate.

  I forced my battered body off the street and lumbered back toward them. I was sick of messing with the thing. It was time for me to bring out my big guns. I pulled my Cupid’s bow from my pocket and sent power into it, growing it into a full-blown weapon.

  After discussing the monster with Bleark, I’d tipped the arrows with angel’s blood specifically for this purpose. It made sense to me that, to counteract something that stole souls, I would use the life force of a creature that protects them.

  I looked up from prepping my bow and found Nidras lying on the street, on her back and the soul sucker settled on top of her. As I lifted the bow, the thing reached for her chest and clamped on.

  Nidras screamed and I saw stars. It was a horrible, desperate sound.

  Her screams filled with terror as the thing wrenched a hole in her chest.

  I loosed my arrow and it hit true, directly in the center of the mass. I quickly followed with one to the area I believed would be its head and then, for good measure sent another into its chest.

  Nidras’ screams died to a wet gurgle. I flew at the thing, roaring my rage and swung the sword with all the strength I owned. A large chunk of the monster flew off and fell to the street with a heavy thud.

  Its shriek filled the night and it finally released Nidras, rising to its full height and turning to me. I noticed that the arrows I’d shot into it still bobbed from its shadowy form.

  As I watched, a deep, orange glow spread from the tip of each one. The angel’s blood appeared to be working.

  The monster took a step toward me and then stopped with a grunt, looking down at the quickly growing orange stain.

  It shrieked again and I could finally see its mouth, filled with orange light from the arrow I’d shot into its head. The monster’s form started to wobble and shimmer. The orange stain continued to spread until the entire thing glowed with orange light. The shaking increased until chunks of it started to break off and fly away.

  I ducked a particularly large section of monster and deflected a couple more chunks with my sword.

  With a final, jaw-jarring shriek the thing exploded into a million tiny, orange pieces. I threw myself over Nidras, gritting my teeth against the burn and sting of fiery, little monster pieces hitting my back and legs.

  Finally the night settled into silence.

  The soul sucker was gone. But as I reared back and looked into my demon princess’ beautiful face I realized.

  So was Nidras.

  “Noooo!!!” I reached for her and gave her a little shake. She couldn’t be dead, I wouldn’t accept it. She remained completely still and her pale, perfect face had taken on a marble-like quality. Cool and smooth and impossibly white.

  My heart contracted with pain. My mind swirled with questions. Nidras had saved me once, when I was in a similar state. Why couldn’t I have been imbued with a similar, healing skill?

  Why were my skills all so damned useless?

  Tears flowed down my cheeks as I came to grips with the fact that Nidras was dead. I’d thought my previous broken heart would kill me. This was fifty times worse than that.

  I reached down and lifted Nidras off the ground, not sure where I was going to go with her but feeling the need to move her off the street. Moments later I realized my mind had a destination, though I’d been so wrapped up in my broken heart I hadn’t noticed.

  I knew, suddenly, where I was going. I didn’t have the power to heal Nidras. But another royal demon might. I would take her to her parents.

  Maybe they could bring her back to me.

  As I ran toward the doors of the castle with a limp Nidras draped across my arms, they opened wide and the queen ran toward me. Her beautiful lavender eyes, so like her daughter’s, were wide with fear as she touched Nidras’ cold, white face. “What happened?”

  Then she saw the hole in her daughter’s chest. “The soul monster.” The lavender gaze lifted. “Bring her, quickly.”

  I followed the queen into the castle and up a wide, curving set of marble stairs that rose high into the castle’s interior, disappearing into shadows as they climbed toward the third and fourth levels.

  We ascended to the second level and turned right, hurrying down a long, densely carpeted hallway to the end, where a set of double doors stood open to accept us.

  “Lay her on the bed. Quickly.”

  I settled Nidras gently on a wide bed, covered with golden bedding, under a canopy of rich black velvet. I leaned down and kissed her cool forehead and grabbed a cold hand, stepping back to make way for the queen as she hurried to her daughter’s side.

  The queen held a vial of something green and foaming in her hand. She lifted Nidras’ head and tipped the vial against her lips, saying something in a soft, chanting voice as she forced the liquid between her daughter’s lips and
into her mouth. “Swallow, girl.”

  As if by magic, Nidras’ throat convulsed around the liquid.

  The queen handed the empty vial to me and set her hands on her daughter’s chest, over the gaping wound.

  A soft light sparked from her fingertips and Nidras’ body lifted from the bed, her chest arching upward and her beautiful mouth opened as if she would scream.

  I placed a hand on her forehead and pushed the heavy silk of her black hair away from her eyes. Leaning down, I spoke to her in soothing tones, praying she hadn’t gone beyond a place where she could hear me.

  The queen chanted as she worked. Her very life force seemed to ebb as she sent her healing power into Nidras’ horrible wound.

  “Where are they?” The king’s booming voice preceded him into the room. When he entered, his wild, black eyes fixed on me and the anger radiating from his body made me briefly consider pulling a weapon.

  But those cold, black eyes turned instead to his wife and daughter and he hurried forward. He stopped behind his wife and knelt, wrapping himself around her from behind and laying his massive head against her shoulder.

  The light beneath her fingers brightened visibly and Nidras’ back arched higher as she gasped and her beautiful eyes shot open.

  The wound was healed.

  The queen pulled her hands back and collapsed. She’d have fallen forward onto the bed if her husband hadn’t been there to catch her.

  The king reached down and slid his wife into his arms. “I’ll be back when I have the queen settled. Stay with her.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that nothing could drag me from her side. I simply nodded.

  I watched the king stroll out of the room with his wife draped in his arms. When I turned back to Nidras I saw that her eyes were closed.

  I settled into the chair beside her bed and watched her sleep, thinking about the future now that the soul sucker was dead. It looked a little brighter from my perspective. But we still had the blond dude to deal with.

  I dozed off.

  “My father?”

  My eyes shot open and I wondered how long I’d been asleep. Nidras had lifted herself up, leaning on one elbow and her too-white face was filled with worry. I started to stand. “I’ll go get him.”

  “No!” Her hand fell on my forearm, holding me in the chair. She climbed from the bed and started toward the window.

  “Where are you going?” I was right behind her.

  “Out of here. I have to get out of here. Before my father returns.”

  As if on cue, the king’s booming voice could be heard in the hallway outside Nidras’ door.

  She gasped and reached for me, her small hand clamping down on my arm. I opened my mouth and reached for her, fully intending to soothe her irrational fear but found myself thrown into a world of light with no sound.

  We popped into a room covered in red velvets and black silks. The smallish room contained not much more than a large bed, a small table and chairs and what looked like a bath area off to one side.

  It looked like one of the rooms in the Pleasure Palace.

  Nidras dropped my arm and started pacing.

  I watched her for a moment before speaking. “Your father is going to kill me. He left me in charge of you.”

  The intense, lavender gaze swung to me, filled with heat. “No one is in charge of me.”

  I smiled. I believed that. “Where are we?”

  “My lair.”

  I laughed, thinking she was joking. She fixed that intense gaze on me again and my smile died. Apparently she wasn’t kidding. “Your lair?”

  Nidras nodded. “The Succubus Sisters let me stay here.”

  “You live among Succubi?” Lust shot through me like an electric shock and my cock shifted in my breeches.

  In the blink of an eye the tension in that room changed course. Her lips parted and her rigid stance softened as her tongue came out to slide across her soft lower lip. “I do.”

  I took a step toward her, my body tightening with expectation. Her scent enveloped me, drawing me in, imprinting me. “Hasn’t that been…difficult for you?”

  Her eyes widened. One small hand fluttered up to clutch her throat. She gave me a single jerk of her head in negative response. “I’ve managed.”

  I took another step. I was close enough now to reach out and touch her. “Have you?” I reached up and encircled the front of her throat with my hand. My thumb rubbed the tender skin beneath her ear in gentle strokes. “You’re a beautiful woman, Nidras. Surely they’ve made your life miserable.”

  She sucked in a soft breath.

  I took this as a yes.

  Lowering my head I touched my lips to her forehead, her nose, her chin. “Do they slip into your room at night, Nidras? Do they touch your body and make you writhe with need?”

  Soft breath slid across my face as she groaned. It was nearly inaudible but wrung from her body like a cry.

  She softened toward me. “They…” She swallowed, licked her lips. “They touch me.”

  I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her up against my body. I cupped a small, round buttock in one hand and dragged her up against my aching cock, groaning as her body imprisoned my hard shaft in softness.

  Her supple breasts hit me just below my ribs. I could feel the hard peaks of her nipples through our clothing.

  I took her delectable bottom lip between my teeth, biting gently on the incredibly soft flesh. “Do they touch you like this?” I slid my hand from her throat down to one lush breast, pulling gently on the rigid nipple.

  She cried out, her head dropping back in sheer pleasure.

  “Do they, Nidras?”

  “Yes. Oh gods, yes.”

  The hand slid lower, pressing warm circles over her slightly rounded belly, taunting her with the promise of its destination. I pulled the sweet flesh of her lip into my mouth, sucking gently.

  My hand slid lower. “Do they touch you here?”

  She gasped and pressed hard against my questing fingers. I turned my hand, cupping it and slid it over the heated mound at the juncture of her legs. I could feel her pussy weeping through the thin cloth of her breeches.

  “Oh my gods!” Nidras quivered from head to toe. She widened her stance, giving me easy access to her eager flesh. I rubbed gently across the pulsing mound, reveling in the way her body softened and throbbed under my touch.

  I took her hand and pulled it to my crotch, pressing it against my painfully hard shaft. “Do you touch them, Nidras? Do you touch them here?”

  “No.” Her head swung back and forth but her fingers closed around my cock through my breeches. She matched the tempo I was creating on her body as she milked my shaft.

  I gasped, terrified she’d end the moment before it had really begun. Pulling away from her, I tugged on her shirt. “Let’s get these clothes off.”

  Nidras nodded, her beautiful eyes clouded with lust. I watched her peel the soft, clingy fabric of her battle wear off her tiny body, my poor, tortured cock growing thicker and harder as each section of flawless, white flesh was revealed to my starving gaze.

  She pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it. The perfect mounds of her breasts called to me. I bent and captured each perky, brown nipple between my lips, sucking hard on the fragrant flesh.

  Nidras’ knees buckled and I caught her, settling her gently on the bed.

  I quickly divested myself of the rest of my clothes and reached for her soft slacks, pulling them from her slender hips and legs. Tossing them aside, I settled myself between her thighs.

  Her warm, musky scent touched my senses and my cock throbbed painfully in response. Pressing my shaft into the mattress, I gritted my teeth against the need to end my sensual pain. I settled my lips over the rigid peak of her clitoris and sucked. Gently at first but then building the pressure until she writhed helpless on the bed and screamed my name into the room.

  Nidras clamped her legs around my head and vibrated in release. When her muscles
softened again, I slid my tongue deep into her dripping heat, plunging it in and drawing it back in imitation of what I was going to do with my cock.

  Nidras grabbed my hair and held on as the sensations rolled over her again. Her head thrashed from side to side and her legs tightened on my shoulders. I could feel her building toward another knee-melting release and I suddenly longed to go there with her. I closed my mouth over her dripping mound and sucked hard. Nidras bucked one final time as the orgasm swamped her.

  The upper half of her body came off the bed and her hands tightened in my hair. She cried out, her eyes rolling closed as her body rocked with pleasure.

  Before she reached the end of the final wave, I slid up to cover her body and drove my aching cock into her welcoming heat, plunging it deep, all the way to my balls.

  Nidras’ eyes flew open and she screamed as my body filled hers. I covered her mouth with my own and moved my hips, dragging the engorged length of my cock slowly against the still convulsing walls of her pussy. She shuddered and gasped with each inward stroke, whimpering on each outward stroke.

  Blood boiled in my balls. They were pulled so tight that the skin ached and itched with need. Each drag of my cock through her moist, clutching heat sent jolts of fire and ice through my body, to the point where I thought there was more pain than pleasure in our mating.

  I couldn’t wait to release a hot jet of cum into her grasping pussy. And yet I couldn’t bear the thought that it would end. So I soldiered on, driving in and out of her welcoming body until the very nerve endings in my skin fired and wept for relief.

  I increased my tempo, knowing that the end was near. Nidras responded by wrapping her slender legs around my waist and thrusting with me. Her soft mouth covered my lips, drawing air from my lungs and sending her own sweet offering back to fill me.

  In those last, powerful moments, we shared the same breath, the same heartbeat and the same throbbing, uncontrollable passion. And when she fell screaming over that bright edge, we shared the same mind-shattering release. I screamed her name as I fell over with her. And Nidras captured my lip between tiny, sharp teeth and bit down, hard enough to draw blood.