Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper Page 10

  ELEVEN

  “People need to obey or go to the

  hell of their choice. Either is fine.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  The golem manticores lumbered my way, their gaits broken, awkward. They slowed, then stopped altogether, slumping to the floor with massive thuds, their animating magic bleeding out, a haze of yellow light that thinned to nothing. I suspected the gold and ruby collars they wore were keyed to Einion. With him dead, the stone golems would stay lifeless until the spell was rekeyed.

  Like a cascade of flowers, the tiny broom fairies dropped onto Einion’s body, peering mournfully into his lax face and vacant eyes. The death was a waste of resources, but necessary since he’d betrayed me. I considered his earlier words to see what I’d missed in his promise of assistance: I will do as you say the next time you call on me.

  I nodded. ”The next time,” his agreement had a built-in delay clause. Until our next meeting, he could exercise any treachery and not be forsworn. I should have caught that.

  A door at the left side of the chamber opened. A fey looking like a teenager wandered in, female despite the white raw silk business suit she wore with no scarf, bow, or ruffles. Her white shirt was unbuttoned down to her diaphragm so that her cleavage was well displayed. With her slight build and B cup breasts, she had the classic build attributed to fey women by Hollywood. Her liquid-silver hair was pulled severely back and tied with no slack so the shape of her skull was discernable, emphasizing sharp, striking features.

  She marched in, getting ten feet before stopping. Her questioning gaze slid off the statues, to the body on the floor. She stared, no emotion playing across her face, a face that could have been a mask—pale white skin painted an icy tangerine in a butterfly-wings pattern. Her lips had a coating of silver glitter. Hers was a striking, alien beauty.

  Coming out of a daze, she slowly stepped toward the body. Her steps quickened. She ran around the desk and dropped to her knees. One of her hands hovered over the bullet hole in his chest, her gaze absorbing the neat hole in his forehead where my bullet had tunneled in. The pooling blood under the head came from the back of his head being exploded out. I noticed that even in shock, she’d knelt in such a way as to keep her knees out of the mess.

  Smart. Blood can be difficult to clean out of a suit.

  She roughly whispered, “Father.” The word had been Elvin, but fey dealt with so many different entities, they carried charms that let those around them hear their own language instead of what was spoken.

  Her head bent lower. Her shoulders shuddered. I thought she was about to cry, when a laugh pealed out. She threw her head back, still laughing. The sound possessed a slicing quality. “Who did you try to cheat this time?”

  She had to ask because my Demon Wings tattoo was still active. Her attention couldn’t settle on me. I walked around the desk and stopped between it and her.

  Feelings warred across her face: a mixture of relief, sadness, anger, and happiness. The older fey tend to be heavy-handed, downright evil sometimes, while the younger—less than a thousand years old—tend to be more open-minded and cosmopolitan, treasuring their freedom, such as it is. Seeing a parent die often brings conflicting emotions.

  Her laughter broke off. She looked in my direction, her eyes unfocused. “Is someone there?”

  I powered down my tat and became visible, a Beretta at my right side, hanging loose in my hand.

  She lunged off the floor, a silver dagger sliding out of her right sleeve, into her hand. There was a mechanical sound as if it had been spring launched. She led with the blade thrusting ahead. I shot from hip and the slug slapped the dagger. It went spinning out of her hand, clattering to a stop.

  Her body slammed into mine, her hands wrapping around my throat, squeezing. I let her force carry us back, but by the time we slammed past the chair, I’d rolled her under me so she lay on the desk. Her silver eyes were bright with rage, her lips stretched by a grimace that bared her teeth.

  Despite her fury, there was something sexual in her aggression. I let her choke me, knowing that the dragon side of my nature considered this foreplay since she didn’t have the strength to really hurt me. I let go of my gun, sending it back to my hotel room. Unencumbered, I reached into her shirt, cupping her tit, rubbing a thumb across her pebble-sized nipple. I squeezed harder, peering into her eyes all the while. I shifted my weight to the side, unbuttoning her coat. By the time I reached her pants, jerking on the belt, she was squeezing my throat with a desperate strength, no doubt wondering why I wasn’t dying. The belt unbuckled, I slid the zipper down, reaching inside with soft, probing fingertips.

  Through gritted teeth, she said, “Red-tailed son of a bitch!” Letting go of my throat, she stabbed at my eyes with her nails.

  Tucking my chin ensured that her fingers skidded through my hair, missing more vulnerable targets, and it gave me time to snatch her wrists and pin them past her head, on the desk.

  I grinned into her face. “You started the intimacies, young lady, jumping my body with fervent passion. Too late to back out now.”

  I held both of her wrists with one hand. My other hand caught her jaw and turned it to the side, exposing her throat. I nipped her earlobe, licked downward, and seized her throat with my teeth the way a wolf might. Her body arched against mine, but oddly, she made little effort to free her hands, nor was she reaching for any fey magic she might have used.

  I’m winning her over.

  I released her chin and returned my attention to her breasts, caressing them one at a time. Her body relaxed. I released her throat and her head rolled away, as if she couldn’t stand to look at me. She sighed dramatically. “Oh, you brute. I suppose there’s nothing I can do to stop you now.”

  I tore her shirt open, sending buttons flying every which way. I heard the flutter of tiny broom fairies chasing down errant buttons, and realized we’d acquired an audience. I pinched her right nipple, my mouth closing on the left, laving it with my tongue, and biting gently.

  “Hmmmm,” she moaned. “Ah, don’t you dare stop!”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” I murmured.

  I slid lower down her body, trailing licks, flicking a tongue into the shallow well of her belly button. My gentleness was counterpointed by rough, grasping hands that ripped her pants down her legs. My feet returned to the floor. I clutched her legs, pulling off her expensive pumps, flinging away what was left of her pants and panties.

  The woman’s breasts were heaving as her breath came fast. An excited flush warmed her face. Her lips were parted, eyes closed. I parted her legs, laying them down so they dangled from the knees. I abandoned her long enough to pull the chair over. Her face turned toward me. She watched me through long, silver lashes as I stripped off my clothes. The dragon-ink tattoos held her interest, until my pants dropped and my proud erection appeared.

  Her eyes widened with shock at my size, a gift from my dragon DNA. Her tongue-tip slid across her upper lip. “Oh, my Goddess…!”

  Sitting in the chair, my arms wrapped her thighs. I lowered my face to her inner thigh, softly biting the tender flesh, kissing closer to her to glistening, pink folds of her vagina. The area above held a silver triangle of hair, an arrow pointing to paradise. I didn’t need such guidance, my tongue found its way, delving into her personal mysteries, sliding through her sensitive labyrinth.

  “Ohhh! Ohhhh!” Her hips bucked. She ground against my mouth.

  The tip of my tongue circled her clit. I sucked on it and gently tugged with my teeth, then went back to tongue lashing.

  Her hips continued to buck as a flurry of orgasms caught her up in storm. “Mmmmh, oh, Goddess! Put it in, damn you. Put it in!”

  “Since you ask so nicely.” Rising from the chair, I dragged her closer to the edge of the desk, folding her legs toward the rest of her. I leaned in and thrust my cock into her wet channel. She screamed, a sound of pleasure, and maybe pain. I waited, sheathed inside her, giving her a chance to adjust to my size, t
hough the beast in me wanted to pound her into ecstatic abandon.

  After a few moments, the fey woman’s breathing settled down. She stared at me with wide eyes. “I think I’m in love with your manhood.”

  “I get that a lot.” I began a slow drive and retreat, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the next round of orgasms. This time, I intended to have one of my own.

  The fit was snug. Her legs rested on my shoulders. I reached down grabbing her hips to guide he movement to a faster pace.

  “Ah, yesssss!” Her muscles clamped my cock, milking me with her contractions. My balls happily unloaded in her depths. After a brief squeal—very vocal girl—she slid into a satisfied daze. I withdrew from her, gave myself a few more pumps to clear my own channel, and pulled her limp body closer, and pulled her limp body closer, nothing like the feel of a woman’s soft skin to calm the body after a workout.

  I bent knees, ducking to let her upper body spill over my right shoulder. Straightening, I carried her away from the desk, over to the door she’d come in through. Beyond lay a hallway lined with wide planks of white cedar, tinted pale blue by azure crystals cupped in wall sconces. To the left, the hall tapered to end at a vertical shaft covered by a slow-turning fan. There seemed to be no electricity involved.

  Magic. A dead end as well. I wonder how deep we are underground.

  I turned right. The high ceiling was arched, clouded with gloom. The floor was polished stone with a royal blue runner stretching along the center, leading past infrequent doors. The first I came to—on the left—stood open, spilling a golden light into the hall. Where the illumination mingled, a greenish zone resulted.

  I carried the still-nameless woman through the door, into someone’s private quarters. This was a cathedral-sized pocket in the rock that had been made habitable with diligent cleaning, polishing on the walls, and woven tapestries hung to mute the harshness. There were scattered islands of grouped furniture, and a section devoted to cooking where a cleft in the wall extended up through the ceiling. A bronze fire pit stood on clawed feet beside the cleft so rising smoke had a way out. The cavern seemed to curve out of sight into a much smaller pocket. The bend was half obscured with standing screens hinged together, black lacquered panels with a pattern of mother-of-pearl cranes flying into a sun setting in a mountain scene. The screen was obviously a Japanese import from Earth.

  I plodded naked across the space, my hot, half-dragon blood keeping me warm. Rounding the screen, I found a bedroom. The lack of a feminine touch and the presence of heavy oak furniture made me think this was not my fuck-buddy’s room. Still, it had a king-sized bed with an Earth-type mattress that smelled like her now dead father and a dozen females, covered with soft, sable furs; it would do for round two.

  I bent my knees and spilled the fey onto the bed. I looked into her face. She’d been uncommonly quiet on the trip here. Her silver eyes brimmed tears.

  “What’s that for?” I asked. “I thought we had a good time.”

  “My father is dead.” She acted oblivious to her overexposure, looking incredibly sexy wearing only an open man’s shirt and suit coat.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry about, but he left me no choice.” I stretched out next her, lying on my side, and ran a hand over her taut abs. I love a girl who takes care of herself.

  Her face turned to mine as she rolled to see me better. Two of her fingers traced some of my body ink. Her brow furrowed. “Well, it’s not like I’m unprepared to take over, and he never treated me or my sister like we were anything other than objects he’d collected. That gets old over a few centuries. Death may well have improved him. So, who are you exactly?”

  Considering, I slid my hand down to where her left leg joined her pelvis. I circled a thumb over a major nerve center, providing a stimulating diversion. “I have a number of names, depending on who you ask.”

  “Give them all to me.” Her hand trailed lower, finding my placid cock. Her fingers wrapped around me. “And I want some more of this, too.”

  “Perhaps you should give me some encouragement.”

  “Fine…” She slid lower, leaving a line of little licks on my flesh. She kissed across my stomach, sliding ever lower, until her warm mouth engulfed the head of my dick. Her tongue swirled. Her tongue tip flicked across the piss-hole of my cock, and then she licked down my shaft. “But keep talking.”

  “Your father called me ‘The Three-Crowned Lord.’”

  Whisking my balls lightly with her tongue, she paused, drew back, and stared up the length of my body, into my eyes. “You’re the Outsider Lord with his own fey domain?”

  “Stole it fair and square. I’m also the Red Moon Demon.” My cock returned to life, stiffening, swelling, soaking up the adulation.

  She paused, eyes going vague as she searched her memories. “Deadwalker?”

  “Deathwalker,” I said. “Caine Deathwalker.”

  “That’s right.” Her mouth returned, sliding down my manhood, struggling to swallow it all. Growing tired of the effort, she straddled my hips and eased me into her. She leaned on my chest, her breasts swaying as she rocked in place. Staring down at me, her eyes had a dangerous and lusty intensity. I had the feeling she didn’t get laid near enough.

  “So, Caine Deathwalker, what was it about our service you took exception to?”

  “Your service is just fine.” I wrapped my palms against her breast, squeezing. “I’d just finished making a deal with your father, and he decided to kill me rather than follow through on it.

  I was going to pay him quite well.”

  “I wouldn’t want word to … umm … get around … oh, yes … that we’re untrustworthy. Bad for business. Perhaps I can … umm, I love your cock … make amends?”

  “Less talking,” I said, “more fucking.”

  “Anything for a … customer.”

  A flight of broom fairies buzzed into the bedroom, whirling above the bed. They weren’t alone; I heard booted feet in the outer chamber, the clatter of armored warriors, and a mix of angry voices. Einion’s security had finally discovered that they had a problem—a dead employer. “Lady Lysande, are you here?”

  “Not now.”

  A deep voice boomed just beyond the standing screens. “But it’s your father, he’d dead, and we found some of your clothing near the body.”

  “I’m fine. And I’m finally the boss, so don’t piss me off. Now, go away!” Her eyes held a dangerous fire. She quickened the pace of her ride. Getting breathless, her eyes rolled back in her head. I slid my hands to her hips, rolled her over, and pounded into her like she was the last slut left in a barren universe. “Harder, harder,” she demanded. “You’re not going to break me.”

  Oh, no? I’d like to see you walk a straight line after this.

  The armed men beyond the screen finally figured out what was going on, and left without another word. Once again, my cock had saved my life—or nearly gotten me killed, not sure which; we have a complicated relationship.

  TWELVE

  “It’s hard to kill what’s already dead, but I love a challenge.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  After a marathon bout of carnal pleasure, I napped. Waking up, who knows when, I found myself alone in the bed, naked, half covered with a wolf fur. The head was still attached, arranged so that it was the first thing I saw when opening my eyes. I stared at the fanged face. The glass eyes were very realistic.

  A sound came from the foot of the bed. I looked that way and saw my missing clothing had been located for me. Thoughtful. Beyond the clothing, a shaggy, silver-haired eight-year-old stared back at me, her hand covering a laugh, as if she’d not meant to give herself away. She too had silver hair and eyes—a family trait, I gathered—and wore a vaguely Renaissance dress with a blood-red, hand-woven vest.

  I pointed at the wolf head silently snarling at me. “Your idea?”

  “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Terrified.”

  She giggled again. “I’m Teramantha. Who are
you, and why are you in my daddy’s bed?”

  “I didn’t think he’d need it anymore.”

  “You killed him, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, but we can still be friends, right?”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to kill you now.” She flicked her fingers at the wolf skin and said something in Elvin that I didn’t understand because she had no universal translator charm on her. The wolf rug lunged. That I understood. A reflexive block kept its fangs from my throat. My left forearm took the damage instead. The wolf skin bucked, trying its best to assume a wolf shape though its body was gone. The biting rug fluttered as I rolled off the bed, slamming to the floor. My Berettas magically appeared in both hands. More annoyed than anything else, I pistol whipped the wolf snout, calling it everything but a son of a bitch, which would have been accurate. The thing stubbornly refused to let go.

  I released one gun—sending it back into the ether—to free a hand. I wedged the hilt of my remaining semi-automatic in one of the hinges of the wolf head’s jaw. This let me lever the teeth apart and free myself. Snatching the rug at the nape of the neck, I held it off as it jerked wildly. Blood dripped from my forearm to the floor, a lot less then there should have been. My skin had gotten thicker, the more my dragon side grew in strength. As it was, the slashes and punctures were getting tiny, already healing shut. The pain was minor compared to what I normally inflict on myself, but I could have used a drink, maybe three or four.

  I pointed my Beretta at Tera-whatever. “Which ear would you prefer to lose, left or right?”

  She ran for it, zipping around the screen, small feet clacking across the outer chamber. With her absence, the wolf head settle down, becoming just a rug—with a bloody mouth. I dropped it on the bed and dressed, sending my semi-automatic back into the ether it came from. I left the bedroom, and headed for the office.

  When I got there, the body was gone along with the blood splatter. Lysande was dressed, lounging in her father’s chair, her boots on the desk, to the consternation of the tiny broom fairies that kept it clean. The marble manticores were back behind her, acting like bookends, immobile, with only a few minor cracks to show wear and tear. Their wary eyes following me as I approached.