AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As I cautiously placed one hand against a still-standing beam and breathed through the spasm, I glanced around. Rubble was scattered everywhere. The fire had been bad enough, but the explosion was worse. The hall had been demolished. Everything would have to bulldozed. No amount of shoring up or renovation could make the hall safe again.
The spasm eased and I moved forward, setting my foot in a clear space between the scattered piles of broken wood and shattered glass. A shard of window pane I hadn’t noticed crunched under my boot, and I shook my head. So much destruction.
“Looking for something?” A familiar, unwelcome voice echoed from behind me, and I whirled around.
Andy Gambit stood there, leaning against the perilous beam I’d just passed, a smirk on his weasel-like face. Star reporter for the Seattle Tattler—a rag as yellow as a daffodil—Andy had made it his mission to harass every Supe in town and to stir up antipathy toward the Fae and vampires. He was xenophobic to the extreme, and yet we knew he had a fetish for Supe women and would probably cream his pants if he had the chance to actually fuck one. If he hadn’t already forced his way…surely no sane woman would touch him.
“What the crap are you doing here?” I glared at him, setting my hand to the hilt of my dagger. My blade was strapped to my leg. I didn’t trust the little perv, especially since I’d decked him for harassing Nerissa at our house, uninvited and unwelcome. “Gambit, why don’t you just slither back out that door and leave me alone?”
“Are you kidding? This is the story of the month—and a welcome event, if you want to know what I think.” He curled the corner of one lip in a heckling smile and winked at me.
“I don’t give a damn what you think.” I stopped, then gave him another long, measured look. “So tell me, where were you last night?”
“First, you aren’t a cop so I don’t need to answer you. But to put your mind to rest, Blondie, I was at a meeting of the Fellowship of the Earthborn Brethren. We were discussing the evils of allowing demons like you loose in our society.” His lips might have said “demons,” but I could see the lust in his eyes. My fist still hadn’t put out his fires.
I took a step toward him. “You sneaked in here, you little pervert. You managed to get past the guard because if she’d seen you, she would have whipped your butt all the way home. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to haul your ass outside and hand you over to her for trespassing. Yet another charge on your rap sheet.”
He straightened his shoulders, looking at me warily. “I warn you—you touch me again and I’m getting a restraining order. My nose still hurts from the beating you gave me.”
“Get out of here or I’ll knee you so hard you’ll wish you were dead. And I guarantee, if I go after that part of your body, your right hand will have one less job to do.” I’d had enough. I didn’t care if I got in trouble for assault. Andy Gambit had outworn his welcome, and the only thing I could think of to do was to smash his face repeatedly against the trunk of a tree or break his balls. Or both.
Tripping over the debris, he began to back up. “You’re a menace and a freak! I swear, one of these days I’m going to take you down a peg. You and your sisters have played queens of Seattle for long enough, and I’ll make you sorry—don’t doubt it! I’m going to make you so unwelcome here you’ll beg to leave.”
Letting out a low growl, I began to transform into Panther, and the minute he saw the air shimmer around me, he turned tail and ran. Luckily I was in midtransition, because if I’d managed to shift into full panther form before he left, his running away would have just triggered my instincts to follow and destroy. As it was, in the time it took me to shift, he vanished out of my sight.
Once I was Panther, I decided I might as well sniff around. Sometimes things were clearer to me in this form, and my sense of smell was heightened. I began scouting around, hunting for anything that might give me a clue that we could use. My rhinestone collar—both a sign of my bond with the Autumn Lord and also my clothes for when I transformed back—tingled, and suddenly I sensed a presence. It was him. Hi’ran, the Autumn Lord. I transformed back into my two-legged form.
I hadn’t seen him since Shade and I had gotten together, and now a tingle raced through my body as he came in on the north wind, a whirl of flame and fire and burning leaves and chill autumn nights. His long black cape fluttered, and his hair—as jet as his cape and past his shoulders—glimmered with sparkles of frost that had landed and stayed frozen to the strands.
A wreath of burning maple encircled his head, and around his neck, he wore a golden cord from which hung a skull, small and human-looking. His boots—dark leather with stacked heels—left a trail of frost in their wake with every step he took. Hi’ran was seven feet tall, and the Elemental Lord’s eyes glimmered, a whirl of stars against the blackness.
I caught my breath at his beauty and stepped into his embrace. He pulled me close, and I rested my head against his chest. As I stood there, safe in the shelter of his arms, he murmured low whispers I couldn’t quite catch. I searched his face, and he lowered his lips to mine and then, my breath was whistling out of my body and into his as he leaned me back, sucking the life out of me, and then with a soft hiss, breathed me back into my body again. He held me tight, the energy of his aura crackling like a pulse through me, vibrating every cord, every muscle, and I began to soar as he brushed my breast with one hand.
“My Delilah.” A low growl ripped out of his throat and he pressed his lips firmly against my own again, his tongue meeting mine, forcing me to acknowledge his power. I moaned low as the flames erupted through my body and I ached to have him, to feel him in me, to know what it was like to embrace the power of the Harvest. As if reading my thoughts, he swept a hand down, brushing my thighs, and I came hard and swift, crying out as a swirl of sparks echoed through me, struck by the heat of his touch.
“My lord,” I whispered, when I could think again. “What do you ask of me?” Whenever I was around him, all I could think about was making him proud of me, making myself worthy in his eyes. He was my dark lord who had reached out and yanked me forever into his world. He brought out my panther side, and for that I would forever be grateful.
“You will be facing a trial with Greta soon. It will test your heart, but follow through, knowing that it is what must be.”
Greta was another one of the Death Maidens, and she was my trainer—teaching me to harness the powers that the Autumn Lord had given me. She, along with the rest of his harem, lived in Haseofon, the temple that existed in his realm. And I had fallen in love with the Harvestman as surely as I loved his emissary—Shade. Though separate, distinct beings, they were connected. And my love encompassed both of them.
I nodded. “I won’t disappoint you, Hi’ran.”
“You think you won’t, but when the time comes, I guarantee you will question whether it’s the right thing to do. When that happens, search your heart, search your soul, and you will know.”
And then, with another quick kiss, he vanished from my side and I was once again standing in the rubble. As I shook my head, blinking, I looked down and saw something sparkling among the ashes.
As I leaned over and picked up the item, shaking the ash and soot away, I heard a shout from outside and hurried back through the door to find Camille and Andy Gambit. The fiery imprint of her hand marked his face.
I started to run forward but then stopped, waiting. Camille needed to ask for my help. She had to face her battles on her own; she’d made that quite clear over the past month. Hyto had damaged her self-esteem, her confidence in her ability to fight back. Even though she put on a good show, I knew she worried constantly about being weaker than Menolly or me.
She leaned toward Andy, hands on her hips, her voice low. “If you ever dare to touch me again in any way I’ll run my stiletto through your dick and claim it was an accident. And then, I’ll let my husbands come after you. All three of them. Got it?”
He rubbed his face, eyes glistening. “Bitch. Whore. You fuck three men and you dare to call yourself married? You’re a slut! Marriage is a contract between one man and one woman—”
Before he could continue, she backhanded him again—launching him backward into the rubble-strewn grass. I heard the crisp, clear sound of lightning overhead as her hand connected with his cheek. Maybe her self-esteem was coming back faster than I thought.
“Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me. And never, ever touch me again. If you do, I’ll kill you.”
