She had magick.
But she went to church, and she read the Bible. She believed in heaven and h.e.l.l, and a whole slew of other things that had caused her to be laughed at the few times she had gone to meetings of others like her. Some of them had fancied themselves to be magick. And they had always considered themselves to be so very accepting. But they had scoffed at her beliefs. When she had honestly, but politely, told them she didn"t believe in the G.o.ddess, they had stared at her.
"Then where does your magick come from?" one had asked her. Because in order to walk into the meeting, she had first had to prove she had the magick.
She had shrugged and said, "G.o.d."
They had snickered. Some had rolled their eyes.
Pepper had left a few minutes later.
That had been a while ago, maybe two years now? Since then she had been practicing on her own, using the magick to do what good she could, where she could. She went to church, religiously even, she thought to herself with a grin as she cleaned up the candles. They were more for the calming influence than for any other reason. Besides, she loved the look and smell of them.
Other than the fact that she could levitate and make things dance in mid-air, or make the money from a deadbeat dad"s wallet end up in his ex-wife"s purse, Pepper liked to think she was your average run-of-the-mill woman. So what if she was able to occasionally locate a missing child-not psychically, of course, magickally-and have that child go back to their parents?
And it had been almost an accident when she had set fire to the house a few doors down from a co-workers home, where the man had set up a meth lab. Not a big fire or anything. But it had gotten the firemen and the cops into the house.
And now one more drug dealer was off the streets.
Well, actually this one made ten.
She was a librarian, she loved kids, worked out, ate junk food- Except for the past month.
She had woken from a dream, a dream about a man so handsome, so exotic. So sad. Looking at him gave her thoughts that should have sent her to confession. Of course, she wasn"t Catholic. Long, thick black hair, a dark swarthy face with a wide, sculpted mouth and black eyes. Those eyes had her enthralled-larger than a man"s should be, tilted up, lashed with ridiculously long lashes.
And so sad...
He had been real.
And something inside her said he needed her.
So she did what any other woman who had her talents would do. She used the magick. But the only thing she could discover was some odd...tension in the air. Like the feeling in the air right before lightning strikes, thick, hot, heavy. There was something behind it, an answer.
Pepper knew it.
Stomping out of the den, she headed for the shower. There were answers, answers to the riddle about that man. That extraordinary man. She just had to find them.
Arys awoke early the next morning, irritable, unrested. A woman had invaded his dreams. A mortal woman. Thick, dark-red curls around a young, heart-shaped face, freckles sprinkled across an upturned nose, a sweet rounded mouth...the opposite of Lorne in every way. He rose from his bed, his cloven feet hitting the floor lightly as he sat scowling into s.p.a.ce.
Faryn had made him wait.
"The Council is not going to like me not arriving on time. Shall I tell them a Unicorn has requested my presence?" he had mocked scathingly as he stomped back into his iskita and tossed his pack back onto the bed, flopping onto his belly while the "corn poked his white and gray head through the window to wink at him.
A Unicorn"s request is more important than a person"s, Arys. Please, there is something about.
"Something about, all right," Arys decided as he stared out the open window into the cloud-studded sky. "A meddlesome "corn is about. What are you up to, Faryn?"
I? Not I, satyr. It is not I that tries to meddle with the Gate, Faryn called to Arys" mind, from out in the yard. Out of your bed already-you like too many mortal trappings. Why do you not sleep on the sweet earth?
"You don"t sleep on the sweet earth either when you can help it," Arys replied. "You"d prefer to have a silk mattress beneath your hooves if you had your choice." He started to gather his bathing supplies but an odd ripple floated through the air.
"What in the name of h.e.l.l?" he whispered as the mark on his hand started to itch.
The Gate. Come, Gatekeeper. Come, Faryn insisted, appearing at the door and presenting his back. Mount up. I move quicker than even a satyr.
The cloven-hoofed riding the four-footed, Arys mused as he mounted the "corn. "What a story this would make," he remarked absently, weaving his hands through the silken mane. It did not feel at all coa.r.s.e.
No. Because you will not tell. It must not get out that a "corn let a satyr on his back, instead of only nimble young virgins, Faryn remarked.
Once, Arys would have had much to say about that. Once. Now he just shrugged. "You"ve no use for a mortal, human virgin anyway. What does it matter if it is I on your back, or a woman?"
For one, her hide would be a shade lighter, I would imagine, Faryn said. The unicorn waited a moment for some mischievous rejoinder, some sign that the joking satyr still lived inside this man, but there was nothing.
If Arys noticed the stallion"s silent disappointment, he didn"t remark on it as they raced through the wood. Arys" black hair billowed behind him like a banner, his eyes narrowed, watering from the incredible speed. He squeezed his muscled thighs around Faryn"s barrel and gripped his mane with strong hands, holding tightly. A "corn male, full grown and in his prime, could run like the wind.
And Arys didn"t care to be thrown.
You ride like you were born to do so, Faryn remarked approvingly.
"Hmmm." The Gate mark on his hand was burning, truly burning now. As he bent low over the "corn"s neck, Arys whispered gruffly, "The Gate is trying to open."
I feel it, Faryn a.s.sured him as he breached the barrier that surrounded the Gate. It was unseen by all eyes but the Gatekeeper, the Watchers, and the magick wielders. The Watchers were the sensitives, like Faryn and other unicorns and magicked beasts, and some humans.
If only all those magick wielders were good people- Arys had a bad feeling that whoever was on the other side of the Gate wasn"t a decent sort. Magick rarely came so easily to human hands, and when it did, it was almost always foul hands that held it. Arys kicked one cloven foot over Faryn"s back and slid to the ground, striding to the center of the Gate and staring up.
What he saw startled him.
Made his breath catch.
And to his surprise, it made his c.o.c.k harden.
Through the wavering visage the Gate afforded, he could see a woman, sweet, innocent looking, with tumbled red hair, a heart-shaped face, her eyes closed, her mouth moving silently, arms upthrust. She was naked, gloriously so, her round, firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s topped with small pink nipples. A narrow, trim waist, full rounded hips, red curls covering her mound. She was seated and she was alone and there was no evil feel to her.
And as he watched, the Gate opened.
Of its own accord.
She didn"t do it.
"What in the name of-"
He felt the heavy nudge at his back as Faryn shoved him forward.
A low, burning-hot feeling ripped through her belly and satisfaction flooded her. Pepper grinned as she felt something give, and open. That heavy, foggy sensation that obscured something magickal was gone and that something magickal lay...
She was falling, falling, falling...
Light swirled and danced around her. Pain flooded her mind and body. A scream was ripped from her throat only to die before it left her mouth. A soundless sob stole her breath, blocked her throat and kept her from gasping for air as she struggled to grab onto something as she continued to fall. The floor was no longer beneath her.
Pepper couldn"t smell the vanilla and lavender candles anymore, couldn"t hear Enya singing in the background any more.
She felt herself land against something hard, heard something distant and m.u.f.fled.
But the pain inside her head won out and she slid into unconsciousness.
Arys stumbled back, and if Faryn hadn"t been standing behind him, bracing him with his ma.s.sive girth, the satyr suspected he would have crashed to the ground. He was strong, incredibly so, but catching a full-grown woman, falling through the mortal realm and into his arms...
He had found people who had fallen through the Gate with bones broken, head injuries, and the like. A trip through the gate was not an easy one. And he hadn"t ever been here for any other arrival.
He slid Faryn a narrow look, his thick, silken hair falling into his dark eyes. "What have we here?" he murmured, more to himself than to the unicorn.
A mortal?
A warm, sweet-smelling female mortal. Arys" heart kicked up a beat as her scent flooded his head, the soft feel of her skin against his body made him think of things he had not thought of outside of dreams for months. A satyr wasn"t designed for a s.e.xless existence. That was laughable.
A rough growl escaped him and his thickly lashed eyes closed. "You knew of this, somehow you knew," he said to Faryn as he started in the direction of his iskita. "I do not know how, but you knew."
I? Faryn asked innocently, batting his lashes at Arys" back.
"Do not act the innocent, you b.l.o.o.d.y unicorn," Arys said flatly, trying to ignore the hardening of his c.o.c.k. Failing miserably. "It suits you as well as it suits me."
You mean as well as this s.e.xless existence suits you? Faryn asked, tossing his head and trotting to catch up with the satyr.
"If you brought me a mortal woman just so I can f.u.c.k her, then you owe her an apology," Arys growled. "She can never go back-"
I brought no one here. The unicorn stopped trotting and glared angrily, arrogantly at the satyr. I haven"t that kind of power. Do you truly think that people are brought across the Gate simply for sport? It"s never been for that, and well you know it.
But be a b.l.o.o.d.y fool and ignore the gift that was given to you.
Faryn turned and leaped nimbly across the brush, disappearing into the wood without another thought or word, his silence letting Arys know just how deeply his thoughtless words had cut.
"f.u.c.k. All I want is to be left alone," he muttered.
Chapter Three.
The tearing pain she remembered had faded. Throbbing aches remained. But she could handle those. She wasn"t sure how to handle the unfamiliar feel of the bed beneath her.
It felt like nothing she had ever known before.
Like air. But more solid.
Like gel. But softer.
The bed was covered with warmed silk, and more of that warmed silk covered her. A rich, sensual scent-musky, male, and arousing-clung to the bedclothes and filled her head. She drew a slow breath in and felt her nipples harden just from the scent. The fog retreated a bit further from her brain as well, and Pepper was able to remember a little more of what had happened.
The magick had worked.
What it had done, she didn"t know. She had opened something. Or maybe she had moved herself somewhere.
That seemed a bit more likely. Okay. So she might as well open her eyes, she decided, and figure out where she was. Then she had to get some clothes, some cash and get herself back home. Cuz no way, no how was she trying that bit again in reverse. Her head still felt like it was likely to explode, implode and fall apart all at the same time. Going back the way she"d come was sooo not an option.
A low, musical voice, oddly accented, dangerously s.e.xy and appealing, said, "You might as well open your eyes, woman. It will get no better."
She only opened one.
But then she opened the other and felt her breath catch.
"Oh, f.u.c.k," she whispered. She rarely swore. But why let that stop her? She had gone and sent herself straight into h.e.l.l.
"I"m in h.e.l.l, aren"t I?" she asked weakly, staring at the creature across from her.
Granted, he wasn"t red.
And he didn"t exude menace or evil.
But Lucifer wasn"t supposed to...was he?
The creature laughed, a low, rolling sound that made her groin clench and throb. "No. You are not in h.e.l.l. You may disagree, for a time. But h.e.l.l, this is not." He started to cross the floor, but halted as her eyes widened.
"If I"m not in h.e.l.l, then why am I looking at the devil?" she whispered before she could stop herself.
The creature-no, the man, for whatever he may be, he was most certainly still a man-arched a brow at her. A slow, sardonic smile touched his lips as he lifted one hand and stroked a finger over the ivory curve of one of the two horns gracing his skull. "Devil, no," he said. "Is your devil not said to be lovely and handsome, able to make you think he looks exactly the way he wants you to see him?" He flicked his hand toward his lower half and Pepper saw that his legs were indeed furred. Covered with a fine pelt of black fur from his navel down, his lower legs curved just a bit at the ankles, and ended into cloven hooves, exactly likely the "devil" pictures. His muscled thighs looked like any man"s, except the knees arched the wrong way, more like a goat"s or a horse"s.
Like the devil"s.
Just like the devil pictures she had seen.
Well, not exactly...the fur tickled some memory.
Her eyes lingered briefly on the very human-looking c.o.c.k that hung between his thighs before she jerked her eyes away and stared back into his exotic, dark eyes. He gave a slow, s.e.xy smile and then moved away, out of her line of sight for a brief moment. When he reappeared, he had donned a loose-fitting pair of breeches that fell to just below his knees, rolled up in loose cuffs. She had an odd feeling he hated them, and wore them only because he knew his nudity bothered others.
"Do you think if I were your devil I would want to seem as such to you, sweet, pretty, lovely thing?" he purred, stalking closer, mesmerizing her, confusing her. He was breathtaking- "What are you?" she asked shakily as he knelt beside her and cupped her face in one large palm.
He smiled, a curve of his full, sensual mouth that made her clench her thighs and stifle a moan. His skin was dusky, smooth, exuding the same scent that clung to the bed and bedclothes, and now her. His black hair, long and thick, straight and silky, fell over his wide, naked shoulder to tickle her flesh. It smelled the same, and left little trails of sensation everywhere it touched.