Damned and Desired (12 page)

“The cook from the bar where I work took me to an antique auction and I was hooked. He said I’m lucky, when I bid on things other patrons never tried to top me.”

He stepped around an antique chair and some old pictures. “What are you going to do with it all? You can hardly walk in here.”

She looked around as if she’d never noticed the clutter before. “I don’t know.

Where I lived before I wasn’t allowed to have things.”

“You have enough to open your own shop.” He picked up a dented pan and examined it. “This was used to pan for gold, maybe during the Gold Rush in the 1800s.”

“Really?” She took the pan and slowly turned it over in her hands as if it was a priceless treasure.

Bending down, he studied a group of family photographs. “Who are these people, your family?”

“No.”

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“Who then?”

“Don’t know.”

He was confused. “Why do you have photos of people you don’t know? The frames?”

“No. They remind me of my family, I guess. Sounds silly, huh?”

This woman was a real puzzle. “Where’s your family?”

A look of worry crossed her face and then she looked away. Now, he was concerned. What was she hiding? Worse. Who was she hiding from? He was almost afraid to hear any of the answers.

“They’re faraway.”

“Hmmm. When did you see them last?”

She wouldn’t make eye contact with him but at least she was still talking. “Long time ago. Have time for a soda?”

“Hmmm. Can’t, my lunch break is up,” he said. She was done talking. Either she was running from the law or in witness protection. Or maybe the war had made him overly paranoid.

“I’d like to call you and do dinner. Is that okay?”

She smiled and met his eyes again. The worry gone for now.

“Can I ask you a question before I go?”

“Sure.” There was an edge of hesitation to her voice.

“When I first met you in the desert, how did you do the disappearing act? I found your dress and shoes beneath a tree but no sign of you, no car…”

“Some questions are better left unanswered.”

He laughed. “Right. Like a magician who won’t tell how the trick is done?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

* * * * *

After Brad left her apartment, Sakari removed her clothes, her tee shirt, jeans and underwear and walked out onto her balcony. The warm desert air caressed her skin.

The red rock formations glowed in the afternoon sun as if they were artificially illuminated. Her hand fell across the smooth, coiled nebula stone at her throat. If she didn’t find enough lifeforce energy between here and the portal, what would the consequences be? And she would lose some of her power by shifting but how else would she get to the vortex?

When Tarik asked for her choice of animals to shift to, she had asked for the fastest among Earth’s creatures, for two reasons—to escape harm from any human or animal and to see as much of this planet as possible. As lovely as Earth was, the demands of the 65

Kathy Kulig

demoness would prevent her from seeing anything other than the small area of Arizona.

A hand over the nebula stone made sure it was in place. She looked toward the red rocks and drew in all surrounding energy to initiate her shift. Her muscles tensed painfully, then relaxed to where she thought her legs wouldn’t hold her. The shift was even more painful this time because of her accident. Then she collapsed onto the floor.

Violent tremors coursed through her body while the change took place. She stretched her wings and talons, becoming accustomed to her falcon body.

Testing her wingspan, the falcon flapped her narrow, curved wings and flew up to perch on the railing. Gripping her claws, she crouched as if ready to take off but then stood tall, folding her wings at her sides. Looking left and right and straight ahead, her acute vision allowed her to see details of the mountain and valley before her. Her vision was two and half times sharper than a human’s and her sense of smell was keen.

Outdoor smells assaulted her with a lush earthy fragrance, flowers from wild blooms, plants and trees, a human. A man was taking an afternoon jog up one of the trails. She could smell his sweat.

Time to go. She’d stalled long enough. Crouching down on the railing, keeping her eyes on her prey, she lifted off the balcony. Silently, she dipped down low over the man. Alone on the trail, he found his way uphill through thick trees and underbrush.

He was in his twenties. Sweat glistened on his skin, outlining his muscles. She circled overhead, a predator studying her prey. One more offering for the demoness. Maybe she wouldn’t be as angry with her after all.

As soon as he came to a dense area, overgrown with trees and grasses, the falcon drew her wings close to her body and dived for the man. The wind whistled by her and ruffled the feathers around her face. She stretched out her claws and hit the man behind his shoulder blades and knocked him off his feet. He lay there stunned. After a few moments, he slowly rolled over and looked up into Sakari’s eyes, now human and naked, her Drone influences already working on his mind.

He tried to sit up but she put up a hand and he lay back down, his eyes focusing on her breasts and her pussy. She knelt down beside him and noticed the evidence of his arousal. His dark hair was tied in a ponytail and she reached around and slipped the elastic out. “Touch my breasts, I know you want to,” she said as she spread his hair out.

Brad’s hair was the same color but shorter. A pang of guilt hit her. An emotion strange and unexpected for a Drone.

The man blinked and started to rise. “Who are you and why did you hit me?”

Sakari returned her focus on the man and sent him another sexual image of him fucking her and his eyes fluttered closed. His cocked twitched under his running shorts.

She had to make this fast and couldn’t afford a mistake. With thoughts of Brad, she had no desire to have sex with this Kithra. What a failure of a Drone she’d become.

Without touching him, she mind-fucked him in explicit detail with a stream of sexual images, each one more intense. He rocked his hips as though she was taking his 66

Damned and Desired

hard cock into her mouth, sucking him deep, licking the head and gliding up and down his shaft. He groaned and grabbed on to her imaginary head to guide her but she was standing beside him. The dream she was giving him was lucid and real to him in every way.

In his dream, a Drone’s creative dream, he imagined her straddling his hips and guided his cock into her wet channel. The images she sent to this male were vivid and intense but she wasn’t wet or aroused. She was an observer.

Do other Drones ever have this problem?
Becoming distracted by a Kithra could be dangerous while she was attending to another quarry. But she couldn’t get the other Kithra, Brad, out of her mind. Reaching orgasm with this mortal would not be an issue here. Her thoughts wandered to the sex she’d almost had with Brad and her body began to respond.

The man reached into the air as if he was cupping her breasts and then gripping her hips while he pumped into her, or imagined that he did.

The man blinked several times and focused on her. “Who are you woman?” he asked.

“Shhh,” she raised her hand again and the man moaned in pleasure. He arched his back and she knew he was close to climaxing. Kneeling down, she brought her face close to his. “Don’t come yet.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Don’t do this. It’s too good.” He pushed his shorts down, exposing his engorged cock.

“Make it last. It’ll be worth it.”

He nodded, his face straining.

Her lips hovered over his and the flow of chi poured out from him, out of his mouth and third eye in a golden-white glowing stream that only she could see, and entered her mouth and third eye. Between the rush of energy surging through her and thoughts of Brad filling her cunt, her muscles and clit throbbed. If she let her mind wander, she could get turned on, even climax.

No, she mustn’t. The consequences would be dangerous. Tightening her muscles, she tried to fight the throbbing in her clit and the clenching in her vagina. She touched her swollen clit, hoping the pressure of her fingers would stave off the throbbing. She wanted Brad and she wanted him badly.

The hiker groaned and shot his seed across his belly. His breathing slowed and his head dropped to one side. He was out.

Dead?

Sakari stepped away. No, no, no. Then she saw his chest moving. Still breathing.

Moments later his eyes blinked. He was coming around. Stepping behind a grouping of trees, she shifted back into the falcon and flew off.

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Brad had dragged himself up the next morning and got to work late. The events that happened the previous night hung over him like nightmares and wet dreams. But it wasn’t a dream, it did happen. He just didn’t know what to make of it all and what to make of Sakari.

He’d get someone from work to give him a ride out to pick up his bike. He never thought he would meet someone quite like Sakari. He’d had beautiful women in his life one time or another but there was something about her exotic looks and her cobalt blue eyes that unsettled him. He couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing.

“Do you know her?” Jan the attending nurse asked. “I think she had a thing for you.”

“I met her briefly the other night.” He didn’t go into more detail about the strangeness of their meeting.

“I may sound like your mother but you two make a nice couple. Did you ask her out?”

Brad shrugged a shoulder.

Jan huffed and rolled her eyes.

If his mother hadn’t left when he was eleven and his brother Jake was nine, would he have talked to her about his potential dates? He liked to think so. “Getting involved with a woman isn’t in my plans right now. Not until I get a few things settled.”

She stopped putting medical supplies away in a cabinet and turned toward Brad.

“Like what?” Frowning, she placed her hands on her hips.

When all my Eigi Einhamr powers return.
“When I can do something worthwhile for the community like use my training to help the mountain rescue team, then I’ll have time for a relationship.”

“It has nothing to do with time, Brad,” Jan rubbed his shoulder. “You’re trying to compensate for the accident in Iraq.”

“I was responsible for the death of someone on my team.”

She pulled him into the break room and poured him a cup of coffee. “Sit,” she ordered. “Tell me. You never told me exactly what happened.”

He gripped the coffee cup in the palms of both hands. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because telling sometimes heals the wounds that medicine can’t.” The fiftyish woman frowned with the caring face of a nurse and mother.

“Some wounds leave scars that don’t go away.”

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“I know. But tell me anyway.” She sat and crossed her arms. If Jan had seen her husband shapeshift into a wolf, then get shot and killed by a hunter, how would she deal with it? Would she have left two young sons, knowing they too would inherit the same abilities when they matured?

Brad hesitated.

She patted his arm with one slim hand. “Tell me.”

“Okay.” He took a breath. “During a mission, RPG fire had trapped my team.”

“RPG?”

“Rocket-propelled grenade. A number of men were injured. We had to get out or kill the guy on that weapon.” He left out the part about him stripping down, wrapping in the leopard skin and slinking up toward the enemy. “I crawled up the hill alone.”

“Wow, you’re brave.”

He shrugged. He’d been a buff-colored shadow creeping up the hill at night. They wouldn’t expect an animal to jump out of the darkness. “Just doing my job.” He’d ripped out the first man’s throat, tasted blood in his mouth. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He’d stalked the next victim. One by one, he’d mauled the enemy, taking out the soldiers firing down on his men. But after a dozen kills, the bloodlust had overridden his soldier’s training. “I won’t tell you all the gory details but in the heat of battle, I heard someone behind me and reacted.”

She nodded, understanding. “One of your men.”

“Yes.” He put the coffee cup down and gripped his thighs.

“Go on,” Jan whispered.

“Not much else to tell. I swung around and wounded him. He later died from those wounds.” He’d pounced in leopard form on his next victim. But as he’d attacked the scent was familiar and he’d eased back. But too late. His buddy’d had to use his knife to slash at his shoulder to draw him off.

Jan squeezed his hand. “The whole team might’ve died if you hadn’t tried, right?”

“Perhaps.”

“Some wounds heal, others not so easily.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Excuse me,” said a young nurse. “They just brought in a twenty-something man who was found on one of the trails either hiking or jogging. His vital signs are erratic, similar to the cowboy they brought in earlier and that woman the other day.”

Brad jumped up.

In the examination room, the clinic’s doctor was treating the jogger. His blood pressure, respiration and body temperature were all decreased. “The hikers who found him said he had his shorts down around his knees and had ejaculated,” the young Asian doctor said.

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“He’s waking up,” Jan said as she took off the blood pressure cuff. “You’re in the Hilltop Emergency Clinic. Can you tell us what happened?”

The man frantically glanced around. “Is
she
here?”

“Who?” Brad asked. “Was someone with you?”

“Yes, I’m not sure.”

“It’s okay. Try to remember. You were on a trail hiking? Jogging?”

“Jogging. Then I fell, I think.”

“You were found unconscious,” the doctor said.

“I can’t remember much. But
she
was there.”

“Who is she?” Brad asked.

“The naked woman.”

The doctor and Brad glanced at each other with a knowing look that said, yeah, they’d heard a few similar stories from other patients who’d mentioned naked—a naked man on the hiking trails, now a naked woman. “What naked woman?”