Damned and Desired (4 page)

18

Damned and Desired

Maybe she was one of those New Agers meditating or something. What was she doing out there all alone surrounded by the vast expanse of flat desert and dusty sage brush? And why would she approach a naked stranger in the middle of the night?

Either she had a lot of nerve or was completely mad.

She appeared to think for a minute. “Taking a walk but now I’m late for work,” she said.

He gave a short laugh. “Work? Where do you work?”

She didn’t answer. Something in her eyes made his need for sex even worse, despite the urge to shift.

She shot him a mischievous look. A flicker of something passed through her eyes and his balls drew up tight. Moving closer, she reached out a hand and touched the fur.

“What kind of animal was it?”

“Leopard.”

“Did you kill it?” Her nails caressed the fur and he thought about her doing the same to his balls and he shivered with desire.

“No, it was passed down in my family.”

She nodded. “Then it must be special.” She regarded his bare shoulder and ran her delicate fingers over a twisted scar. “How were you injured?”

“In the service.”

Nodding again, she continued to glide her hand over his chest. Sure she was turning him on but who the hell was she? He backed up a step, giving her the hint to stop.

She crossed her arms over her chest, the position accentuating her cleavage. An unusual stone pendant hung at the cleft of her breasts. She fingered the pendant and smiled. Obviously, she didn’t mind him looking at her.

Beneath his fur his libido was kicking into gear. His penis was hard and fully erect, partly because of the adrenaline pumping through his veins but also because of the lascivious fantasies coming unleashed concerning the woman. His aroused state was her fault. She had interrupted him in the middle of a transformation.

Holy smokes.
He could smell her too. He’d been close to shifting so his senses were acute. The delicate scents of earthy soaps, female musk and desert breezes made her even harder to resist. He was overly aware of his nakedness and had a sudden urge to toss the fur on the ground and draw her down.
Oh, yeah, that would be hot and insane.

Images of the two of them naked on the leopard pelt formed in his mind. Flesh against flesh, his hand slipping between her thighs and feeling her warm, slick pussy ready for his aroused cock. Yes, he would opt for hot sex with this beauty instead of a wild romp as an animal. Tarzan and Jane in the desert.

She smiled and looked at him quizzically, then cocked her head, nodding toward the fur that was covering his groin area. “What’s that all about?”

19

Kathy Kulig

“The fur?” How did he explain the fur? Screw it. He wasn’t going to explain anything. “Why are you out here alone?”

She didn’t seem at all intimidated by his directness. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Neither of them offered an explanation.

She frowned and broke the uneasy silence. “I’ve heard of people who have a fetish to dress in animal furs. They’re called furries.”

“Ah, no. This is nothing like that. It’s not a fetish.” He wrapped the fur around his waist and secured it so his hands were free.

“Okay. Tarzan and Jane?”

He shook his head in disbelief. Was she on the same wavelength? “It’s a bit difficult to explain.”

She took a step closer. “I don’t have time for an explanation. I’m late for work.”

“So you said.”

“Goodbye.” She turned and started walking away.

“Wait! Can I give you a ride?” He stepped forward and nearly lost his fur.

She smiled as he quickly covered himself. “No, thanks. I have transportation.”

“A car? Where?”

“Have to go.”

“Will you be back?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Can I see you again?”

She frowned, looking around. “Not safe.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “Not safe for you?”

“No, for you.”

“Tell me why.”

“See you.” An amused expression flitted over her face. She turned away from him and jogged into the darkness.

Brad wondered if he’d ever see her again. When he didn’t hear the sound of a car after several minutes, he stepped into his boots and started off in her direction. After walking around for quite some time, moonlight reflected on a patch of white cloth beneath a tree. His heart leapt to his throat. No!

He investigated and found her dress neatly folded with the gold braided belt and her gold sandals.
What the hell?
Disappeared like down the rabbit hole.

He searched for her but gave up after an hour or so. There was no sign of a struggle.

His animal senses didn’t pick up another human or blood as if she had been attacked.

He’d talk to his grandfather in the morning. Something told him this incident had some mystical explanation and his grandfather would know what it was.

20

Damned and Desired

After he prepared himself again for the
Eigi Einhamr
shift, muscles tensed and coiled into a new form to be one with the skin, a leopard. His body shifted in painful contortions until he was standing on all fours. Brad as leopard looked up into the star-filled sky with the night vision of a predator. He sniffed the air and smelled many other animals, the turpentine and sage scent of the bushes and trees, the earthy scents of the dirt.

Staring down at his paw, he tested the claws. The sensation felt strange and he instantly shifted back to human form.

Fuck.
Just when he thought the power had fully returned. Looking up into the sky, he did the breathing exercises his grandfather taught him. His grandfather the shaman said the breathing would help
.

After several moments, calm and more at peace with himself, Brad donned the skin again and willed himself to become one. Vibrations surged through his body and he was again the leopard.

There was something erotic, hedonistic and possibly dangerous about indulging his senses with the beast. He raised his head, looking across the miles of flat ground to the great buttes, the large red rock formations in the distance, the mystical pyramids of the desert.

He raced off into the night.

Hours passed and his body grew weary. During his travels he hadn’t seen the woman, although he continued to watch for her. He returned to the place where his bike and clothes were, using his sense of smell. He recognized the juniper trees, noticed the tire marks in the sand, then saw several footprints that weren’t his own.

The hackles on his back went up.

He loped around the area in circles like a trapped animal. Danger was near or something wasn’t quite right. He could hear each leaf twisting on its branch on a tree over two hundred yards away. A breeze blew sand over his fur and he heard the granules clinking together like tiny glass beads.

The air hummed with an electrical charge and nearby rocks pulsed with a faint blue glow.
Static electricity? A storm approaching?
Glancing up, he searched for thunder clouds but the night sky shone with thousands of brilliant stars and the moon. Feeling a drain on his muscles, he backed up, trying to get away from the charged area. His body felt sluggish. Whatever was wrong with the area, he needed to leave it.

The sensations decreased the farther away he got from the area. Returning to where he parked his motorcycle, he found his boots under a sage bush. He sniffed them and was about to will himself back to human form when he heard a moan.

Now what?

The moaning sound drew the hackles up again along his powerful shoulders. He slowly turned, expecting to see an enemy. His soldier and animal instincts turned up to high alert. The moaning changed to whimpering, a woman’s voice. Was it pleasure or pain? A mating? Had that woman returned?

21

Kathy Kulig

He crept low toward the sound. Behind a group of rocks, several yards away, he saw a man with long black hair and buckskin pants crouched over a naked woman, a different woman. The man was on his hands and knees and the woman was writhing beneath him. There was something odd about her. She lay there not touching the man and when she opened her eyes, she had a wild, stare-off-into-space look.

Positioned between her legs, the man began to caress her breasts roughly, pinching both her nipples. The woman stretched her arms above her head. Lowering his head, he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked, tugging on it until she cried out. He repeated his attentions on her other nipple then moved down her stomach to her mound.

She sucked in air and raised her hips off the ground, grinding her pussy against his mouth. He sat up again and she groaned her disapproval. “You’ll have to beg for it,”

the man said.

“Please. I can’t wait. Make me come or fuck me now.”

“Spread your legs,” he commanded as he pushed her legs wide apart, then stroked her pussy. Brad couldn’t stop watching. Not because he was a voyeuristic type but because he sensed something wasn’t right with this man. He could smell it.

Humans had a coppery and salty scent beneath the normal smells of sweat but this male smelled like ozone right before a thunderstorm and something else. Earthy and wild. Whatever it was, he’d never detected that on a human before and it made him nervous.

The man continued to tease the woman, touching her, tormenting her with his hands, his mouth. Finally, he thrust a finger inside her cunt. The scent of the woman’s arousal mingled with the man’s odd smell. Maybe they were getting a storm, the leopard thought and he was just picking up too much.

“Don’t move,” the man said as he licked her pussy. The woman’s face strained, as if resisting the urge to move.

“Yes, like that. Please don’t stop,” she said. But he did stop and she swore.

“Soon. Make it last. Now close your eyes and do not open them for anything.”

The woman sighed, obviously getting frustrated but complied and closed her eyes.

“Good.” His hand went to her pussy again, teasing and stroking, then thrusting deep inside her with his fingers. Her hips bucked against his hand, then her body convulsed. “Don’t open your eyes.”

She nodded as she was still writhing in her orgasm. “Come inside me now.”

“Shhh.” He waved a hand over her face and she quieted, her body stilled. She seemed to be asleep. A pale glow appeared around the man and the leopard saw the image of an animal superimposed over the man’s face, a coyote.

The fur stood up across the leopard’s back.

A skinwalker! Was this the Coyote Trickster, the one his grandfather told him about in his folktales?

22

Damned and Desired

Brad thought skinwalkers were Navajo folklore. The stories had the element of campfire tales. He thought his grandfather used them to entertain two boys who had lost their father in a tragic accident and whose mother had deserted them.

The image of the Coyote faded and the man lowered his face close to the sleeping woman’s. A beam of light traveled from the woman’s forehead to the man’s mouth.

What the hell is this?
His human logic was trying to cross the animal boundaries and make sense of what he was seeing.

The leopard instincts took over. A low growl formed in his throat. Soundlessly, he crept closer, an animal hunting his prey. Man or skinwalker, he was an enemy.

Everything in his being, human and beast, said this was so. He had to stop the skinwalker.

23

Kathy Kulig

When Sakari finished clearing the empty margarita glasses and beer bottles off the bar, the nebula stone started vibrating. It signaled the presence of another Drone in the area. Dante or Valdon? She couldn’t decide who she’d rather face right now. Neither would be pleased with her progress.

Fingering her pendant, she stiffened. It was warm too. Which meant she was being summoned to return to Anartia. So soon? She’d just returned and couldn’t possibly go back tonight, not without a sufficient offering for the demoness. How could she attain what was demanded when she feared the consequences?

The training session with Zorian had done little to build her confidence. If anything she was more nervous about failing. She was damned, desperate and out of time.

Three guys sat at one end of the bar, cowboys by their mode of dress and their discussion. With her demon senses, she could detect a slight scent of leather and horses.

Their discussion for most of the evening dealt with squabbles on a ranch and NASCAR.

One of the young men waved her over and ordered a round of Oak Creek ale. Good, they did get her telepathic message for more alcohol, proving they were receptive to her will. A necessary quality for her Kithra, her prey.

These cowboys were the only potential Kithra in the Red Rocks Bar and Grill. She hadn’t decided which one she was going to fuck yet.

Some mortals were strong-willed and not easy to influence. Alcohol helped to lower the resistance, which was why she chose this profession to aid her with her Drone duties. She also liked the interactions with mortals, a refreshing change from serving the demoness and her consort.

A mixture of country and classic rock music pumped through the speakers. Not the sexiest atmosphere for enticing desire but the dark wood paneling on the walls, the tables and booths and the dim lights helped. She opened her mind and descended into their thoughts one at a time, searching for the most receptive one, the path of least resistance or the one most attracted to her. After reading their minds, she knew they were from a ranch close to town.

She poured the beer and placed the mugs in front of the guys, then touched the mind of each cowboy with sensual thoughts—her fondling her breasts, then slipping her hand inside her panties to play with her pussy. She waited and noted their response.

Finally, the younger one with blond hair looked up from his beer with hunger in his brown eyes. Yes, he got the message and she bet she could confirm that if she slipped her hand down his jeans. He could be her Kithra, her quarry for the night if she played 24