Damned and Desired (5 page)

Damned and Desired

him right. There was hesitation in his expression but enough interest to work with. She smiled. He smiled back.

The thought of her task ahead made her stomach turn. There was no attraction with this male. This was a task she had to complete.
I just want to be free from Anartia, leave this
planet and go home to Prygos. My parents need me.
She had her duty to fulfill to Anartia and to her parents.

She pushed the thoughts away. This was what she was and she couldn’t stop what was about to happen.

“I’ll get those tables cleaned up,” the other bartender, Haley Moore said, interrupting her flow of seduction with the Kithra. Haley dodged around the bar and strolled across the room to wipe down tables. She wore the same outfit Sakari did, a short tan skirt and black tee shirt with calf-high cowboy boots. Her spiky blonde hair still held its style even after the long night. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with way too much black eyeliner.

“Okay. I’ll start back here,” Sakari answered from behind the bar as she considered her options. She needed to seduce this cowboy before he left.

“Don’t make it personal”, was Valdon’s recommendation. He had warned her that getting close to her quarry was risky. Valdon didn’t get close to Drones, slaves or Kithra. As a guardian Drone, he reported to Gwyllain when a Drone was not performing his or her duties to the standards required.

Haley brought a tray full of dirty glasses and dishes to the bar. “Now that the crowd’s all gone, I can finally tell you about my classes with Ambros. And you have to let me read your palm later.” She glanced over her shoulder at the moon shining down through the giant eyebrow window above the entrance to the bar. “If the moonlight doesn’t interfere, I bet I’ll be able to see your aura too.”

“My what?” Sakari took the glasses and put them into the dishwasher behind the bar, trying to hide her impatience. How was she going to harvest her offering of chi if she couldn’t get the cowboy alone?

“Aura. Ambros said people have an energy field surrounding them called an aura.

Those who are spiritually advanced have the brightest ones.”

“What kind of classes are you taking?” Sakari understood the levels of education from her studies of Earth Culture over the last thousand years but not these classes.

Leaning over the bar, Haley lowered her voice. “Metaphysical at the New Age Bookstore. Ambros is teaching classes about auras, palm reading and understanding the attributes of crystals.” She fingered the quartz crystal hanging around her neck.

“Ambros says I’m psychic but I need to develop my talent.”

“Is that right?” Sakari had known Haley for six months and hadn’t seen any evidence of psychic power.

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Kathy Kulig

Haley nodded and smiled as if she held a great secret. “My parents would never have allowed me to do this in Texas. They were close-minded to the esoteric world.”

“Do your parents still live in Texas?”

Haley tugged on the crystal pendant around her neck and averted her eyes. “My mom died a few years ago and my dad took off.”

“I’m sorry. What happened to your dad—”

“I wonder if bad people have very small auras,” Haley interrupted. “I’ll have to ask Ambros at my next class.”

That caught Sakari’s attention. “And how does your teacher know of this? Everyone has this aura? Do you think some people have more than others?”

Haley leaned on the bar, her chin in her hand. “Ambros is very wise.” Her eyes glittered with the amusement of a child. “He was trained by a Navajo shaman. I’ll ask him.”

“Sounds interesting,” Sakari said.

“Maybe you’d like to take his next class with me.”

“Perhaps.”

She was getting confused. Could this be a means to help her with her Drone responsibilities? If it made her job easier…

Becoming a Drone was supposed to be her reward, a step up from being a slave.

The one in control of seductions and harvesting chi. But being a slave had few responsibilities and she had many opportunities to walk along the rocky cliffs on Anartia that reminded her of the landscape on Prygos. Then again, as a Drone she had gained the respect from all the slaves and from the other Drones.

“Last call,” Haley yelled out to the handful of customers remaining as she spun around and crossed the room to finish cleaning tables.

Sakari strolled back to the cowboys to get working on her Kithra. “How’s your night going, boys? Got any plans for this evening?”

They looked up from their beers and glanced at her. “Fine,” said one, who looked to be around twenty-five, just a few years younger than Sakari. “Nope, no plans, this is it.”

“We’ll take the check,” the other one said. Then to his friends, “Come on. We gotta get up at five.”

“Can’t leave yet,” she said below her breath.

“What was that?” said the one on the end, his cowboy hat tilted low, shadowing his brown eyes.

“I said, you can’t leave yet, you just got here.” She smiled in a teasing way as she walked to the other side of the bar.
Think fast or you’ll lose your chance
.

Touching the pendant at her breast, she was relieved to find it was cool. For the moment the demoness had stopped summoning her. The cowboy’s gaze dropped to her hand and hovered around her breasts. His smile widened, then he looked away.

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Damned and Desired

You.
Lowering her head, she glanced up at him for a moment and formed the image of the two of them frantically stripping off their clothes. His jeans yanked down to his ankles, cowboy boots still on, his tan shirt unbuttoned and tossed aside. She imagined his hands ripping at her shirt, hearing the material tear, then the bra coming off. As she sent him a mental image of her full breasts, bare and exposed in her mind, she sent thoughts of her skirt dropping to the floor.

The cowboy’s mouth opened slightly.
Yes.
He saw her thoughts. Wetness pooled in her underwear and her breasts tingled. Her own imagery was turning her on. She locked eyes with him.
Want you.
She started the images again. Him lifting her up on the barstool, spreading her legs and plunging his thick cock into her, pumping deep into her dripping wet channel.

Was he still with her? The cowboy stared at her in a daze, his beer untouched. He thought this was his fantasy, Sakari mused.

Thoughts of the man in the desert kept invading her mental seduction. He was more attractive than the cowboy and she couldn’t get his body out of her mind.

Something about the man tugged at her core. She’d give anything to have him as her Kithra but that would be a dangerous ordeal. Zorian had advised her not to select Kithra that she was overly attracted to. Much too hard to resist personal attachments and orgasms. What would it be like to be consumed by lust and love without fear?

Focusing on her Kithra, she sent out a command.
Take me.
Her words, her thoughts were mental whispers, seductive strokes, like a new lover’s caress.

Fuck me.
He looked up and locked eyes with her again.
Yes, Fuck me hard and deep.

She leaned on the bar, crossing her arms, knowing her breasts swelled above her black tee shirt. “You really have to work tomorrow?” She leveled her gaze on him, hinting of possibilities if he stayed.

“Yep, ’fraid so.” He didn’t break eye contact. Nice brown eyes. The other two were busy arguing about NASCAR. Her customers were always arguing about NASCAR on the televisions in the bar.

“Too bad.” She noticed the iron grip on his beer mug. She knew he had no idea what he was in for and by the glint in his eyes, he wanted her. At the prospect of performing her duties as a Drone, her pussy clenched and throbbed.

He gave a slow shrug, then took a swig of his beer.

“What’s your name?” she asked the cowboy as she poured herself a soda and sipped it slowly through a swizzle stick, then licked the edges of her teeth.

“Austin,” he breathed, looking at her mouth.

“Sakari.”

An eyebrow arched. “Sakari? Hmmm. I like it. You don’t sound from around here.”

“I’m not.”

He smiled.

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Kathy Kulig

She hoped he took her being evasive as an attempt to be mysterious. “Feel like hanging around for a little.”

“Maybe.”

She didn’t comment but turned to wipe down the bar and put a few glasses away.

You will.
She sensed his anxiety, heard a jumble of confused thoughts as she attempted to pick up on his images. Reading minds was quite a challenge with horny men. This guy was horny and a bit shy.

The man in the desert hadn’t been shy. There was a cocky boldness about him.

Confidence and intelligence. He hadn’t shown any sign of being embarrassed at her finding him naked in the desert. If anything, he was annoyed that she interrupted some sacred ritual. As much as the idea appealed to her, the man was not her Kithra. She had to focus or lose the one she had marked. She sent Austin an image of her taking the full length of his cock into her mouth.

His pulse kicked up a few paces. Sakari heard it and felt her own do the same.

“Sakari, I can hang out for a while,” Austin said as cool as he could but he couldn’t hide his nervousness.

“Good.” She tipped her head to one side and gave him a sultry look.

He sat up straighter. “I don’t have my car. I rode with them.”

“I can drive you.” Before the demoness summoned her again, she’d have to drop him off and travel through the vortex and back to Anartia.

He glanced down into his beer, hesitating. Just her luck to pick the one with a girl at home, or a shy one. Finally he looked up and nodded. “All right then. When do you get off?”

His two friends laughed.

He shot his buddies a warning glance. “Shit. Get some manners will you?” Austin shook his head, then turned back at Sakari. “Ignore them. What did you have in mind?”

She was doomed if she didn’t get this right.

“I could use a hand in the wine cellar,” she said. “It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other a little.”

His mouth went slack. Taking off his hat, he ran a hand through his short blond hair and took in a breath, then put his hat back on. His brown eyes smoldered with lust.

Cowboy was shy but not stupid. He knew exactly what she had in mind without sending suggestive thoughts into his head. “Be happy to help, ma’am.” He downed the rest of his beer, slid off the bar stool and tapped one of his buddy’s shoulders. “Be back in a few.”

“Where you going?” the friend asked.

“Wine cellar. Bartender needs a hand.”

His friend frowned, then after a moment his eyebrows rose. “Oh.”

Sakari stood behind Austin with an empty crate in her hands. “Ready?”

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Damned and Desired

“Holy cow,” the friend said, snickering.

“Don’t be late for work,” one of his friends said.

Austin elbowed the friend sitting next to him. “The lady’s closing shop soon.”

The guy groaned. “Fuck you, Austin. We can take a hint. We’re outta here.” The two men threw money down onto the bar and slid off their barstools. “She’d better ride your ass home. We’re not coming back.”

If she messed up like she did with the hiker, these two might remember her and would wonder what happened to their friend. Sakari directed a subtle suggestion to them that would work through their thoughts and by morning, they would forget they were even at this bar.

“Don’t break his heart,” said one of his friends as they left out the back door.

Sakari called across the dimly lit room of mostly empty booths and tables. “Going downstairs for stock, Haley. Be right back.”

29

Kathy Kulig

He was a shadow in the desert night perched on the edge of the boulder, eight feet above the skinwalker and the woman. Brad, in leopard form, prepared to attack. Naked and stretched out on the ground, the woman responded to the man’s touch. She writhed as if in pleasure. Her clothes were in a neat pile to one side, not ripped off as one would expect in a rape. Still, the woman seemed drugged, moving in slow motion.

The man was on hands and knees over her, turned sideways so the leopard couldn’t see his face clearly. The man brushed her blonde hair from her face and the woman kissed his hand and smiled. Could he be wrong? Were these just two lovers?

Had he imagined the coyote form? His heartbeat hammered in his chest. Instincts told him something wasn’t right.

The man abruptly stopped pleasuring the woman and leapt back, crouching between the woman’s legs, sniffing the air as if ready to pounce. Had he sensed danger?

The leopard’s muscles tensed. A low growl simmered in his throat. The man raised his head and the image of Coyote reappeared over his face.

Leaning toward the woman so that their faces were only inches apart, the coyote form remained motionless. Then a golden light swirled at the point on the woman’s forehead and expanded into a beam moving toward Coyote’s mouth. The light coiled and pulsed in intensity. Static hummed in the air as Coyote absorbed the light coming from her. Whatever he was doing to her, the leopard knew it wasn’t good and decided he had to stop him.

His grandfather said skinwalkers were fast, impossible to catch and could use mind control on their victims. Which would explain why the woman was lying there and not struggling. Claws extended, the leopard leapt off the rock, a shadow moving through the darkness. The skinwalker must have sensed the movement. The enemy rolled out of harm’s way the moment the leopard leaped.

The leopard missed and landed next to the woman. She didn’t move, although she was still alive because he could hear her breathing, smell her arousal.

The skinwalker, in full coyote form, paced and snarled with territorial rage a few yards away. Stepping over the woman, the big cat advanced toward the animal, baring his teeth. Surprisingly, Coyote didn’t back away or run. Instead he attacked.

Teeth and claws dug into the leopard’s shoulder and neck. Pain shot through him but he managed to wrestle away while inflicting his own claw swipes. Coyote let out a yip as blood oozed from his legs.
Skinwalker’s powers aren’t boundless.