In Pursuit of Prey: Of Gods and Consorts, Book 1

Dedication

To Lynda, my constant pillar of support, and to Lexie and Judy for reading outside your comfort zone. See? This stuff is FUN!

Chapter One

The Goddess

Desert heat bathes my naked skin as I walk from the scene of my latest sexual conquest.
 

Gorgeous olive skin, dark hair and darker eyes lined in kohl, body once thrumming with stamina. He’s a real stunner—one of my best. He lies limp and spilled over my bed, an arm and both legs dangling off the edge, muscles lax that were once corded beneath me. My nipples still tingle from his teeth, body still throbs from grinding against him. I rode his bucking hips like he was a prize stallion between my legs.
 

But he’s not real.

Without my magick, my lover’s body softens, a shimmer slicks him head to toe, pulsing with my heartbeat. Solid. Tenuous. Solid. Tenuous. Then he disintegrates into a fall of glittering dust, swept away on the hot breeze blowing through my Temple.

A smile flirts with my lips, then dies.

Satisfaction and satiation of hunger veer farther apart for me with each of these trysts. Weak knees and sweat glistening on skin do little when my heart remains vacant. Empty encounters full of sex without passion have lately become quite taxing. Even goddesses get the blues, and after ages of created lovers to burn off my divine sexual heat, I’m lonely. My shoulders sag with a breathy sigh. There must be more out there, more I need. Prey calls to me, chiming on my soul.
 

Reed rugs whisper beneath my steps to the full length of my polished silver mirror. Feminine yet feline. Feet and hands curled into paws, round breasts and full curves, and above my shoulders the mark that sets me apart from humans, a lion’s proud head and glowing amber eyes. Exotic, powerful, unchanged through the centuries, and every bit a predator.
 

A second sigh escapes me, unsettling my whiskers in its passing. Having outlived my mortal servants and grown tired of the rest, I dress alone. Linen caresses my skin when I pull on a white gown. Jewels wink back light when I cinch a beaded sash at my waist.
 

Fully clothed and entirely hollow, I look through sheers billowing in the desert breeze. Within the walls, my Temple holds all of its ancient glory—outside of my magick the desert is desolate, as empty as I feel. I scan the modern wasteland of the Egyptian desert and think with a rueful twist of my muzzle that the outward view reflects my inner heart.

A predator needs to hunt, and I’ve grown weary of ready, deified flesh. Never a change, never a challenge. Nothing new for an eternity.

My echoing footfalls goad me, the rumpled bed linens mock me.
 

Empty. Hollow. Alone.

Lonely.

A soul calling to me…

The time has come.

To hunt is to leave behind my home. A moment’s regret tugs at my heart. I turn from the window to look one last time at the interior of my Temple. Lush and finely appointed, decorated in colors reflecting my fiery nature: gold, bloody burgundies, smoky plumes of sacrificed oils curling from the altar. Thoughts of leaving feed the regret, digging in claws, pulling at my heart.
 

Of course, if I find suitable prey, I intend to drag him back home to be savored at my leisure.
 

Time to leave these halls and hunt.

But not here, not now. The towns nearby offer up only the throats of dust and familiarity. Nothing as fresh as I desire walks the paths of the land of Egypt.

Resigned, I stalk to the entrance of my Temple, to the portal between this time and that. There I pause, running a paw down the smooth stone, feeling the texture, committing it to memory. Beyond lies a vast world, matured from ancient times, and teeming with life.
 

Holding a breath, I steel my nerves and step through. Dry desert heat assuages my body, stings my muzzle and dries the breath in my throat. Bangles clink, sliding down my rising arm as I shield my eyes to scan the present wasteland for witnesses. Miles and miles of open range, broken only by hillocks. No one visible.

Comfortable that I won’t be seen, I release my grip on the here and now, release my hold on myself. A damp sheen blooms on my skin, my eyes burn like the sun above. My flesh becomes transparent. My teeth glint in a smile. Looking down, I see my vacant Temple through my chest. Then, my body dissolves, a puddle of golden consciousness on the sands.

The chiming rings through me, and I focus my thoughts on it.

Like rare, rare rainfall, I seep through the gritty surface and disappear…

Chapter Two

The Prey

Blacklight bounces from posters, dies in the bright strobing flashes, shouts in a white-blue echo from the low-cut shirt of the chick grinding on the bouncer. She could be a ghost—he pays her that much attention. After enough nights in clubs like this, not much impresses. Especially not barflies like that, flitting from club to club, guy to guy, bed to bed. As I approach, the chick careens past grind and into grope, and Tucker Moses, badass bouncer with morals, pushes the barfly off.
 

“You strike a deal, Mace?” he shouts over the dancehouse music throbbing in the air.
 

“Hell no.” I stop beside him and grab my guitar case at his feet. “I still need to respect myself in the morning. Louie wouldn’t pay enough.”

A minute shake of his close-shaved head. “I hear ya, man.”

“If you get a night off, you should stop by. We’re Seduction’s new house band.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I nod, clap him on his beefy shoulder and walk past. He won’t come, and I know it. Tucker talks a good story, but he’s a regular here. If he isn’t working, he’s holding up the far corner of the bar and drinking.

That particular back-alley funk—stale beer, fresh puke, hot asphalt—wafts up when I open the rear exit of Louie’s sleazy dive, The Backdoor. Definitely not the type of place we normally play, and tightfisted Louie isn’t the kind of manager I normally deal with. I’m tempted to rub my nuts, thinking they should be sore with his constant attempts at lowballing me and the band.

Neon green paper floats above the paving. I kick The Backdoor’s flyer proclaiming the best drinks at the best prices. Anyone who’s been to the local bars knows that’s bullshit. Louie’s soda-to-syrup ratio is always off, in favor of his miser reputation, and it waters down all the mixed drinks. Plus, he doesn’t stock top-shelf liquors or keep anything other than crappy beer on tap. Sure, The Backdoor’s drinks are cheap, but you get what you pay for in that joint.

If our band Diablo’s Decadence didn’t want the big leagues, I wouldn’t have even bothered with an ass like Louie. It takes money to hire a manager, and it takes booking gigs and filling seats to make money. Being the house band for Seduction is one thing, radio airtime is another.

It might be time to pay my personal benefactor a visit. It’s give and take, and she doesn’t take money.
 

Future years, or current success? I asked myself that once. Now, I’m not sure I made the right choice. The sex is amazing, the payoff is great. The price? Bits of my life—a week here, a month there—paid to a woman who has a knack for making things happen.

I pass a wino clutching his paperbag-wrapped bottle, huddling in his house of cardboard. Tattered and stained, his clothes look like recent rescues from the dumpster his shanty rests against. He could’ve been one of her past lovers. I could still end up like him. Being with Naami is like performing a gig on the edge of a razorblade. Exquisite torture, brilliant clarity—one wrong step and she can take all I have left.
 

Too many nights I argue with myself about what I’ve done and wonder if it’s worth it. Reality might blow, but it’s better than the alternative.

Hell, if I really look at things, Diablo’s Decadence could’ve easily earned the gigs and growing fan base on our own.
 

And we should, I think. We should.
 

One building away from the mouth of the alley and a tremor of something passes over me. Feels like lightning cracking very close—a build of energy, a flash of power and then nothing. Most people would dismiss it, if they would notice it at all.
 

I notice.

I know that feeling.
 

Someone or something powerful just arrived in town. A similar power surge hits me whenever Naami appears. Before I can engage my brain and think better of it—if I were smart I would turn and run in the other direction—I follow the same inner compass that led me to the succubus draining my life away one screw at a time. An inner pull guides me around the alley mouth, up one block and then a short jog through another filthy back alley.

Then I skid to a stop.

Power slicks over my skin, even a block away.
 

It vibrates in the air, invisible and still swirling away in the lines of my tattoos. Someone definitely is there. A blonde mane of wavy hair, and she’s curvy as hell, dressed in little more than a length of thin, white material. The energy shift I felt must’ve been her coming here.
 

Who is she? And why is she here? The buzzing in my gut says she’s someone powerful, maybe more powerful than Naami. The residual tremor razing my nerves says she’s more of a predator.

And she’s already flipping every trigger I have.

Chapter Three

The Goddess

High rooftops clutter the sky, blocking my view of the full moon. Metal grates belch steam at my feet. Colored lights flash and beam through the thick air. The streets are hard, flat and loud, choked with vehicles and heavily clothed people—such peculiar-looking people.

I tip my nose up in sudden contempt.

Where, I think, can I possibly find suitable prey in such a place?

Disdain plummets into disappointment. Stepping back into the shadows, I bury myself from view. Citizens scurry back and forth, shoes slapping or heels stabbing the pavement. Blonde, brunette, black hair, spiky, long or short, and all of them drowning in clothes. And still, there is a reason I landed in this time. A man, a mate, is out there. I can feel him. A calling tickles on my nerves, strokes my cravings, riles the predator in me.
 

I cannot hunt here without gaining undue attraction with my leonine traits. Camouflage is necessary. I’ll have to modify my appearance—but I’m still a goddess after all.
 

Arms outstretched, I turn my magick upon myself. Heat floods my skin, noonday-in-the-desert hot, and then sinks into my body. The pelt dissolves from my paws and head, my bones shift, shrink and change as I fashion my body into an entirely human form. I pore a gaze down my body; long sleek limbs, high round breasts and full heart-shaped ass. Then I refine my facial features to something with a hint of feline: amber-brown eyes and long, dark blonde hair.

Next, clothing, and I refuse to drown in it. I keep my sandals, add clingy jeans and a filmy, sleeveless, low-cut top. I replace my beaded sash with a studded belt, riding low past my navel and sparking back the firelight.
 

Stepping from the secluded shadows, I toss my mane of hair and adjust my belt, then check my reflection in a dark shop window. Goddess, but modern.

Almost immediately, the weight of stares prickle my skin. A smile crooks my lips. Let them stare. I certainly plan to... I scan the street for potential sources of the prey call. My hopes rise the closer I look at the traits that make these modern men attractive. Square jaws and proud noses. Wide shoulders and narrower hips. What makes the affluent, polished ones less attractive to me? An air of pretense? Regardless, the lean-muscled, tattooed men carry more appeal, perhaps a sense of challenge. Anticipation wells up, quite a pleasant surprise after the pale hope I maintained earlier.
 

On a closer, second look, life crowds the streets. Men and women walk past, some with potential, some without.

Head held high, hair cascading down my back, I lean into a strut best suited to these hips. Men watch. Women too. I meet gazes, stroll confidently, no more aim than to follow my predatory senses of prey and direction. The chiming still rings on my soul, a tickle leading me forward.