Ultimate Warriors Read online

  "You’re that certain?"

  Nariko stared at him, wondering yet again if he was entirely sane himself. He seemed perfectly lucid, and yet he’d done a lot of things that were certainly rash for a man in his position. "I don’t believe in ghosts, or goblins, or things that go bump in the night!" she said irritably.

  He looked away from her and began pacing once more. "Humor me, then. Let’s, just for a moment, consider it as a possibility.

  "According to the records, your mother wasn’t committed. She went into the sanitarium voluntarily, and I believe she did it because she was hiding … or hoping to hide. I think she placed you in the orphanage to keep you safe and then committed herself, hoping they wouldn’t find her."

  "Hoping who wouldn’t find her?"

  "The demons looking for the child … you. But they did find her. Maybe they killed her trying to find out where you were.

  "Maybe they managed to get the information out of her before she died."

  Nari glared at him angrily. "You’re saying I haven’t been dreaming? That the demons have found me? And they want me, why? Why would they have any interest in me at all?"

  "Because you’re half demon."

  Nariko’s anger boiled over. "Get out! You’re as crazy as she was!"

  He stopped, his lips tightening angrily. "Be reasonable. You could be in danger."

  "I think I am. I think you’re crazy and I want you out of my house! Leave now, or I’ll call the cops!"

  He took a step toward her and Nariko skipped aside, putting the coffee table between them--insubstantial as it was as a barrier. He stopped.

  "I have to go if you’re determined to send me away, but I’m asking you to reconsider. You need protection. You haven’t found your powers."

  "I’m not a demon!" Nariko shouted at him. "Half or otherwise! I’m not evil!"

  "I didn’t say you were," Shayne said tightly. "Your father wasn’t. Everything in nature has a balance, a dark side and a light side. Not all demons are evil."

  Nariko gaped at him. "You’re trying to say you knew my father?"

  "I did."

  Nariko leapt toward her phone. Grabbing it up, she punched the numbers with a shaking finger.

  "911. What’s your emergency?" said a feminine voice on the other end of the line.

  Nariko glanced at Shayne. "There’s a man in my house."

  He glared at her furiously for several moments and finally strode out, slamming the door behind him. Nariko depressed the button on the phone, threw it down and ran to bolt her door.

  She might be confused, but she damned well wasn’t so nuts that she was going to take advice from somebody that was crazier than she was!

  ****

  Nariko hadn’t expected to sleep. She had hoped she would be able to compose herself for rest. She had tried a hot, soothing bath. She had read for a while in bed. She had finally gotten up, put on an exercise video and worked out until she’d begun to feel like she would drop in her tracks, but physical exhaustion wasn’t enough to overcome her distress, her anger, or her uneasiness once she was alone in the apartment.

  She had finally decided that she would lie down anyway and close her eyes. Even if she couldn’t sleep, surely doing that much would rest her at least a little so that she could face the next day.

  Despite her angry dismissal, however, Shayne’s words assaulted her. Every time she closed her eyes her mind went round and round with the argument. It was going on three AM when her mind finally began to wind down. Bits and pieces of nightmares began to batter at her almost the moment she drifted away, however, and she found herself starting into wakefulness each time she sank toward slumber.

  She thought when first she sensed the presence at the foot of her bed that she was still sleeping. The nightmares had become so real to her that she’d begun to have difficulty sorting dream from reality at times.

  The moment Onyx grabbed her and hauled her from her bed, however, she knew absolutely that this was no dream. Before she could scream, or even put up much of a fight, he’d captured her so tightly against his hulking frame that she could barely even squirm. She struggled anyway, trying to wiggle free of his grip.

  "The time has come," he said in his deep, rumbling voice.

  Nariko definitely didn’t like the sound of that. "What time?"

  "Tonight you will help me open the doorway so that I can achieve my full powers," he said in the same growling voice.

  "Like hell I will!" Nariko snapped angrily.

  "You will. And you will enjoy it as much as I," he promised.

  He lifted her free of the floor then, launching the two of them upward with such force Nariko cringed, expecting momentarily to collide with the ceiling. Instead, she discovered when she opened her eyes that the Earth was far below them. Her heart slammed into her chest wall like a caged bird trying to beat its way out of a trap.

  This could not be real. It had to be one of the nightmares!

  She was afraid to struggle now, however, and realized she wasn’t so convinced that it was a dream that she was willing to risk breaking free and falling to her death. Instead, she drew in a deep breath to scream for Xalen to come to her.

  Onyx silenced her before she’d managed to emit more than a squeaking syllable. She wasn’t certain how he’d silenced her when he held her firmly gripped in both arms, but she felt as if her mouth were covered tightly. She couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t breathe.

  The fear of suffocation very quickly ousted every other thought from her mind, even her fear of falling to her death. She fought frantically to free herself, to drag air into her lungs, but absolute blackness began to swim around her within moments. The stars dimmed and one by one winked out.

  Cold was the first sensation that filtered through her mind when she swam upward toward consciousness once more. Light flickered through the thin skin of her eye lids and she stirred. Realizing she couldn’t move, Nariko opened her eyes at last and found that she was staring up into the darkness of a cavernous ceiling.

  The light she’d seen, she discovered, was the flickering fire of torches set into sconces on the dark stone walls that surrounded her.

  It looked rough hewn, crude--she was in a cavern, she realized finally.

  She couldn’t move because she was pinned by the manacles around her wrists and ankles.

  With cold terror washing over her, she lifted her head.

  Almost as if they’d been waiting for her to do so, as if it was a signal to them to commence, shadowy figures clothed in dark, hooded cloaks stepped from the darkness and surrounded the stone altar where she lay.

  Low, so low it was more like muttering than chants at first, they began to speak words she’d never heard before. Gradually, their voices became louder, the words falling faster from their lips.

  She sensed Onyx’s presence before she felt his touch on her leg.

  He meant to take her and this time there would be no escaping him.

  She screamed then, as loudly as she could, summoning Xalen to her aid. No one was more surprised than she was that she actually managed to break the hold that had sealed her lips before, but the chanting was so loud by that time that she despaired that she had made herself heard above it.

  And she was in a cavern, far below the Earth. How could he hear her? she thought despairingly.

  The thought had no sooner occurred to her than she realized how totally irrational it was. If Xalen was "real" then he was a demon. It shouldn’t matter where she was … unless this cavern shielded the cult from the other demons, the good demons?

  The skate of Onyx’s hand along her thigh jerked Nari abruptly back to her situation. Straining, she lifted her head to look down at him just as he curled his fingers into her mound. She jerked as she felt his finger parting the flesh, probing her.

  His gaze moved up her body and locked with hers. He was frowning. Slowly, he climbed onto the altar, licking a path all the way up her belly as he moved. Nari squeezed her eyes shut, trying
to ignore the leap of her flesh beneath that damp, heated caress. To her relief, he withdrew the tortuous tongue from her. When she opened her eyes, she saw that he was studying her almost curiously.

  "I can give you pleasure," he said in his deep, rumbling voice.

  Nari gritted her teeth. "Only in your conceited mind!" she snapped.

  He frowned, but more thoughtfully than angrily. "I am so repulsive to you?"

  "You disgust me!" she spat out angrily.

  He closed his eyes. As she stared at him in surprise, his features began to shift and change. She blinked. When she opened her eyes once more, she saw that it was Savage who hovered above her.

  She swallowed. Onyx was playing with her mind.

  Or was he?

  Was it possible there had never been a Dr. Savage at all? Had this demon appeared to her in a form he thought would please her more? Tried to gain her trust by appearing to her as an attractive human being?

  Almost as if he had read her mind, he asked, "Is this form more pleasing to you?"

  Instead of answering, Nari looked away from him, feeling ill at the thought that she’d kissed Savage with such pleasure when he might only have been Onyx all along.

  "Perhaps this, then?"

  Despite her unwillingness to be drawn into his game, whatever it was, Nari found she couldn’t resist looking at him when he spoke again. To her horror, she saw Xalen above her--Onyx looking like Xalen--or maybe there’d never been a Xalen either? Maybe there’d never been anyone but Onyx.

  He growled angrily when she merely stared at him. "There is no pleasing you."

  "You can not please me," Nari retorted.

  His eyes narrowed cunningly. "I can wring pleasure from your body whether it is your will to feel it or not. You responded to me before. I smelled the sweet scent of your desire, felt the heat of your body."

  Nari swallowed with an effort. She could lie and deny it, but he would know.

  She steeled herself as he lowered his head, turning her face away. He sucked the flesh of her neck, almost to the point of pain, but heat flooded her despite that. She felt her nipples pucker and stand erect.

  Onyx felt it, too. The hard little tips drew his attention and he moved down her body. Nari gritted her teeth as his mouth covered one tip, trying her best to ignore the rampant, pleasurable sensations that shot through her. Despite her efforts, her body sang to life, began to tremble as he continued to suckle her determinedly, flicking his tongue over the sensitive tip. She was struggling to catch her breath by the time he turned his attention to its mate.

  There was no bracing herself for the onslaught. As repulsed as she was by the evil in Onyx, her body had no conscience. It sang beneath his touch, soared. Moisture gathered in her vaginal passage, welcoming his possession and when he reached his hand down to probe her once more, he grunted in satisfaction.

  Shifting, he pressed his hard cock along her cleft, searching, finding the passage that quivered with need in spite of all Nari could do.

  Pain shot through her as he lunged, plunging deeply inside of her in one powerful thrust and rupturing her hymen as he claimed her. She screamed, the euphoria he’d created vanishing instantly. He looked down at her with Onyx’s eyes in Xalen’s face, his gaze calculating, impatient, filled with lust.

  Slowly the pain subsided, became a dull throbbing. Twisting, he began to tease her flesh with his mouth and tongue once more. Gradually, beneath his persistence, her body responded until she was gasping with need once more, squirming beneath him. He began to move then, thrusting his cock deeply inside of her, withdrawing slowly and thrusting once more. Euphoria intoxicated her, building inside of her in an ever tightening band until she felt her body could not continue to withstand the ever mounting pleasure, until she felt her body trembling, reaching for appeasement.

  Without warning, the bubble that had been building inside of her toward explosion, erupted. She screamed with the force of it, feeling as if it would rend her body into tiny fragments, feeling such white hot fire and power explode forth from her that she feared for many moments that when it ceased to flow outward from her that there would be nothing left but an empty shell.

  Around her, she heard the shock waves spreading outward, heard the terrified screams of the cult members who had gathered to watch, heard Onyx roar in pain.

  It continued rippling outward, jerking from within her. Her flesh heated, a sheen of sweat coated her skin in response, and still the ruptures of ecstasy rolled from within. Something had happened, different from her orgasms before, as if having demon flesh inside her had awakened an innermost part she hadn’t known existed.

  She felt that part now, called it forth, but there was no controlling it. A crack of thunder shook the cavern walls, bouncing through the cavern in a deafening echo. Her eardrums spasmed.

  Her mind whirled dizzily, and she blacked out. For how long, she couldn’t know. When she opened her eyes at last, she discovered she had not imagined any of it. The room around her was decimated, burned, the bodies of the cult members crumpled.

  Nari sat up in surprise, discovering the manacles were broken, twisted fragments now.

  Disbelief filled her as she stared at Onyx, far across the room now, struggling to rise. She looked down at herself, but she didn’t have so much as a scratch. What had happened?

  She screamed when Xalen materialized beside the altar. He caught her arms, giving her a slight shake. "Nari! You summoned me!"

  Nari swallowed with an effort. "Is it … really you?"

  He frowned, pulling her close as he surveyed the damage to the room; the dead and dying cult members, the blackened walls, the blasted stones. Seeing Onyx, he released Nari. She caught his arm. "No. Let him go."

  His lips tightened. "He is weak now. If we allow him to go, he will grow strong again."

  Nari’s chin wobbled. "Please, just take me home."

  After a moment, he nodded and scooped her into his arms. Grateful, Nari wrapped her arms around his shoulders, burying her face against his neck. A sensation of movement filtered through her beleaguered senses. Slowly, Xalen’s warmth began to chase the chill of fear and shock from her and then she felt herself being lowered and looked around to discover she was in her own bedroom once more.

  She clung to Xalen when he would have released her. He settled next to her on her bed, holding her close.

  "What happened?" he asked softly.

  "I don’t really know," she responded, the words muffled against his neck. "Onyx … raped me. And then I felt this powerful force building inside of me."

  Xalen was silent for a time, rubbing her back soothingly. "He wanted you to unlock his own powers. Instead, he unlocked yours and it nearly destroyed him. I have to confess you are far more powerful than I had imagined possible. I have never seen anything even approaching the powers that you have. I have heard tell of such things in legend, but I hadn’t believed they were anything but tales."

  Nari leaned away from him, studying him in confusion. "I don’t understand."

  "You do. You just don’t want to accept. You are half demon, Nari. The demon who was your father was well known to me."

  Nari pulled away from him. "He raped my mother."

  "He loved your mother … in as much as a demon is capable of loving a human being. He was destroyed trying to protect the two of you from harm."

  An uncomfortable knot of sorrow rose in her throat. With an effort, she swallowed against it. "How do you know this? And, if you knew, why didn’t you come to me sooner?"

  He frowned. "When Daxen was destroyed, your mother took you and disappeared. We believed that you had both been killed when he died. Until you came to me and we found the records, I had no way of knowing you still lived."

  Nari stared at him. "Wait a minute! I didn’t…."

  Even as her voice trailed off to nothingness, Xalen transformed, became Savage right before her eyes. Nari sucked in a frightened breath. "You! Onyx appeared as you, transformed himself into Xalen."
/>   His hand closed around her arm when she would have leapt from the bed. "You know me! No matter what form I take, you know me, Nari."

  Her fear began to subside almost at once, for she realized it was true. She sensed that he was Xalen, and she realized that she had always felt that she could trust him, as Savage, and when he appeared to her as Xalen. No wonder she had been confused about her feelings for both of them.

  When she ceased to resist, he pulled her close to him, fitting her against his length. The soothing skate of his hand along her flesh calmed the last of her fears and, as she relaxed, kindled a spark of warmth. When he lowered his head and brushed his lips along her cheek, she lifted her own lips to meet his. Warmth flooded her as his mouth moved over hers, as his tongue slid sinuously along hers in an intimate caress, then became heat as longing began to build inside of her.

  Reluctantly, she broke the kiss. "We can’t," she protested weakly.

  "As much as I wish to argue the matter, I agree," he responded. "Now that your power is awakened, it must be controlled before we can … do more."

  Nari blinked at him in surprise. "You’re not serious."

  There wasn’t a touch of humor in his eyes. "I am. You are awakened now, however, though I am certain this was not in Onyx’s plan. He cannot harm you in your dreams without retaliation."

  For that, she was thankful, but what it entailed scared her. What if she dreamed of sex and something happened? She could hurt anyone without even knowing it. Nari swallowed fearfully, thinking about what could’ve happened if she’d decided to have sex with him before she’d known. "I almost destroyed Onyx." I could have killed you, she left unspoken. They both knew it.

  He smiled faintly. "In time, I will teach you how to control, and use, your powers. You will need them, Blazearc. There are others out there, like you, with powers. We must find them. We will need their help to fight the demon horde, to destroy them, or send them back beyond the gateway and then we will need to destroy the gateway."

  The End … or just the beginning…?