‘they’?”
“Others who have managed to offend.” His eyes narrowed. “Others who, most likely, do not deserve to be left in this purgatorial wasteland any more than I do. Prince Shaitan can sometimes be…overzealous in his reprimands.”
“Shaitan?” she repeated. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Kasdeya stepped closer and took her face between his palms. His fingers slid through her hair to cup the back of her skull while his thumbs stroked lightly along her jaw. “Why don’t we talk about it further at your home, Alexandra? Once there, I would be more than happy to explain anything you desire.”
Alex licked her lips nervously as she looked up into his beautiful face. “Gee, I’d love to go home, Kasdeya…”
His fingers distracted her as they kneaded the small muscles at the base of her neck, though in truth, that was the least of the distractions he represented. She brought her hands up to push him back and uttered a breathy little sigh—quite unlike her—at the feel of his silken white skin under her fingertips. As smooth as a baby’s bottom. With the thought, a giggle welled in her chest. She hastened to tamp it down, mortified by the way this creature seemed able to reduce her to a schoolgirl with her first crush. Kasdeya’s black eyes twinkled as if he could read her thoughts. The dark aura of danger and eroticism he exuded made it very difficult to concentrate. His magnificent midnight wings moved to enfold her.
“Step off, dark man,” she warned. “You’re too close.”
He leaned in farther until his face was only inches from hers. His hands slipped down her back to her waist. He didn’t seem to care if he got covered in mud. “You are the Summoner, woman. If you want to leave this plane, all you have to do is summon your own to you.” His breath washed her lips, the scent an odd, euphoric combination of cinnamon and roses. Alex’s eyes drifted shut as she inhaled the wonderful perfume.
“Summon my…” She shook her head, trying to clear it, and pushed at his chest more forcefully. This time he let her go. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that all I’ve ever had to do to leave was click my ruby slippers together and wish myself home?”
His brow furrowed as he looked down at her feet. “Your feet are bare, Alexandra, so I do not believe slippers to be a necessary part of the ritual. But yes, essentially all you have ever had to do was wish yourself home.”
She rubbed at the lump on her forehead in irritation. “Well, fuck-diddly-uk, Flanders, that would have been some useful information to have about twenty years ago.”
* * * *
Kasdeya decided to ignore the uk-flanders reference, having no idea what she was talking about. He’d been many years away from the mortal plane and speech idioms had apparently progressed into strange new realms. The twenty-year reference was interesting though. He’d only been calling her to join him for a few weeks, and none of the lesser Brethren would have had the strength required to pull a mortal soul into their realm. The time difference between his plane and hers must be vast. All the more reason to hasten his seduction and convince her to set him free. A handful of days, at best, and she would be dead. And who knew when another Summoner might be born.
He again moved to take her in his arms but Alexandra was having none of it. She quick-stepped to the left. “Just stay back, dark man. I can’t think when you’re so close.”
His smile was sinful and, in a move too fast to follow, his arm whipped out and wrapped around her back, pulling her into his side. “Thinking is not necessary.” The fingers of his free hand trailed up the center of her body, from her belly button to her chin, angling her face to his. Alexandra’s half-formed words of protest were cut short as he lowered his mouth.
* * * *
His lips were firm and strong, and Kasdeya’s taste was as exotic as his scent—an entrancing mix of sugar and smoke, spice and honey. Alex opened her mouth for him before she even knew she intended to. His rough, catlike tongue surged inside, stroking aggressively along her palate and the back of her teeth before retreating. It taunted her with rapid, sexy flicks against her lips, first the top and then the bottom, and darted away mischievously when her own tongue tried to catch it.
With a muffled moan, Alex came up on her toes. Her hands twisted in his sleek mane, tugging his head closer. They were pressed so tight together that his rumble of amusement was felt more than heard as it vibrated through his torso. His lips under hers widened into an arrogant grin that she could picture all too well and, without even stopping to think about it, Alex took the bottom one between her teeth and bit.
Kasdeya sucked in a breath at the feel of her small, pearly teeth in his skin. He pulled back his head to glare down at her.
Alex was as shocked by her audacity as he was. Her own breath caught in her throat at his fierce expression and she instinctively tried to back out of his reach. His hand slid from her waist to her ass, splaying across the curve of it to keep her in place. His other hand moved to seize a handful of hair. He wrenched her head back. “Is this how you would prefer to play, pet?”
“I’m not your pet.” She wished her voice didn’t sound quite so shaky while she made her brave declaration.
“I beg to differ.”
His lips were bruising as they again slanted over her own, his tongue a violent intrusion between her lips. There was nothing gentle or playful about his kiss this time. It was intense, wicked and erotic. Fire licked up her spine to curl lovingly around the pain of his fist in her hair. Her nipples hardened to a stone-firm sharpness that Kasdeya surely felt against his torso. It was the trickle of liquid shivering down her inner thigh though that served to bring her to her senses. Her intense reaction to the winged man—no, let’s call a spade a spade here—to the demon, frightened her.
And he must be a demon, she figured, trying to convince her legs to propel her away from him, because God surely wasn’t punishing his elite by sentencing them to this wasteland. Anyway, Kasdeya didn’t seem to be the angelic type.
When his hand left her hair to test the firmness of her small, high breasts, Alex panicked. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home… The vision of her body lying still and cold on the bathroom floor swam before her eyes. I summon you! she shrieked desperately in her mind. And, just like that, she was there.
* * * *
Kasdeya cursed as the girl dissolved in his arms. That had certainly not been in the plan. She was supposed to have taken him with her. He had already wasted more time than he would have liked calling her to him, and finally the Summoner had come. Finally she had uttered the words he required to show himself. He had been so damnably close to escaping! What in the nine hells had gone wrong?
Chapter 3
Kasdeya rested his forehead against the glass separating his world from hers. The muscles of his shoulders slowly unknotted as the Summoner woke.
“Oh God,” Alexandra groaned, clutching her head and levering herself onto her elbows. The early morning sun poured cheery streamers of light into the bathroom’s yellow and pink windows.
“Awake at last, pet? I had begun to worry.”
Begun to worry? He’d been half out of his mind with concern, watching anxiously over her motionless body as the hours ticked away. And, despite what he told
