He searched for Skye and finally found her in the corner, stroking the agitated deer.

Vhyper squatted beside him, his forearm on his knee, his gaze on Skye. "She's a pretty little piece, isn't she, with those big doelike eyes? I told her you were a sucker for a damsel in distress. Wasn't that how Ancreta trapped you all those years ago?"

Paenther's eyes narrowed as he tore his gaze from the woman to look up at the man who'd once been his friend.

A malicious smile hovered at Vhyper's mouth. "I told her all she had to do was play the victim, and you'd be eating right out of her hand, giving her whatever she wanted."

Play the victim? A chill of foreboding rolled down his spine.

Vhyper shrugged. "Birik may have overplayed his role a bit when he beat her. He's been doing a shitload of groveling to make it up to her, but I hear the ploy worked like a charm. You not only let her fuck you, but you helped her enjoy herself." He grinned and pretended to high-five him. "Way to go, B.P."

Paenther stared at him. He was supposed to believe that beating was an act? A lie to gain his cooperation? No way in hell. He'd seen the bastard's face. He'd seen the pain and bleakness in Skye's. No woman could be that good an actress.

That chill in his spine leached into his blood.

Except perhaps a witch.

With a bit of magic, she could make him believe he was seeing whatever she wanted him to see, couldn't she?

Hell. Denial roared through his head. Had he really been taken in all over again?

Or was Vhyper the one lying? How in the hell was he supposed to know? The only thing he knew for certain was, he couldn't trust either of them.

And if this night ended as he feared it might, it wouldn't matter. Nothing would matter once he was dead.

The smoke of the banked fires teased his nose. He stared up into his old friend's eyes, a growl grumbling deep in his throat as he saw no glimmer of the Vhyper he knew.

"Am I staked out for slaughter?"

A cruel smile slashed across Vhyper's face. "What fun would it be if you knew what to expect?"

"You've turned into a bastard, Vhyper."

"Oh, I've turned into a lot more than a bastard, B.P." Vhyper rose. "Looks like it's time to begin."

As the Mage circled the perimeter of the room, Skye stood. With quick, nimble hands, she pulled off her dress and tossed it aside as if perfectly at ease with her nudity among so many men.

He stared at her and knew he was watching a stranger.

Birik came up behind her and pulled her back against him, one hand covering her breast, the other diving between her legs.

Paenther's gut clenched with shock. His breaths became labored as he watched with disbelief as the bastard fingered her, working that supple body he'd lost himself in twice now, until she rocked against his hand, trembling. Enjoying it. She was enjoying it.

His mind exploded. She'd tried to mount him last night, cold and dry. It doesn't matter. Because she hadn't wanted him. Not him.

And he knew, he knew, what was going to happen. Birik wanted her to ride him again, but he had to prepare her himself since, clearly, clearly, she couldn't get there on her own. Not with a shape-shifter. Not with him.

Damn her.

But it was him she needed, him with his animal. So she'd played him with her sad eyes and pretense at vulnerability until he'd helped her fuck him.

Anger blazed through him, a fury as raw as it was ancient. A fury turned on himself as much as her. How could he have fallen for a witch's pretense of woe twice?

Birik finally released her. Without once meeting his gaze, she crossed to where he lay staked and stood over him, one foot planted on either side of his waist. In the shadows between her legs, her flower had opened, and the scent of her arousal blasted his senses, sending the blood flowing into his shaft in a throbbing rush.

Her eyes and expression were closed as she stood there, trembling, her heart racing. But no longer did her delicate beauty pull at him. It was all a lie. She was a lie. His chest ached, the flicker of warmth she'd sparked inside him sputtering beneath the mounting evidence of her deceit.

He struggled against his chains, determined to fight her every step of the way, though he knew with a despair born of bitter experience, his body would betray him. No matter how much his mind hated, his body would always struggle for release when buried inside a woman's sheath. He'd never been able to keep from coming when Ancreta had him trapped inside her.

And he stood even less of a chance with the witch standing over him now, whose scent drove him to distraction even when she wasn't aroused.

The witch began to chant, her melodious voice rising in volume until it echoed off the rock. Slowly, her lithe, graceful body began to move, gyrating to the rhythms of the chant, her small breasts softly swaying, raising the temperature of his blood.

In the corner, the deer cried out, then went suddenly silent. He looked at the witch's face, feeling a twist of empathy for the grief he expected her to feel, but her expression had turned as cold and lifeless as stone. Something shriveled inside him at this proof she was nothing more than a cold, calculating bitch, like all Mage witches.

Birik strode to her, a bucket in his hand. She didn't startle, didn't even flinch when Birik tipped it over her head, letting the blood run into her hair and over her bare shoulders.

She'd expected this. With a kick to his gut, he knew this was the reason she'd brought the animals into the cavern in the first place. To dance in their blood.

Hatred seared his mind. She'd had him so completely fooled.

With sick fascination, Paenther watched Skye slide her hands over her breasts and abdomen, slicking her palms. Then she squatted over him and took his swollen shaft in her hand, coating him with the sticky warmth.

He went feral, his fangs elongating, his claws unsheathing as he snarled, fighting his body's traitorous response to her as much as he fought the woman herself.

But she barely looked at him as she guided him between her legs.

As he had so many times with Ancreta, he tried to buck her off him, but the witch was too well coordinated, moving with him, refusing to be denied. She forced him inside her. Despite Birik's ministrations, her body was still too tight, but nothing on her face reflected the discomfort.

There was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing he would do even if he could. He wanted her to hurt. Damn her.

Slowly, she began to ride him, resuming her chant as around the room, the sorcerers joined their voices to hers until the sound pounded a thunderous beat echoed in Skye's movements.

A beat echoed by his own heart.

The chant pounded in his blood and in his shaft, the power rising until the hair on his head felt like it was trying to stand on end. Above him, Skye's short hair was lifting, as if she'd stepped into an electrical storm. Above her, the orbs he hadn't noticed before pulsed with dark light, growing.

As the power rose higher, the blue-eyed witch began to gasp, her gasps quickly turning to small screams of pleasure.

The pleasure had him in its grip, too, flowing through his chest and limbs, tightening every muscle, every blood vessel, as desire and pressure built in his cock to a fevered pitch. His body climbed to heights that appalled him until he was driving into her as desperate for the coming explosion as he'd ever been for anything.

His mind rebelled, horrified at the sexual fire burning his body in the midst of such savagery. But the power in the room was driving him now, driving them both. And there was no fighting it.

With a scream, the witch came. As her hard, rapid contractions drove him to a blinding release, his gaze caught Birik's. The bastard stood over them, watching Paenther utterly lose control, his face a mask of deep arousal, his eyes alive with anticipation. Crawling with evil.

Paenther snarled. Hatred burned inside him as he spilled his seed.

A roar filled the room, turning the air hot and wild until it singed his lungs and scorched his skin. Pain ripped through his body on a sudden tide of fire.

A scream echoed through the walls from beyond, drawing Birik's shout of triumph.

Caught in the clutches of the pain, Paenther barely noticed when the chanting ended, and the men rushed from the room, leaving him alone with Skye. He stared up at her, at the face he'd once thought beautiful, now covered in blood, her eyes closed, her expression tight with pleasure...or pain. Hatred burned low in his gut as the sharp pain slowly died away except for a throbbing sting across his left eye.

Skye rose, lifting off him unsteadily as she tried to stand, only to collapse by his feet where she lay on her back, gasping.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, lying in the moonlight and dying embers, amid the blood, their flesh rippling with the remnants of power.

Neither spoke. There was nothing to say.

Yet again, he wondered what Birik meant to do with the power they'd raised.

Birik finally returned, lightwicks floating above him. He strode to Skye and lifted her into his arms.

The bitch wrapped her arm around the Mage's neck as he carried her from the room, leaving Paenther chained and alone. With little hope, he strained against his shackles, pouring everything into freeing himself. Useless. He remained trapped as completely as any caged beast.

Outside the cavern room, a single bloodcurdling scream ripped at his eardrums, followed by triumphant shouts and cheers.

Dread knotted deep inside his chest. Goddess help him. What evil had they unleashed?

Uploaded by Coral

Chapter Six

Paenther wasn't sure when they'd enthralled and transferred him, but as the fog cleared from his head, he found himself standing upright outside a glass enclosure deep within the caverns.

The clank of chains and the bite of cold shackles told him he was pinned fast to the wall behind him. Glancing down, he saw that he was wearing pants again. The leather pants he'd worn that disastrous afternoon he'd followed Skye into the woods. How long ago? He'd been out of it too much to know how long he'd been a prisoner.

Last thing he remembered, he'd been covered with blood. The ritual. Memory slammed into him, the force of his fury stealing his breath. His mouth tightened, his teeth grinding.

Goddess, but the witch had played him.

His furious gaze scrutinized the glassed chamber twelve to fifteen feet below him, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. In one corner, paint...or blood...had been splattered everywhere, copious amounts of it. His gaze narrowed as he tried to correlate the lit, bloody chamber below with the dark one he'd been in earlier, and failed. No, they were definitely not the same room. The fine hairs rose on the back of his neck. So what had happened here? And why was he chained so he could see it?

He sensed Vhyper even before the Feral rounded the corner to join him.

"Release me, Vhype," Paenther growled.

"You have to see this, B.P. No one's seen anything like it in millennia. Watch. The fun is about to begin."

On cue, four people stepped into sight in the room below, two men and two women, accompanied by a single Mage sentinel. Slowly, little by little, the people blinked and looked around groggily, as if coming out of enchantment.

"Are they human?"

"Yes. Watch."

The Mage left the room through a far door. Moments later, from an entrance below that Paenther couldn't see, another figure entered the room. A male, he thought, judging by the breadth of the shoulders, clad in some kind of filmy dark cloak, his back to Paenther. The man's hair was long and black and sparkled like diamonds. He didn't walk, but floated upright, a foot off the ground. And his cloak...A chill slid down Paenther's spine. Not a cloak at all, but the indistinct lines of his body.

The hair on Paenther's arms began to lift, his gaze narrowing. The air in the cavern dropped a good ten degrees.

This was no man.

A faint scent of rotting meat met Paenther's nose. His heart began to race.

The creature turned, revealing a bluish gray face badly contorted, as if made from melting wax, a single set of sharp fangs hanging from its mouth. As it raised its hands, daggerlike claws dripped from its fingertips.

Paenther's heart pounded with disbelief as he stared at the most fundamentally horrifying sight he'd ever seen.

A Daemon. A creature gone from this Earth for more than five thousand years, trapped all this time in the Daemon blade.

"The Mage have opened the blade," Paenther hissed. With the power Paenther had helped raise. Goddess help them all.

"Don't get your tail in a knot, B.P. The blade isn't open. Not entirely. We only managed to soften it enough to eke out a few of the wraith Daemons. The worker bees of the Daemon world. They're basically mindless feeding machines without Satanan here to control them, but it's amazing, isn't it?" His voice rose with excitement.

Paenther stared in fascinated horror at the creature of dark legend, a monster the Ferals had fought to keep from the Earth for thousands of years.

And failed.

"With the power you raise with the little witch, we'll free an entire army." Vhyper chuckled. "You've found your calling, B.P."

The words swirled in Paenther's mind until he had to swallow to keep the bile from rising in his throat. He had to stop this. He had to find a way to keep from freeing more of these things.

But his horrified gaze wouldn't turn away from the creature. Oddly, though the people were clearly agitated by the sight of all the blood, none of them were reacting to the Daemon itself. They didn't seem to see him.

Ah, goddess. Of course they couldn't see him. Just as humans couldn't see the draden.

One of the men looked up at the faces peering down at him. "What's going on here? What in the hell do you people want?"

"They won't be able to see him until he attacks them," Vhyper said, his voice sharp with anticipation.