Nightwind (41 page)

satisfied smile.

“Woman, speak the words for your daughter!”

Lauren glanced at her mother. She shrugged as though she didn’t care one way or the other. “You know

what we need, tell him.”

Maxine smiled, liking what she saw on Lauren’s face. She turned to the fiend.

“He must be the most handsome man ever to step foot in this world. Next to him, Syntian will pale in

comparison. He must be tall and dark. He must have a cultured voice, perhaps English, French—that

doesn’t matter. I would have him forty, no older, and have access to wealth.”

“Can this minion take the place of a man who already exists?” Lauren interrupted her mother.

Maxine’s lips pursed with annoyance. “Why?”

“Angeline is drawn to wealth, to power,” Lauren mused, looking away from her mother to stare up into

the hideous face of Raphian. “There is a man I have read about. A Prince of a Middle Eastern Emirate.

He is considered to be very handsome and is known to be as utterly ruthless as he is powerful. It is said

he is the second richest man in the world and whatever he wants he can have with the snap of his fingers.

Jaborn is his name. Jaleel Jaborn. Do you know of him?”

Raphian’s long neck bobbed.
“Jaleel Jaborn,”
It buzzed.
“I know of him.”

“Can this minion we seek take his place?”

Again the low chuckle shook the room
. “It can be made so...”

“Then, that’s what we want. Bring him here and have him meet Angeline. Make her fall so deeply in love

with him, she will not know what we are about until we are ready to destroy her and take back what is

ours.”

Maxine gawked at her daughter, appreciating the vengeance, seeing the plot for the glorious
coup de

grâce
it was. For the first time in Lauren’s life, her mother respected the girl
.

“And what will you give me in exchange for this that I do, L...a...u...r...e...n?”

“Be careful,” her mother warned.

“A human life?” Lauren asked. “One worthy of Your interest, Raphian?”

The fiend nodded.
“That would do.”

“Then you shall have it!” Lauren shouted and shoved her mother out of the pentagram and away from

the protection of the circle.

Maxine Fowler howled with sheer terror and tried to scramble back into the circle, but the long eel-like

neck swooped down and she was sucked up into the mighty maw of the fiend’s grinding mouth.

Lauren stared at the ceiling and smiled. The screams had been choked off quickly enough and there was

no blood, no gore. Everything was tidy as her mother’s thrashing feet finally disappeared down the

creature’s gullet. There was a mighty burp, then a great sigh of pleasure as the beast licked Its maw.

“Satisfied?” Lauren asked the fiend.

“Aye!”

“Good. Then let’s get down to business.”

“Who is he ?” Angeline heard the woman at the counter ask. She turned and saw a group of foreigners,

two men in long white robes, others in the Western business suits and dark glasses of bodyguards,

coming into the shop.

“I read about him in the paper this morning,” a customer gushed. “That’s that Hasdu Prince. What’s his

name?”

“Jaborn,” Angeline whispered. “Jaleel Jaborn.”

As though he had heard his name spoken, one of the men in the flowing white robes of a desert sheik

turned his head and his penetrating brown eyes locked on Angeline. A slow, interested smile touched his

full lips and he bowed his head in compliment to her beauty.

There was an instant tightening in her belly as she looked at this man. Never had she seen such a

handsome, virile male in all her life. His pictures: in the newspapers, magazines, on the television, had not

done him justice. Here was a man the likes of which any woman on Earth would die to possess.

“He’s flirting with you, Mrs. Hellstrom!” the counter girl breathed.

“Oh, Lord!” the customer beside Angeline gasped. “He’s coming over here!”

She could not take her gaze from his face. There was power in that firm jaw, in that jutting chin. Wealth

and breeding and centuries of control lay behind the intelligence in his eyes. He exuded potency, strength,

and masculinity and when he stepped up to her and bowed elegantly in greeting, his magnetism was

overpowering and nearly suffocating.

“I was told the South held the most precious of this country’s jewels,” he said in a rich, bass voice that

sent tremors of excitement through Angeline’s veins. He reached out and took her hand in his, caressing

her palm with his thumb. “I can see that was no mere boast.” He brought her palm to his lips and kissed

her, his tongue coming out to press a quick dot in the center of her hand.

Angeline Hellstrom’s knees felt as though they would buckle beneath her. Had this glorious stranger not

put out his hands to cup her shoulders, she knew she would have shamed herself by dropping into a heap

at his expensively shod feet.

“What glorious name have they given you, Sweet One?” he asked, drawing her closer to him as though

they were lovers of long standing.

“Angeline,” she whispered, lost in the mesmerizing heat of his eyes.

“Angeline,” he repeated and made the word seem as intimate as a penal thrust into her very core. He

bent forward and his lips claimed hers in a heady kiss. When he drew back, he moved his hands from her

shoulders to her face, to cup her cheeks. “Tell me you will have dinner with me this evening, Angeline.”

She could only nod. Speech was impossible for her lips were tingling from his kiss. The feel of his lips

upon hers had been the stuff of sexual fantasy.

“Tell my man where you live and I will bring the feast to you,” he said, his thumbs stroking her lips. “A

feast to make the gods envious.”

“Gulf Breeze.”

“Gulf Breeze?” he questioned, one dark, thick brow lifting in inquiry. He moved his body so that his full

length was pressed along hers. “Where in Gulf Breeze, my Precious One?”

“242 Riana del Sol.”

“242 Riana del Sol.” The heat of his body was scorching. He repeated the address to one of the men

beside him and then kissed her again, flicking his tongue into her surprised mouth as though they were

alone in the store without dozens of people staring with open-mouth wonder at the spectacle he was

making. “Eight?” he asked, smoothing her hair back from her high forehead.

“Yes,” she managed to whisper.

He bent forward and placed a sweet, chaste kiss on her forehead, then removed his hands. Her

immediate groan of denial and the absence of his touch seemed to please him. “When I put my hands on

you again, Precious One,” he told her in front of them all, “it will take an army of warriors to make me

remove them before I am finished pleasuring you.”

The girl behind the counter nearly swooned with sexual desire. She stared in awe as the tall, handsome

Arab turned and walked away, leaving behind him over a dozen women, including the object of his

attention, wet between the legs.

“Gawd!” some woman mumbled, reaching out to clutch at one of the tall marble columns soaring

upward to the ceiling. “Can you fancy that?”

Angeline’s face was hot, her legs trembling, and there was a definite odor coming from her body that

told her she was as close to being in heat as a human female could get. She fanned herself, ignoring the

excited chattering of the women about her as they begged to know what she was feeling. She walked

away from them, in a lustful daze that carried her blindly from the store and to the waiting limo where

Devlin was watching the procession of men getting into another long, sleek gray limousine.

“Some kind of pog, I think,” Devlin sneered as he got out of the driver’s seat of Angeline’s limo when

she approached. “They think they own the world.” He opened her door. “Dirty, rotten bastards.”

Angeline lowered herself into the limo and reached out with shaking hands to pour herself a crystal glass

of Absolute, neat. She downed the fiery liquor and refilled the glass. Her heart was hammering in her

chest.

“Where do you want to go now, Miss Angeline?” Devlin asked, looking at her through the rear view

mirror.

“Home,” she said. “I have to get ready.”

Devlin nodded, wondering where she was going that night or what man she’d drag home to her bed.

Not that he cared. Such things were nothing more than amusements to him. Sometimes she let him watch

from the hidden room off her bedroom. That was enough for him.

Angeline was unaware of the scenery as they left the store at Cordova Mall. The traffic was just a

hindrance; the endless drive over the Pensacola Bay Bridge, a nuisance. Every red light, every slow or

turning car, every pedestrian, every four-way stop was an excruciating obstruction keeping her from

reaching her bedroom.

The maid at the front door pondered at the vague look her mistress gave her as Miss Angeline hurried

up the curving staircase to her boudoir.

“What lit a fire under her tail?” the upstairs maid asked a few moments later when she joined the

downstairs maid and cook in the kitchen. “She’s tossing dresses around up there like she’s going to a

state dinner.”

“A man,” the cook sneered. “It’s always a man.” She rolled out the dough for a lemon meringue pie,

Angeline’s favorite. “She’s husband-hunting again.”

“You think so?” the butler asked as he looked up from polishing the silver tea pot.

“Uh-huh,” the cook grumbled. “Some old fart who’ll want oatmeal for breakfast with his bran flakes.”

“And who’ll need me to help him get dressed in the morning,” the butler sighed, resuming his polishing.

“For this I was conjured?” He shook his head.

“But he’ll be rich as Midas, that you can be sure,” the downstairs maid giggled.

The cook nodded. “Yep.”

Three Weeks Later

Devlin flung theplate of food toward the cell and waited until the man inside had it before he started

back up the stairs. “Don’t guess she’s going to be keeping you here much longer,” the servant chuckled

as he climbed.

Syntian glanced up from his food. He didn’t want to give the bastard the satisfaction of hearing him ask

why, but the shifting in the Veil had become so powerful, he was getting daily impressions of impending

doom and had been worried about it for several days. He put the plate down and got to his feet, went to

the bars. “Why not?”

The servant turned around at the top of the stairs and glared at him. “She’s getting married to some pog

and he’s going to take her to that country of his.” He thrust out his chest. “I’ll be going, too, but you

won’t.”

Unease made Syntian clutch the bars in front of him. “Did she say that?”

Devlin sensed the other man’s fear and he laughed, liking the power his knowledge had over the

prisoner. “She says she wants to get hold of that Book she was talking about and buy it from the woman

who has it.” He took a step down the stairs. “Once she has it, she can send you back where you

belong.”

The unease turned to instant alarm. “There’s only one woman who can send me back to the Abyss and

she won’t do it. You can remind Angeline of that if you want to.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you.” Devlin took another few steps down the stairs. “If memory

serves right, the female who has the Book is named Lauren. Isn’t that it? Lauren?”

Syntian stared at him. “Lauren doesn’t have the Book. She can’t have it. Her mother has the Book.”

“Her dam is dead,” Devlin growled. “Dead and gone.” He stepped off the stairs and stood facing

Syntian. “Car wreck about a week ago. Wasn’t anything left of her, but bones. Said in the paper it was

one of the worst wrecks ever in Santa Rosa County.”

True terror shot through Syntian. If Lauren had found the Book and if somehow Angeline could get her

to do what needed to be done to send him back to his own private hell, the bitch would do it and Lauren

wouldn’t even know what she’d done until it was too late to correct the error. He’d wanted Lauren to

find the Book, but he sure as hell didn’t want Angeline to get her hands on it.

“She’s going to be here tonight,” Devlin remarked, watching the look of hope form on the prisoner’s

face.

“Lauren?” he asked, his heart hammering even faster against his rib cage. “She’s going to be here?”

Devlin had long since lost his fear of the man inside the cell. He had even walked up to the bars on many

occasions and peered down at Syntian Cree, daring the bastard to try something, but after the incidence

with the water hose, the man appeared to be afraid of him.

“That pog Miss Angeline is marrying is going to be here, too. They’re having one of those fancy dinner

parties like you see in the movies.”

Syntian had no idea of the rift his disappearance had caused between Lauren and Angeline. Angeline

had never mentioned it to him. As far as he knew, Lauren was still working at the store, seeing Angeline

two or three times a week if not more.

“Tell Angeline I want to see her,” Syntian asked, reaching out a pleading hand to Devlin. “Please, Devlin.

Will you do that?”

“Why should I?” Devlin grumbled, coming as close to the cell as he thought advisable. He was out of

range of that questing hand. “I don’t give a damn what you want, Cree!”

“Please?” He put every ounce of whining servitude and deference he could into the word. “Devlin,

please. I’m begging you.”

“Tough shit,” the servant sneered. He reached out and batted Syntian’s hand away. “I’m not telling her