Morning! Welcome to my sixth installment of Tuesday Tales where a group of authors get together and write to the same prompt. Thanks so much for stopping by. In keeping with the holiday spirit, this weeks's prompt is "Trick or Treats" and I was able to work it in to chapter three of my current wip, From Lust To Ashes, my paranormal erotic romance.
Kathleen Grieve (Medical Romance/Paranormal)
(Unedited~NC17~ Rated~No explicit sex, but there is some violence and adult language)
Femme Fatale Agent, Scarlet Reed watched as the balding overweight man scurried across the street. In his haste, he stumbled, not once, but twice. Sweat and fear emanated from him in waves.
Humans, a sad pathetic race. Easy prey for all the supernatural beings in the grand universe. Always ready to give up their greedy little secrets for sex or money placing them in need of the Sun Council’s constant protection and rescue. Little did they know how important the Phoenix were. The elite Femme Fatale Force kept the delicate balance that currently existed between species.
Some believed humans the weakest link in the chain and would take great pride and a perverse joy in driving them to extinction. If it weren’t for the Sun Council saving their asses by using agents such as her, humans would’ve been destroyed hundreds of years ago. As a mortal, she’d been sacrificed to the Sun God, Ra, excited and eager to be called to service and leave her miserable human existence behind. Now, it was her job to make sure humans weren’t preyed upon.
Scarlet glanced down from her five story perch of the roof of the abandoned building just as her target entered a titty bar decorated in the spirit of the upcoming Halloween holiday. The blatant display of “witches” with exaggerated cleavage and g-strings almost comical. She smiled.
Straightening, the night wrapped its velvety shroud around her. She cocked her head, listening to sounds of music and the randy shouts of lustful men with her keen hearing. At 204 years of age, she was one of the youngest Phoenix. Phoenix were reborn on the anniversary of their human death when the Akthuá began--a painful transition where their powers and heightened senses were weakened right before they were consumed by fire and turned to ash.
She grimaced, her most recent agonizing experience with the Akthuá still fresh in her memory. The process started relatively easy enough with the loss of balance. Her beautiful burnished red hair with its golden highlights had turned dull and fell out in tufts. She lost the ability to see using her night vision. Her core body temperature rose until the first flames licked her flesh and then she’d been devoured in blessed incineration, screaming for the mercy of Sekhmet, the Goddess of War begging to die and end a misery seemingly with no conclusion.
From the pile of the ash, a Phoenix is rejuvenated and blessed with a new power. Some can foretell the future. Others can read minds. There were even those Phoenix that manipulated time and space, but only the very old gain that ability. Their powers of persuasion through seduction and sex were beyond compare. And Vamps thought they cornered the market in sensuality. Scarlett snickered. As if…
Each Akthuá a Phoenix endured was more painful than the last. Shrieks of agony from those even much older than herself could be heard from the corners of the earth, to the heavens above, and straight down to the fiery depths of hell. Which was why during Akthuá a Phoenix would check into Sanctuary.
The healers of Sanctuary could do little to ease the extreme torment, but they provided protection in a Phoenix’s vulnerable state.
Protection against Him.
A frisson of fear twisted and snaked around her spine, coiling tight. She shivered. Scarlett dismissed her morbid thoughts before they became rooted in her brain. After this last Akthuá, her body was now restored and fresh. Her new power of levitating objects provided a new thrill, but an unfounded apathy had taken hold. Her very existence bored her when she wasn’t on assignment.
How the sweet fuck was she supposed to deal with that shit? When she returned to the house which she shared with the rest of the Phoenix, she’d ask Magna a few questions. At over a thousand years old, she was the oldest living Phoenix in existence and their leader. Scarlet slipped off her five inch stilettos and leapt from roof and landed on the sidewalk five stories below with ease. No sense in ruining her favorite Jimmy Choos by being careless. Replacing her heels, she adjusted the black leather mini skirt and golden sequined tank top she wore, then took the same path as her target across the deserted street.
Judging by the pheromones of the man of interest to a certain vampire faction, he’d be putty in her hands. Her lips curved as exhilaration rushed through her veins replacing her earlier apathy. Thank the Goddess. She lived for this shit.
Trick or treats little man, here I come…
Scarlet grasped the door handle of the entrance of the bar, the neon lights announcing Live Nude Dancers above her head flickered. An electric current charged the air, tugging and clawing at her scant clothing. One of the street lights outside the club imploded and shattered glasses littered the sidewalk at her feet. The music from the titty bar dimmed and sounded muffled to hear acute hearing.
Irritation rising over the delay to her own pending sexual release, she dropped her hand and turned to face the intruder head on. Scarlet wondered if the vampire faction interested in her balding target received wind of the Sun Council’s interest in him. No matter, she could handle a vamp easily enough with both hands tied behind her back and in her highest stilettos without chipping a nail.
The only light was the flashing reds and blues from the vulgar tits and tassel covered nipples above. Her sharpened gaze swept up and down the deserted street and she sent out an arc of power, using all her supernatural senses. Her skin glowed with the radiance of the Sun and her long golden red hair twitched and swayed around her and found…nothing.
Scarlet frowned. There had to be another supernatural being present and yet… Edgy, she flexed her fingers. She needed a good fuck. Between the Akthuá and her last assignment, it seemed like forever since she’d been laid. “Whoever is fucking with me better come forward,” she said to the empty blackness around her. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Ah, spoken like a true warrior,” a deeply cultured voice said. “Even if you are a bit young.”
A “man” stepped from the shadows to her left. Scarlett strained in the darkness, but even with her enhanced night vision, he remained shrouded within the confines of the night. He drew near with a casual stride and as he came closer toward the flashing neon lights mounted on the building, his figure still remained in gloom. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled and an alien emotion kindled. An emotion Scarlet hadn’t felt in 204 years—fear.
“Who are you,” she whispered, even though she knew. Oh my fucking God, she knew. This was no vamp after her target. It was Him. Osiris, God of the dead and ruler of the Underworld.
If she’d been older and more powerful, she would've had a chance to escape. Helpless, her gaze tranfulsfixed on her assailant, she stood immobile, her limbs heavy and stiff. A fresh current of electricity cracked and popped around her and he drew nearer, his show of dominance clear. Osiris was in control of her body now. Panic rose up the back of her throat and she choked on her own bile.
“Now, that wasn’t very nice of me,” he said and with a flick of a wrist, the bile dissipated and her coughing spasms quieted.
Blanketed in complete darkness, his silhouette stopped directly in front of her, he reached out and caressed her cheek with a fingertip. An icy trail of pain sliced through her skin and blood oozed onto her favorite tank top. Tears sprang to her eyes and a small cry escaped her parched lips. Under his complete influence and control, she was trapped.
“So, beautiful,” he murmured. “Such a shame.” His voice held no regret. Instead his underlying excitement bubbled and hissed in the atmosphere around where they stood. The neon lights above them burst, shrouding them in complete obscurity.
Osiris trailed his fingertips over the smooth column of her throat down the deep vee of her sequined blouse and cupped her breast through the thin material. His touch light and erotic despite the iciness that bordered toward being frost bitten. Scarlet’s skin blackened and rotted in his hand's wake. He flicked his thumb over her nipple and the peak throbbed and swelled. She whimpered, all begging and pleading trapped within her throat. His shadowed face neared hers ever so slowly.
Time spun increasing the agony of his hold on her. The wound in her neck and chest gaped, oozing the rancid scent of sulfur and puss. All of this she could see in her mind’s eye as he projected his sight into her brain. Terror renewed itself. She reached deep within herself for her own power. The Sun’s luminosity shone brightly around her and snapped fresh tension into the atmosphere. And yet, she remained motionless. The harder she tried, her skin glowing with brilliance and heat, the more she trembled within the circle his unrelenting hold.
“That’s it, Scarlet, baby,” Osiris said in a husky whisper. “Give me what I need.”
His mouth caressed her mouth. Against her will, she opened and allowed him entrance. His tongue snaked inside, devouring her. He tasted of rotted flesh and death. Flames licked her skin as her internal thermometer shot toward super nova. Too late, she realized her feeble mistake of using her powers to protect herself as her life’s essence drained from her soul and into the Dark God, Osiris.
Her experience with the burning within the Akthuá never prepared her for such torment. Unable to scream. Unable to move. The unending torture stretched beyond her as the Sun’s light dimmed and in a swift move, combustion took hold and Scarlet turned to a pile of ash on the sidewalk never to be reborn again.
I hope you enjoyed this sneak peak into From Lust To Ashes! Don't forget to check out some other free reads over at Tuesday Tales at this link: http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com/
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Happy Tuesday!!
Kathleen
