Shadowfae, page 13
part #1 of Shadowfae Chronicles Series
“Doubt it. You should know.” Gamely the fairy grinned at me and grasped the wall with long padded fingers like a frog’s to pull herself to her full height, inches above me. Her beautiful long face shone translucent in the candlelight, blue-veined skin glowing.
She traced a splayed finger over my collarbone and licked the tip, tasting. Her delicate fingers flowed to my chin, lifting it so she could look at me, black pupils slitting wide like a cat’s in silver irises. “You look lost. Want to try something? How about oblivion? I can do you a mean forgetful. Or some fresh abandon, let yourself go, sweet child. What do you say?” She sniffed my mouth, lascivious, flickering her long forked tongue over thin blue lips.
Her fruity river scent drifted, faintly rotten. “No thanks.”
Her fingers on my chin held me fast, her shiny eyes pleading. “You sure? You look like you’ve memory to spare. How about a hit of curiosity? It’s my most popular. Broaden your horizons.”
Her body heat radiated, her curved hipbones standing out like beaks, silvery cotton flowing around her slender bare feet. I shook my head and made to turn away, but I hesitated, thinking of Luna, the challenge glinting in his tiger’s eyes. “What about confidence? Can you bottle me that?”
The veins in her face pulsed azure. “Oh, yes. Assurance to stand you up reckless in death’s face. One bottle, one fix. But worth my price.” She licked her lips again, artful. “I’ll need a memory. Something bold and gallant.”
A shot of recklessness might be just what Luna needed. “Knock yourself out. But just one.”
I closed my eyes, thinking of that warm spring night on the Bosphorus when I met him, lanterns shining over the barge-laden water, the fragrance of pomegranates sweet on the stinging oriental breeze. We danced, silk scarves flowing from my hair, our bodies pressed together, his fingers insistent in mine, his desire for me already pushing his cock hard and ready against my belly.
The fairy giggled and sniffed my face, her warm breath tickling over me. “Mmm. More, please.”
I’d wanted him that night like I’d wanted no other. We’d stumbled through a dim stone doorway, our lips glued together, his tongue mashing mine, my hands already hungry inside his clothes. His body was a revelation, smooth, muscular, strong. I pushed him against the wall and took him there, first with my mouth and then when he could take no more I climbed onto him and he brought me off with his last frantic thrusts. We came together that first time, and later that night when he tied me to his bed with those same silken scarves and tortured me with sweet desire, I thought I’d found life itself.
“Yes. That one.” The fairy glided her lips across mine, salty, parting my lips with her scaly tongue and slipping it inside. My throat constricted as it probed and writhed like a wet snake, and I reeled as the energy dragged up over my tonsils, forcing from me. I gagged, saliva flowing.
“Mmm. Just the thing. Memory food.” She withdrew, her eyes shimmering, and drew out a shiny glass tube. She whispered a puff of breath across the opening, misting the glass. A tiny cloud of golden sparkles showered like fairy dust, drifting down into the tube. She popped in the cork and handed the tube to me between two bony blue fingers. “Take care, lonely child.”
I took it, plastering the back of my hand over my sick mouth, and mumbled indistinct thanks as the fairy glided away, freshly healthy on the energy I’d lost.
Golden ether shimmered in the vial, inviting. I thought once again of the night I met Luna, but I couldn’t remember a thing, and a weak grin spread over my lips despite my nausea. Now, I was armed and dangerous. But Luna wasn’t stupid. He’d be wary of anything I offered him, even hot fresh fairy score like this.
I thumbed the cork aside and sniffed, cautious, careful not to bring the glimmering stuff too close. Icy freshness sparkled up my nose, citrus and stinging like cocaine, tingling my palate as it wafted down. My pulse strengthened, bold despite my fatigue. Sure, I’d get him to take it. Why not?
I slipped the corked tube into my bag and stepped out of the bathroom, trying to feed on that magical confidence. But they were my memories she’d crafted, my essence she’d trapped and tortured, and I knew it for a false high. I tossed my head back, game, but for some reason my ankle buckled and my wobbly legs wouldn’t hold me. My shoulder thudded into the shiny wall as I staggered, pain spearing my guts. Jesus. What had I eaten?
Dizzy, I gripped my stomach with both hands and folded. Red waves shimmered before my eyes, sickening.
Rajah hops up the stone steps and through the automatic glass doors into EurekaTower. Cool air slides pleasantly over his skin after the heat outside, and he scrapes sweat-damp hair off his neck. The foyer glistens, bright yellow downlights reflecting on warm clay-colored marble. He hangs back awhile, waiting for his chance, but his nerves wriggle, and it’s nothing to do with the rapture tricks he’s about to pull. He just hopes Jade and DiLuca are already inside. He doesn’t want to see her with Dante, watch her smile for him, touch him, look at him that way.
The cold words they’d exchanged still scratch at Rajah’s skin like jagged ice, and the shocking heat of their almost-kiss only sharpens the pain. He won’t hold back if he gets that opportunity again, but the chance of that is slim. Maybe he’s just wishing her mesmerized. Maybe she wants Dante more. Hell, she’s probably already swapping more fluids with him than blood.
Jealousy burns his throat like bile, but sorrow taints his mouth, too, sweet as well as bitter. Fuck. What does he care, right? Not like it’ll matter once he’s got Luna’s poisonous soul thrashing in a bottle.
People walk in and out, residents, visitors, and tourists, but he’s interested only in those going in. Three girls and their boyfriends, a glitter of golden bangles, eyeliner and silk. Too many, too difficult. Two guys holding hands, beautiful in smooth expensive shirts, designer stubble, diamond earrings. Too conspicuous. A pair of young women, jeweled chokers sparkling at their throats, long blond hair carefully blow-dried. Satiny party dresses, one pale yellow and one purple, and strappy heels show off long tanned legs. They laugh together as they step into the glass elevator.
Now that’s what Rajah’s waiting for. He slips into the elevator with them, offering a smile. Their perfume drifts, sweet and sexy. “Eighty-seven?”
“Of course.” They eye him up and down, sly painted lashes dipping. One whispers in her friend’s ear, and they laugh.
Rajah leans over to touch the button and releases a silent waft of rapture. The shimmer caresses the girls, brushing over their limbs, creeping along their smooth skin. The one in yellow inhales, a hazy wisp drifting up her nose like a delicious scent, and she flushes, biting her lip as she watches him with smoldering eyes. The second girl is more wary, her frosted eyelids narrowing, but her gaze, too, is drawn, her breath shorter as she shifts on her feet, squirming.
He traps his hands behind him as the elevator door slides shut, his bangles clinking against dark glass, and gives the yellow girl a come-hither look, laced with none-too-subtle glamour.
She practically purrs, her body stretching luxuriantly. His gaze follows the delicate line of her throat, down to her swelling cleavage. Her nipples harden beneath the thin yellow silk, tiny peaks poking, begging for his touch.
Rajah’s blood heats, rapture tingling beneath his skin, but faint sickness sours his mouth, too, and he wonders why. This is just work, just a job that needs to be done. There’s no reason he should feel guilty. It’s not like he’s promised her anything.
His nerves twitch, uncomfortable. Damn it. When did Jade become her?
He shoves his unease away and concentrates on his task, letting glamour flow over the yellow girl, caress her, lick her nipples, trace invisible fingers up her thighs, flood her senses with wanting. She fidgets, lips parted, chest heaving.
He taps his fingers softly on the glass, tense, as the elevator rises with a hiss. “Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” The yellow girl can’t stand still a moment longer. She stalks over and plants her glossy lips on his in a desperate, rapture-drenched kiss, her hands already tugging at his clothes. She tastes of vodka and the bitter sherbet of cheap cocaine.
Rapture ripples lust into his blood, warming his thighs, filling his cock. He lets her ravish him, opening his eyes in mid-kiss to skewer her purple friend with a dark spear of glamour. The purple girl gasps, her muscles jerking, and he grazes his free hand along her jaw and pulls her close, sliding his thumb into the warmth of her eager mouth.
By the time the elevator slows and the door whispers open, they’re entangled in a three-way embrace, unsure of who’s kissing whom and who wants whom more.
“Let’s go inside.” The yellow girl teases Rajah’s lips with her teeth, stinging. He can smell her juice, hot and salty, her sex sore and weeping with too-sudden need, and his rapture gnashes urgent teeth, wanting. He reaches around her to squeeze the purple girl’s narrow ass, pulling both girls closer.
The purple girl squirms and drags hungry hands across her friend’s breasts from behind, playing with swollen nipples, her breath leaving wet marks on the yellow girl’s shoulder. “How about we fuck right here?”
Rajah’s cock jumps in anticipation, and he swallows a smile. “Inside,” he whispers, and they tumble into the penthouse foyer, limbs tangled. The yellow girl simpers at the security guy, digging one-handed in her bag for her invitation, the other hand occupied in sliding up between her friend’s thighs, while Rajah bangs teeth with the purple girl, her kiss rough and desperate, shaking fingers yanking his hair.
“Uh-huh.” The big bald guy squints casually at the gilt-edged invite. “What about him?”
“He’s with us.” They both say it at once, breathless.
Rajah winks at him, and the security guy scowls back. “Half his luck. Don’t make a mess.” He jerks his head gruffly at the black glass door, and they stand straight for just long enough to pass through.
The penthouse is amazing, a vast glassy space suspended above starry nothing, the sea of dazzling men and women glittering like jewels, but Rajah barely has time to look before the girls yank him onto a soft couch in a dim corner, a pile of supple limbs, breasts, silk, soft blond hair. The sweat-drenched perfume of their sex and the sweet mixture of their moans heats his blood, his balls tight and his cock hungry for contact. His rapture crackles, pure lust searing inside him, and it’s an effort to drag himself away. He extricates himself, sliding one girl’s hands onto the other’s body, one girl’s mouth onto the other’s throat. “Knock yourselves out. Gotta go.”
The yellow girl whimpers in displeasure, but the purple girl cuts off her disappointment with a sensual growl, pulling her on top and dragging her smeared mouth downward, blond waves tumbling.
Rajah grimaces and walks stiffly away, forcing air into his lungs to slow his pulse. His thwarted rapture snarls, bitter heat stinging his skin, and an angry shimmer swells the air around him. Beside him, a slender blood fairy in white velvet glances up from his drink, scarlet pupils dilating with desire, and Rajah curses and flickers out of sight before he spreads his damn glamour all over the fucking place.
Glassy music fractures the air, a happy little song about dying from cancer treatment. Still invisible, Rajah heads for the bar, stepping carefully around people who can’t see him. He scans the crowd for Jade, but he can’t pick her from the mass of color and beauty. His stomach tightens with disappointment, and he realizes he misses her. Nerves clench in his spine, uncomfortable. If he sees Dante touching her, he might not be able to contain himself in his current mood. There must be a way he can make her see sense, instead of seeing just another self-absorbed male who thinks he owns her.
Truth is, he burns to own her. His blood rushes again, painful in his already aching cock, and guilt only makes him want harder. To be the only one allowed to touch her, kiss her, penetrate her sweet body and obsess her mind. To be the one who teases her into a laugh, puts that glorious smile on her pretty face, sends her eyelids fluttering closed with bliss. It’s not what she thinks, not just jealous possession. It’s more like . . . Well, he doesn’t want to think about what it really is.
A mortal couple stop talking abruptly as he passes and fall into kissing, and he grits his teeth and clamps down harder on his glamour. The cool air eventually soothes his twitching skin, his rapture sulking in a tight frustrated coil. The fierce ripple in his blood dims, his pulse slowing, and the boiling shimmer in the air subsides to an occasional dirty spark. When he pops back into sight at the black glass bar and orders lemon, lime, and bitters, he gets merely a sultry glance and a lick of glossy lips from the bright-eyed bar girl.
He sips, citrus fizz cooling his throat, and dark prescience prickles the back of his neck.
He spins, his nerves jerking, but sees nothing, no one who stands out from the crowd. He takes a deep breath, calming. Probably DiLuca, showing off.
Or maybe Luna. Rajah gulps his drink, ice and all. If Luna sees him first, and realizes his intent, it’s all over. He has no idea how to steal Luna’s soul. Overt rapture won’t do him any good. Luna is far too clever to let him get that close again. He’ll need his most artful fakery even to get in the same room.
Dark challenge heats Rajah’s skin again, and he has to bite his lip to halt a mischievous smile. Dismay makes him sigh, but it can’t extinguish the old reckless spark in his blood. Trapping Luna shouldn’t be impossible. His biggest weakness was always his ego. Maybe a confidence trick, a clever sham. Rajah has nothing to lose.
Except Jade.
Cold sensation spears his guts. His spine crawls, and he realizes he’s afraid.
He swallows, overcome. His longing for her cuts deep, the pain sharper than he can ignore or explain away. But his freedom demands her sacrifice. He can’t have both.
Well, why the hell not? What’s more important—to live free? Or to live in love?
The idea stops his breath. Her freedom, his thrall, her love. Everything he’s ever wanted . . . Well, almost everything. He can never give her a child, not in thrall, even if she could conceive. Would she forgive him that?
Shit. Did he really just think that? He flushes, reality souring his mouth, and shakes his head at his own stupidity. She’ll never love him. The way he’s acted, all jealous and possessive and lustful, he’s everything she’s ever loathed about men. She’d rather go with a vicious blood-hungry vampire than be with him. And if she were free, just a regular woman, how long could she stand a lover who screwed other women for a living?
He clinks his glass back onto the bar, skidding it away from him in frustration. His crush on her will pass. It always has before, such idle covetous impulse. It has to.
Beside him, a tall water sprite in a slim silver gown winks at him, white hair flowing to blue-veined shoulders. Her diamond eyes twinkle as she sniffs the air, wet wings shining. “What’s that I smell, incubus? Regret?”
A reluctant laugh twists his lips. “Sad but true.”
She sways closer, remnants of a forgotten song crooning in her throat. She smells of the river in summer, warm and tainted. “You’ve no such sorrow from me, I’ll bet.”
He eyes her, curiosity warming his palms. She does look familiar. Maybe he’s fucked her. Something about her bow-shaped lips or the pale line of her chin puts him in mind of St. Kilda Beach at midnight, salty summer breeze, waves lapping, the warm grittiness of sand on his skin. She tasted of sea salt, not sweat, and water rushed beneath her skin in rivulets, warm like blood but blue.
“The penny drops.” An artful smile, blue pointed teeth glinting.
He can’t help another rueful laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart. My mind’s elsewhere.”
She runs a splayed fingerpad around the rim of his empty glass and slips it into her mouth. The forks of her scaly tongue flicker, lascivious. “Want something stronger, pretty? A splash of sweet forgetful? You’ll regret nothing then.”
To forget Jade would be sweet relief. Temptation slides crafty fingers over his thighs, and he’s about to caress the fairy’s chin and ask what sordid favor she wants in return, when a flash of scarlet satin catches his eye. Slender shoulders, soft brown wisps, a vicious splash of . . .
Urgency slams pressure into his racing blood, and he doesn’t even bother to excuse himself.
14
I staggered against the glass wall, and a dark shape materialized, warm hands on my stinging shoulder.
“Bring it up. Come on.” His voice was soft, compelling, and despite my agony, I smelled a whisper of familiar oriental spice.
“Rajah . . .” Relief choked me, and another spasm twisted my guts. “I don’t feel so well.” I leaned against him, shivering, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, gently but insistently forcing me back to the bathroom. I went, stumbling, my ankles tangling. My thrall bangles hissed and sparked, the hot metal tightening painfully on my forearms, but I didn’t care. I wanted to pass out, sleep forever. Candlelight gloated on dark mirrors, the metallic stink of the fairy’s vomit still souring the cool air.
Rajah gripped my shoulders. “Look at me. Jade. Look at me, please.”
With an effort of will I dragged my swimming head up, and he cupped his hands around my face, his thumbs caressing my cheeks. “You have to bring it up. It’s making you sick.”
“What?” My lips fumbled, clumsy. “What d’ya mean?”
He spun me around to face the mirror, leaning over to press his head against mine, his hands gripping my waist, forcing me to look. There I was, fatigue drawing lines around my mouth, mascara smudged on my lashes, my red satin dress twisted where he held me, my bare shoulders gleaming golden in the flickering light. He’d shown up in his full glory in a sleeveless black shirt and jeans, showing off glistening muscles and perfect poise. His dark hair mingled with mine, his beautiful lips tense and close to my ear. A faint shimmer of his rapture flowed over me, warm, probably the remnants of whatever he’d done to get in here.
