Wicked All Night

by Jeaniene Frost

  Phanes stared at me like it would hurt him to pull his gaze away. “You are radiant. Why would you conceal such beauty with that plain appearance?”

  My look said I didn’t appreciate the disparagement. “Long ago, my vampire sire, Tenoch, disguised me from my enemies by glamouring me with his deceased daughter’s appearance. I have been proud to wear her visage ever since.”

  Phanes was silent. Then, he inclined his head in a formal way. “For my unintended insult, I apologize.”

  My opinion of him rose. Some people never admitted a fault, which let you know right off that they were untrustworthy.

  “Apology accepted, and my compliments on your island’s security. It takes a strong magic shield to instantly negate the glamour of anyone entering it.”

  His expression changed back to his normal, confident one. “My security is the best. Now, come. I’ll take you to my home.”

  We walked on the clouds, which of course couldn’t be real clouds or I’d be falling, not walking. But they felt solid and steady even if they looked wispy and formless. Phanes or someone else must’ve glamoured the ground. No surprise that Phanes wanted people impressed by his island.

  As soon as our feet touched the white marble steps leading up to Phanes’s ancient-looking temple, the clouds disappeared. Lush gardens replaced them, bordered by a forest that spread out until I could no longer see the other temples. A group of centaurs galloped toward the temple, their humanoid upper bodies in stark contrast to their equine lower halves.

  “Lord Phanes has returned!” one of the centaurs shouted.

  More people came out from the temple. Some looked like regular humans, some looked part animal and part human, and some . . . damned if I knew what they were.

  “Behold,” Phanes thundered, hoisting my arm over my head. “The daughter of the Eternal River bridging life and death!”

  Oh no he didn’t. I tried to yank my arm free, but his grip tightened. “Don’t,” Phanes said low. “Our agreement stands, but they don’t have to know about it.”

  I’d rather throw up and eat it than act like a trophy being brought home, but if this got me to Ian the fastest . . . fine. I’d never see these people again, anyway.

  I smiled and raised my other arm. Our audience cheered.

  “Tonight, we feast!” Phanes announced.

  Tonight? I kept my smile, but yanked Phanes’s head down.

  “I never agreed to stay the night,” I hissed in his ear.

  He beamed as he folded his wings around us. When I could see nothing except those gold feathers, his grin vanished.

  “You owe me.” A low growl only I could hear. “I accepted your rejection, healed your lover, and soon, I will show you how to release your father from his prison. All I ask in return is that you pretend to be my happy intended bride for one night. Then, leave tomorrow with the information you seek and me as your ally instead of your enemy.”

  The last thing I needed was a new enemy, but there were limits on what I’d do to avoid that. Still, I could understand Phanes’s need to save face with his people.

  “I’ll give you all the smiles and admiring looks you want, but that’s it,” I said in an equally low voice.

  “And two kisses, plus you share my room tonight. Platonically, if you insist,” he added when I drew in a breath to refuse.

  Oh, Ian was not going to like this!

  But would I rather leave my father to rot in the netherworld, plus stay technically engaged to Phanes, and have yet another powerful creature out to kill us?

  You have no choice, my other half said pitilessly.

  Fucking hell. She—I—was right.

  “One kiss, not two, and we don’t sleep in the same bed.”

  Phanes smiled. Nothing in this strange, hidden place compared to its beauty, but after I got what I came for, I never wanted to see it or him again.

  “Agreed. Now”—his wings dropped, revealing us to the still-cheering onlookers—“show them that you are happy.”

  I gave them a bright smile that was the exact opposite of how I felt. Then, I accepted the arm Phanes held out to me, and we ascended the rest of the stairs together.

  Chapter 5

  Once we were inside, everywhere we walked, reds, purples, blues, and gold swirled beneath our feet, as if our footsteps revealed opals trapped within the marble. A glance up revealed massive ceilings supported by Doric columns topped with ornate capitals. Back at eye level, statues of naked men, women, and nymphs lined the walls while fire braziers cast a golden-orange glow, and the scent of flowers mixed with whatever oil fed the flames.

  Phanes must be really into the ancient Greek theme, down to using fire instead of electric lighting.

  Phanes clapped his hands. At once, a group of women wearing matching blue-green dresses appeared and began to hustle me out of the room.

  “My servants will ready you for tonight’s feast,” Phanes said. Then, he returned his attention to his adulators.

  Leaving suited me. It rankled to act as if it were flattering to be treated like a living piece of decoration.

  The women led me to a gorgeous, flower-strewn room with an in-floor marble bath and its own private garden. Once there, I was stripped, bathed, dried, massaged, perfumed, coiffed, and generally treated like a show dog being prepared for the championship round of a competition.

  Things almost took a bad turn when one of the hair-styling women leaned in close enough to brush her throat against my mouth. My fangs popped out, and my stomach growled so loudly that all the servants heard it.

  They jumped back in alarm, and the apparent head housekeeper, Helena, stared at me with shock.

  “Blood Eater,” Helena whispered.

  “Half Blood Eater,” I corrected, since my “daughter of the Eternal River” status was important here. “And I’m not going to bite any of you,” I added when the other servants now gave me a wide berth.

  Helena snapped out something in a language that sounded like the one Phanes had used earlier. Whatever she said had the servants scurrying back to my couch. Then, one by one, they knelt, pulled their hair aside, and presented their necks.

  My stomach growled again, but I shook my head. “No.”

  They didn’t want to do this, and hungry or no, I wouldn’t force them. Besides, I could wait one more day to eat.

  “Helena, I’d like to be alone, so you and the others may go. Before you do, though, can someone bring me a mobile?”

  Helena gave me a blank look.

  “Cell phone,” I amended. Now everyone had puzzled expressions. “Phone,” I stressed, miming holding one up to my ear. “So I can call someone?”

  Helena appeared aghast. “We don’t have such things.”

  “What about a tablet? Desktop computer? Any telecommunications technology?”

  At each question, Helena shook her head. Great. Phanes had brought me to the Greek gods’ version of an Amish village.

  “Then please just leave,” I said with a sigh. “I’m tired, and I want to nap before the feast tonight.”

  Partly true. I was tired, but I would never fall asleep in a strange place surrounded by people I didn’t trust. I did, however, want to be alone.

  Helena pursed her lips, but a few sharp words later, and the room was empty of all except me and her.

  “I will stay to tidy up,” she said.

  What part of “alone” did she not understand? “Thank you, but I desire solitude, so please leave.”

  Color made her dusky cheeks even rosier. “Mistress—”

  “Go,” I said. Did I have to clap like Phanes next?

  Helena pursed her lips. “Very well. I will return after dusk. Be ready to be dressed by then.”

  With another disapproving look, she left.

  I leaned back against the couch with a sigh. I only had to give Phanes his “show off the trophy fiancée” night to rescue my father, end this unwanted engagement, and get back to Ian. One night wasn’t so bad. Compared to watching Ian hover near
death for the past ten days, it should be easy.

  I’ll be home soon, I silently promised Ian. Very soon.

  Chapter 6

  Hours later, Phanes smiled when he saw me. My gown draped from one shoulder, leaving the other bare before hugging my torso and flaring into soft, individual swaths around my legs. The pale pink material was diaphanous, and shimmered under the glow of the thousand tiny starlike lights that now hung from the ceiling as if suspended from invisible strands. My blue-and-gold-streaked hair was upswept, leaving only a few tendrils free. Jeweled hair combs winked when they caught the light, and more jewels decorated my heeled sandals.

  Phanes wore a traditional Greco-Roman-styled tunic, with slits in the back to allow his wings to frame him. Their gold color accented the golden threads that glittered in the garment. He rose as I approached, and I smiled as wide as I’d promised when we made our arrangement earlier.

  I sat to his right at the L-shaped table. Cathedral ceilings soared above us, and hundreds of wall sconces lit the shadowed passages as far as I could see. This temple was much bigger than its exterior appearance indicated. No fewer than fifty guests sat at Phanes’s table, and there were several more tables as big as this one around the perimeter of the room, leaving the center of it curiously empty.

  Phanes clapped his hands. At once the table became laden with delicacies. If I was human and starving, I couldn’t consume a fraction of the food in front of me.

  Phanes clapped again. Music filled the air, along with an instant fog that covered the empty center of the room. Moments later, a platform crested through that fog, revealing dozens of dancers wearing only jewelry, body paint, and enough oil to make their flesh gleam.

  They began to dance. Fog clung to them or dashed away as if it were dancing, too. Some of the dancers were human, some were nymphs, some centaurs, and some were an unknown species, but they all moved with a fluidity that made every leap, sway, and dip mesmerizingly graceful. Soon, the dance took an explicit turn as the dancers began pleasuring themselves and each other with inventive, uninhibited gusto.

  Phanes leaned toward me. “Beautiful, are they not?”

  “They are,” I replied.

  He settled back into his chair. “Pick one. Or pick several. Or pick all of them. Whatever you desire.”

  My brows rose. “Pick them for what?”

  “Pleasure.” He spoke as if the answer were obvious. “They are the most skilled lovers you will ever find, barring only myself, of course.”

  It took all my willpower not to roll my eyes. First, Phanes plied me with excessive pampering, then enough food to choke a horse, and now, he was offering me my own harem. Never let it be said that he did anything by half measures.

  “Thank you,” I said in as appreciative a tone as I could manage. “But you know what I came here for, and it isn’t that.”

  He leaned in, an odd intensity in his gaze. “Very well. Then, tell me what you think about the play. It will begin soon.”

  The music increased in tempo. The dancers matched the new pace until their movements were almost a blur. Then, with a crescendo that thrummed through me like an artificial heartbeat, the dance came to an abrupt, dazzling end.

  Everyone applauded. Then, Phanes clapped his hands, and there was instant silence. The fog around the stage rose, covering the dancers.

  Phanes clapped again. The fog cleared, revealing the stage. The dancers were gone, and a temple appeared to loom in the distance, with people and creatures of all types frolicking in a village in front of the temple. No surprise, the frolicking soon turned erotic.

  I fought a sigh. I had no interest in watching another orgy, let alone one with a Fifty Shades of Centaurs subplot, but Phanes apparently didn’t offer any other form of entertainment.

  Ian wouldn’t be bored. He’d be taking notes, my other half thought with more amusement that I had believed her capable of.

  She was right, and it only made me miss him more.

  It hurt to dwell on that, so I concentrated on the play. Thankfully, the orgy was soon interrupted by a new actor and actress who were clearly playing the part of villains. The actress had fake, frost-coated wings, and she froze several of the revelers in place with a mime of a deadly ice storm. The actor scattered the remaining revelers with a mock earthquake that destroyed the temple. Then, the evil duo set up a new temple, and the remaining revelers now had yokes on them and looked miserable as they mimed serving their new rulers.

  A new actor swooped onto the stage wearing large, fake golden wings. He began vanquishing the villains to cheers from the villagers. By the play’s conclusion, the villains were in cages in a dark pit, and the actor who was clearly representing Phanes ascended to a duplication of Mount Olympus. When the fog finally rose to cover the stage, the audience broke into wild applause.

  I clapped, too, since it was only polite. Once the applause died down, Phanes turned to me.

  “What did you think, my lovely one?”

  That having an entire play performed to praise you is so arrogant, even Vlad Dracul would tell you to tone it down.

  I didn’t say that, of course. I just replied, “I’m overwhelmed,” which was also the truth.

  He leaned in so close that his lips brushed my ear. “Once, before the Great Flood, I saved your world from the cruel deities ruling it. Now, I can give you more riches, pleasure, and protection than you’ll ever need. That’s why your father honored me by betrothing me to his future seed. He wanted you to be with a worthy mate. I am that mate, Veritas.”

  It took everything to keep my smile frozen in place, let alone keep my other nature from showing her opinion of being referred to as “future seed.” Phanes came from an era where family-arranged marriages were the norm, and where offering to buy my affection with jewels, orgies, and protection was probably a compliment.

  “You’re a very worthy mate,” I told Phanes, which was what he wanted to hear. Then, I kissed him.

  He was so startled, he didn’t react for a full three seconds. Not used to a woman taking sexual control, was he? He and I would have been the worst match.

  By the time Phanes recovered and his arms went around me, I was already pulling away and acting as if the brief kiss had flustered me. Our onlookers cheered, and I fidgeted as if I were fourteen instead of several hundred years past four thousand.

  One kiss with witnesses, done.

  “All the excitement has exhausted me,” I said, ducking to tuck my head against his chest. It fit my “exhausted” claims, and also blocked his attempt to extend our kiss.

  He hadn’t specified in our bargain how long the kiss had to last. That was his problem, not mine.

  “Let me retire to the bedchamber,” I went on, then added in a louder voice so there was no chance he could claim that I hadn’t held up my end of the second half of our bargain, “And I hope it won’t be too long until you join me, Phanes.”

  More cheers, this time accompanied by the expected amount of ribald encouragement. Phanes laughed, wrapping a wing around my shoulders as he turned to our guests—

  “Sorry, luv, but Phanes is going to be indefinitely detained,” said the very last voice I expected to hear.

  Shock stabbed me. No. It couldn’t be.

  I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I turned toward that voice. Then my gaze was welded to the tall, auburn-haired man striding through the remaining fog, a red cape billowing behind him as if it were his own pair of wings.

  It can’t be! my mind continued to rage.

  But it was.

  At last, my other half thought.

  Phanes’s wing dropped from my shoulder as if he were shocked, too. Then, his arrogance returned, and he boomed, “Who dares to enter my temple without invitation?”

  I’d seen blood dripping from knives that didn’t look as threatening as the smile Ian gave Phanes.

  “I dare, mate.”

  Chapter 7

  For a paralyzing moment, I had no idea what to do. Would rushing over to
Ian humiliate Phanes to the point that it guaranteed they fight to the death? Or would staying at Phanes’s side incite Ian to do something even more rash than barging into a lesser god’s temple as if he owned the place? Could I do anything to prevent bloodshed, or were we irrevocably fucked?

  “How did you penetrate my security?” Phanes demanded.

  “Not without difficulty,” Ian replied, sounding faintly amused now. “And I hear you have to defeat the ruling temple’s champion for the right to safe passage in your lands, so, whoever the champion is, consider them challenged.”

  Irrevocably fucked it is! my other half thought.

  Phanes met Ian’s stare. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Ian hadn’t deigned to look at me at all yet.

  “Who are you, to think you can issue such a challenge?”

  Was Phanes pretending he didn’t know Ian because he didn’t want to admit that this was his fiancée’s lover? Or did Phanes not remember what Ian looked like now that he was healed?

  Ian certainly didn’t resemble the half-shriveled husk Phanes had first glimpsed, especially in his medieval-knight-meets-modern-warrior attire. His auburn hair brushed the shiny armor on his broad shoulders, and more armor covered his wrists, forearms, and calves before a larger piece covered his front like a breastplate. But the rest of him was clad only in black tactical gear, drawing several admiring looks from Phanes’s guests at how the form-fitting fabric accentuated his muscled thighs, biceps, and ass.

  Ian winked at his most obvious gawkers, proving his peripheral vision was as sharp as ever. Was his power back to normal, too? Or was it still too soon after that terrible, body-ravaging magic? He’d only been healed six or seven hours ago . . .

  “I’m a son of noble birth, which is all I need to be to issue such a challenge,” Ian replied.

  Were those the rules? How sexist and classist . . . and how did Ian know this, let alone how was he here in the first place?

  Ashael sidled up to Ian, wearing the same Greco Roman–style tunic as Phanes. That’s how Ian had gotten here!