Wicked Pleasure

by Nina Bangs

  “Stubborn son of a bitch.” Conall’s contribution to the discussion.

  “You’re letting pride get in the way of common sense.” Eric’s input.

  “Right on both counts.” Brynn kept his gaze fixed on the Gulf, almost obscured now by the thick fog. Nice metaphor for his life before coming to the Castle of Dark Dreams. Surround your soul with white nothingness where no emotions could find you, and you learned to survive. Oops. Forgot. He didn’t have a soul. “Now that we’ve got that straight, you can leave.”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t think so.” Eric turned his back to the Gulf and stared down instead at the castle’s courtyard where two fanged fakes were weaving unsteadily toward the drawbridge. “Don’t know why the owner insisted on a real moat. Someone’s going to fall in one night and then sue our asses.”

  Conall turned to follow Eric’s gaze. “I liked Holgarth’s idea about stocking the moat with gators. Can’t sue from inside a gator’s belly.” Conall sounded like he’d gleefully chuck Brynn into the moat as gator food.

  Brynn exhaled slowly. Conall was pissed. Previous experience had taught him a rant wouldn’t be far behind.

  “Dammit, look at me, Brynn.” Conall got into his face and smacked him on the shoulder, forcing Brynn to meet his gaze.

  Eric and Conall were the only two beings he’d take that from. Anyone else would find himself on a one-way flight to the courtyard below. Brynn forced himself to relax. Good thing that Conall was a friend. Even demons and vampires didn’t go around flinging six foot five inch tall immortal warriors from castle walls.

  “We’re pretending to be three ordinary brothers running a theme park attraction, but we’re not brothers and we’re not ordinary. Don’t forget for one minute that you have a vampire and a cursed warrior with a bad attitude watching your back.” Conall speared Brynn with a hard stare and then stepped back.

  Eric continued to watch the two who would be vampires below as they crawled into a cab. “I think you’re wrong not to accept our help, but I guess I understand. When Taurin was out to get me, I wanted to take him down by myself. It was an ego thing.”

  Brynn allowed himself a smile that was more grimace than anything else. “Don’t know how much pride there is in doing battle with a woman who barely reaches my shoulders.”

  Eric shook his head. “Not a woman. Liz is a vampire. She’s only a few hundred years old, but she’s powerful and used to getting her own way. And she wants you. A locked door will keep a human out of your room, but a lock won’t stop Liz. It’ll just tick her off.”

  “So how’d you get rid of her tonight?” Conall seemed to have accepted that Brynn wouldn’t allow him to kick Liz’s evil little behind out of Galveston.

  Brynn’s smile was more real this time. “Our shiny new architect saved me. I’d gone outside thinking maybe the cold and damp would eventually drive Liz back inside, but no luck. Then the architect showed up. I think Liz was sizing her up for a midnight snack, and while they were talking I attached myself to the architect. Just in time, too. I only had a few minutes left.” Only a few minutes before he would’ve had to offer Liz his body. Again.

  “Don’t worry, though. Liz will only be here for two more days. I have five hundred years of coping skills behind me, so I should be able to avoid her for that long. And if I don’t?” He shrugged. “What’s one more night of sex?” Just another piece of his humanity torn off and chewed up. Of course, he’d never been human, not even for one day of his existence.

  Eric frowned. Ever since he’d married Donna, he’d gone all serious about this only-one-life-mate crap. “There has to be a way to find out who or what did this to you.” He lifted his lips to expose his fangs, hinting at what would happen if the entity refused to release Brynn. “Tell me again what you remember about that day.”

  “He’s told us the story a dozen times, Eric.” Even Conall seemed to understand the futility of searching for clues where none existed.

  Brynn shrugged. “Nothing to tell. I woke up at an inn with no memory of who I was or how I’d gotten there. I rolled out of bed, looked at myself in what passed for a mirror, and knew what I was and what I was expected to do. No one at the inn recognized me, but there was a horse waiting for me in the stable, and I had gold to buy what I wanted.” He frowned. “Wait. I do remember something I never told you before. There was a cat in the room with me. Big black-and-white tomcat. I didn’t know how it got into the room and didn’t care. I had other things to worry about.”

  Eric nodded. “Someday you’ll remember something important, and then we’ll nail the bastard that did this to you.”

  Brynn grinned. Eric and Conall were fierce in their friendships, and that’s what made the Castle of Dark Dreams a place he intended to call home for a long time. “Get over it. I’m a demon. No rhyme or reason, no miracle cure.” He glanced at his watch. “If I’m lucky, Liz will spend the rest of the night hunting dinner.”

  “Just to make sure you get some uninterrupted sleep, I’ll put a shield across your door and window. Liz isn’t powerful enough to get through it.” Eric’s mouth was set in a determined line.

  Brynn said nothing as he followed Eric and Conall back into the castle. Eric would try to protect him no matter how much he argued, so he let it go.

  And as he lay in his bed a short time later, he thought about Kim and her strange . . . Cell phone? Demon destroyer? Gag toy?

  By rights he should be more intrigued by the possibility of a machine that could destroy demons than by the castle’s resident architect. But amazingly, the memory of full lips with a tempting shine that dared him to slide his tongue across them, and green eyes that shone with all the emotions he kept carefully hidden, wouldn’t let him concentrate.

  Scary. After five hundred years, women only stirred him sexually when he was under the compulsion. Kim Vaughn was a whole new ball game.

  3

  “Ack! Wake up, Kimmie. Kitty demon alert.” Fo’s screeches poked holes in the warm, comfy lethargy of Kim’s sleep, letting the new day in. “Push my Destroy button. Now!”

  Kim scrunched her eyes more tightly shut and tried to recapture the fast-fading dream of a perfect male face attached to a perfect male body. Obviously a Brynn-induced fantasy. The whole magnificent package was in the act of performing erotic acts on her willing body. She clenched her teeth. Fo was cheating her out of an awesome orgasm.

  “Get your butt out of bed and help me nuke the demon. It’s our job, our purpose in life. The demon’s sitting on your chest, and it’s getting ready to suck your soul out through your mouth. WAKE UP!” Fo was working herself into a frenzy.

  Fo’s paranoia had taken a sharp right turn from the moment they hit Galveston. Kim would have to do something about her. She got a sudden mental image of Fo’s small case resting in the middle of a psychiatrist’s couch. She could hear it all now. “So tell me, Ms. Fo, do you harbor deeply repressed memories of Ms. Vaughn attacking you with a can opener, hmm? And how do you feel about that?”

  Kim smiled but didn’t open her eyes.

  “Wake up, Kimmie! You have to teach me how to push the button by myself, because we’ll never off any demons if you can’t get your lazy behind out of bed.” Fo sounded ticked off. “Fine, just let it sit on your chest all day and suck out your soul, your brain, your heart, your—”

  Kim frowned as she tried to ignore Fo’s litany of vital organs she was about to lose to the “kitty demon.” She must’ve caught something, because her chest did have that heavy, hard-to-take-a-breath feel. Great, all she needed on top of Fo’s caterwauling was a chest cold.

  “You’ll be sorry you didn’t get up when I tell Lynsay about how you let a demon escape.” Fo had progressed to vindictiveness.

  Lynsay and Fo, what a scary duo. Kim’s sister would cheerfully zap every person Fo said was a demon—Lynsay was totally into her job—leaving a trail of outraged citizens in her wake. Can we say many, many lawsuits?

  “Are you awake yet? Oh, and if you can’t make mini-m
outh be quiet, I’ll be glad to bury it in someone’s backyard. Did I ask if you’re awake yet?”

  Not Fo’s voice. The voice was impatient, female, and . . . in her head.

  In her head? Kim opened her eyes to meet the unblinking blue eyes of a Siamese cat. It sat in regal splendor on her chest, its tail curled around its slender, elegant body.

  “Good. You’re up. I was going to meow to wake you, but the noisy ninny on your night table would’ve drowned me out. Please make it stop that god-awful shrieking.” The cat slid its gaze to Fo.

  Kim stared up at the cat and tried to force words past the boulder in her throat.

  “Yo, Kimmie, are you okay? Did it suck out your—”

  “Shut. Up.” The cat studied Fo through slitted eyes. “Do it. Otherwise I might be forced to abandon my civilized veneer and loose the beast within. The maid would be vacuuming up bits of you for weeks.”

  Fo fell silent.

  The cat calmly returned her attention to Kim. “See, you just need to be firm with it.”

  Kim concentrated on talking. She could do this. She hunted demons, but she’d never awakened to find one sitting on her chest. Was the cat a demon? Had Fo cried wolf once too often, and Kim hadn’t believed her?

  “What are you?” Three words. Hey, this talking wasn’t so hard.

  “Not what, Kim. Who.” The cat began to wash its face. “I’m Asima, messenger of Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess. Oh, and to clear up the usual stereotypical misconceptions, Bast is not just a happy, fluffy sex goddess. She’s an Eye of Ra, and her wrath is legendary.” Asima sent Fo a meaningful glare. “I’m not free to tell you what my true mission is here, but while I’m waiting to fulfill it, I amuse myself by taking an interest in a few select humans.”

  Lucky me. “So you’re not a demon?” Stupid question. Lying was a national sport to demons. She’d bet they even had a Lying World Series.

  Asima looked down her long, haughty nose at Kim. “Bite your tongue. Demons are the Neanderthals of the nonhuman entity world. Great bumbling boobies. No sense of taste or culture. I love the opera, ballet, and Shakespearean plays. Demons love mud wrestling and Cheeze Doodles.”

  “Why’d you choose me, and would you please get off my chest?” Kim ignored Fo’s small noises of outrage.

  Asima stood, stretched leisurely, and then leaped gracefully onto the night table, landing beside Fo. Kim always left Fo open at night on the off chance a demon might feel the need to sneak into her room. She sighed. Okay, really so that Fo could see something besides the inside of her case. Now Fo stared up at Asima with wide purple eyes that filled her whole screen. Probably visualizing the maid vacuuming.

  “I knew the moment I saw you that you were a woman of culture and good taste—although you really need some help with your wardrobe, and your undies beg for an upgrade from slutty to elegant, but we’ll deal with that at another time. Anyway, since you’re our new architect, I decided to run a few ideas past you.”

  “You poked around in my closet and drawers?” Messenger of Bast or not, enough was enough. “And how’d you get into my room? I locked the door last night.”

  Asima did the equivalent of a cat shrug. “I unlocked it and walked in. When you have goddess connections, you can do things like that. Now can we talk about perhaps adding a small theater to the castle? Nothing fancy, just an intimate area where we could hold the occasional cultural event—Swan Lake, or maybe The Taming of the Shrew.”

  “No.”

  Asima blinked. “No?”

  Obviously those with goddess connections weren’t used to the word no. “I’m not talking about anything until I’ve had my coffee, eaten breakfast, and taken a shower, in that order. Then I’ll put on my tacky undies and something totally uncool from my closet. Finally I’ll take a long walk to see if I can get my head on straight.” Kim pointed to the door. “You may leave now.” She didn’t know how much longer she could hold it all together. First feeling someone else’s emotions and now listening to a cat in her head. And in between the two, she’d met a few people who seemed just a tiny bit off.

  Asima twitched her tail, plainly irritated. “Well, I suppose I should give you some time to settle in.” She glanced down at Fo. “And please do something with those eyes. Purple makes me shudder. Silver or gold would project a more stylish image. Perception is everything, my tiny demon destroyer.”

  Fo narrowed her eyes slightly. “My name is Fo, and I like my eyes.”

  Asima yawned. “Whatever.” She leaped from the night table, padded to the door, stared at it, and when it swung open, she left with her tail waving serenely in the air.

  Kim closed her eyes for the moment of blessed silence she knew would be all too short.

  “Kimmie?” Fo sounded hesitant. “I heard her in my head.”

  In my head. More and more Fo was attributing human characteristics to herself. Kim didn’t have the heart to correct her.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Kim rubbed the middle of her forehead where a headache was trying to form. Then she opened her eyes. “Let’s not talk about Asima now.” She called room service for breakfast and a whole pot of coffee. Then she crawled out of bed to begin the rest of this really terrific day.

  Kim wasn’t looking forward to the moment when Fo found out she wasn’t going with Kim today.

  Brynn reached the top step and paused. He’d purposely taken the stairs instead of the elevator so he’d have more time to think over the pros and cons of what he was about to do—knock on Kim Vaughn’s door.

  It would be a good thing to get a closer look at that cell phone. If it was a fake, fine. If it was the real deal, he’d have to decide what to do about that.

  It would be a bad thing to purposely initiate contact with the enemy. And women were his enemies, to be treated with suspicion and avoided whenever possible.

  Each floor of the towers only had two rooms, so he didn’t have to search far to find Kim’s. He strode to her door and smiled grimly as he noted that she was in the Wicked Pleasure room. A fitting description of what he brought to the sexual table. Brynn hesitated before knocking. He could still walk away.

  The sound of angry screaming from inside the room caught him by surprise.

  “You can’t leave me here, Kimmie. It’s against the rules. I’ll tell your dad. I’ll tell Lynsay. I’ll tell—”

  The screams belonged to Kim’s cell phone. He couldn’t hear Kim’s response.

  “I can’t help it if everyone in this castle is a demon. I’m supposed to tell you when I find one. You can’t leave me here all day. Who am I supposed to talk to, the plants?”

  Again he couldn’t hear how Kim countered that argument.

  “It’s dangerous out there. If a demon knows you don’t have me with you, it’ll kill you. Then you’ll be sorry.” The phone seemed to get a lot of satisfaction from that thought.

  Kim evidently had an answer for that argument, too.

  “Pleasepleaseplease take me with you, Kimmie. I won’t say one word. Even if I sense demons closing in on all sides, I’ll just vibrate. Very hard. Maybe I’ll just whisper the word ‘demon.’ Very softly.”

  Kim finally raised her voice. “No. Ever since we hit Galveston, you’ve accused everyone we met of being a demon. What’re the chances, huh? You’re embarrassing me, Fo.”

  “But they were demons.” Fo’s voice slid easily from emotion to emotion. She was now trying on her petulant little girl voice for size. It seemed that even female machines were adept at manipulation.

  Brynn was fascinated—by Fo and by Kim. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had dredged up any interest in him at all, let alone fascination. It wouldn’t last, but he’d ride the wave until it died on the beach.

  “The little ladies are having quite a dustup in there, aren’t they?” The voice spun Brynn around.

  The man was tall with brown hair, brown eyes, and a wide smile. Brynn smiled back even as he touched the man’s mind. Force of habit. His smile faded.

  The
man’s smile turned mocking. “Yeah, I’m a demon. I could’ve told you that and saved you the trouble of rooting around in my mind.” He held up his hand to keep Brynn from interrupting. “I’m a eudemon, one of the good guys.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe good guys is going too far. Eudemons don’t give a crap about humans. We just want to be left alone to do our own thing.”

  His expression cleared. “Don’t sense any cacodemons around. Those are the ones the Vaughn woman and her demon detector are hunting.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Not that any of the Vaughns ever stop long enough to realize there’s a difference. Their motto is, ‘Kill them all.’ Oh, and I’m Wade Thomas.”

  “Brynn McNair. My brothers and I help run the castle. The Vaughn family? Sounds like you know them.” And why don’t you sense I’m a demon like you? “Bad luck that you have a room right across from a Vaughn.”

  Wade laughed. “I don’t believe in coincidences, but I’ll investigate that later. No problem, though. That’s one crazy demon detector. Someone must’ve dropped it once too often, because it thinks everyone’s a demon. Ms. Demon Hunter won’t have a clue who is and who isn’t one. It’s all good.”

  “How’d you find out so much about your neighbor?” Talk about bad luck. A demon hunter right across from a demon. A hotel’s reservation nightmare. It had to be a coincidence.

  “I did some snooping. It pays to know who’s nearby.” Thoughts of the Vaughn family seemed to drain his good humor. “The freakin’ Vaughn family has been a pain in the butt for centuries. There’re hundreds of them. They get their kicks from destroying, and some of them aren’t too selective about what they kill.”

  “But the detectors only destroy demons, right?” Brynn wasn’t afraid for himself. He’d learned centuries ago that fear didn’t make anything better. Besides, there were things worse than fear. But he had to make sure both humans and nonhumans in the castle were safe.

  Wade shrugged. “Some of the old-timers don’t trust the detectors and go with their gut feelings. They carry their swords with them to lop off heads. Must think we’re damned vampires.”