by Nina Bangs
“Normally, I’d just say . . .” He couldn’t help it. He bent down, ran his tongue over the sensitive skin behind her ear, and laughed softly as she stiffened. “Want to fuck, babe?”
Brynn waited expectantly for her to cringe away from him. She didn’t. Instead, she turned her head to study him with cool green eyes. “Does it work? Do they turn you down?”
He shrugged. “Not often enough.”
“I have an answer to your question, Brynn.” Fo’s eyes somehow managed to express deep thought.
“Question?” Brynn had forgotten what he’d asked.
“You wanted to know if Kimmie should use me to destroy you.” Fo paused as if contemplating the ethical enormity of her decision. “It wouldn’t be right for her to make me destroy a being who’d saved me from death. I might not survive the trauma. Kimmie would have to put me in a mental health facility at enormous expense.”
“Thanks, Fo.” Interesting. Fo thought of herself in human terms—dead as opposed to inoperative.
Kim’s cell phone rang, stopping any possible rebuttal to Fo’s reasoning. Kim got up and walked to her bed. She pulled the phone from her jacket pocket, then looked at him expectantly. She thought he’d leave. No chance.
Annoyed, she turned her back to him, as though that would stop him from hearing. “Hey, Lynsay. What’s happening?”
Pause.
“What? You’re kidding. You can’t.”
Pause.
“Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it. I . . .” Kim blinked and pulled the phone away from her ear to look at it. “She hung up on me.”
“Who’s Lynsay?” He could reach into her mind, but clattering around inside Fo’s consciousness had tired him out.
“My sister.”
He waited.
“Good-bye, Brynn.” Her expression said he was dismissed.
With a slashing smile aimed at both Fo and her, he nodded and left, closing the door softly behind him. Kim collapsed onto the bed. Her very first morning at the Castle of Dark Dreams, and she felt like she needed to spend some quality time with her head buried under the covers.
But she didn’t have time to hide in a dark place contemplating her navel. She had to call Lynsay back and stop her from coming to the castle. And Lynsay was bringing Uncle Dirk. Who was Uncle Dirk? Probably one of the far-flung Vaughn family members she’d never met. Lynsay said he’d contacted Mom and Dad with info about possible demon activity here.
Kim had to convince Lynsay she could handle things on her own. But since Kim had never even gotten within sniffing distance of the Demon Hunter of the Year award, Lynsay—who’d won it three times—might be a hard sell.
Kim rubbed the back of her neck to dispel some of her tension. No way did she want her family here messing up her first job as an architect. Is that your only reason?
Fine, so she didn’t want Lynsay to discover that Brynn was a demon. She owed him for Fo. Besides, he had enough problems without having to hide from rabid demon hunters. Lynsay and Uncle Dirk wouldn’t spend even a second wondering if Brynn was truly demonic. They’d destroy him. It must be nice to have no doubts about the rightness of your cause, no twinges of conscience.
Any other reasons you don’t want them to destroy Brynn?
Nope. None at all.
Liar.
The bottom line? She wouldn’t help her family out demons in the Castle of Dark Dreams. Later on she’d think of a nice, satisfying rationalization—one without the name Brynn in it—that didn’t sound like a betrayal of all her family stood for.
Exhaling deeply, Kim reached for her phone. But a knock on the door stopped her in mid-reach. What now? So far, she hadn’t met one single normal human in this blasted place. No, wait. The guy who’d stomped on Fo seemed pretty normal.
Sighing, she climbed off her bed and walked to the door. Steeling herself for whatever might be on the other side, she pulled the door open.
Ohmigod! A man. A very big man. Kim tipped her head back and looked way, way up. She gulped. He was huge, all bulky muscle and dangerous scowl. His shaved head gleamed in the dim light, and his sleeveless T-shirt exposed some scary tattoos on his massive arms. When she finally dropped her gaze because she was getting a crick in her neck, she noticed he clutched a plant food container in one giant fist. She would’ve tried to slam the door in his face, but he’d probably just rip it off its hinges and eat it.
“Hi, Ms. Vaughn. I, um, hate to bother you, but I have to take care of the plants.” He shuffled his very large feet and looked uneasy.
See, now that blew her Jack-and-the-Beanstalk fantasy. Someone like him should never look uneasy. He should stride through life flattening small buildings and shaking the earth as he walked.
“The plants?” She glanced around and spotted them on the stand beneath what passed for a window.
“Yeah, I have a couple of jobs like taking care of the plants in the castle and spelling Sparkle when she wants a few hours away from her store.” He edged around Kim—as well as someone who was that big could edge—and walked over to the plants. “Hey, don’t get the idea that these jobs are forever. They’re just something to do until I get started in the action hero business.” He cast her a shy glance. “If you ever need an action hero, let me know. I gotta have lots of practice.”
“Sure. I’ll keep you in mind.” How could someone that big sound so going-on-sixteen?
Kim trailed behind him as she tried to imagine little kids running screaming from the candy store while jelly beans fell unnoticed from their bags. He was one scary-looking dude.
“Do you have to take care of the plants now?” Kim shifted her gaze from him long enough to study the plants. Ordinary, bushy plants. Didn’t look like they needed emergency care.
“These two plants are Sweetie Pie and Jessica. I can’t tell them apart, but I bet the owner could. Holgarth says the owner is really into plants. We have to keep them happy.” He refused to meet her gaze. “And I had to come now because the owner wants me to tell you about them. Oh, and I’m Deimos.”
Happy? “Deimos, they’re plants. Plants don’t do happy.” Kim could see Fo’s big purple eyes fixed on Deimos. Please, no. She’d had enough weirdness since last night to last her for the next twenty years.
“Kimmie, I think Deimos is a nonhuman entity. Since Brynn pointed out the flaw in my programming, I now understand that I can’t definitely say he’s a demon.” Fo blinked her eyes. “Yo, Deimos, are you a demon? Kimmie, you should always keep me with you.”
Deimos widened his amber eyes as he shifted his attention to Fo. “What’s that?”
Kim looked more closely at his eyes. A strange color. Where had she seen eyes . . . Sparkle Stardust. Sparkle’s eyes were the same color as Deimos’s. Maybe they were related. Hmm, come to think of it, they were the same color as the eyes of the cat on Brynn’s body. No, didn’t want to go there. Or maybe she should say she wanted to go there too much. She would not think about Brynn’s inner thigh now.
“You don’t have to ask Kimmie. I can answer for myself. I’m—”
“Fo is a high-tech toy that I’m thinking about leaving with Wade, my neighbor across the hall.” Kim hoped Fo got the message.
She did.
Silence stretched between Kim and Deimos for a moment. “So are you a demon?” Under the circumstances, she figured the direct approach would be best.
Deimos shook his head as he continued to avoid her gaze. She sensed an unspoken but there somewhere. He bent over the plants and began pouring some of the plant food around their roots. Suddenly, he paused. “Jeez, I can’t believe it. Look, they both have flower buds.” He sounded endearingly excited about the buds.
Deimos glanced up at her, and once again she got the impression of someone young and innocent trapped in that massive body. “Wow, you’ll have to take really good care of them. They’ve never had flowers before.” He frowned. “I guess I’ll have to tell you what the owner wants you to know.”
“That might be
a good idea.” Kim felt her frustration with him fading away in the face of his happiness over the flower buds.
He straightened and locked his gaze on a point about a foot above her head. “The owner has spent lots of time studying plants. He . . . Well, I don’t know for sure if the owner’s a he. Holgarth says the owner might be a he, she, or possibly it. Anyway, the owner says that plants can pick up on human emotions. They stay really healthy and happy in a room where people . . .”
Kim watched in bemused silence as red crept up Deimos’s neck, flooded his face, and then swept across his shaven head. He was experiencing a full-head blush. He’d have to get a handle on that if he wanted to be an action hero. She didn’t think action heroes spent much time blushing.
He coughed and blushed some more. “They stay healthy in a room where people . . .” He made a meaningless gesture with his hand she supposed was meant to symbolize what he couldn’t quite put into words. “Where people, you know, do it. I mean, the plants don’t watch, but they get off on all the energy.” He finished in a rush.
“Do it?” She raised one brow. “You mean have sex?”
The word sex spoken out loud deepened his blush to neon red. “Yeah.” He backed toward the door.
Kim spent a few moments of silence contemplating the plants. What could she possibly add to that? “From all those buds, I’d say these girls must’ve been in a room with a sex tag team. Only sex twenty-four/seven would’ve made them this happy.” Wait, why did the owner want her to know this? “Maybe you should move the plants to another room before they lose all their buds, because there won’t be any doing-it in my room. You can tell the owner that.”
“But the owner says—” He’d paused in the process of backing out the door.
Kim didn’t waste any more time arguing. She picked up a plant in each hand, marched over to Deimos, and shoved the plants into his arms. “You keep the plants. You keep them happy.”
She gave him an irritated push, and he stumbled into the hall, still gripping Sweetie Pie and Jessica. She started to slam the door in his face.
“But I’m a virgin.”
Kim finished slamming the door and then leaned her back against it. She closed her eyes.
“Oh, boy.”
6
“Get this straight; I’m nobody’s pet. I don’t do wimpy meows. I don’t do lap cuddling. And I never purr—except when I’m digging into a great meal.” Ganymede crouched on Sparkle’s candy counter. With ears pinned, amber eyes narrowed to angry slits, and black tail whipping back and forth, he was one steamed kitty.
Sparkle allowed herself a deliciously secret smile. Did he know how sexy he was when he got all angry and aggressive? Mede was always a challenge. He never said yes without a fight. She loved that about him.
“You need to calm down and relax. Here, have a caramel.” She reached into her display case.
“You’ve got a mean streak, evil woman. That’s what keeps me coming back. Notice the cat form? If I chomp down on a caramel, it’ll glue my jaws shut for an hour.”
Sparkle leaned forward to slide her fingertips over the smooth fur of his back. He arched into the caress. Mmm. Mede’s hair when he was in human form felt the same way, all soft and sensual. “Exactly, sugar fluff. You need to do some quality listening.”
“Hmmph.” He sat down on the counter and then wrapped his tail around him. “Give it your best shot, but I’m not going to change my mind. I only came for the sex.”
She perched herself on the high stool behind her counter, crossed her legs—she was glad she’d chosen to wear her barelythere leather skirt today—and studied her nails so Mede wouldn’t see the laughter in her eyes. He always said he came for the sex, but he always stayed for so much more.
“This is your lucky day, Mede.” Rats. The nail color on her ring finger was chipped. When had that happened? Now that she knew it was chipped, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else.
“We can get it on before you nag me? Hey, changing forms is tough for me, but it’ll only take about twenty minutes if I start right now.” For the first time, his eyes gleamed with excitement.
“What?” Could she call Deimos back so he could watch the store while she zipped home to get her bottle of Torrid Tiger? “No. Absolutely not. We don’t get to play until you fix Brynn’s life. But the good news is that if you take away his compulsion, I bet you earn a barrel of brownie points with the Big Boss.” Was she imagining it, or was the chipped spot getting bigger?
Mede’s expression returned to narrow-eyed bad temper. “What’s the big deal with Brynn? I gave him every man’s fantasy. He gets to have great sex every day of his life if he wants it, with no consequences or responsibilities. Besides that, he’s immortal. So the great sex just goes on and on. Doesn’t get much better than that.”
Mede was such a cosmic troublemaker. He didn’t understand humans. Never had. “If he wants it. That’s the problem. Brynn doesn’t have a choice. He thinks he’s a sex slave.”
Mede blinked. “And your point is? Look, I can’t help it if he’s a negative kind of guy. I gave him lemonade, and he turned it into lemons.” His expression said he knew there was a flaw in his analogy, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Sparkle did a few mental eye rolls. “The point is you shouldn’t have given him anything having to do with lemons in the first place. Humans don’t think like us. We rose from the primordial ooze knowing we were meant to be bad. Our whole existence is spent causing trouble, living in the moment, and working on instant gratification. We never have identity crises.”
She frowned at the chipped nail color. It was like if she took her attention off it for too long it would spread to her other nails, a chipped-nail-color pandemic. “I’m still working on the instant gratification part, because sometimes it’s damned hard to convince two people who’re completely wrong for each other that everything’s good. Anyway, humans eventually want to fall in love, settle down, and have a family. I know, sounds boring, but that’s humanity for you.” She glanced at Mede. “You might want to get off the counter. Personally, I find your kitty form cute and endearing, but customers would get all bent out of shape if they found cat hair on their fudge.”
“Primordial ooze? What’s that about?” Amusement flickered in his eyes. “And no, I’m not getting off the counter. I like it here. So I still don’t get it. Why isn’t Brynn happy? He could get married and just ask his wife to have sex with him every hour. No problem.”
Sparkle fixed her attention on her absolutely fave Manolo Blahnik sandals and tried not to think about her ruined nail. Could she help it if she obsessed over her sensual appearance? Did that make her shallow? Sparkle didn’t think so.
“I gave Brynn his compulsion a long time ago, back when I never did anything to make humans happy. He was lucky because I’d just released a plague of locusts on some unsuspecting boobies and was feeling pumped. You know, all kind and charitable. Only feel that way once in say a thousand years. So I made sure he wouldn’t feel guilty about using women by letting him think he was a demon. See, everybody knows demons are slimeballs, so Brynn could ease his conscience by telling himself he was just doing what came naturally.” He shook his head at the folly of trying to make humans feel good.
Mede got a faraway look in his eyes. “I was a real badass back then—destroying planets, creating black holes, messing with the time-space continuum.” He exhaled deeply. “Those were the bad old days, before the Big Boss brought his hammer down.” His eyes shone with the memory of past glory. “I was the baddest of the bad for thousands of years. I was the most powerful cosmic troublemaker in the universe.” The glow slowly faded. “Now I can’t do one damned thing to hurt anyone without the Big Boss getting on my case.”
“I feel your pain, love button.” And she did, as much as she was able to empathize with another being. “That’s why you have to do this for me. The Big Boss will think you’ve gone good and not pay so much attention to you. That way you can sli
p in a few wicked deeds without him noticing.”
Mede washed his face with one black paw as he thought over Sparkle’s logic. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. But I don’t know if I can reverse the compulsion. I don’t usually build in fail-safes for this kind of thing.”
“You’ve got to try . . . for me.” Okay, so that wasn’t the smartest thing to say. She should’ve appealed to his troublemaker nature instead of making it personal. Sometimes Mede muddled her thinking.
The silence dragged on a little too long, and Sparkle knew her big bad cat was doing it on purpose. “Well?”
“I’ll give it a shot, but I’m not doing the telepathy crap this time. Anything I have to say, I’ll say it out loud.” His belligerent stare dared her to defy him.
Sparkle nodded. She knew when to give in. Mede needed to feel he’d won a point to make up for him agreeing to help her. Males were so transparent. “Just make sure you don’t talk to Kim. She’ll lose it, and you’ll be out of there. I have it all worked out. I promised Kim a pet, so I’ll take you over in the carrier and—”
“Whoa, stop, cut it freakin’ off right there. What part of I . . . am . . . not . . . a . . . pet didn’t you understand?” He stood and in one graceful motion leaped to the floor. “I’ll just mosey over to the castle and do some snooping on my own. Have to admit that cats are great for sneaking around and getting inside info.”
He padded toward the door. “I’ll find the castle’s restaurant first and then find Brynn. After I steal a snack, I’ll do some heavy-duty spying to see if he really hates my compulsion as much as you say he does.” Mede turned to look back at her. “What’s good on the restaurant’s menu? Gotta keep up my strength, you know. Hope they have ice cream and cake.”
Oh, jeez, no. Sparkle hopped off her stool and raced around the counter to stand in front of the door. “Wait. You can’t just wander around the castle. They’ll all get upset if they see another cat running loose. And don’t even think about going near the restaurant. The Board of Health will be on the place like fire ants on an ankle if someone spots you there.”
