This close, with his intentions clear, he was a vision of sin and all the forbidden things Gerome had told me never to touch. “What do you know of love?”
He blinked slowly, his black pupils devouring the color of his eyes. “I know it tastes delicious.”
“A day and night. I can’t give you mo—”
His mouth sealed over mine, forked tongue thrusting in. I might have pushed him off if I didn’t already know this was how incubi sealed bigger deals, and besides, I already owed him this. His touch lured a small, vulnerable part of me out of hiding and stirred it fully awake. He tasted of wine and revelry, of bad things that, if indulged, would kill, but you’d die with a smile on your face, and I wanted more of it. All of it. All of him.
I lifted my hand and thought about wrapping my arm around his neck and pulling him down, but if I did that, I’d give him too much, and these strange, off-kilter feelings weren’t real anyway. I was tired, strung out, raw, and afraid. He was the closest thing I had to a friend. Weakened, I kissed him back, slowly, carefully, keeping the real need behind toughened barriers so he didn’t rip me open and take everything. But gods, it felt good. He kissed like he were making a promise, like this was the beginning of something dark and dangerous he’d deliver on. Kensey was in trouble, the station was balanced on a knife’s edge, and I didn’t want to be alone in this.
He pulled away first, his eyes bright, back to their multicolored state. They didn’t seem so soulless anymore, and in my weakness, I pressed a hand to his cheek, looking him in the eye. I would fix him as soon as I’d dealt with everything else.
I stroked a thumb around his smile, over its design, making his lashes flutter. It would have been a dark moment had he died on the tracks. I had no regrets from then or from the deal we’d made. When we saved Kensey, my brother didn’t have to know how. I did my best work in the dark.
* * *
I told Rafe everything I dared of my plan. Most of it would get back to Lilith. If she ever asked him outright, he wouldn’t lie to her, but he had a knack for slithering around the truth when it suited him.
He listened, reclined sideways in a chair, one leg thrown over its arm, as relaxed as if we were discussing what new raucous the Corvus twins had been causing. Perhaps it was exhaustion or the kiss, or maybe part of him had taken root inside since our deal, because I didn’t recall him looking so distracting before. I’d known he was built for stamina. Most incubi and succubae were naturally attractive, and if they weren’t, they fixed it with illusion. But Rafe looked the same. A waistcoat with nothing beneath, leaving his arms bare. Black leather pants, which defied gravity and clung to his waist. Boots up to the knee, sporting a small heel.
“… listening?” He rolled his eyes when I blinked. “As dashing as I am, sweetness, you need to pay attention to—”
“I was…”
“—my words, not where you want to wrap your tongue when we’re done.”
“That wasn’t what I… That’s not…” I straightened at the table and shook my head. My mind had wandered for a while there…
Rafe grinned.
“You did something to me, didn’t you?” I said, waving a hand to encompass all his incubus-ness.
His grin became a wicked slash. “You made a deal with an incubus. What did you expect?”
“But we’ve…” I swallowed, not sure what I was trying to say. “We’ve gotten close—”
“Kissed before?”
Gods, he was loving this. “Yes.”
“A chaste peck. When you were young, full of experimental ideas, and I was… nicer.” He shrugged and examined his sharp nails. “Things have changed.”
He was well put together, and lying on his side, one leg bent, the other stretched out, the pants so snug they tucked into all the right crevices, allowing me a fantastic view of his—
I pulled my stare away and buried my head in my hands. “This is a problem.”
“Only if you let it become one.”
He was up and moving closer, and I could feel that too, like he was hard-wired into all my neglected feminine parts. I was regretting our deal.
“Now then, Lynher Aris, hostess extraordinaire—”
“Rafe…” I looked, and there he was, standing right in front of me, all six-feet-something of male demon designed to seduce, minus the wings. A good thing he’d hidden them or I’d be climbing him like a ladder. Dammit. I stood so I didn’t have to stare at his navel, his waistcoat not quite meeting his waist, leaving a glimpse of golden skin. My fingertips itched to skim there, and afterward, my tongue would follow. Now we were almost eye to eye. Close enough to kiss. I should have stayed sitting. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “I need white paint.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Lots of it.” Patting my dress, I found a pencil and a small piece of paper and scribbled a note before folding it up and handing it out. “And rugs. All the rugs. They’re all over the station. You’ll need to visit the empty rooms to collect them.”
Rafe opened the paper, read the words and frowned.
“And I need this all to happen in the day,” I added. “Can you do that?”
Dropping his chin, he nodded and lifted the folded note. “And this?”
“That is… an invitation. You’ll know what to do with it when the time is right.”
He tucked the note inside a discreet back pocket.
Rafe gave me a charming smile and offered his hand. “A visit to the Grand Hall seems like a fantastic way to show the guests you’re alive and well.” His smile ticked, and his gaze fell, roaming over the dress and its deliberately low neckline. He shivered all over and rolled his shoulders, shaking the desire off. “The anticipation is divine.”
His tail snaked around my ankle, but at my narrowing eyes, he unraveled it and chuckled, sweeping a hand toward the door. “Please, go ahead, my sweetness, so I can admire your ass as you walk away.”
He was impossible. “Slut,” I groused with a smile.
“You know it.”
I lingered at the door, not because it was locked—I’d already tried it and it had fallen open—but because I was back in my life again, walking the halls, seeing to the needs of my guests, playing among monsters. Only, it wasn’t the same as before. I’d seen some of the outside. I’d seen the mud-thick farms and the people locked in the dark, awaiting their fate. I’d watched a little girl run for freedom, only to die in the mud.
Jack’s words haunted me: “Take a look at yourself.”
Some things would change around here.
But first, I had a vampire infestation to eradicate.
Rafe’s hand gently landed on my shoulder. He’d probably meant it as a comfort, but the touch startled me back into the present.
“It will be all right,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m with you.”
When he said things like that, I wished I could believe him. I gently eased his hand off. “I’m stronger alone.”
I opened the door and walked back into my life.
* * *
Nothing had changed. Gaslit chandeliers made the light sway and dance and catch in the eyes of all the predators in the Hall. The huge clock ticked away the minutes. Dark Ones mingled and laughed and danced, and twirled and lied and did all the things they did to each other’s faces and behind their backs. And it all felt so… needless. I pinned my smile on, like always. I didn’t have my knives and would have felt naked without them before, but now, their loss was insignificant.
Familiar guests dipped their heads as I passed. A few of my staff took my hand and squeezed as they passed by wordlessly, handing out drinks.
The Dark Ones must surely have thought me dead. Humans didn’t do comebacks. But here I was. A strange kind of power made my bones feel heavy—stronger—like they had outside, when I’d walked to the platform. I was home. This was my castle. Nothing could touch me or mine here.
I saw Rafe among the fray, champagne flute in his hand as he discreetly watched me watch them
all. A jinn—her skin a glass-like green and her gown made of metal loops threaded with silk—moved in close, her innate heat enough to carve a path through the others. She met my eye, dipped her chin, smiled, and moved on. Many did the same, or wished me well, or thanked me, but for what I wasn’t sure. I took it all gracefully, remarked on their beauty and stealth, whatever their favorite trait was, and so we danced. Me their little fish.
A few VG were scattered about, but not enough to suggest anything untoward was happening, and both Jack and Caine were conspicuous in their absence.
I spotted the elven couple, recalling Jack’s comment to Caine about the fae. They were both looking my way. By the time I’d made my way around the room to where they’d been standing, they’d vanished among the crowd.
Enough with playing nice.
Where the fuck was Etienne?
I needed explanations. I needed to know Kensey was okay.
The clock chimed four times. Dawn would be upon us soon. Perhaps Etienne was with my brother, hiding in daylight. The note had come from there. If he was, I needed to get to him.
The reception bustled, as it always did. The Corvus sisters complained noisily at the desk, chirping their displeasure about some irritation.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, but have either of you seen Etienne?”
They blinked at the same time. “Oh yes,” the one on the left said. I could never tell them apart. “The east wing hallway. By the blue door.”
“Thank you.” I turned away.
“Miss Lynher?” She tipped her head and blinked again, then made a tiny motion with her forefinger and thumb. “He takes the lost things, did you know?”
“I’m sorry… what?”
They shook their heads in unison, rippling their curtain-like black hair. “She doesn’t know,” one said. “Never mind…” said the other. Something caught their attention in an adjacent room, and away they went, leaving me frowning after them.
With their strange words chipping at my focus, I headed deeper down the hallway and stalled as Etienne stepped from a room ahead. My heart stuttered because he looked like the same man who had come to me, his eyes full of hope that I might let him stay in Night. The same friend I’d thought was trustworthy and safe. But he’d shut me in that carriage with a killer. That reality did not match who I knew this man to be, but why?
“Etienne.”
He flinched but quickly grinned. “Oh, Mademoiselle, you are safe!” He flung his arms around me in a display of emotion I could only absorb. When he pulled back, tears swam in his eyes. “When you didn’t report at the end of your shift, and then Kensey’s note said you weren’t there for breakfast, we thought—”
“Kensey!” I grabbed his arms and held him still, staring into his eyes. “Is Kensey all right?”
“Y-yes… He’s fine. Well… I mean, he’s not fine. When you didn’t come back—” His doe eyes widened. “I’ve been trying to hold it all together. I hoped… I hoped you’d come back—”
“Come back? Etienne, you trapped me in a carriage with Ghost. I wasn’t ever coming back from that.”
“What…? I d-did what? No… No, that wasn’t… I didn’t. I could never…” He fell into French and babbled a string of words I had no hope of understanding, then stepped back, his hand shooting to his mouth to silence himself.
He didn’t look like someone who would maliciously try to kill me. “All right, Etienne. Let’s talk.” I slipped the skeleton key from my pocket, grateful to have found it there again, and slotted it into the lock in the door he’d emerged from.
“Oh no, don’t!” He pulled on my arm, but I was already over the threshold, walking into a gloomy suite. Just one candle on a central table lit the entire room, but what I could see shimmered and shone. Pots, candelabra, glasses, vases, an umbrella, a hat. The more I looked, the more of the strange collection I saw gathered on chairs and tables. So many odd items, all out of place. A watch, a boot without its partner, one of the creepy dolls Kensey and I had hidden years ago.
“Etienne… what is all this?”
He fell back against the closed door like he could hold back the truth. “I just—It’s… I can’t help it. Sometimes… I see things and I… I take them. Just little things. They aren’t missed. I know it’s wrong. Buttons. Buttons are my favorite.”
“What?”
“Buttons. I don’t know why. They have magic, did you know? Some are keys to memories. Not my memories. Others… I see things. Sometimes, I…” He hung his head. “I know how it sounds. I tried to stop, but when I stop, it’s like… it’s like I go insane if I can’t…” He trailed off.
“You stole all these things from our guests?”
“I…” He wrung his hands.
The Corvus sisters’ words about lost things. Compulsive stealing… buttons with magic. Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right with Etienne. “Etienne, show me the station’s mark.”
He swallowed but held out his arm, and there the mark was. Caine had mentioned Etienne was being difficult.
He chewed on his bottom lip, awaiting my assessment.
“Were you on the platform with Ghost and me? Did you seal us inside?” I asked.
His lips pinched. “Oui. I think I did. I didn’t want to. But… I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because they told me to,” he whispered, eyes haunted.
“Who told you?”
His shoulders fell. “The fae. They said they just wanted you… displaced for a few days. That you’d be safer away because of what’s coming. I’m sorry! I thought I was doing a good thing.” Groaning, he buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry… so sorry.”
Jack’s words about the fae. Etienne’s time with Kensey. Etienne’s “thefts” and his “being difficult.” There was more here than manipulation, so much more. I looked closely at my assistant, seeing him from a different perspective. I’d initially assumed him to be naïve and inept, but that wasn’t it at all.
The fae had gotten to him and made him remove me, but they could only have done that with leverage.
I touched Etienne’s face, making him look up. Tears wet his cheeks and made his eyes shine, and there, behind the anxious exterior and his attempt to always do good, behind it all, something darker flashed and was gone.
Gods, did Kensey know Etienne wasn’t even Etienne? Was that why he was so adamant that Etienne had to work with me, at Night, because he knew he was a Dark One too? Oh, Kensey Aris, you are in so much trouble. “Etienne, it’ll be all right. I just need you to be honest with me. Do that and we can work this out together. All right?”
A few years ago, I’d been handed a fae babe to keep it safe. A babe with dark hair and dark eyes and golden skin. I saw those same features in Etienne now. Grown, but still there. He wasn’t even French. That too was a lie and part of the human wrapping. Whatever Etienne was, it was nothing human.
Kensey knew. He had to. A human babe did not grow to adulthood in a couple of years. He knew, and he’d sent him to work for me without telling me!
“Dammit, Kensey.”
“The fae, they knew me…” Etienne whispered. “When I went to their room after the succubus was killed, they knew me. They knew my name, and they knew… They said I didn’t belong here. They said I was their son, and I… I so wanted it to be true. I’ve never had a family. I don’t remember any parents,” he rambled. “And …” With a wrenching breath, he whispered, “I did not want to be human anymore.”
I sighed. “None of us do, Etienne.”
“But they knew things, Miss Aris. Private things.”
“Things like your compulsive theft?”
He nodded. Thievery was common enough among changelings. With their true natures repressed, they manifested tics and quirks. He was lucky he was sane.
“Aoife and Connaught told you to trap me with Ghost?”
“They said, on that night, I’d find you beside a carriage, and I was to… see that you stayed ins
ide, just for a little while, for your own good. They promised I’d get to go home with them. But the train left, and the door was locked, and then you were gone. I went to them. I told them it was wrong, and they… laughed.” He hiccupped a sob. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was wrong. Don’t… please don’t make me leave.”
I could see he was sorry, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d made a deal with the fae. Such things were as binding as night and day. “You agreed to go with them?”
“I didn’t know what that meant. It’s like they got inside my head and made me do things.”
“Did you eat anything when they revealed who they are to you? Did you touch anything unusual?”
“I… touched her, Aoife. She opened her arms and I went to her. It felt so right. Like home, tu sais?”
I remembered the same feeling in Jack’s arms as he’d almost consumed my life. “Anything else?”
“She kissed me… on the forehead, and it was the most wonderful feeling, like I finally belonged.”
I could imagine how it had gone during the day. Kensey knew what Etienne was. He couldn’t have failed to notice Etienne’s differences, especially as they were close. But after telling the young Etienne how bad the Dark Ones were, Kensey couldn’t tell him he was one of them. So Kensey had left out the important parts, and Etienne had walked right into a trap because of it.
“Etienne, we are your family now. The elves… they gave you up. It was give you to Kensey and me for safekeeping or to the VG. Granted, you were… smaller then. I’m not entirely sure how you got to be a man in a few years, but I figure Kensey will know.” After I chewed him out for not telling me my new assistant and his boyfriend was a damn changeling. “I believe you… but I can’t trust you. Around them, you’ll… be different. More like them. You won’t even know it until it’s too late.”
His face fell.
“We will deal with this later. Your honesty is appreciated…” Naturally, he didn’t lie. He was an elf. He couldn’t lie. He just… got creative.
Twilight Seeker: Daybreaker #1 Page 18
