Tempt Me

by R. G. Alexander

  “What do you want to know?”

  Angelique frowned. “Huh?”

  Bethany lifted one shoulder. “We have a couple of choices here. Number one, I could let Michelle talk to you. But if past experience is anything to go by—and trust me, it is—she’ll warn you to stay away from Gabriel. She’s protective; it’s just her way. And she’s already worried about her brother.”

  Angelique figured as much. She wrapped her arms around her knees and sighed. “What are our other choices?”

  “We could let your brother see the way you look right now and step aside while he pummels Gabriel into a handsome pile of goo, but I don’t think any of us wants that.” Bethany twirled a broken twig between her fingers. “Or . . . I could just satisfy your curiosity about him, and let you make your own decisions.”

  Angelique reached out and squeezed Bethany’s hand. “That’s the nicest choice anyone has ever given me.”

  “Trust me, I know how you feel.” Bethany grinned. “You asked what happened last year? Well, other than Allegra loving your brother so much that she offered a Loa a gift he couldn’t refuse to free him, and me discovering said Loa was my reincarnated lover who was waiting for a second chance with me . . .” She stopped at Angelique’s confused expression and laughed. “You wanted to know. Allegra’s writing another story about them. I mean us. Marcel and Isabel. It’s confusing. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but I think you wanted to know about what happened to Gabriel.”

  Angelique nodded, her eyes wide. “Yes. But later, I definitely want to know about Marcel and Isabel.”

  Bethany’s smile disappeared. “You know about Michelle’s ability to see ghosts. What you don’t know is that there was a time when she tried not to. Back when we first met. Michelle came back to New Orleans because she was faced with something she couldn’t avoid. A violent spirit who liked being noticed almost as much as he enjoyed inflicting pain.”

  “Oh my.”

  But Bethany wasn’t done. “It followed her back home. It waited. And when Gabriel showed up out of the blue, having just discovered most of his life was one mean, hurtful lie . . . the spirit possessed him to try and hurt his sister. And it very nearly succeeded.”

  Angelique placed her fingers at her temple and rubbed. She felt like she’d jumped into this conversation in the middle. Or into a strange piece of fiction. If zombies suddenly sprang out from behind the gazebo, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  “So he was possessed? But how? I mean, doesn’t he have abilities that protect him? Like Michelle’s?”

  Bethany shook her head. “I don’t think so. Michelle had her gift for as long as she could remember, but Gabriel never showed any signs.” She leaned her head back against the tree, lost in thought. “Michelle told me they were eight when his father took him away to Italy. That she found out after the attack about the priests and all the beatings he suffered to make sure he wasn’t like her. Really horrible stuff. I imagine that kind of abuse would knock the magic out of anybody.”

  Or the hope. Angelique ached for him. The story explained the stark loneliness in his eyes. The vulnerability that he covered up with his gruff demeanor.

  “What about this last year? Why did he leave?”

  Bethany lifted one dark brow. “Would you want to stay? He tried. Mambo Toussaint told me he stayed up several nights reading all the letters his sister had written to him through the years. The ones his father had sent back unopened. He spent a little time with his mother, looking at some old pictures and letting her feed him, but after a month or two he took off. All we know is he didn’t go back to Italy. And that he seems to be, well, worse than when he left.”

  Bethany bit her lip, as if holding something back.

  “You may as well tell her, my darling. You’ve given her everything else.”

  Bethany looked up at her husband and wrinkled her nose. “What part of girl talk don’t you understand, Sugar Cakes?”

  BD knelt down beside them, an offended expression crossing his stunning features. “I know all about this girl talk of which you speak. Sometimes it leads to girl pillow fights, girl kissing—” He laughed when Bethany swatted his arm halfheartedly and glanced at Angelique. “There is something in the air around him. Something strange. But our Michelle can’t see it with her vision. And from what Benjamin just told me, when he shook Gabriel’s hand he sensed it as well. Something just out of reach. Something with him, blocked from both of them. It scares them. For Gabriel’s sake, and everyone else’s.”

  Angelique shivered.

  Something with him? Maybe that was what he was talking to when she found him—had it been little more than an hour ago?

  It was hard to wrap her mind around. Or her emotions. She was angry for the little boy who’d been torn from his mother and abused. Horrified over the terrifying scenario of possession Bethany had described. And still curious about the mystery surrounding him. Where had he been? What had happened to him? And why was he back?

  “Fate. Destiny.”

  Angelique and Bethany both stared at BD in question.

  “The Marassa Twins wouldn’t leave the brother of a bon ange out in the darkness alone. Whether they gave him gifts or not. Maybe they’re giving him a chance to really find his way back home. Maybe now was exactly the right time.”

  “Marassa Twins?”

  Bethany let BD pull her closer as she answered. “The Loa that gave Michelle her gift. The ones that watch over twins, and sometimes grant them special abilities.”

  Angelique tilted her head. “See, that doesn’t make any sense. That they would only give her special abilities. Has anyone ever asked him?” Not that she really knew anything about the whims or personalities of voodoo spirits, but that didn’t seem very fair.

  What if Gabriel did, after all, have some kind of ability that made Michelle and Ben, both powerful in their own right, nervous?

  What if it was that ability that was making her act this way? Would that explain her inability to think of anything else? Her reaction to him, despite his arrogance?

  She reached up to touch the small cross around her neck, knowing logically that there was no bad juju involved in her attraction. But it was definitely a weakness. More than just wanting him, now that she knew a little more about him, she wished she could take away his pain. Wished she could fix it. But this wasn’t a rotting bridge or a leaky dam. This might be something too big for her to handle.

  Maybe she should stay away from Gabriel.

  Angelique thought about the thrill she’d gotten when she’d made him smile. The passion that changed his green eyes from hunted to hauntingly beautiful. No, she wasn’t sure she was ready to let her obsession with Gabriel go just yet. There were still too many unanswered questions.

  And unsatisfied desires.

  She looked up at BD to find him watching her with an expression of interest and delight. “Scared yet?”

  CHAPTER 4

  WALKING HOME WAS NOT THE BEST IDEA HE’D EVER HAD. Why hadn’t he taken a taxi or one of those damn streetcars? He wasn’t thinking logically. And it was all her fault.

  Gabriel passed by several bars where the music and people overflowed out onto the street in colorful waves of sexuality and laughter. Distraction waited with open arms to embrace him, to bring him oblivion. One way or another.

  It wasn’t enough anymore. Not now. He slid his tongue along the roof of his mouth. Her taste filled his senses. The scent of her arousal lingered around him, keeping his cock rock hard and his mind filled with images of her body spread out beneath him.

  He’d felt more than lust when he touched her. And when she came . . . Gabriel had felt charged. Energized. As if he could take on anything. Even the man who appeared beside him, looking decidedly out of sorts.

  “Hey, Manny,” he teased, “have fun tonight?”

  Emmanuel shoved his hands in the pockets of his long trench coat and frowned. “Don’t call me that. And I could ask the same of you, couldn’t I? I didn’t bring you ba
ck here to cause a family feud by fiddling with Rousseau’s baby sister.”

  Gabriel smirked. “I know, I know. You’re on a very mysterious mission to be my own personal Peeping Tom. Do your bosses know what you do with your downtime? Or maybe you want to be the one doing the fiddling. Since I’m not sure what you are, I don’t know—can you even do that kind of thing?”

  “Smart-ass.” Emmanuel sounded agitated. “I’ll apologize if you want. I didn’t realize you would be . . . It won’t happen again.”

  “I can’t blame you.” Gabriel was no longer smiling. “I didn’t realize it, either.” And he would be wise to make sure it didn’t happen again. Though every inch of him apart from his brain rejected that thought. “She’s a force of nature, isn’t she?”

  “You don’t even know what you actually did to her. What you could do.”

  What he did to her? “What are you talking about now? I’ve done nothing to her.”

  Except make her angry. Make her come. And then leave her to deal with the uncomfortable fallout alone because he thought he saw something moving in the shadows.

  He was a piece of work.

  Emmanuel scuffed a pebble with his boot. “If you’d listened to me and talked to the Mambo about what you’ve been experiencing, you wouldn’t need to ask me that. I’m here to make sure you don’t lose your way. Your mother can help you.”

  Gabriel stopped down the dark side street that was the shortcut home. “This is bullshit. I don’t give a flying fuck what you are, but just what the hell is your purpose here? All you’ve done so far is make dire predictions and harass me.”

  “I’m trying to protect you from—”

  “Losing myself to the darkness,” Gabriel snarled. “So you keep saying. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. But what you don’t understand is if there is a darkness coming for me, the last thing I want to do is bring my mother into this. Don’t you get it? You were alive once; you had a family. Don’t you fucking get it?”

  Gabriel remembered the stories Michelle had told him when they were young. The ghost child whose family had lived in the big white house a century before. Emmanuel’s memories of his beautiful sister. He should know all about protecting family.

  Gabriel scrubbed his face with his hands, feeling the stubble scrape his palms. “I’m not so blind that I can’t see I’ve caused her enough suffering. All of them. Can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  Emmanuel placed a hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t solid, but Gabriel sensed it like a cool, steady breeze. “You think I don’t understand? I do. It would be easier to just tell you everything. Gabe, I—” He stopped speaking suddenly, his body tensed. Alert. “I wasn’t expecting this. Maybe the powers that be would rather show than tell.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? What powers that be?”

  “Check this fool out. Talkin’ to himself. Crazy, drunk, or just plain stupid; either way, you picked the wrong street tonight.”

  Gabriel eyed the group of five young toughs who were spreading out in front of him. Twentysomethings covered in tattoos and attitude, their aggressive posturing unmistakable.

  Also unmistakable was the darkness that was coalescing around them. Clearer than he’d ever seen it. Was it getting stronger?

  Emmanuel spoke beside him, as if answering his thoughts. “You’ve sobered up. That gives you a little more control. Use it.”

  Use it? Use what?

  The men stepped closer, their animosity increasing as the energy swirled around them. “Looks like he’s too stupid to talk. I was hoping for more of a challenge, but maybe quick and dirty is better. Be home in time to watch my shows.”

  What was it? He barely heard the kids posturing as he studied the shadows around him. It wasn’t a djab. This close he could sense the difference. That was a relief, he supposed, though the only one he could find in the situation.

  Sooty darkness that was more absence of light than form. It was also less focused, less sentient, than the spirit he’d been taken over by, but no less threatening.

  It appeared to gravitate toward the most confrontational men in the group like a plant reaching for the sun. But was it influencing those emotions, causing them, or just drawn to them?

  He knew the instant it noticed him. Like a predator sensing it was being watched, it stilled and seemed to turn in his direction.

  Maybe that bastard, Father Leon, was right, and evil recognized him as one of its own. That familiar tension, the heaviness he’d come to associate with the shadows, settled around him as the darkness drew closer. It wanted to control him. To take him over.

  Emmanuel’s voice, sounding far away, was urgent. “Focus, Gabriel. Use it; don’t let it use you. Shit, you aren’t ready for this.”

  A haze covered his eyes and he felt his upper lip curl in an ugly sneer. “Fuck you. I can handle these punks with my eyes closed. If you don’t have anything constructive to say, just shut the hell up.”

  The chorus of disbelieving voices made Gabriel realize he’d spoken aloud. They thought he was talking to them.

  “Great.”

  The largest of the five shook his head, and Gabriel noticed the shadows tangling like razor-sharp vines around this thug in particular. He could feel them around his own body, too, seeping into his flesh, creeping through his veins like a dark, sizzling poison.

  The group’s leader held out his hands, bringing Gabriel’s attention back to him. “See? Some people just don’t know how this game works. Now I have to let the boys take turns bouncing your head off the sidewalk. But only after I get mine.”

  The first punch came quick and knocked him to his knees. What the hell? He did a quick internal inventory. Nothing was broken. This time.

  It was a damn shame he wasn’t drinking anymore. The fights he’d been getting into for the past year hurt a lot less when he’d been drinking.

  While the men laughed around him, he looked up at Emmanuel. “I assume you’ll be no fucking help at all, will you?”

  Emmanuel winced, but shook his head. “Not this time. I’m sorry, Gabe. I wish I could knock that bastard out for you, but I’m not supposed to interfere unless your life is in danger. I can tell you this isn’t a possession. What you’re seeing isn’t out of their control or yours. You have more power here than you know.”

  “Yeah. That’s readily apparent.” He stumbled to his feet, the weight of the strange darkness heavy around him and the power of that last punch making his limbs leaden and sluggish.

  Use it? Even if he could find a way to use this whatever-it-was to his advantage, he wouldn’t want to. If he did, he’d be no better than these angry punks. No better than the djab who’d stalked his sister, the piously pugilistic Father Leon, or any of the other priests who’d taken delight in punishing him for his sins. He would be beyond redemption.

  A part of him was afraid that was a foregone conclusion regardless.

  “You want some more?” The leader posed for his cheering friends and flexed. “I can do this all night.”

  Before Gabriel could brace himself, the next punch split his lip, the coppery taste of blood replacing Angelique’s essence.

  “You’re beginning to piss me off,” Gabriel growled. “Why don’t you all run back home and have your mommies teach you some manners, eh? And stop playing all those violent video games. They’re giving you delusions of grandeur.”

  He could tell his quips didn’t go over well. It certainly hadn’t done anything to ease the tension. The small group converged on him, anger at his insult burning like stinging embers in their eyes.

  If he woke up from this, he would know that somebody up there liked him—or just really enjoyed watching him suffer. If he didn’t . . . An image of Angelique pressing her delicious breasts together, her tongue curling around the crest of one perfect nipple, filled his vision.

  It was a good thought to die to.

  A quiet voice in his head had another theory. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a good thought to live for.


  Either way, it was the last one he had before he lost consciousness. Again.

  “DAMN, YOU ARE A SAD-LOOKING SIGHT, BOY. CALL THE Mambo now, cher. Tell her we found her son, and he’ll be staying with us for the night. I don’t think she needs to know anything else right now.”

  Gabriel groaned, opening one heavy eyelid to find BD sitting beside him. He was naked in a strange bedroom, and he could see the pale face of Michelle’s friend Bethany hovering over her husband’s shoulder, a cell phone to her ear.

  He was still alive. In their house. It was an oddly comforting realization. His mother didn’t need to see him like this again. And BD? BD had seen him in his darkest hour. He’d been there with Michelle, literally the spirit inside her who’d dragged the djab out of Gabriel’s body and sent it into the void last year before the Loa had become human.

  Somehow the fact that he was here made perfect sense. But he still wasn’t sure how that miracle had come about.

  “H-how?”

  The ex-Loa lifted his eyebrows. “I was just about to ask you the same thing, mon ami. How, by Legba’s walking stick, did you manage to do so much damage in one night?”

  “Me?” Gabriel tried to sit up, swearing as his ribs protested painfully. “I was just walking home. Minding my own business. I was attacked by—”

  “Five men. Brutes, all of them, I know.” BD was nodding. “That’s what the littlest one said. Well, not in so many words. He was too scared to make much sense, but who could blame him, yes?”

  Scared? Gabriel took a few deep breaths, hoping a bit more oxygen to his brain would help him think past the aches in his body and make sense of the conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever you did, thank you. Once again, you saved my life. I’m not sure how I got out of this last one intact.”

  He wiggled his toes and fingers. They hurt, too, but at least they were moving. Yes. Intact. Unbelievable.