by Jill Myles
“It would be rather foolish of me to tell you, wouldn’t it?” He didn’t sound a bit concerned. “Suffice it to say that we are a nice, healthy distance from New Orleans. By the time they find you, it will be too late.”
I sure didn’t like the sound of that. “By the time who finds me?”
“Why, the queen and her little dog that keeps panting after you.”
I guessed that the “panting dog” was Zane, but the queen? The vampire queen? Fear shot through me again—a sensation that was happening all too frequently for my taste. “Queen Nitocris? What does she want with me?”
“Good question.” Luc pushed an item on the dashboard—his BlackBerry, tucked into a leather holder. “Dial Zane,” he said as the screen lit up.
“Luc!” Zane’s voice immediately roared into the phone. “You goddamn bastard, what did you do with her? Is she all right?”
I slid forward on my seat, my heart leaping at the frightened tone of his voice. “Zane, I’m here!” I yelled.
“Princess! Are you okay, sweetheart? I’m coming for you.”
“Let me talk to her,” Noah said from a distance, and I heard the two men begin to argue.
Relief flowed over me, and I nearly cried with joy. They were coming to get me.
“I hate to interrupt the sausage party over there,” Luc said. “But Jackie has a question, and I thought perhaps Zane might be able to answer it for her.”
A pause. “What is it?”
What was Luc trying to do here?
My captor sighed. “Darling Jackie here was just curious as to why the queen wanted her.”
Silence fell. For a long moment, nothing was said.
A smile curved Luc’s mouth as he switched lanes. “Sounds like we’ve been disconnected, Jackie. Isn’t that a shame—”
“I’m here,” said Zane. Low. Angry.
Guilty.
“Zane,” I said, a knot forming in my throat. “Why does the queen want me?”
Another round of silence. Then, slowly, “She wants another succubus under her control. Like Luc. But that was all before. It’s different now.”
“What do you mean?” I had to blink back sudden tears. He’d known about this all along?
“It’s not what you think, Jackie. It’s all changed—”
Luc reached over and flipped the BlackBerry off before Zane could finish. “I’m low on minutes, so you’ll have to forgive me if we finish this conversation some other time, ma belle.”
I stared at the back of Luc’s head. What had changed? What was going on? “What did he mean, ‘another succubus like you’?”
“Come, ma belle, it should be obvious. You have not figured it out yet? That’s rather sad, non?”
I shifted my hands in the ties, trying to get a little more room so my fingers would stop aching. They looked purple in the early light. If Luc was a succubus, that would explain why he followed me at all times of the night and day. It also would explain how he’d been able to knock me out by forcing me back into my own head.
“But I thought all Sucks were girls,” I blurted out.
“I am an incubus,” Luc said without bothering to glance back to see my reaction. “The male version of your kind. Very rare.” He seemed proud of it.
There was something not adding up. “But I thought . . . Sucks are made by sleeping with an angel and being drained by a vampire in the same night. And all of them are male, so . . . Oh.” I looked back at him. “You’re gay? There are gay vampires out there?” Gay angels, too?
He chuckled. “Nothing is as simple or cut-and-dried as the human categories for it. I simply taste all, love all.”
I remembered the inherently wrong taste of his kiss. “No wonder kissing you tasted like I was kissing my brother.” And he’d been tasting and loving all over town. Ugh.
“Have you had sex with your brother often?” He glanced in the rearview mirror, eyebrows raised.
“I don’t have a brother, and it’s just an expression, jackass,” I fired back, then gave my hands a vicious twist. “And these hurt.”
“If you were not in the bad habit of running away, I would not need to tie you up.”
“So what are you going to do with me?” I sounded defeated, even to myself.
Luc’s smile in the rearview mirror was chilling. “Oh, what aren’t I going to do with you, ma belle?”
We were still in the South. I’d guessed that by the small towns amid the trees, the run-down gas station we were currently parked at, and the overabundance of Whataburgers along the highway. Luc whistled as he pumped gas, not a care in the world. The sun was hot overhead and with no A/C blowing, the backseat was almost unbearable.
At least I didn’t have the Itch. Yet that disturbed me—after living so long with it constantly preying on my mind, the absence was frightening. Did it mean that Luc had taken advantage of me while I slept?
Eeww.
I shifted my hands and feet again. No luck. The zip-ties were just as tight as before, and now my skin was blistered and raw around it, which made any efforts hurt even more. I eyed Luc from the window as he casually leaned against the car, his hand on the gas-pump handle. Now would be the perfect time to escape . . . if it weren’t for my knees and feet tied together. He’d also removed the back door handles, so I couldn’t even let myself out, even though I wouldn’t get far.
And I had to pee.
I glanced around the gas station. We were off the main highway, and no one was here—maybe due to the run-down nature of the gas station, and the nice, shiny Shell station just down the street. Or maybe it was the fact that they were charging a quarter more a gallon than Shell.
Maybe my questionable luck had finally run out.
Luc slid back into the front seat and grinned at me. “Ready to go?”
“I need to go to the bathroom.” I held up my hands. “And these still hurt.”
“You will just have to wait, ma fille. We are almost home.” The way he said home made me panic a little. I had a feeling that if I saw “home,” I’d never come out again.
As he leaned forward to start the car again, I had an idea. I could stop him the same way that he’d shut me down. Reaching forward with my tied hands, I planted them against his ear. “Sleep, you bastard.”
He merely sneered at me and batted my hands away. “I am much older, and much, much stronger than you. Your powers will not work on me.”
Uh oh. I gave him a bright smile, trying to defuse the situation. “Well, this is awkward.” I sighed. “How about we settle for a big ‘Up yours’?”
He reached backward and tapped my forehead, an irritated look on his face.
The world went black one more time. Inside, I felt something shift loose, a rather disgusting, slimy feeling that I hoped I’d never have to experience again.
And then I appeared back in the ice cream parlor.
“Oh good,” said the priest with a smile. “We’re about to play Double Bingo. You’re just in time.”
Six rounds of bingo later (none of which I won), Luc tapped my forehead again, drawing me back awake.
I had a throbbing headache, so intense that I shut my eyes again. “Ow.”
“Behave and I won’t do it again,” Luc said in that smooth voice. The acoustics had changed, and I cracked my eyes open to stare at my new surroundings.
I sat in a wooden chair, the back carved into a wagon-wheel shape that jabbed spokes into my back. A round dining room table in front of me matched the chairs, and a cold wood floor was under my feet. The room was dark, an old standing lamp in the corner throwing off yellow light, and red-and-white checked curtains covered the windows. No sunlight shone through them, so I’d been asleep for quite some time. A leather couch sat against the far wall, and the entire thing screamed country home.
“A log cabin?” I said in surprise. “Are you kidding me?” I shifted my feet, and noticed that my hands and legs weren’t tied anymore.
Glory, hallelujah!
Relief was shor
t-lived, however, when I realized that my left ankle was still cuffed with the silver manacle . . . decorated with a chain that attached to the wall nearby.
Chained like a dog.
Luc paced near the couch, crossing the small room in frenetic strides. His arms were folded over his chest, his figure lean, his cheekbones as beautiful as any woman’s. His light gray eyes flicked to me, then he went back to pacing.
“Your eyes,” I blurted out, realizing. “They were gold.” Now their pale, smoky color perfectly matched mine, a clear sign that he was a succubus. Incubus. Whatever.
“Contacts,” he said. “Would you have trusted me if you had known I was one of you?”
Well, he had a point there. Which brought me to another question. “Speaking of which—why aren’t I Itching?” Because I felt as calm as the day I was born, which wasn’t natural at all. “Is my curse gone?”
“No.” Luc approached me, a smug smile curving his face. “Would you like to see?”
That little smirk seemed a bit ominous, but I did want to see, so I nodded.
He knelt before me, then skimmed his hand down my leg and rested on the ankle cuff.
The cuff didn’t have a key. It didn’t have anything at all holding me there except a ridiculously small clasp, and I wanted to laugh aloud. I could escape at any time.
Then he undid the clasp and the cuff fell away from my ankle.
The Itch rushed through me like an inferno, sending my nerve endings tingling with awareness and making my skin crawl. Hard, hot need flared through me, so strong it was painful, and the world tilted. The scent of Luc standing so close to me became unbearable.
I grabbed his face and pulled it to mine. My mouth opened under his, my tongue sweeping into his mouth with voracious hunger even as my hands reached for his cock. It was taking much too long to get the relief I badly needed. A shudder wracked my body as I struggled to free the hardness in his pants, and I placed my fingertips against the back of his neck.
His hands touched my hair, and a great double-handful fell out. I broke free, realizing that the shudders weren’t just about sex and need. My body was shutting down, decaying from within. I held my hand out and watched my fingertips lose their plump fullness, drying like small prunes.
With a whimper, I bent down and snapped the clasp back around my ankle.
Immediately, the cool rush of magic swept over me again. My skin fleshed out once more, and that awful, gnawing hunger disappeared.
I stared at Luc with horror. “What have you done to me?”
“Nothing new, I’m afraid,” he said, his eyes flickering to bright blue as they stared down at me intently. “Your curse is so far advanced now that the magic in that link is the only thing that is keeping you from dying within minutes.” He gestured at the door of the cabin, a thin smile curving his lean face. “But you are welcome to leave at any time, of course.”
“I can’t leave,” I said, picking up the hank of my hair on the floor with horror. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then it seems like you’re my guest,” he said, kneeling down to eye level with me, his eyes bright. “I have so much fun planned for you, ma belle.”
I stared at him uneasily, wondering how I’d managed to miss the fact that he was batshit-crazy.
From across the room, his BlackBerry rang again. The smile on his face widened and he stood, going to answer it.
“You have her, warlock?” I could hear the queen’s evil voice through the room. It slid in like oil, sonorous and awful, and I shuddered.
He was a warlock and an incubus? Wasn’t I just the luckiest?
“She’s with me,” Luc said calmly, watching my reaction.
“You were to bring her to me.” Her words drew down in a low hiss, and I thought of those terrible fangs and evil eyes.
“I know,” he said, his eyes on me. “But I have need of her for a bit longer.”
Oh, great.
“The prince is most displeased,” the queen said, her cold voice sending a chill through me. “There has been a change. Bring the slut to me and I will give her to him.”
I was going to be given to some vampire prince? What was going on?
Luc’s smile faded, and his shoulders went stiff. “My queen, that was not part of the deal.”
“The deal has changed—”
Luc clicked the phone off and tossed it onto the table. He ignored it when it started to ring again.
“What do you want with me?” Beyond the obvious, of course. Luc was beautiful. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to have sex with, so there was no need for any crazy schemes to lock me up.
He smiled, such a pretty, white smile. “It must be nice to have two masters so desperately in love with you. I wouldn’t know how that is. Mine sold me to the queen’s service centuries ago.” His mouth hardened. “Which is why I need you. Your blood—the blood of a dying creature born from Serim and vampire—for a spell. When I spill your last drops of blood across my altar, it will free me from my obligations to my masters once and for all.” He glanced back at his phone. “And since she is trying to round them up right now to get me under control, I’d say we have about a day before they find us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I tinkered with the chain as I sat with my back against the wall. The links were soft and smooth. Probably wouldn’t hold up against a good pair of pliers. Too bad there weren’t any near me. I squinted at the window, trying to judge the time. Still daylight. Was Noah worried about me? Frantic looking for me? Or was he busy drowning his sorrows in Delilah’s arms? I scowled at myself for even thinking it.
Then I pondered the queen’s words, about how the deal had changed. Zane had mentioned the same thing. Did he have something to do with it? A small bit of hope burned inside me—maybe he’d changed his ways, after all.
Not that I’d live to find out.
“You seem unhappy,” Luc commented as he re-arranged the furniture on the far side of the room. He’d cleared away a large portion of the living room and was creating a shrine of sorts—I could guess what it was for. “Problem?”
He was asking me if I was unhappy? Like we were best friends forever? “You mean other than sitting here, chained to a wall because if I leave, I’ll turn into a dried-up mummy within minutes? Yet if I stay, I become a human sacrifice? That kind of unhappy?”
Luc shrugged and put a small stool near the altar. “It’s nothing personal, Jackie. I’d give you a good, hard fuck before the send-off, but I need you starving.” His eyes gleamed even bluer at the thought.
I shivered. “Don’t touch me, you sick freak.”
He smiled and disappeared out the front door of the cabin, whistling again.
I was so screwed.
I had to figure out something and fast, because there was no way that I was going down without a fight. I tugged at the chain binding me to the wall, wishing for the millionth time that I’d been given supernatural strength instead of a supernatural libido.
The whistling returned, and Luc reentered the cabin with a pair of sticks in his hand, a small knife in the other. I immediately froze, but all he did was sit on the stool and began to whittle the sticks.
“So,” I said, trying to focus my thoughts. “Did you kill Drake?”
“I did,” he agreed, almost cheerfully.
“Why?”
Luc slid the knife over the stick, peeling off the bark and revealing the pale flesh of wood underneath. He shrugged. “Had to be done. I’d met him before, a long time ago when he was much younger and less disgusting.” He smiled as he examined the wood. “It’s flattering, I suppose, to think that a drunken one-night stand made that much of an impression on the man. But when he saw me coming out of your hotel room, he knew something was up and I didn’t want him exposing me. So I killed him.”
“You ripped out his throat like an animal.”
Luc didn’t react. “I was angry. I used my teeth and fingernails so they’d think it was one of the vampires.” He
smiled. “A warning, of sorts.”
The image made me gag. To think I’d put my mouth on his. I swallowed hard. “So it’s been you all along?”
“Me all along,” he agreed.
“Why wait until now to grab me?”
Luc smiled. “I’d have to wait too long for you to starve to death.” He admired one of the sticks, then winked at me. “You’re right where I want you now. And I love the thrill of the chase.”
Just like a serial killer. “So you laid the original curse?”
“I did,” he said. “Brilliant, is it not?”
“Why a curse?” And how did it get to me? Come on, tell me all your dirty secrets. If I knew enough, maybe I could figure out a way to reverse it.
“Why not?” He looked up at me, smoothing his thumbs over the wood. “Are you pumping me for information, ma belle?”
“Why not?” I retorted back. “Or do you think I’m going to manage to somehow free myself in a few hours and foil your dastardly plans?”
A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “No, not really.”
That made two of us.
I sighed. “Since I’m going to die doing you a favor, you could at least do me one and tell me what’s going on.”
“Fair enough,” he said, smiling.
Like we were friends. I clenched my hands in longing, wanting to put my fist through his mouth and break all those pretty white teeth.
“I was born Romani many hundred years ago,” he began. “My people were nomadic and poor, but even back then, I was not like them. I liked the things that Romani men did not crave. A beautiful house, many riches.” He looked back at me with those pale eyes. “Power.”
So he was born a gypsy. “The curse on me is a gypsy curse?” No wonder Delilah hadn’t been able to figure it out.
A hint of pride crossed his face. “My ancestors were well versed in Romani magic, and after I was changed over, I had many hundreds of years to improve the practice.”
“Lucky you,” My mind was racing. If I could get free of him, maybe I could find another gypsy warlock to remove the curse.
