by Jane Kindred
Ione finished off her Balcones. “The ride, of course.”
Dev paused with his hand on the glass Gus had set in front of him. “I’m not sure it’s the wisest idea to be riding a motorbike after imbibing alcohol.”
She rolled her eyes and Dev’s cheeks went scarlet. He lowered his head over his drink and paid great attention to it as he sipped. With her elbow on the bar and her chin propped in her hand, Ione studied him. It probably wasn’t the wisest idea to be contemplating what she was contemplating, either. He was not what she was here for. But that vibration was only getting stronger.
She couldn’t take him home, though. She’d nursed her drink over the course of an hour and she had a sobriety elixir that allowed her to ride safely regardless, but she couldn’t exactly explain the elixir to this charming, awkward stranger who had her halfway to climaxing without even touching her. Or even knowing he was doing it. Which was what made her want to get to the other half so damn bad. She had a feeling his witting participation in getting to that goal would be toe-curlingly, ass-numbingly incredible.
“Do you have a car?” She’d blurted the words before her non-lizard brain could stop her. And of course he had a car. Did she think he’d walked all the way here?
Dev wiped sweat from his upper lip with a sensual gesture he probably wasn’t even conscious of as he glanced up at her. “I probably shouldn’t be driving at the moment, either.”
“You’re assuming I’d even let you drive.” Ione picked an ice cube out of her emptied glass and sucked on it. It was now or never. She crunched the ice between her teeth and slipped off the stool, pulling out her wallet to leave Gus a generous tip. “It’s kind of loud in here. I thought we could talk outside.”
She headed for the door without waiting to see what his reaction was. If he didn’t follow, she’d just take the sobriety elixir and get the hell out of there. And if he did, well...
Chapter 2
Dev twirled his glass in the ring of condensation on the bar, avoiding looking toward the door. He’d behaved recklessly, for reasons he couldn’t explain. Kylie wasn’t even his type. And, type or no type, he didn’t make a habit of hitting on women. As if that hadn’t been painfully obvious. He was here to gather information for his employer, not to snog strangers in pubs.
Although maybe it was a perfectly reasonable response to the pressure he was under. It was his first solo assignment, and if he didn’t get this thing right, he could lose everything he’d worked for. He supposed the inclination to let off a little steam before he got down to business was to be expected. Or maybe he was just letting Kur get to him.
It was the name he’d given the thing that coiled at the base of his brain—or more likely the base of his cock.
Simply put, Kur was a demon. It had been part of Dev since his first disastrous attempt at conjuring. The demon had been caged by Dev’s mentor, the first witch he’d been apprenticed to. Though, Simon, it turned out, had been something more than a witch. By all appearances a kindly white-haired elder, Simon had indulged in arcane arts that would have horrified most conventional practitioners. He’d trusted Dev with his secrets and Dev, in turn, had trusted him implicitly. But dabbling with the dark arcane and believing one could control such forces was a fool’s errand. Simon had lost his life trying to tame Kur—and Dev had lost his soul.
Dev had only been nineteen when the demon had fused with him because of his foolish attempt to call it as Simon lay bleeding from the wounds Kur had inflicted on him. He’d tried to put it back in its cage—and had woken in hospital three days later, his back shredded and his memory of that morning gone. It was only months later that he realized the marks on his back were where the demon had clawed its way in to take up permanent residence inside him.
Dev set down the glass with a decisive thump against the bar. Kur wasn’t in control of him.
He headed out to his rental car, keys in hand. He would politely decline if Kylie was actually out there waiting for him. Which he sincerely doubted she would be. She’d probably just been having a laugh at his expense. Either way, he’d have to take a chance on driving back to the hotel with a couple of drinks under his belt. It was a straight shot down the highway, which had been mostly empty when he’d come this way. And he was fairly certain that if he lingered at the bar any longer to make sure his blood alcohol level was sufficiently lowered, it would end up becoming much higher instead. Kur never let him off that easy.
Outside in the parking lot under the solenoid lamps, the red-leather-clad blonde was leaning against the passenger door—no, the driver’s door—of his rental, arms folded across her chest. She’d unzipped the red coat. Bollocks.
“I’m afraid I need to make an early night of it” was what he’d intended to say as he approached the car. Instead he leaned one shoulder against the door beside her and said, “Hey.”
Kylie gave him a sly smile. “Thought you’d changed your mind.”
“Well, I haven’t really made up my mind—about anything in particular.”
“Haven’t you?” She wasn’t giving an inch, this one.
Dev tried to talk himself out of it. This really was the worst idea. Instead he found he’d leaned closer to her. He contemplated the cherry-bomb red of her lips for a moment before they both moved together in unison, his palm sliding behind her neck and her fingers slipping around his and into the hair at his nape. And then a blazing spark of desire shot up from the base of his spine and skittered along his skin like fire as their lips came together.
Dev rolled across her, his body pressing her into the cold metal, and Kylie moaned into his mouth, making his cock granite, her hands sending shivers through him as they roamed over his back beneath the suit jacket. Those hands were coming dangerously close to the ugly knot of scar tissue above his sacrum, and Dev reached behind his back and grabbed her wrists, pinning them beside her against the car. The aquamarine eyes almost seemed to flash green with warning, and Dev let go as Kylie stiffened against him.
He thought he’d blown it, and he drew back, but her hands had gone to the buckle of his belt, yanking it open, and she’d unzipped his pants before he could recover himself and grab for her hands once more. “We can’t do this here.”
Kylie was breathing hard, her rising chest drawing his gaze to the tight peaks of her nipples beneath the cotton vest. “Then open the door.”
Dev let out a soft groan as she reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys, dangling them in front of him. He hadn’t done it in a car since he was a teenager.
Kylie raised a questioning eyebrow and, when he didn’t object, hit the unlock button on the fob and climbed into the backseat.
Some small part of him was still trying to be rational, but the leather hugging that perfect arse smothered the last of his rational thought. Kylie turned and pulled him inside, and Dev felt light-headed and intoxicated as he fell against her, but it had nothing to do with the alcohol he’d drunk. There was something about her skin against his that seemed to send little electric shocks along the surface, further incensing his baser impulses. Her hands were at his fly once more, and Dev groaned more loudly as she slipped in her hand and took hold of him, wrapping her fingers around the almost painful heat of his shaft.
He lowered his mouth to her breast, sucking the hard nipple right through the fabric, and Kylie breathed in sharply, her hand tightening on his cock, letting her breath out in a soft, plaintive moan. After sliding the strap of the shirt down her arm until he’d drawn the collar below her breast, Dev closed his mouth once more over the black lace of the bra and sucked her in, thrusting involuntarily into her hand at the taste of her skin through the rough lace. Kylie’s legs wrapped around his hips as she moaned and squirmed, pressing herself up into his mouth, her tight grip sliding against the head of his cock.
Dev groaned, rocking into her hand. The damn bra had to go. He prodded a
t the lace, higher brain function completely gone, and tore it open, freeing the sodden nipple so he could get his mouth around it without interference. The high-pitched noise Kylie made, along with the rapid motions of her hand, brought him dangerously close to the edge.
He put a hand on her wrist, pulling his mouth from her breast with a slick pop. “You have to stop,” he gasped. “I’m going to come.”
Kylie’s fingers unclenched. “Have you got a condom?”
“Condom?” Dev tried to make his brain work. “I don’t think so.” He needed his mouth on her skin.
Kylie made a growling noise of frustration in her throat. Tightening her legs around his hips, she swiveled suddenly, flipping him onto his back on the seat cushion.
Dev reached for her damp nipple, but she shoved him back and shimmied downward, swallowing his cock before he could do more than groan in surprise. Surprise was quickly supplanted by even deeper groans of pleasure as he rocked into her mouth, feeling the slippery heat of her lips and tongue sliding over him, and he came swiftly, gripping the seatback beside him with a shout as she swallowed it all.
As he lay back, his entire body going limp with release, Kylie zipped up her jacket, swinging her feet through the door he realized he hadn’t even latched, and climbed out.
Dev struggled to sit up, hampered by his state of undress and the fuzzy post-ejaculatory brain cloud. “Kylie?” The door swung shut. Dev scrambled to put himself together and crawled across the seat to open it just in time to see her fasten her helmet and swing her leg over the Nighthawk, kick-start the engine and drive away.
* * *
Halfway down Highway 89A, Ione realized she hadn’t taken the sobriety elixir. She pulled off to the side of the road and took the little vial out of her pocket, popping the cork and downing it swiftly. As soon as she had, the postmagical hangover kicked in, along with a dose of mortifying reality. Mother of God. Ione groaned into her gloved hands. What had she been thinking? At least he was only passing through and there was no chance she’d run into him again around town. Not that he’d know her if she did, but it would be awkward enough even if she was the only one aware of what they’d done together.
Mortification aside, she was no closer to exposing Carter’s sick friends. If Dev was in town to hook up with a call girl—even one of the nonmetaphysical variety—he hadn’t acted like it. She should have ignored her out-of-control hormones and stuck to the script she’d written for herself, keeping her eye out for one of the club patrons who fit the bill.
She shook off the glamour as soon as she got home, anxious to get out of her sweaty clothes and into a hot bath. Undressing while the tub filled, she paused for a moment at the sight of the ruined bra in the mirror as she drew the top over her head. The memory of how it had gotten that way sent that frisson of vibration through her once more. The touch of his mouth on hers had been like a narcotic rush, but when she’d felt his tongue on her breast, she’d nearly climaxed. And, God, what a climax that would have been. She could feel it just out of reach even now and she moaned involuntarily.
Ione touched her fingertips to her lipstick-smeared lips. She wasn’t used to seeing herself like this. Usually she cleaned up before dismissing the glamour, because it was a bit unsettling to see the remnants of another face on her actual face. It was dishonest and a sort of dissociative game she wasn’t proud of, but it was a defense mechanism she’d learned long before she’d started hunting Carter’s accomplices. Sometimes she needed the freedom to be someone else. Because Ione Carlisle did not behave like this. Couldn’t behave like this. She had to keep things together. So she’d split herself apart.
After washing off the makeup, she tossed the bra in the trash with a little growl of disappointment. It had been her favorite. Do not think about how it got that way again. But she was already thinking it as she wound her hair up into a loose bun and stepped into the fragrant, foaming bath. The water was a bit too hot, but the sting of it felt good. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the built-in headrest, Dev’s charming accent murmuring in her head. Her fingers slipped down between her legs and she indulged in a little mental replay, the stroke of her own hand making up for what he’d neglected, while hot water and patchouli-rose bubbles sloshed against her nipples as a stand-in for Dev’s sensuous mouth.
The climax made her cry out and she nearly swallowed a mouthful of bathwater and bubble bath as she slipped down the edge of the tub with the release of the tension she’d been holding in her legs. Not nearly as satisfying as actually having that sweet cock inside her, but still one heck of an orgasm.
Ione opened her eyes with a sigh and made a mental note to always carry her own condoms when she went out on a glamour bender. Even if she wasn’t planning on having sex, it was only smart.
The bath and the orgasm had made her nicely sleepy, and Ione fell into bed later without bothering to dress, snuggling under the down comforter while the light patter of autumn rain played against the roof. She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow and, for the first time in weeks, managed not to have a single nightmare about Carter Hamilton.
Chapter 3
The chime of her calendar notification in the morning reminding her of the Covent summonses brought her temporarily forgotten troubles crashing back. Time to face the music.
She tried to tell herself she was just being paranoid as she stroked her razor over her legs a bit aggressively as a proxy for the source of her frustration. Though it wasn’t really paranoia when a necromancer had gone to such elaborate lengths to inveigle his way into the Covent’s midst. Carter had spent years on his deception, becoming a respected member of the Phoenix branch of the Covent. He’d come to Sedona as part of a convention of the Regional Conclave to deal with the sudden rash of lingering shades of the recent dead in the area—shades, it turned out, that Carter himself had been trapping here.
Ione let out a sharp exclamation as the razor bit into the tender flesh at her ankle. Blood dripped onto the white marble tile like garnet beads scattering from a broken rosary—blood from the veins of a demon.
That was the crux of it. Carter had targeted her because of something she hadn’t even known she possessed. She had been the last to know and the last to believe that she was a descendant of the most ancient of demons. She was a daughter of Lilith. And the Lilith blood was what Carter had coveted, the magic ingredient that would give him the power to command the dead. Phoebe had been his ultimate target, but he’d used Ione to set her up.
Despite the way they’d found out about it, Phoebe had seemed to take the news of their heritage in stride. Unlike Ione, she hadn’t spent years struggling to reconcile the practice of magic with a belief in God. But everything was easy for Phoebe. She’d walked away from the church and embraced her gift years ago without a backward glance. If you could call being a way station for the recently deceased a gift.
Ione touched her finger to one of the drops of blood on her ankle, holding the tiny red orb on her fingertip under the cool white glow of the LED bulbs around the mirror. She concentrated on the drop until nothing else existed, the convex surface glistening like a miniature crystal ball in crimson in which her reflection was inverted. An angel on the head of a pin. Or a demon.
With a murmured incantation, she set the ruby bead floating above her fingertip. It was a simple trick, one of the first she’d learned. A trick for slumber parties when she was a girl. Light as a feather, stiff as a board. She’d thought then it was her own affinity for magic that had made it come so easily to her. It was because of that affinity that she’d started on the path that had led her to the Covent.
She’d come to believe in magic as a gift, and an art to be learned, not some kind of transgressive aberration. But this tainted blood was where her magical aptitude had come from, not hours of practice and months of apprenticeship; not innate talent. Not a gift from God.
Even so, it had allowed her to do what she loved. And if the Covent was going to take that away from her, she intended to walk into the temple as Ione Carlisle, high priestess of the Sedona Coventry, with her head held high.
She dressed in a crisp, white blouse and slim-cut black pants fresh from the dry cleaner’s, topped with a black, flared, knee-length frock coat with delicate gray pinstripes. Presenting a confident, authoritative air was crucial in maintaining the respect of her coven, and Ione never left the house without making sure she was representing the office of high priestess with the utmost solemnity—when she left in her own face, at any rate. A light layer of foundation, a pale smudge of blush, a swipe of mascara across her bottom lashes and a dab of clear, matte gloss across her lips conveyed both professionalism and a certain understated grace.
* * *
The parking lot of Covent Temple was full when she arrived. As Calvin had implied, every member of the Sedona Coventry must have received a summons. Yet the Covent hadn’t seen fit to inform their high priestess. Tears slammed against the backs of her eyes as she paused inside the atrium, and she dug her fingernails into her palms to keep them from going any farther. This was it. She was going to lose everything. Carter Hamilton had kneecapped her from behind bars without even trying.
Ione deepened her breath and exhaled the frailty of ego. She’d been elected to serve the needs of the magical community, not as some kind of merit badge or status symbol. If what the coven needed to heal from Carter’s betrayal was for Ione to step down as high priestess, she would do it graciously. Even if it meant collapsing into a quivering heap on her bathroom floor when she got home and sobbing until she was sick. And then picking herself up and getting a job in the real world.
When she entered the temple, the rest of the coven members were seated on the comfortable benches that lined the aisles. The temple had been built with much the same design as a Catholic church—the Covent’s origins steeped in the religion from which it had emerged—but its pews were for comfort not worship. So maybe this wasn’t a ritual defrocking, after all; if they meant to perform any kind of ceremony, they’d be gathered in a formal circle at the altar.
