by A. E. Lowan
Etienne crouched on her other side. “I tried to stop you. You’re quick.”
Cian dropped down behind her and rubbed her back, worried for his new friend. Winter looked from his hand to Jessie’s face, but said nothing. After a few moments Jessie’s grip on her shoulder relaxed and she began to roll it. “Guess it wasn’t that bad, after all,” she said at last. “But seriously, that thing weighs a ton. What’s in it?”
Etienne took the bag by the strap and lifted it off the floor, then handed it to Cian who swung it up on his shoulder. “A lifetime,” he said. “It may be close to a ton, I’m not sure. There’s a lot in it.”
“Seriously?” Her brown eyes widened.
Etienne smirked at her. “Don’t I look serious?”
Her look turned skeptical. “C’mon, Cian. I’ll show you upstairs.”
Winter stood with him, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her body as they watched the kids make their way up the stairs. Her delicate scent reached him – herbs and flowers. “I take it the bag is enchanted to borrow space, but not enchanted to adjust its weight. Does it really weigh a ton?”
He glanced up at her. “I was serious. I’ve never weighed it. And it takes more weight than that to be of issue for a sidhe.”
Winter was quiet for several moments. Finally, she said in a soft voice, “I do not turn my back on friends, and you have been a friend to this family. I will find a way to help you.”
Etienne nodded in gratitude. “Thank you. That is all I ask.” But as he glanced at her by his side he caught a look of apprehension.
What was she afraid of?
CHAPTER TEN
Lana wet her tongue and ran it across the edge of the paper before finishing the joint with a roll and two practiced twists of her dry fingers. She added it to the others on the tray beside her on the window seat. That should be enough to keep the idiot good and mellow for a while.
“Lana, I need more burn cream.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing he wouldn’t be paying close attention to her face. “Whining isn’t sexy, babe,” she muttered as she stood, her movements languid, her body on display.
“What?”
“I’ll go get it, babe,” she said, and turned to pick up the tray. Something caught her eye outside the window and she looked out past the striped awning below her. Red-gold hair flashed in the sunlight. Pretty. But it was the auburn-haired man striding beside that froze her in place. “Holy shit,” she breathed. It couldn’t be. She looked back to the man lying on her bed and then to the one crossing the street below her. Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit… It was, but how? Where was he going? Her hand flew up over her throat as she watched his progress. Not here, not here, not here… Dammit, not now! It was too soon! But the man continued walking and after a moment of interacting with the fat girl stepped inside the wizard’s little clinic.
“Lana, what are you looking at?”
She covered calming herself by picking up the tray and giving Senán a generous view of her dainty black panties as her mind churned. Summer’s Get, here? And why? He had gone next door, but it was still too close for comfort. It had something to do with her resident headache, she was certain – but then why go to the wizard?
She let a smile take her mouth as she turned, tossing her curtain of black hair off of her bare breasts. Because Summer’s Get did not know Senán was right here. She relaxed and moved toward the bed, making sure to put a slow swing into her stride. She may be running out of time, but it was not gone, yet. “What was I looking at?” she repeated, her low voice both mocking and seductive. Senán raised himself up on his elbow, the better to watch her approach, and nodded. The burns on his face and neck were swollen angry and red, but already looking better than they had when he’d arrived. She slid the tray onto the bed and crawled after it, her breasts high and tight enough that they barely swung. He liked them that way. “Maybe I saw a hot piece of man-candy and was thinking about trading up.”
Senán snorted his disbelief and reached down to catch her around the waist. “You can’t do any better than me, baby,” he said as he hauled her up beside him.
Lana took one of the joints and held it up to his lips, keeping hidden behind lowered lashes and a coy smile. Senán couldn’t hold a candle to what she’d had before. She fished up a matchbook from her strip club and struck one as Senán took the joint between his fingers. “Maybe I saw a beautiful girl and I’m going down there to invite her to play with us.”
Senán took a lungful of smoke, held it a moment, then expelled it. “Fuck yeah! Bring her up. But first, go get the burn cream.” He slapped her hard on the ass. It stung. She had the sudden urge to stuff the lit joint up his nose, but refrained.
She needed him trusting and complacent.
So instead she laughed and slid off her bed and into the bathroom. The “burn cream” sat on the vanity, just a little used up makeup jar filled with triple antibiotic ointment. Senán actually thought he was human and she somehow had the hookup on high grade pharmaceuticals. Moron. He would be healed and unblemished within a couple hours all on his own.
Lana paused, looking over her reflection in the mirror. Not bad, not bad at all, but as screwed up as the idiot was it was difficult for her to read what his ideal woman looked like. It was a constant game of hot or cold and it annoyed her to no end. She enlarged her breasts just a little, maintaining their firmness. Pinched in her waist a little more and added red highlights to her dark hair. She nodded, pleased with what she saw. This look would work well at the club, too. Senán wouldn’t notice any changes – no man in the thrall of a succubus ever noticed. They only found her more desirable.
Her mind wandered back to Summer’s Get as she carried the jar back to bed. What was he doing visiting that strung-out wizard? She hadn’t used to be so bad, but up until a few months ago there had also been a few more of them running around. Lana had heard though the rumor mill that the other two had been torn apart by something.
Oh well. Not her town, not her problem.
Her problem was working on his second joint, his eyes half-lidded. Maybe it was his third. It took a lot to mellow out a sidhe as strong as him.
She did not believe in coincidence. If Summer’s Get was next door, it involved Senán. Of that she was certain. What she was not certain of was how much time it left her. She had screwed around with this twit for far too long, but she had had to be so careful, and she was dancing on this wire with no net. One misstep and the fall would kill her.
“Close to what?”
Even with her acute hearing, Lana barely heard his slurred words. Instincts honed by years of court intrigues riveted on those three syllables and she slid up beside him on the bed. “What do you mean?” she asked softly, tracing her nails over his skin.
Senán closed his eyes in pleasure and exhaled smoke. He slurred something incoherent. His eyes did not reopen.
Lana rocked herself up on one knee and straddled his waist, nails digging in harder. “Jeremy, baby. Talk to me.”
The hand with the smoking joint lowered to the bed and a small snore trickled from his lips. Shit. Ordinarily this would be her cue to put out the joint, pick up her paperback, and order sushi in. In the morning she would gush about what fantastic sex they’d had. Since she couldn’t feed on him without Prince Midir sensing it she preferred it this way. Imagine, a succubus choosing fiction over fornication, but he just sucked that much in bed.
She frowned down at his pretty, snoring face, hands on hips, and considered her options. On one hand, her book was getting to a good part. On the other hand… Screw it, something told her she really needed to know what the idiot was talking about. She knew from months of dating that Senán plus pot equaled taking forever to wake back up and she so did not feel like spending the next forty-five minutes coaxing him to alertness. There were much more direct approaches. A smile stretched her mouth and she knew it was neither sweet nor inviting. After all, a rare opportunity to mess with the idiot was reall
y not something she wanted to pass up.
She plucked the joint from his slack fingers, set it in the ash tray before it burnt a hole in her bedspread, and then bit his nipple just this side of bleeding.
Senán woke up with a scream like a stepped-on cat. “Jesus, bitch!” His voice was still slurred, but he was definitely awake. He clasped both hands protectively over his left pectoral, propped up awkwardly on one elbow.
Lana tossed her hair and laughed. “Aw! Did I bite too hard, baby?”
He tried to squirm out from under her. “Why’d you bite at all?” The whine was back in his voice.
“You fell asleep on me.” She nuzzled the backs of his hands. “I’ll kiss it better for you.”
“It’s gonna bruise. You’re not getting anywhere near it.”
She flickered her tongue over the backs of his fingers and put heat into her gaze. Senán’s pupils dilated, his wriggles of protest stilled. She held him with her eyes alone for one heartbeat… two… three… He was hers again. She slid her palms up the heated skin of his ribs, beneath his shielding hands and pushed them aside to reveal the wreath of small marks her teeth had left behind. “Poor Jeremy,” she crooned, lips ever so close to the wound. He made a hissing noise as the warm air of her breath brought his nipple to a hardened peak. “So very abused.” She stroked the peak with the heat of her tongue, making him writhe beneath her again. This time he was not trying to get away.
Lana sat upright, still straddling his belly, and picked up the half-smoked joint to relight it. Senán ran his hands up her thighs and she felt his glamour coiling around her, enticing her back to him. It was strong – he was a prince, after all – but he was also a fraction of her age and she was used to older and stronger princes than he trying to seduce and control her with their glamour. She blew it off with no effort. Had he been aware he was doing it she may have had to work harder. Had she been mortal her panties would have been on the floor, aware or not. It was how the idiot usually got laid.
She pretended to take a hit on the joint and passed it back to Senán. “You said something before you crashed out on me,” she said, watching him take a deep drag. She tickled her nails with seeming idyll over his chest, but she remained attuned to the slightest clue he could offer her.
Senán released the smoke and shrugged. “Don’t remember.” He ran his free hand up her ribs and over her breast. “Does it matter?”
She stroked her fingers through his blonde hair. “Everything you say matters to me, baby.” And it did. He was her one keyhole into Midir’s world. He may not have his master’s confidence, but he was the blind spot that lived in his pocket, and while those clueless gray eyes saw things that may make no sense to him, to her they were pearls beyond price.
Pearls that would buy her vengeance.
His eyes were glazing over and she took the joint back, pretending to smoke it again. “Something about being close,” she coaxed, letting his hand wander. If he fell asleep on her again it would not be his nipple she’d bite.
Senán’s eyelids began to droop, then snapped back open. “Oh yeah!” He let his hand fall to her waist. “Dad said something about, ‘I’m too close.’” His brows knitted together, the little three-legged hamster working the wheel in his brain. “He wouldn’t tell me what, though. Fucker.”
Lana slid off of his belly to sit beside him on the bed and had to admit her own hamster was getting a workout. Close? If he was close to something she really was running out of time, becoming pressured from more than one side. A chill swept over her that had nothing to do with the October afternoon. She was going to have to start taking risks or face failure. And failure was the one thing she could not face. Only success now stood between her and the things that made death a luxury.
She needed more information than Senán alone could provide. She needed inside the glamour and iron that cloaked Moore Investments.
She was terrified.
She stretched out beside Senán and reached over him to drop the roach into the ashtray. She laid a kiss on his bare shoulder. “Don’t you want to know?” she whispered against his neck.
“Know what?” he murmured back.
“What your father is up to.” She went up on one elbow, her hair cascading down over his arm. He had turned his head to face her. “What he’s close to.”
Senán’s eyes widened and he turned his whole body to her, rising up above her on the bed. “If I know, what if I can bring the whole thing down around him?” His breath came shallow and fast.
Lana’s smile stretched into a grin. “Imagine what that would do to him.”
“He’d go fucking insane.” Anticipation and terror danced in his eyes.
“Jonathan Moore, not so perfect after all. It could get in the news.”
He looked off into space. “How, though…”
She touched his cheek and brought his attention back to her. “I’ll help you.”
His look turned skeptical. “Lana, seriously, what can you do?”
She savagely squelched the urge to twist his bitten nipple. She let a dangerous smile pull at the corner of her mouth. “Trust me, baby. Get me into that building, and we’ll find out what your father’s planning.” She twined her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck. “You know I have my ways.”
He began to look thoughtful and hopeful. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. He’s going to be in the building… I mean, we live in the damn building… but if we go in tomorrow night there’ll hardly be anyone around at all. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
Good boy. Lana pulled Senán down and kissed him. “And then your father goes down,” she whispered against his lips. She had one card. One single, solitary card.
And she meant to play it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Hold still. You see the redness here? You’re becoming infected.”
“That stuff’s cold. And I know what an infection looks like.”
Winter held Etienne’s large, warm hand cradled in her gloved palm as she applied green ointment. “It’s not hurting you. You did this on iron spikes?”
“Rose thorns. Moore Investments’ wall is topped by them.”
Winter frowned. “That’s rather a lot of iron for a sidhe to surround himself with.” Very strange. She looked closely at his gray eyes. They were clear, no indication of burst blood vessels and the skin around them was smooth and unblemished. “You’re not feeling ill?” The wounds didn’t show any signs of burning, either, which she would have expected from Cold Iron breaking the skin.
Etienne shook his head, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Thanks to my human father, iron has no effect on me. I’m a blacksmith by trade.”
“Oh?” That sounded very interesting. She set the ointment jar down and wiped her fingers off on a towel before picking up the roll of bandages.
“They’re just scratches. I don’t need bandages.” He started drawing his hands away from her.
She reached out and caught his wrist again, giving him an exasperated look. “It’s not for your hands, it’s to protect my furniture. The green stains. Now stop pulling. The ointment will have your scratches healed within an hour or so, and you can take off the bandages then.” Why did men – no matter the species – have to be such big babies? She looked up at his face as she wrapped his hand, again examining the scrollwork and brands that covered his cheeks. Who had done such a thing? She was half mortal also but had never born a scar in her life. How much cutting and branding had it taken? She ached for him.
“What?” he asked in a gruff tone. Not aggressive, only like a man not used to being taken care of.
“You scar,” she replied softly.
Etienne looked down at the scarred back of his free hand and frowned. “Yeah, I do. I also ache from old injuries in the morning and get infections and illnesses. I’m faster and stronger than a human, but not as fast and strong as a sidhe… not anymore, anyway. And while I’m immortal I think I’m easier to kill than my fully sidhe
kinsmen.”
“You think?”
His expression turned wry. “As I am still alive I have obviously never tested the theory.”
Winter smiled a little at his humor and nodded, finishing the bandaging and turned to the other hand. “Why do you say not anymore?”
“I developed a serious infection from the cutting and I’ve never been the same since.” He shrugged. “It left me crippled.”
She wrapped the other palm with gentle hands, his fingers rough and calloused. She felt his eyes on her as she worked.
“You’re a wizard. Do you know what the glyphs are?” His voice was quiet now, a little lost. She knew that feeling intimately.
She pushed up the sleeve of his red flannel shirt, careful to not overly stress the worn fabric. He had left his jacket upstairs and wore only the unbuttoned over-shirt over his gun rig and a plain gray t-shirt that had also seen better days. There had to be some way to get this proud man and his young companion into newer clothes… She would figure something out. “I wish I did.” She traced her fingers over one of the glyphs, raising the fine hairs on his skin. He stepped back a little then pulled his sleeve back down, and she gave him a quizzical look. He was looking away from her, his expression stoic. What was that about? “I didn’t know my mother long enough for her to teach me much of anything, and my sidhe ancestress left nothing written behind,” she explained. “What are the runes?”
Etienne cleared his throat and looked back up at her. “Dwarven. The friend who brought me to them thought the glyphs might be used for compulsion and control.” The smile tugged at his lips again as he remembered. “Eoin was a better knight than a magician, by a long shot, so it was really more a best guess from knowing those who had attacked me. The runes negate those types of spells.”
A thought tickled the back of her mind. Maybe… “I might have a resource, but I’ll have to ask for an introduction. We’ll see how far that road takes us.”
