by Anne Bishop
Why not?
Because…Wouldn’t he have known? Wouldn’t Koltak have known?
Or was that the reason Koltak had brought the son he hated back to Wizard City over and over again? What would Koltak have done with a son born of a succubus if that child had shown any sign of having the wizards’ kind of magic?
He didn’t want to think about it. He’d said it only to give Lynnea a reason to shake off the chains of her past. Instead it had opened a new, and frightening, future for himself.
Power without training. Was there anything more dangerous in a world that altered itself to match the resonance of people’s hearts? All he knew about the power wizards claimed came from stories, rumors, things he’d heard they’d done to people. He had to talk to someone, but who could he trust? Lee? Glorianna? Maybe. Or would their intense dislike of wizards make them turn away from him if they found out? Aunt Nadia?
His heart rate settled back to something close to normal. He could talk to Nadia. If anyone could help him understand this, she could.
“Sebastian?”
He put aside his own revelation and focused on the one he’d planned for her.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m a wizard as well as an incubus.” He stood up, shifted until he was beside her chair, then placed one hand on her head. “By a wizard’s power and will, I decree that you, Lynnea, are a tigress. You are strong and brave and powerful. You are a woman of beauty and courage. And whatever you want from this night is yours.”
She looked up at him, frightened, confused…and hopeful. “Did you put a spell on me?”
“Something like that.” Daylight! He hoped he hadn’t done anything more than say a few words convincingly enough for her to believe him.
His hand slid down that lovely, wavy brown hair. Then he coaxed her to her feet. Her body brushed against his, and he wanted her with a desperation that bordered on madness. But these hours were hers, and whatever happened between them had to be her choice.
“You need some clothes,” he said, his voice rough.
“But I have clothes,” she protested, brushing a hand over the jumper.
“Different clothes.” Taking her hand, he led her down the street to Mr. Finch’s shop.
They were within a step of the door when she stopped and asked in a timid voice, “What’s a tigress?”
“A big, beautiful, powerful cat that lives in a distant landscape.”
“A cat.” She stared at the colored pole-lights. “She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her kittens?”
“No, she wouldn’t. And she’s strong enough and powerful enough to protect them against any fool who tried.”
He could almost feel something shift inside her, feel some change in the air around her. When she looked at him, the little rabbit was still there, but so was a hint of tigress.
He could handle the rabbit. He wasn’t so sure about dealing with the tigress he was trying to create. And he wished he knew why the mention of kittens produced that response in her.
Mr. Finch greeted them with his usual hums and chirps intermingled with actual words. Every time Sebastian dealt with the small, nervous man, he wondered what was inside Mr. Finch that had brought him to the Den.
“The lady needs strut clothes,” Sebastian said.
“Strut clothes?” Lynnea squeaked.
“Strut clothes,” he replied firmly. “A tigress wouldn’t wear anything else to prowl the Den.”
“Tigress,” Mr. Finch whispered. His nervous hand flutters stilled, and his eyes, usually so vague behind his gold-rimmed glasses, sharpened with professional interest.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Finch said, his hands fluttering again as he hurried to the door of his work area. “I have just the thing. I call it a catsuit. Designed it last month, just finished hemming this first one. Prim and naughty. Yes, yes.”
Returning from the work area, he handed Lynnea a one-piece garment that was prim because it covered a woman’s body from her ankles to the top of her breasts, and was definitely naughty because it came just short of fitting like a second skin. The material was dark blue shot with gold, silver, emerald, and ruby threads.
A succubus wearing something like that would become drunk on the emotions she could wring from the men around her.
Seeing Lynnea prowling the Den wearing that thing would kill him. He just knew it.
“What…” Lynnea cleared her throat. “What do you wear under it?” She held the material as if it might come alive at any moment and bite her.
“Skin,” Mr. Finch chirped happily. He didn’t look at Sebastian, but his mouth curved up in a tiny smile. “The incubi like skin.”
“Oh, I couldn’t—”
Sebastian put his mouth against her ear and whispered, “Tigress.”
A succubus came out from behind a rack of clothes, her eyes hot with envy as she looked at the catsuit.
Daylight! Sebastian thought as she approached them. Why did that succubitch have to be here right now?
“Sebastian,” the succubus purred. “Trying to clean up another stray to make it pass as something desirable?”
“I don’t clean up strays,” he snapped.
“Ooohhh? I heard you’re Teaser’s friend, and everyone knows he doesn’t have what it takes to be a real incubus. He would have been chewed up and spit out long ago if it wasn’t for you.” Her eyes slid over Lynnea. “Even if you can squeeze those broodmare hips into that delectable outfit, you’ve still got that face on top of it.”
“Perhaps I can help with the face,” a cold voice said from the doorway.
It had been over a year since he’d seen her, and he’d never heard her voice sound like that, but he knew who stood in the doorway.
So did the succubus, whose face was now twisted into an ugly mask of fear.
Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment to steady himself before he turned to face the door—and Glorianna Belladonna.
Eyes of green ice stared back at him. With her long black hair framing her face, she still looked beautiful, but it was a cold, untouchable beauty—and he wondered if her heart had become just as cold.
This Belladonna was capable of bringing a horror into the Den that killed so viciously.
No. No! He wouldn’t think it, wouldn’t believe it. If she was capable of doing something like that, it would wound something inside him that would never heal.
She walked into the shop and stared at the succubus, who cringed.
“Go,” she said.
The succubus bolted out of the shop.
“We need to talk,” Sebastian said quietly.
“Later.” She studied Lynnea, then smiled. “Sebastian has forgotten his manners. I’m his cousin Glorianna.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Lynnea replied. “I’m Lynnea.”
“Glorianna—” Sebastian began.
“Why don’t you go out and get some air?” Glorianna suggested.
He recognized a command when he heard one, and, cousin or not, only a fool would disobey Glorianna Belladonna. Despite that, he would have argued with her to give him a minute to explain, but the look in her eyes silenced the protest before he could make one. So he went outside and leaned a shoulder against the building as if nothing of importance were happening inside the shop.
Glorianna watched Sebastian leave the shop. When she’d crossed over near his cottage, she’d felt a dissonance she knew was coming from Sebastian. It was as if the dark currents inside him had become glutted to the point of making some essential shift in his heart. Then, as she hurried to the Den to find him and figure out what was wrong, she realized there had been another shift—as if a festering wound were being drained, bringing the Dark and Light inside Sebastian back into balance.
She didn’t know what had caused the first change in Sebastian, but the second change had been produced by the woman standing in front of her.
Which made no sense, she thought as she turned to look at Lynnea, who smiled timidly and stared at her with blue eyes shadowed by fear. This woman didn’t be
long in the Den, shouldn’t have been able to cross over into this landscape. But she was here, and there was no dissonance because of her presence.
Glorianna’s breath hitched when she realized what she was looking at.
Catalyst.
An ordinary person, but because Lynnea was in a landscape she shouldn’t have been able to reach, her presence would be like a pebble dropped into a pond, and the ripples would touch people in large ways or small. Would bring change. Would bring opportunities and choices.
For the catalyst as well as the people around her.
Which could explain why Sebastian was acting like a collie with one lamb to guard. And wasn’t that interesting?
It was also interesting that when she’d gone to check on a city in one of her landscapes recently, she’d followed an impulse and stopped at a shop that supplied cosmetics for ladies. The colors she’d picked for cheeks and eyes didn’t suit her at all, but she’d been carrying them in the bottom of her pack since she bought them.
The colors suited Lynnea perfectly.
Glorianna glanced at the catsuit in Lynnea’s hands, then glanced at the shop’s door—and smiled.
“Come on,” she said, resting a hand on Lynnea’s shoulder to lead the catalyst to the curtained dressing area. “Let’s get you ready for a prowl in the Den.”
Sebastian stared at the door of Mr. Finch’s shop.
The heart had no secrets from Glorianna Belladonna. She’d know within a minute that Lynnea didn’t belong in the Den. But would she look beyond that? She didn’t know about his plan to give his little rabbit a chance to be strong and powerful. She didn’t know he needed a few hours with a woman who made him feel so much it scared him.
What was happening in the shop?
Teaser loped across the street to join him.
“Well, it’s all set,” Teaser said. “Although I’d keep this prowl to the main street if I were you. I spread the word, but that’s no guarantee that all the incubi and succubi will go along with it.”
“They will if they want to remain in the Den,” Sebastian growled. If he’d been using the wizard magic inside him unknowingly all these years to keep human visitors he didn’t like from returning to the Den, could that magic also prevent a demon from returning? He’d test that out on the succubitch after he took Lynnea to the Landscapers’ School. Assuming, of course, that Lynnea was still in the shop.
Teaser gave him a wary look that swiftly gave way to the usual cocky, bouncy energy. There was a light in the incubus’s eyes Sebastian hadn’t seen in a long time. A tame prowl wasn’t the kind of heat and action the incubi looked for, but it was something different, and the novelty of it was reason enough for Teaser’s enthusiasm.
“So,” Teaser said, looking around and grinning, “where’s the country mouse?”
“In the shop. With Glorianna.”
The grin vanished. “Belladonna’s here?”
Before Sebastian could answer, the shop door opened, and Glorianna walked out. Alone.
He pushed away from the building, wanting to shove her aside and run into the shop to see if there was anyone inside besides Mr. Finch. Instead he stood there, his muscles clenched from the effort to remain still. “We need to talk.”
Glorianna gave him a long look, followed by a mischievous smile—and looked like the cousin he loved instead of a dangerous rogue Landscaper. “Later. You’re going to have your hands full for a while, Sebastian.”
Then she looked at Teaser, who bobbed his head as a salute and said, “I’m helping Sebastian.”
“Yes,” she said after a long pause. “Yes, you are.” She sounded intrigued, as if something had exceeded her expectations.
Then she walked away.
“Well,” Teaser said, blowing out a breath and wiping sweat off his forehead. “Well.”
He didn’t run away, but he headed up the street in the opposite direction at a swift walk that would put some distance between himself and Belladonna.
Which left Sebastian standing alone outside Mr. Finch’s shop. Was there any point in waiting? There had been a message in Glorianna’s smile, but he couldn’t decipher it…and wasn’t interested in trying.
He turned away from the door, feeling unhappy and discouraged. He’d shaken up the Den to create an illusion for a few hours. And for what? To feel like a child again, encouraged by the other children to think he’d been invited to play, only to discover raising his hope of being accepted was the game?
“Sebastian?”
Being part human wasn’t human enough. And trying to be human had never gotten him a single damn thing. Why couldn’t he give it up, let it go?
“Sebastian? I’m ready. I think.”
He turned around and rocked back on his heels. “Lynnea?”
Flustered, she raised one hand to her face. “I don’t look that different, do I?”
Daylight, Glorianna! What did you do to my little rabbit? It was Lynnea…and it wasn’t Lynnea. The succubi and human whores—even the city women who visited the Den—wore more paint on their faces, but there was something devastating about seeing wholesome and pretty changed to seductive. And that catsuit…
Mr. Finch was a wicked, wicked man for designing a piece of clothing that hugged a woman’s body like that.
“Sebastian?” Timid. Uncertain. That first taste of feminine power withering under the weight of his silence.
He closed the distance between them and settled his hands on her waist—and congratulated himself for not running his hands up and down her to find out what she was—and wasn’t—wearing under that catsuit.
“You look wonderful,” he said, leaning a little closer. “Powerful.” No perfume, just the light scent of the soap he’d left for her in his room. A scent suitable for a country girl, not this seductress looking at him with innocent bedroom eyes.
Too many conflicting sensory messages. Too much feeling. The only thing he knew for certain was that if he ended up sleeping alone tonight, he was going to curl up and die.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
“Here?” she squeaked, her eyes darting to the people moving up and down the street.
“A tigress wouldn’t be afraid to kiss her lover in public.”
She stared at him. “Lover?”
“Tonight I’m the lover of Lynnea the tigress.”
“Oh, gracious.”
He wasn’t sure if that translated into something good or bad. Then she lightly pressed her lips against his, and he didn’t care how it translated.
Sweet. Warm. He hadn’t been this excited about a closemouthed kiss since…All right. He’d never been this excited about a closemouthed kiss. And when her hands curved around the back of his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair, he didn’t see any reason for either of them to move until they fell over from exhaustion or starvation.
Then she eased back, looked at him, and frowned. “I don’t think that’s the way a tigress kisses, but I—”
He didn’t give her a chance. He brought his mouth down on hers and showed her how a tigress would kiss a lover, how an incubus would kiss a lover when she really was a lover and not just prey.
A bull demon’s bellow from somewhere nearby finally broke through lust’s haze. Sebastian stepped back and took her hand. “Let’s prowl.” While I can still walk.
There were musicians on the street corners, jugglers in the street, tables outside the taverns for visitors who wanted to watch the entertainment.
They strolled down one side of the main street, watching everything and everyone. The feel of the Den was festive, with a sharp edge that could turn mean in a heartbeat but was staying on the fun side of that line.
This was how the Den had felt when he’d found it fifteen years ago. This was the feeling it had lost in the past few years, turning harder, crueler. Leaving him feeling dissatisfied with the one place he felt comfortable living.
He looked around and felt breathless. Staggered.
Oh, daylight. What he was thin
king couldn’t possibly be true.
He didn’t realize Lynnea had drifted up the street a little ways until he heard a bull demon’s bellow a moment before it lumbered out of a tavern and stopped short of knocking down his little rabbit.
Sebastian held his breath. Lynnea and the bull demon stared at each other.
Finally Lynnea said politely, “How do you do?”
The bull demon pondered the question. “Do good,” it rumbled. It shifted its bulk from one foot to the other.
They stared at each other for a few moments more before the bull demon shook its shaggy, horned head and lumbered away, having sufficiently strained its conversational skills.
“Did you see?” Lynnea said when Sebastian hurried up to her and hooked an arm around her waist. Her face glowed with excitement. She turned in his hold and placed her hands on his chest. “I talked to…” She paused. Frowned. “What was it I just talked to?”
“A bull demon.” He felt the warmth of her hands through his shirt.
“Bull demon?” Another pause. “How much like a bull?”
Guardians and Guides! If they didn’t start moving, he was going to do something stupid. Like rip open his shirt and beg her to touch him.
“Nobody but their females knows for sure,” he said, taking her hand so he could still have physical contact without being too close.
They slowly made their way back to Philo’s place. Holding a plate of nibblies in one hand, Teaser waved them over to a table, then pointed at the bottle of wine waiting for them.
As soon as Sebastian introduced Lynnea to Teaser, Teaser set the plate on the table, looked at Sebastian, and said, “The music’s hot tonight. You don’t mind if I borrow your lady for a dance, do you?”
Sebastian hesitated a moment. “I don’t mind if the lady doesn’t.”
Teaser gave Lynnea that cocky, boyish grin that had disabled so many women’s brains. “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll show you how to dance in the Den.”
“Oh, I don’t—” Lynnea caught herself, then looked at Sebastian, who just smiled at her and mouthed, Tigress.
Teaser grabbed her hand and led her into the middle of the street. When he began a slow, exaggerated bump and grind, she blushed, shook her head, and took a step back. But he said something that made her sputter and then laugh, and before long she was moving with the music, copying Teaser’s movements.
