by Stacia Kane
“Right. Well. Enjoy one last night of not thinking about it, then, because tomorrow we need to get to work. In more ways than one.”
“The meeting.” She sighed.
“The meeting,” he said. “And the fact that whoever it is who’s trying to kill you will probably be there.”
Chapter 5
The antivenom or antiallergen or whatever it was Maleficarum had given her was effective. Either that or the effects of the litobora venom were short-lived.
Either way, by the following afternoon she felt fine, at least physically. Mentally? That was another story.
Although she had to admit, feeling lousy in a luxury suite at the Bellreive beat the hell out of feeling lousy in her own home. It even almost beat feeling lousy at Greyson’s place, the massive white mansion that was his official residence as Gretneg of his Meegra. Ieuranlier Sorithell was beautiful, and more than that, it was familiar, and some of her stuff was there. Not a lot of stuff, but some things, a toothbrush and bottles of all her shampoos and such, a few spare items of clothing kept in a drawer.
But hey. Some of her stuff was there at the hotel, spilling out of her suitcases, and the hotel had a stunning lake view that not even the Ieuranlier could match, especially as the sun went down. She stood on the balcony with the door open, letting the cold blast from the very efficient hotel air conditioning cool her back while the warm breeze brushed her hair from her face.
It was hard to believe, when watching the bright turquoise pool fourteen floors below with its yellow and white fringe of deck chairs and the rippling lake beyond turn pink in the sunset, that someone in this hotel was probably trying to kill her.
Movement by her side; Greyson rested his forearms on the rail beside her. Beyond his sharp profile the landscape blurred, as though he was the only real thing against a blue screen in a movie.
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s beautiful.” She picked up the gin and tonic Spud had made for her off the iron table beside her and took a sip. Perfect. “I still can’t believe we’re here, though. Especially after what Win said this morning.”
He shrugged. “Nobody’s particularly worried about the FBI, and everyone wants the meeting, so . . . not many acceptable options on such short notice.”
“But they went to Win’s house. To his wife. I can’t believe he isn’t more upset.”
“Oh, he’s upset. He just isn’t going to show it, any more than the rest of us would. Remember who we’re dealing with.”
“Right.” Demons were very into appearances. Powerful demons, Gretnegs, were even more so, and Winston Lawden—Win—was Gretneg of House Caedes Fuiltean, the blood demons. “I don’t suppose we could just stay in here tonight? Get room service and watch pay-per-view?”
He smiled, and the golden light hitting his skin as he did made her breath catch in her throat.
He noticed. She knew he would. Reddish light that had nothing to do with the sunset flared in his eyes. “We have some time before dinner,” he said softly, drawing her close. “It would be a shame to waste it standing here, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t think I’d call it a waste,” she started, but she was only joking and they both knew it. She let him interrupt her without protest, let his kiss draw her away from any other silly ideas about talking. He was right. It would be a waste of time.
And a waste of the beautiful balcony, where the breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders and neck so his mouth could find her bare skin more easily. What the wind didn’t do his hand did, gathering the loose strands and twisting them gently at the back of her head.
Her own hands were busy as well, finding the buttons of his shirt and opening them one by one, slowly, savoring the unwrapping. The night before had, of course, been a chaste one; work had kept them apart for a few days before. It felt like longer, much longer.
Power rushed through her, smooth and warm like melted chocolate. Greyson’s power, tinged with fire and smoke, igniting her nerve endings. She let it dance along them like tiny sparks before sending it back, colored with her own power.
His sharp breath made her push harder. Made her give him more, energy she knew smelled like her, tasted like her. The demon powers that had been a dubious Christmas gift had one clear benefit, and she used it, sending the essence of herself into him and feeling him accept it. Feeling his breath grow hotter, his kisses more urgent, his body harder as he drew more of it in.
They swayed back inside, both aware that even private balconies weren’t necessarily private. He swung the French door shut behind them with his foot and pulled her hips closer, pressing her against him. Pressing more power back into her, a circuit that did not stop, until she couldn’t be entirely certain whose power was whose. They didn’t exist as separate entities anymore, not in her head or in any of her senses.
Orange with flame and dark with secrets, the energy they created together burned through her, sparked with desire. She gave herself over to it, pulled it into her the way her hands pulled at him and his at her.
Cold air played over her skin, goosebumps rising on every newly exposed inch of it. His palm slid over them, soothing them with heat, making her tingle in a different way when he pushed off her top, let her bra fall to the floor. His strong arm behind her was all that kept her from falling when he bent down to take her nipples into his mouth and his free hand slipped between her legs.
“Missed you,” he murmured into her throat.
She wanted to reply but couldn’t; she was too busy tugging down his zipper and trying to keep herself from exploding. All that energy buzzed inside her, so intense she shook from it, and when she fed it back to him, he shook too.
They shook together. Their clothes lay in heaps on the floor. His warm skin rubbed against hers, little shocks everywhere they touched. Flames glowed from the ceiling, adding their own intimacy to the blazing golden sunset light bathing the room and their bare bodies.
In the center of the bedroom stood an enormous four-poster bed, its white sheets crisp and cool. They fell onto it in a tangle of arms and legs, of searching hands and soft words.
“I missed you too,” she managed to say, but he was beyond that. His body slid into hers, his power slid into hers, stronger than before. Strong enough to make her cry out and dig her fingers into his skin, strong enough to make her fight to give it back and drive him as high as he drove her.
His soft moan, the faint buzz as he took what she gave him, told her she’d succeeded. He moved faster inside her, his back shifting under her hands, and returned it.
It was her turn to be overwhelmed. Her turn to drown in him, to turn his energy into her own and keep it. To let their passion feed her. The intimacy of it, the sense of holding him everywhere in her body and mind, made both her human and demon hearts pound.
She flipped him over, looked down at him through half-lidded eyes. Over the last eleven months she’d probably spent more time looking at him than she’d ever looked at anyone else; she’d probably spent a couple of solid weeks of her life doing nothing but looking at him. It didn’t feel long enough.
She shifted her weight, rocked back and forth. He reached out to cup the back of her neck and pull her face down to his, giving her more power, taking more. Her entire body tensed.
They rolled over again. No more playing. With a low, soft sound, a few words in the demon tongue, he sent power shooting through her body, coursing through her blood. Too much for her to handle, and that, coupled with his relentless movements inside her and his mouth on hers, sent her over the edge.
Her last coherent thought was to give it all back to him; her last willful act before her body took over was to do so. They drifted together, riding the waves until the flames in the air disappeared and the world came back into focus.
Winston Lawden—or Win, as she’d grown used to calling him—was the first person she saw when they entered the dining room an hour and a half or so later, and she was glad. She didn’t know any of the other Gretnegs
very well, except for Greyson, and Win had always been kind to her. Had always seemed to be on her side.
“Seemed” being the fly in the ointment. She’d never had any reason to distrust Win. But that didn’t mean she necessarily trusted him; she liked him, but she wasn’t stupid, and in the demon world, at least, her natural skepticism stood her in good stead. If “Trust no one” was a good blanket policy for life among humans, it was doubly good when dealing with demons.
Winston greeted them with such enthusiasm Megan wondered if he’d been drinking. Or drinking more than normal, to be accurate; a roomful of demons could make liquor disappear faster than virtue.
But when he kissed her cheek, she realized he was simply happy. Perhaps a little nervous but mostly happy. His blue eyes danced in his ruddy face. “Megan, have you met Sarita?”
“No, I haven’t.” She started to smile, started to hold out her hand to the lovely dark-haired woman he clasped tightly at his side. Halfway through, she realized what she was doing, realized who Sarita was.
Too late to pull her hand back. So instead she went ahead and shook hands, smiling with as much friendliness as she could muster while her stomach churned. The woman wasn’t a fellow Gretneg. She could have been one of Win’s rubendas, members of his Meegra, sure.
But what she undoubtedly was was Winston’s girlfriend. Mistress. Whatever. She was not Winston’s wife was the point, Winston’s wife, Alvia, whom Megan knew. Whom Megan had cooked for one night when she had a little dinner party and who had cooked for Megan in her home when she did the same thing. Alvia, who knitted and made her own pasta, who had raised Winston’s four children, and who had a sweet smile and looked at her husband as though he were a god.
“Nice to meet you.” It wasn’t the girl’s fault, she tried to tell herself, ignoring the little voice in her head that said it most certainly was. Win wore a wedding ring, for fuck’s sake. He was a Gretneg, he was a person—demon—of standing in the demon world. People knew who he was, they knew his sons and daughter, and they sure as fuck knew his wife.
Instead she forced herself to listen to the more effective voice that told her it was none of her business. It wasn’t. How Win chose to run his personal life, who he spent time with or shared his bed with, were emphatically None of Her Business. And if a little something inside her—something that had nothing at all to do with her inner demon—squirmed at the thought of keeping a secret like that, of giving his scummy philandering her tacit approval simply by keeping her mouth shut, there wasn’t much she could do about that.
What she could do something about, or at least say something about, was the warm greeting Greyson gave Sarita. The kiss on the hand. The brief conversation that made it clear he already knew the woman.
“How do you like the place, Megan?” Win smiled at her, just as if he hadn’t put her in a totally awkward position and presumed her discretion without asking. What in the world had she ever said or done that would make him think she’d be okay with that?
She gave him a tight smile, didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s lovely.”
He and Greyson said something else to each other. She didn’t know what it was, because while not meeting Win’s eyes, she’d caught sight of Gunnar Ryall, Gretneg of House Aquiast, the water demons. They were a smaller house—not as small as hers but small nonetheless—and they kept to themselves more than the other Meegras did.
But she’d met Gunnar. And she’d met his wife. Who was decidedly not the young woman at his side, his hand resting casually on the small of her back.
What the hell was going on?
Her attention was dragged back to the people before her when Greyson gave her hand a squeeze. Right. She had to smile and make nice.
Especially as a new person had joined the circle. A new woman, to be more exact, and Megan almost did a double-take. That was simply her distraction, making her think for a second that Tera was standing there; on second glance the woman bore very little resemblance to Tera, the witch who was Megan’s closest friend. Her only real female friend. What would Tera make of all this?
For a moment Megan wished violently that Tera were there. Then she remembered where she was. The animosity between witches and demons was ancient and seemingly insurmountable, and Tera’s presence wouldn’t be good for anyone.
But the woman standing at Win’s side was slim and blond, like Tera, and just as pretty. More important, she had the same impeccable coolness Tera had, the same confidence. There stood a woman whose lipstick never smeared, whose stockings never ran, whose hair never frizzed. Unlike Megan’s, although she had to admit that since the day she’d discovered that Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud were incredibly talented makeup artists and hairstylists—the result of centuries of guarding high-ranking ladies—those weren’t problems she had much either.
The difference was that Megan couldn’t get used to that and always rather expected the smear, the run, or the frizz. Even on a night like this one, clad in a black silk evening gown with iridescent dark green feathers— dark green was one of her House’s colors—edging the irregular hems of layers of taffeta overskirt. Even with the diamond necklace and earrings Greyson had given her for Christmas. She still couldn’t quite accept that she looked the way she looked.
Win smiled and put his arm around the woman. Jesus, how many girlfriends had he brought? “Megan, this is my daughter, Leora.”
Right. That’s why the girl looked vaguely familiar. The resemblance was there in the deep blue eyes and the fine, straight nose. Megan had met both of Win’s sons but hadn’t met—wait, his daughter? He’d brought his daughter along to a gathering to which he’d also brought his girlfriend?
Too unsettling. She didn’t want to stand there anymore, while Leora told Greyson something about her recent trip to Washington, D.C.—his hometown—and Sarita leaned against Win. No matter how tightly Greyson held her hand or how reassuring that firm grip was, she wanted a drink, and she wanted not to have to smile politely at a man who was cheating on his wife. Publicly.
Greyson must have noticed she wasn’t making much conversation. “Meg, shall we go get ourselves a couple of drinks?”
She nodded; he led her away, toward the bar but not actually to it. They stopped a little more than halfway there, by one of the large marble pillars supporting the high arched ceiling. It really was a hell of a room, a small and intimate reception area before the private dining room, but those high ceilings and the pale walls and floors gave it a sense of light and space. At the apex of the ceiling stretched grids of tiny white lights. The glow they cast reminded her of the walls in their bedroom earlier, and some of her anger drained away.
Some but not all. She didn’t think a bath in a vat full of gin would be able to wash it all away.
“What’s wrong?”
“What?” In trying not to speak too loudly, she accidentally hissed the word; luckily it seemed lost in the leafy vine wrapped around the pillar. She tried again, with more success. “What do you think is wrong? I just had to stand there and pretend it doesn’t bother me that Win’s here with some woman who isn’t Alvia, and I know Alvia. How can I look her in the face after this?”
Confusion spread over his features. “Alvia? Why would you—”
“Yes, Alvia. Win’s wife. You do know her. And look, they all have girlfriends with them. Am I supposed to—”
“Okay. Okay, calm down, please, before they really start to get curious.” His arm slid around her shoulders, bringing their faces and bodies closer together and affording them a bit of privacy. A bit more when he shifted them around so their backs were to the small crowd.
It was a small crowd; aside from the Gretnegs and the girlfriends, there were assistants. That was it. Something struck her about that, but she filed it away for later.
“You can look Alvia in the face after this because she is fully aware of what Win is doing and who’s with him. You don’t think he’d bring his daughter into a situation that would divide her loyalties like that?”
“What? She knows?”
He nodded. “All the wives know. It’s a—a status symbol. Their husbands are wealthy and can afford to keep a mistress. The prettier she is, the nicer her home and car . . . Come on, bryaela. You know the story.”
Uh-huh. She sure did. Appearances again. “And his daughter . . .”
“Leora’s known Sarita for years. Since she was a child. They all know her. She and Alvia exchange birthday gifts.”
She examined his face, tried to persuade herself to believe him. Well, no. She did believe him. She just didn’t want to, because to believe him would send her thoughts running down alleys she had no desire to enter.
“These guys are the old guard, Meg. Their marriages were arranged. Win and Alvia are lucky, you know. They’ve always liked each other. Templeton and his wife usually had a good time. But they’re not all lucky like that. It’s just the way things are done—the way they were done.”
Memory dinged in the back of her head. Templeton Black’s wife, teary at his funeral. And something else too. “Your parents hated each other.”
“Right. With a deep and fiery loathing.” He smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you a drink. You look naked without one.”
“I do not.”
“Maybe I just wish you were.”
She returned his smile. Returned the sentiment be hind it too; she really didn’t want to be there, not when that big bed upstairs was empty. “Maybe later you’ll get your wish.”
“Now, that,” he said, taking her hand and heading toward the bar, “is something to look forward to.”
Chapter 6
Five minutes later, nicely fortified by a cold gin and tonic and a kiss, she spotted Roc sitting in a chair against the wall. Of course; everyone was supposed to have met in the room at nine, but she and Greyson had been a few minutes late.
