by Lynch, H. G.
“You think is funny, you little brat? We’ll see how funny it is when you’re locked in a cell with a guy who doesn’t like the look of your pretty face. My guess is you won’t be so pretty for long.”
I couldn’t help myself. I tilted my head back and grinned. “You think I’m pretty? Well, Officer, if you wanted me in cuffs, you could have just asked for a date.” I winked, and Hartley’s face turned the colour of strawberries. I thought for a second his head might explode.
In the corner of the room, the other cop coughed into his fist, but I saw the smile he was trying to fight. He turned his head away so Hartley wouldn’t see it. Right as I was sure Hartley was going to blow an aneurysm, there was a sudden racket outside the interrogation room, and someone knocked hard on the door. Hartley and Leighton exchanged glances, and Hartley glared at me as if it was somehow my fault someone was interrupting.
I waved a hand imperiously. “Go on. Answer it. I’ll wait.”
He growled and stomped across the room, throwing the door open. Someone on the other side muttered to him in a low voice while a girl shrieked angrily. Probably some mental drunk chick. She sounded familiar—maybe I’d done her once. The odds were good on that.
More muttering and the shrieking subsided. Hartley came back into the room, clenching his jaw so hard he was likely to bust a tooth. He mumbled something unhappily to Leighton, and the other cop raised his eyebrows before flashing me a strangely wry smile, as if he knew something I didn’t.
That couldn’t be a good thing.
He muttered something back to Hartley before slipping out of the room and closing the door behind him, locking me in alone with Hartley. Ah, shit.
I tensed, ready for the thumbscrews, but Hartley just crossed his arms and glared murder at me until Leighton came back into the room, looking like he was repressing a grin. He looked at Hartley and jerked his chin toward me.
“Uncuff him. He’s free to go. He’s got an alibi for the time of the murder.”
Hartley’s eyes bugged in rage. “What? You’ve got to be shitting me—”
“Boss’s orders.” Leighton shrugged, as if he didn’t know what else to say about it, but he gave me that same wry smile again.
I frowned, confused. What had just happened? Why were they letting me go now? Where did they get me an alibi from? Grudgingly, with lots of muttering and cursing, Hartley unlocked my cuffs, and I beamed at him as I rubbed my chafed wrists.
“Thanks. And feel free to give me a call next time you want to slap the cuffs on me. Saves time if you just ask for it.” I winked again, and Hartley snarled.
Leighton shuffled me hurriedly out of the room and shut the door before bursting into laughter and clapping me on the back good-naturedly. “Well, kid, you certainly got old Hartley rattled. Never seen him so angry before. You know just how to push a guy’s buttons, don’t you?”
I shook my head, smirking. “Nah, I’m not into guys actually. Don’t tell him that, though. I’d hate to disappoint him.”
Leighton laughed again as he led me out of the station office and into reception, where he put a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward him. He’d sobered a little, but there was still a faint smile clinging about his mouth. “You got lucky this time, kid, but Hartley’s like a pitbull. He’ll keep coming after your ass until you’re behind bars, especially now that you’ve pissed him off. I suggest you keep low for a while, at least until we catch whoever killed your uncle.” He paused. “Any chance you’ve got any clue who did it?”
I shrugged. “Nope, not a clue.”
The gleam in his keen eyes told me he didn’t buy that, but weirdly, he didn’t push. I got the feeling he knew more than he was letting on.
He nodded. “Okay then. You’re free to go. But remember, low profile, got it?”
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered. As he started to turn away, I called, “Hey, wait! Why am I free to go? Who gave me an alibi?”
Leighton grinned at me and pointed over my shoulder. “Your girlfriend did.”
I glanced back and was startled when a small mass of gold hair and black clothing threw itself at me, wrapping thin arms around my waist. “Oh, Brogan, I was so worried about you! Baby, are you okay? What did they say?”
I recognised the voice immediately and realised this was the girl who’d been shrieking earlier. “Kester?” I asked, my eyebrows reaching for my hairline.
She stepped back, looking as if she’d been crying, and reached up to stroke my face softly. “Oh, baby,” she crooned. “It’s okay. You’re out now.”
I blinked hard and looked back at Officer Leighton, who was watching us with an amused expression. “Go on, kid. Hey, Kez?”
She looked up at Leighton and smiled way too innocently. “Yes, Henry?”
The cop gave her a suspicious-but-amused look and said, “I trust you’ll keep your new boyfriend out of trouble, right?”
She nodded eagerly, blonde hair flying. “Of course, Officer Leighton.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed, then retreated back toward the offices. I turned to Kez and opened my mouth to ask what the hell was going on, but I closed it when she grabbed my hand and dug her nails into my skin—a fairly obvious warning to shut up.
So I kept my mouth shut until she’d dragged me out of the police station. Once we were on the street, she let go of my hand and wiped at the dampness under her eyes —somehow, without even smudging her extreme eyeliner.
“Well, that was easier than I’d expected,” she said, breaking into a smug grin.
I stared at her. “What the hell just happened? One second they were ready to book me for murder, and the next, I’m walking out of there without so much as a slap on the wrist. What did you tell them?”
She shrugged. “I told them that you couldn’t possibly have killed your uncle, because you were with me at the time of the murder. I told them you’d snuck in to see me on my break at work, and…well. We were rather occupied.”
Kez flashed me a saucy smirk that made me suddenly wish we were somewhere private so I could spank her. What the hell had she been thinking, lying to the cops for me? I rubbed my hand across my forehead, pushing my hair back.
“And they bought that? How do you even know what time the murder was?”
“I overheard Leighton talking to another cop after you were brought in. And at first, he didn’t want to believe me. He knows me too well. Once I started giving him details about our, eh, rendezvous…he seemed to change his mind.”
My mind caught on one thing she’d said—probably the least important part of what she’d said, but oddly the most interesting to me right now. “You said Leighton knows you? And you called him by his first name back at the station. How exactly did you two get so friendly?” I fought to keep my tone disinterested, but I think I failed. I was surprised by the twinge of jealousy I felt at the thought of Kez and Officer Leighton getting familiar.
Kez blinked at me with those big, green eyes for a second, as if she didn’t understand what I was asking. Then she burst into laughter. “No, nothing like that, you pervert! Christ, Leighton’s married. No, no, he just used to arrest me a lot. I was a pretty bad girl when I was younger. Shoplifting, vandalism, that sort of thing. Last time he picked me up for assault, but in my defence, the other chick started it. I just finished it.”
My eyes widened in surprise. I’d known Kez wasn’t exactly a Catholic schoolgirl, especially after last Friday, but I hadn’t suspected she had a record. Sure, it was mostly petty stuff, but assault? Actually, yeah, I could see that happening. Those boots of hers were vicious.
Damn, what was wrong with me? I could have shrugged it off as being nothing, just ignored it, if I hadn’t been struggling with thoughts of her all week. The amount of times Kester had shown up in my dreams since last Friday. I don’t think there was a single morning I didn’t wake up with a raging hard-on and the delicious smell of her Lust burning in my nose.
The primal Hunger inside me demanded more, more of her Lust, more of he
r body. It demanded I sink my teeth into her flesh and drink her life into me, demanded I claim her in every way I could.
And that terrified me.
I realised with a start that I didn’t just want her; the Hunger wanted her. That insidious beast inside me wanted her flesh and her blood. Only hers. For whatever reason, my darker side was addicted to her. The strength of that addiction could only lead to danger for us both, but damn, I liked the girl.
“Are you going to thank me for saving your ass, or are you just going to stare at me stupidly?” She smirked, cocking one hip expectantly.
Shaking myself out of it, I regained my composure and gave her a wicked grin. “How about we go back to mine so I can thank you properly?” I purred. It was just a tease, and as much as I wanted her to say no, for her own safety and mine, the Hunger also really wanted her to say yes.
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowed, as if she was trying to figure out if I was joking, and the breeze blew a whiff of her Lust toward me. The Hunger snarled in delight at the scent, the sweet taste dancing over my tongue, and my gut tightened so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me. Jesus Christ, I thought, stunned by my own reaction. I hadn’t felt like that last Friday. Sure, I’d wanted her and badly, but it was like the more of her Lust I tasted, the more I craved.
Finally, Kez flashed a bright smile and leaned toward me, the taste of her Lust warm down the back of my throat. Her green eyes blazed at me from under her red curls and gold lashes, the tip of her tongue coming out to tease her rosy lips. She tipped her head back to meet my eyes, exposing the slim column of her neck and the pulse beating under her jaw. She drew up on her toes, so her breath fanned softly across my cheek. The smell of her Lust for me surrounded me, and it was all I could do to stay perfectly still, holding back the beast roaring greedily inside. If she got any closer, she was going to feel how badly I wanted her. Every inch of my body, inside and out, ached with the desperate need to take her. I’d never felt so out of control. Just as I thought I was about to lose it, Kester whirled away with a tinkling laugh, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding.
She laughed again at the look on my face, and said, “Maybe another time, Brogan.” She winked at me, and then turned and walked away.
I watched the sway of her hips until she stopped beside a car and got in. The engine revved, and the Peugeot took off down the street, leaving me alone outside the police station with a hard-on and some serious trouble brewing in the back of my mind.
Chapter Twelve
** Brogan **
The smell of fresh coffee permeated the flat, and I leaned against the kitchen counter as I sipped the hot, bitter liquid from my mug, staring out the window at the gradually lightening grey sky. It was my third cup of coffee in as many hours, and my nerves were jangled. My bare foot tapped reflexively against the floor, and I ran a twitchy hand through my hair, my vision blurring.
God, I was a fucking mess, but I couldn’t help it. It was like seeing Kez the day before had knocked something loose inside me, unleashed a part of me I hadn’t known was chained, and now it was rampaging through my mind and body like a fucking wild animal. There was a creak from the hallway off the living room, distracting me from my thoughts, and I looked up as the hulking form of my roommate lumbered into the doorway.
Jet squinted at me blearily and grunted, “What the fuck are you doing up so early?”
I shrugged, and my shoulder muscles spasmed. I set down my mug, figuring that if I didn’t stop, I was going to OD on caffeine. “Didn’t sleep,” I grumbled, as Jet grabbed a mug from the cupboard and spooned some instant coffee grounds into it. I hit the switch on the kettle and it started to boil.
He glanced at me. “Yeah? I didn’t hear you come in with a girl last night.”
I drummed my fingers on the countertop restlessly. Definitely no more coffee. I was wound so tight, I felt like my spine would snap if I stayed still for more than a few seconds at a time.
“No girl. Just couldn’t sleep.”
Jet’s glance turned wry, and he looked down into his mug, so I could only see the corner of his mouth twitch with a smile.
I frowned. “What’s so funny?”
He shook back his blonde hair and crossed his arms, meeting my gaze with clear blue eyes. “This is about that girl alibiing you out yesterday, isn’t it? You’re obsessed with her.”
I glared at him as anger curled my twitching hands into fists. I didn’t even know why I was angry really, except maybe because he was dead right—and I hated it. “Obsessed? What the fuck are you on about? I haven’t seen her since last Friday, and it’s not like I went looking for her yesterday—”
“Yeah, you haven’t been to see her while you’ve been awake. Dude, you’ve been stalking her in her sleep though.”
That brought me up short, because I didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about, and I said as much. He raised an eyebrow at me and picked up the kettle as it finished boiling. He poured the boiled water into his mug as he spoke.
“You didn’t know you were doing it? You’re an Incubus, man. Those dreams you’ve been having of her all week? You’ve been going to see her and feeding on her in your sleep.”
He said it like it should have been obvious, but I was one step back from fucking clueless. “How is that even possible? And how the hell do you know that shit anyway? If you’ve been perving into my dreams, I swear to God, Jet—”
He lifted his mug of steaming coffee and took a sip—no sugar or milk. My teeth ached in sympathy.
“Get over yourself, Brogan. I don’t give a shit who or what you dream about fucking. I thought you knew what you were doing. I thought Dream Feeding was something all Incubi were taught.”
Frustrated, I shook my head. “If you remember, my parents were fucking shot before they could teach me much of anything. Brent might’ve taught me a few things, but he didn’t give me a fucking guidebook. What I want to know is how you know shit that I don’t?”
Jet sighed and set his mug down. “You’re not the first Incubus I’ve met, bro. And you remember me telling you about my relatives up in Asgard? Well, a perk of being descended from a god is I’ve got bitchin’ powers that you don’t.”
He smirked smugly, and I rolled my eyes. He always got smug when he talked about being a deity’s great-grandson. Like it made him so fucking special. Well, maybe it did, but I still got more pussy than he did.
“Yeah?” I muttered, “and what would those brilliant powers be, oh Great One? ‘Cause I’ve never seen you do shit except levitate the TV remote to your hand from across the room.”
He snorted. “I can’t reveal all my secrets, now can I?”
“You’re a demi-god, not a bloody magician.”
“Actually, I’m more like a demi-demi-demi-god, but all the same, fuck you. Now do you want to know how I know you’ve been sucking your girl dry in your dreams or not?”
I waved a hand at him. “Fine, whatever. Tell me.”
“I can sense…energies, I guess you’d call it. Auras. Whatever. Like a person’s essence.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Kinda like I sense someone’s Lust?”
He shrugged. “Something like that, though I only get specific emotions if I’m really close to them. Usually, it’s just a sort of…feeling. Shit, man, I can’t explain it properly, but basically, when I got in from work the other night, you’d already gone to bed, and I could sense you were there, but your essence was weaker than usual. Like you were here, but not here. For a second, I thought you were fucking dying or something, but I checked in on you, and you looked fine. You talk in your sleep by the way, mate.”
He grinned, and I flipped him off. “Shut up. So after you perved on me sleeping, what made you come to the conclusion I was Dream Feeding?”
“Like I said, you’re not the first Incubus I’ve met, and the only other reason for your essence to be as weak as it was, besides you dying, was that part of you had gone somewhere else. See, wh
en you Dream Feed, you’re not just dreaming. Part of you is actually leaving your body and invading someone else’s dreams. And once you’re there, you can control the dream. So if you happen to be a horny freak, like all Incubi, you get her off in the dream world, and you can feed on the Lust as if she was in your damn bed with you.”
That…was really fucked up, and it made so much sense. It explained why I hadn’t been Hungry all week—at least, until running into Kez the day before. Normally, by the middle of the week, I’m craving another hit of Lust. If I don’t get it, by the weekend I’m a wreck—stomach cramps, headaches, muscle weakness. Effects of not sating the Hunger. But I hadn’t fed that week, except the little bit of Lust I took from Kez yesterday in the garage, and I felt fine. Well, caffeine buzz and lack of sleep aside. That made sense if I’d actually been feeding from her in my sleep all week. Then I thought of something that had me grinning.
“Hey, wait, you said I control the dream once I’m there, right? Does that mean that since I’m actually in her dream, she’s dreaming about me? I mean, will she remember it in the morning?”
Jet was drinking his coffee again, and he shrugged. “Guess so.”
My grin widened, and suddenly the Dream Feeding thing sounded like a lot of fun. “Oh, this could be interesting. That means she’s been dreaming of me while I’ve been feeding on her. All week. No wonder she got so embarrassed when I ran into her at the garage.”
Jet gave me a hard look. “I know it’s pointless telling you this, but Dream Feeding is dangerous. It’s easy to get out of control when you’re feeding in a dream, and if you take too much from her, she’ll slip into a coma, same as she would if you took too much in real life. So just…be careful, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”
I nodded, but I was already thinking about all the possibilities. Still, there was one thing I didn’t understand. Why had she alibied me out yesterday? Was she that desperate for a second round that she’d lie to the cops to get at me? No, that couldn’t be it. I’d offered her to come back to my place, and she’d walked away. She barely knew me. For all she knew, I had killed Brent. It wasn’t as if I’d exactly sold myself as a saint, so maybe it wouldn’t be a huge stretch for her to think I was a killer. So, if she didn’t want me out of jail so she could take me for another test-drive, and she didn’t believe I was an angel, then why the hell had she done it?
