by Anne Bishop
“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 belong 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 thinking 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.
Did she have any idea how blatantly sexual those movements were? Did she have any awareness of how much male attention was focused on her? No. She was being brave. She was having fun. She was blooming into a sensual woman right before his eyes.
And watching her made him suffer in a way he never had before.
He poured a glass of wine, settled in a chair, and studied the main street. Teaser was right. The music was hot, the energy was hot—and the Den looked like it had all those years ago when a fifteen-year-old boy had been drawn to it, dazzled by the lights and the energy…and the feeling that the place welcomed him with open arms.
“You never told me,” Sebastian said when Philo came up to the table.
“Told you what?” Philo asked.
“For years I’ve called the Den a carnal carnival, but I didn’t realize until tonight that’s exactly what it is. A carnival of vices…but tempered somehow.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Sebastian took a sip of wine. “Yes, you do. Fifteen years ago I was more innocent than I realized, or would ever admit, and this is that adolescent boy’s dream of a dark landscape. Heat and fun and sex. There’s a meaner edge. Sure there is.” He looked up at Philo. “But it’s still a carnival.”
“So what if it is?” Philo said, his face and voice solemn. “This is a dark landscape, but it’s not a bad place. I’ve lived in bad places, Sebastian. So has Mr. Finch. So have the rest of the humans who settled here. Finding this place…” He sighed. “So, no, I never told that boy he wasn’t in a badass landscape like he thought he was. The Den’s like you, Sebastian. Hot, dark, a little mean around the edges, but good at the core.”
The Den’s like you. Sebastian waited until Philo left to check on the other customers before draining his wineglass—and remembered the first time Glorianna had come to visit him in the Den, six months after he’d arrived.
“Quite a place, isn’t it?” Sebastian said, his arm linked through hers as they walked down the main street.
“Yes, it is,” Glorianna replied. “You’re happy here?”
“I belong here.”
He hadn’t realized how tense she was until he felt her relax. Hadn’t realized at the time that, while he’d been finding his place, she had lost hers. Hadn’t even realized during that first visit that she was the Landscaper who had altered Ephemera to make the Den. And later…
“Why did you do it, Glorianna? Why did you create a place like the Den?”
She shrugged. “Even demons need a home.”
It had stung that she considered him a demon, but even then, he’d had to admit she was right. The incubi and succubi were the dominant demons in the Den itself, and for the first time they had a place where they could openly be what they were. No more trying to blend in with the humans, no more danger of being hurt or even killed when the nature of their sexuality was discovered. Many who had drifted into the Den during those first months discovered the carnival atmosphere and the lack of danger weren’t to their taste. And those who had tried to change the tone of the Den and bring in the kind of danger that would have turned it into a different kind of place…
The heart had no secrets from Glorianna Belladonna. Those who wanted a dangerous place ended up in a dangerous place. But not the Den. Those who survived the dark desires of their hearts never came back to the Den.
He’d been seventeen before he’d discovered that the rogue Landscaper called Belladonna was his cousin Glorianna. Might not have discovered it even then if Lee hadn’t come stumbling into the Den a few weeks after beginning his formal training at the Bridges’ School.
Fifteen years old and running away from a pain he couldn’t bear, Lee had come to the Den. Sebastian had turned away from the woman he’d almost lured into bed, in order to keep his younger cousin from getting into too much trouble. He’d helped Lee get beyond drunk, since the boy seemed set on doing something self-destructive, and he’d held his cousin’s head later when Lee puked up the liquor and half his stomach.
And he’d listened to the troubled, tearful, painful discovery Lee had made that day—a discovery his mother and sister had withheld from
him. Lee had known Glorianna had left the Landscapers’ School abruptly and was being trained by their mother. But until he’d taken a walk around the school to find the location of his sister’s garden, he hadn’t known the Instructors and wizards had tried to seal Glorianna into her garden, hadn’t known she’d been declared a rogue Landscaper, a danger to Ephemera, someone the wizards would try to destroy on sight.
Someone now called Belladonna.
All of that Sebastian had learned from a boy trying to come to grips with a truth that had altered his reality. But never why. None of them—not Nadia or Glorianna or Lee—ever told him what Glorianna had done to be declared rogue. Now, after so many years, it no longer mattered. She was dangerous…and feared—and she was still the girl who had understood his troubled heart better than he did.
A smattering of applause brought Sebastian’s attention back to the present. Lynnea was shaking her head and laughing as she stepped away from Teaser. He was grinning, looking carefree and easy—until Lynnea lifted her hair off her neck to cool the heated skin.
Teaser’s grin faded. His body went from carefree to tense in a heartbeat. And the look in his blue eyes…
Sebastian understood the look. Knew his own eyes revealed the same hunger. He wanted to press his mouth against the back of her neck and taste her skin. He wanted to skim his hands up the front of her, cupping her breasts, rubbing the nipples until they stiffened beneath his touch. He wanted to pull her against him, letting her feel what the sight of her body did to his.
Teaser stared at him, viciously hungry for this particular feast and just as viciously frustrated.
Because the feast had no idea what she was doing to either of them. Her eyes were closed, her fingers were threaded through her hair to keep it up, and her hips were still moving slightly to the music. But not for their benefit. Not to lure or entice or even attract attention. If anyone had told him innocence could make him insane with lust, he would have laughed.
He wasn’t laughing now.
Oddly enough, Teaser regained his balance first. Taking a step toward Lynnea, he made a gesture to indicate the table where Sebastian waited, but as she turned in that direction, he glanced down the street. Instead of leading her to the table, he curled a hand around her arm and led her away from the courtyard.
