by Anne Bishop
Maybe she should tell Teaser she was going to wait for Sebastian, even if it hurt his feelings. But what if a man approached her wearing Sebastian’s face? Would she be able to tell the difference?
Yes. Definitely, yes. She knew the feel of Sebastian, would be able to pick him out in a crowd of men all wearing his face. Because none of them would be able to imitate the feel of his heart.
But there was still the question of Teaser. Go or stay? The hesitation must have shown in her face, because he cocked his head when she walked toward him.
“If I promise not to leave wet towels on the bathroom floor anymore, will you let me escort you to the bordello?”
Relief surged through her. No one but the real Teaser would think to say that to her. “I’ll hold you to that promise.” She linked her arm through his as they left Philo’s courtyard. “So how much did you win off the bull demon?”
He grinned and relaxed—and asked her about her first day working for Philo instead of answering.
Yes, that felt like the real Teaser. Smiling, she told him about the bull demon and the Sebastian Special while they walked to the bordello.
Sebastian planted his feet on either side of the demon cycle when it stopped halfway down the Den’s main street. Since it floated on air, he didn’t need to do that to keep the cycle upright. He just wanted to see if his legs still stretched to the ground.
Why had he spent the past few hours riding around, looking for signs that the Eater of the World had found a way into one of the dark landscapes that bordered the Den? Why had he studied every bridge as if he could tell what he might find if he crossed over?
Part of it was his promise to Lee to do what he could to protect the Den. The other part was that he needed something to do while Lynnea was working at Philo’s. Hovering around the courtyard would have made her nervous—and might have given too much of an impression that he was waiting for the right company to come along. And in a way that was true, since he’d be waiting for Lynnea.
He felt no desire to troll the streets for a woman. Hadn’t felt the need since he’d met his little rabbit. Just living with her fed the incubus’s hunger in ways the hottest sex with other women had never done. He craved her company, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin beneath his hands.
Besides his own lack of interest in being some other woman’s dream lover, he didn’t think Lynnea would see his carnal attentions to another woman as anything but a betrayal—the kind of betrayal that would break a woman’s heart. So if he wasn’t going to troll the Den and provide sex as a commodity, what could he do to earn his keep?
He lifted one hand, rubbed his thumb over his fingertips. He felt the tingle of power that marked him as a wizard. Since “wizard” was a dirty word in the Den, he still hadn’t told anyone about the power that had awakened in him. But sooner or later people would find out. Sooner or later he’d have to decide what he was going to do with that power.
Which led his thoughts back to why he’d spent the past few hours roaming the boundaries of the Den.
Defender. Protector. A few weeks ago he would have laughed if anyone had used those words to describe him. Now, knowing he was the one who anchored the Den made a difference. Lynnea made a difference. This was his place. These were his people. She was his woman.
Could that really be enough for her, to be his woman? Could the Den give her enough of what she needed so that she’d be content to stay? Even if they couldn’t live in the cottage right now, he could take her to visit Aunt Nadia. She could shop in Aurora, talk to the kind of people she was used to. Spend a few hours in sunlight. Would it be enough to keep her coming back to him and the kind of loving he could offer a woman?
But in the village…How would Aunt Nadia introduce her? As a young friend visiting from another landscape? As her nephew’s companion? Oh, that would produce plenty of knife-edged smiles and whispers as soon as Lynnea turned her back. But what else could Nadia call her? His wife?
Sebastian’s heart gave a hard bump before settling back into its usual rhythm.
Wife. Friend, lover, companion.
No. Oh, no. “Wife” was a human word, not one to be bandied about in a place like the Den. Besides, “wife” went with “marriage,” and that was too…permanent. He’d known Lynnea only a few days. His craving for her could diminish, could disappear altogether. The temptation to feast on another woman’s emotions and flesh could rise up at any moment. After all, he was an incubus. Constancy wasn’t part of what he was.
Then he saw her with Teaser, heading for the bordello, and he knew his craving for her wouldn’t diminish, wouldn’t disappear. This was more than a craving. This was love. So he’d find some way of giving her what she needed so that she would be willing to stay.
“There’s Lynnea,” he said.
The demon cycle growled what might have been a happy sound and zipped forward so fast Sebastian was sure he’d scraped off half the soles of his boots before he managed to lift his feet.
“Slow down before you knock someone over,” Sebastian snapped. Not that his order made a bit of difference. The demon cycle tore around the corner and into the side street with no regard for anything that might have been in the way.
Of course, Lynnea had gone inside by the time they reached the building, which left him promising a sulky demon that he’d ask if she wanted to go for a ride later.
What was it about his little rabbit-turned-tigress that made demons act besotted?
Best not to think too hard about that, since you’re one of those demons, he chided himself as he walked into the building.
“Better keep your eyes on Teaser,” the desk clerk called as Sebastian headed for the stairs. “Your lady is the second one he’s brought here in the past hour.”
He paused. “Up to our rooms?”
The clerk shook his head and gave a room number on the second floor.
Sebastian took the steps two at a time. Daylight! What was Teaser up to? Why take Lynnea to one of the rooms that were rented for a “night” of pleasure when an incubus or succubus didn’t want to bring the prey home? He’d trusted Teaser to look after Lynnea because he and Teaser had been friends for so many years—and because he’d had the feeling that, while the other incubus was drawn to Lynnea, Teaser didn’t see her as prey.
Bounding up the last steps, he turned into the corridor just in time to see Teaser backing away from an open door.
“It’s not me,” Teaser said as he hit the wall opposite the door and slid to the floor. “It’s not me!”
Lynnea dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Teaser, who sounded hysterical.
Sebastian didn’t know if she’d heard him or just sensed him, but she turned her head and looked at him, her eyes full of worry and relief.
He strode to the door, stepped into the room—and froze.
The woman on the bed was so ensnared in a sexual haze she wasn’t aware of anything else. Her hands were fisted in the sheets and her hips pumped with the desperation of someone whose release was being held just out of reach, but her breathing sounded painfully harsh and her eyes were chillingly blank.
The man was too busy pounding himself into her to either notice or care that he had an audience.
The woman’s breathing became more labored, but her hips kept up the desperate pumping.
Save the woman. Get that bastard off of her.
But as he took another step, the man turned his head and looked at him.
Teaser’s face. But there was a sharp cruelty in the smile and a viciousness in the eyes that he’d never seen in his friend—not even when Teaser was being cruel.
The humping continued, hard and fast, the last thrusts before release. The woman moaned, but it was impossible to tell if the sound was a response to pain or pleasure.
As Sebastian breathed in the feral, musky scent that filled the room, the power of the incubus unfurled inside him, a sharp-edged hunger honed by the other male.
Yes. Take her. She was o
nly human, only prey. Feed desire until it became insatiable, then feast on the flood of feelings, working the body until the mind was helpless to do anything but respond and provide more meat for the feast. Feast and feast until the prey was incapable of fighting to survive.
Kill with pleasure.
One last thrust. The woman cried out—a liquid, unhealthy sound, as if something had broken inside her. The male with Teaser’s face closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure.
Sebastian’s heart pounded. He felt hot, hard—and sick with a desperate hunger he had never felt in quite that way before.
Then he heard Lynnea’s voice, just a murmur of comfort to Teaser, and he gasped for air, feeling as if he’d almost been pulled into a dark, ugly place. He had never hunted like this, had no desire to hunt like this.
But in a dark corner of his heart, he understood the power of this kind of hunt, understood the cruel pleasure. And he understood that without Nadia, Glorianna, and Lee, he might have become a hunter like the male now rolling off the bed.
The male moved to the center of the room—Teaser’s body but not his eyes. There was nothing of Teaser in those eyes.
“Diluted spawn,” the male said, sneering. “One-faced mongrel who does its tricks to win a few scraps of emotion. We starved, locked away in that landscape, while the ones we had driven out because they had become tainted by feelings survived by hiding in the human landscapes. They mated with prey and ended up producing things like you.”
“What are you?” Sebastian said, even though he already knew. In his blood, in the marrow of his bones, he knew.
The male’s body changed. The blond hair darkened. The blue eyes turned green.
Sebastian stared at his own face.
“I’m what you should have been,” the male replied. He looked over Sebastian’s shoulder. “I’m more than you’ll ever be. She won’t be able to resist me,” he added in Sebastian’s voice.
Lynnea.
The hunger of the incubus withered inside Sebastian as another power flared, fed by fear and fury.
He threw himself at the incubus, sent them crashing to the floor. It fought viciously, with animalistic savagery. But hearing Lynnea shouting his name made him just as vicious, just as savage in his desperation to save her from what this male would do to her.
It rolled, pinning him beneath it, its hands around his throat, choking him.
Then Lynnea darted into the room, grabbed the male by the hair, and yanked. That provided enough of a distraction for Sebastian to break the choke hold and roll away.
The other male rolled, too, trying to grab her, but Teaser dashed into the room and pulled Lynnea back to the doorway.
Sebastian scrambled to his feet, gasping for air. The other male got to his feet with more grace—and changed again.
Sebastian stared at the bull demon. It didn’t have the height or muscle of a real bull demon, but the horns could gore him just as effectively.
He felt the tingle of power, but he still hesitated to reveal the wizard side of his nature.
Then the male roared, lowered his head, and charged—not at Sebastian but at Teaser, the rival male who was holding the female prey.
Sebastian leaped on the male, one hand grabbing a horn while the other hand clamped on the male’s throat. As they twisted and fell, he let the wizard’s lightning surge through him and into his hands.
The male screamed as the lightning ripped through it, burned it, razored through brain and heart.
Finally it stopped moving. The smell of burned flesh hung in the air.
Sebastian rolled away from the male and lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, sickened by what he’d just done. And sickened even more by a loss of innocence—not just because he’d killed, but because he’d seen a truth about himself.
“Sebastian?”
Lynnea.
The sound of her voice got him to his feet. Thank the Light, Teaser had pulled her into the corridor and had blocked her view of the last of the fight.
He moved to the doorway. “It’s dead,” he said in a flat voice.
She looked at him, studied his face, his eyes—and relaxed.
“I have some things to take care of here. Can you get Teaser back to his room?”
Teaser looked about to protest, then realized what Sebastian wanted. “Yeah.” He leaned on Lynnea, who immediately wrapped her arms around him. “Yeah, I’m a little shaky.”
“Of course you are,” Lynnea said. “That was horrible, seeing someone wearing your face.”
Sebastian wanted to touch her, hold her, let her warmth cleanse what was churning inside him. But he felt too vile, too filthy to get even another step closer. So he watched her lead Teaser to the stairs. Then he turned and walked back into the room.
The male was dead. Unquestionably dead. Sebastian’s stomach rolled as he looked at the body.
It must have tried to change again, or maybe that had been its body’s reaction to being burned inside by the wizard’s lightning. It was now a twisted blend of bull demon, his own face, and something dark-skinned that might have been the male’s natural form.
The woman was dead. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled the sheet up over her. She might have crossed over with a friend, might have someone looking for her. If not…
Humans who came to the Den seldom gave their real names or told anyone which landscape they called home. If there was no one here who knew her, they would bury her in the fields—and her friends and family back home would eventually accept that she was one of those people who had gotten lost in Ephemera’s landscapes.
Pulling the blanket off the bed, he wrapped the male’s body so no one else would have to look at it.
When he was finished, he just stood there, rubbing his thumbs over his fingertips. He, too, had the power to kill.
And he was going to make sure that…thing…stayed dead.
He walked out of the room, closed the door, and went down to the clerk’s desk to give his orders.
Dalton stared at the wooden planks that crossed the narrow creek and counted to one hundred for the tenth time.
Too long. Even if Faran had decided to check the saddle on Koltak’s horse or had been listening to further instructions, the guard had been gone too long.
“Henley, Addison,” he called without taking his eyes off the bridge. “Cross over and find out what’s delaying Faran.” As the two men handed their reins to the two remaining guards, Dalton held up a hand to detain them. Walking over to his own horse, he removed a lead rope secured to his saddle. “Tie this to your belts. Henley, you cross over the bridge to the other landscape. Addison, you stay on this side of wherever that bridge leads. If there’s trouble, Henley will pull the rope twice. That’s the signal to pull him out.”
Watching the two men tie the lead rope to their belts, Dalton felt the heat of embarrassment stain his face. He knew it was foolish. No amount of rope would make any difference once a person crossed over to another landscape. But he wasn’t going to let another man cross that bridge without trying to find out what was happening on the other side.
Henley and Addison moved across the planks that made up the bridge, keeping the length of the lead rope between them. The wood looked sturdy enough, but if the planks broke, the bridge would be gone, and there would be no way for Koltak to come back to Wizard City from that direction. No way to find out what had happened to Faran.
Henley’s right foot stepped off the planks of wood. The man was still visible, still in the landscape that contained Wizard City. Then Henley’s left foot lifted off the plank—and he was gone.
A few heartbeats later, a yank on the lead rope threw Addison off balance, had him stumbling forward.
“Jump, man! Jump!” Dalton shouted.
Not a controlled jump, but Addison managed to stumble off the bridge and land feet-first in the creek. Another jerk on the lead rope had him dropping to his hands and knees.
“What is it?” Dalton fought the urge to race across
those planks to reach his men.
“Don’t know, Cap’n,” Addison said. “It’s not the signal, but I—”
Dalton watched the rope jerk once. Twice. That was the signal. “Move back this way, Addison. Keep steady pressure on the rope. Guide him back.” He struggled to keep his voice controlled and encouraging as Addison waded to the near side of the creek.
The rope disappeared into nothing, but they followed its movement. Not the steady movement of a man walking, but the stuttering struggle of someone moving with care and desperation.
Was it a man coming back over the bridge? They didn’t know what was on the other side.
“Addison! Get that rope off your belt. Now! Now!”
While Addison struggled to untie the lead rope, Dalton grabbed his arm and hauled him up to dry land.
Addison dropped the rope and backed away from the bridge. Dalton unsheathed his short sword and waited for whatever was about to cross over into their landscape.
“Do you hear that, Cap’n?” Addison asked, cocking his head.
Something faint but getting clearer. A voice panting over and over, “Guardians of Light and Guides of the Heart, please let me get him to the captain.”
Henley appeared suddenly, hunched over, his hands fisted on the lead rope he’d tied around Faran’s chest. “I found him, Captain,” he panted as he dragged Faran the rest of the way off the bridge. “He’s hurt bad.”
Dalton stared at the thing that had been dragged into this landscape along with Faran.
Almost every night for the past week, his daughter, his sweet little girl, had had nightmares about giant spiders creeping around the corners of her room, ready to eat her. Those nightmares had given him and his wife sleepless nights, because what the heart believed could change the resonance of a person and bring that person into contact with the landscape that matched that belief.
Now he was staring at his daughter’s nightmare. It existed. It was real. And far too close to home.
“Captain?” Henley said, his voice full of uncertainty.
Dalton shook himself. He couldn’t think of his family now. His men needed him.
