Magic After Dark Boxed Set (Six Book Bundle)

by Deanna Chase

  “You want inside the club don’t you? This is the way in?”

  Nice diversion, wasn’t gonna work though. I shook my head. “I think we’ve already established you have a supposed...” I did finger quotations, “way in. What’s your game, Priest? You’ve tried to kill me three times already; you think I’m stupid enough to believe you’re done with me?”

  He struck, so quick I didn’t even see his blur. His arm snaked around my waist and before I knew it I was smashed against his solid chest, our bodies swaying in time to a beat only we could hear.

  My heart thumped so loud in my ears I was sure he’d hear it even over the din of the crowd. For a moment I was speechless, lost to the feel of him, the sensation of his strong fingers running up and down my spine.

  If his intention had been to kill me, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Even in front of me, watching him, I hadn’t seen him strike until I was already in his arms. Neph move fast, but this...

  “I scratched the crap out of your face last night and you’re already healed. Who the hell are you? What are you?” I whispered.

  Billy traced my cheek. “I’m not your enemy.”

  I stopped dancing, alarm bells in my head clanging loud and obnoxious. “What are you doing to me? Why the games?” Angry, I shoved him back. “Don’t tell me you’re not my enemy. Of course you are, your kind has killed mine for centuries. You hunt my people and you expect me to believe you’re not my enemy. Ha.” I shook my head. “You see a girl and automatically assume I’m just gonna fall for your nice guy routine, well I’m not,” I said through clenched teeth, and yanked on his tie, dragging his face to mine.

  His eyes narrowed, my skin prickled with the rising thrum of our power.

  “Let’s get one thing straight right now, you and me, I may want to screw you until I turn black and blue, but I don’t trust you worth anything, priest. So if you’ve got me thralled, might want to cook up another way to kill me, I’m not gonna let you take me down so easy.”

  He grinned and again I didn’t see him move, I was back in his arms, his hands exploring my back making a mockery of my words. Violence and lust warred within me, my need for his blood dwarfed only by my need to feel him inside me.

  “One day, you’ll know the truth,” he said, mint breath fanning my ear and raising goose bumps along my body.

  “I know it already,” I moaned, clutching his back, wondering about the ridged bumps running vertical down it, “and one day, priest, I will kill you.”

  The vibration of his laughter, rumbled through my chest, making me moan and writhe on his leg to try and stop the ache building between my thighs.

  He could laugh all he wanted, but a demon always kept their word. I would kill him, even if the thought of it was killing off a piece of my soul.

  Then he moved his hand across my shoulder and when he touched my breast, it was like flames shooting down my belly and settling in my aching center. I forgot everything in that moment, the vamps, the strange club inside a club, the fear, everything but him. I ached, burned for him. He cupped me, thumb flicking over my nipple and I grunted, on the verge of spilling over into the black death of orgasm.

  Then he traced his finger along the underside of my breast, feeling the wire.

  My stomach clenched. He said nothing. But I knew he’d felt it. Mouth dry, I watched as he continued to explore me with his hands. He traced the flare of my hip, my thigh, hiked up my skirt and when his fingers grazed my naked flesh I cried out, jerking against him. The sweet torture consumed me until I nearly wept from it.

  His arm wrapped tighter around my waist. I nuzzled the side of his neck, enveloped in his familiar scent and dragged it deep into my lungs.

  He found the black box taped to the inside of my thigh. I stilled, growing cold and gave him a hard look, daring him to try and rip it off.

  “Who’s listening? Who gave you this?” He clenched his jaw.

  It was nice, for once, to have the upper hand. I gave him a secretive smile, but said nothing.

  A furtive movement caught our gazes at the same time. My eyes grew wide and I pointed at the tall man I’d seen walk down the alley yesterday. He was coming out of the bathroom, head low and cutting a path through the people with hurried footsteps, headed for the door.

  “I know him,” I hissed.

  “C’mon,” he growled, nearly yanking my arm out its socket as we raced after the man.

  “Hey!” I snapped, pulling myself free of his death grip, “need that arm, thank you very much.”

  “Just keep up,” he muttered, shoving people aside, their disgruntled oaths ringing bitter in my ears.

  The tall man’s head bobbed out of sight the minute he walked out the club.

  “You take the left, I’ll take the right. Don’t let him get away,” Billy snarled, pointing in the direction I should go.

  I didn’t stop to argue his orders, intrigued myself as to what the tall man was up to. I ran, eating up the blacktop as fast as my Cinderella flats would allow. But I didn’t find him.

  I circled the length of the building before finally catching sight of Billy tucked behind several rows of empty beer crates, straddling a figure on the ground, hand at his neck.

  I knelt by his side, sucking in air. The tall man’s eyes were wide, bloodshot and filled with such panic I could taste the acrid bitterness on my tongue.

  I glanced from Billy, who looked like a pit bull ready to tear the man’s throat out, to the man and back again.

  I licked my teeth. “So umm, not to seem lame here or anything, but now might be a good time to tell me what you got planned, oh wise one. Are we gonna kick his tail for breathing, talking, or just for the fun of it?”

  The man whimpered and I had to admit to being a little disgusted. This was the same man who’d dragged a helpless child into whatever godforsaken thing was going on down there. I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Actually, I kind of hoped Billy would agree to a pummeling. I popped my knuckles, leering down at him. I might look pink and girly, but this demon was ready for some action.

  “Work your magick,” Billy said, voice near a low rumble, never taking his eyes off the man.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked slowly, hoping he wasn’t asking me to do what I thought he was asking.

  He pinned me with a cold stare. “Do you want inside?”

  “Do you follow me around all the time, or do you have a crystal ball on you? How the hell do you know so much about me?” I ground my jaw, muscles ticking.

  “Just do it.”

  In our exchange he must have let off some of the pressure on the man’s neck. He wiggled, fighting against Billy’s grip. Billy punched him in the face, blood squirted everywhere. I jumped back, not wanting to get my sparkly shoes dirty. Hey, they might be ugly, but Billy bought them for me.

  He slammed the man’s head against the concrete and I heard a sick crunch. I winced, not in sympathy, but recalling how he’d had done the same to me last night. I touched the back of my head remembering the goose egg I’d sported several hours afterwards.

  “Hurry up,” he snarled, “we’re too exposed out in the open.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s human, priest, you split his head open like a melon. What am I supposed to get out of him now?”

  “He’ll survive.”

  I sighed, knelt and touched my finger to his sweat slickened forehead. The man moaned, eyelashes flickering open. I thralled him so that he couldn’t look away.

  I grabbed his head to keep him still and pushed my glamour at him, trying to sift out whatever information I could through the pain addled brain.

  It was like trying to wade through swamp. All he could focus on was his pain. It was nearly impossible to find that secret place inside him where truth lay naked and exposed.

  “Billy, you suck at finesse, you know that? You could have at least waited for me to turn before you bashed his brains in.”

  My lips quirked at the sound of his low chuckle.
>
  I shoved my glamour at him harder, cutting through the muck of driving pain until finally, I found it. It sat like a little treasure trove in the corner of his mind, but unlike most prey, his was padlocked shut, dark and foreboding.

  Cold shivered down my spine, I licked my lips knowing I would not like what I found. When desire is this hidden, this buried, it’s because it’s so perverse it’s shameful. I steadied my nerves, then flung open the floodgates and almost retched when I saw it.

  The man whimpered, sweat poured freely down his face. “No, no, no,” he whispered.

  I growled, anger riding me hard and my demon shrieked to life. My nails grew into sharp claws, piercing the man’s flesh. He tired to scream, but Billy cut off the sound by squeezing his vocal chords until all that came out was a muffled rasp.

  Now I knew why Billy had bought me this outfit.

  “You sick pervert!” I hissed.

  Blue eyes, blazing with pain and fogged with fear, pleaded for mercy. But there would be none from me. Yesterday he’d intrigued me, today, I hated him.

  And my hate was Lust’s hate. She fed off my energy, growing darker, filling me fuller, gaining strength and stretching me wide. My breathing grew heavy.

  Memories of a little girl, her skirt hiked up with a man’s leering face staring down at her as he thrust himself deep inside, over and over, ignoring her strangled pleas for mercy as she bled out, seared my mind. I screamed, lost to the vision, smelling the sweat and the musk of his body, the blood of my own.

  Take it, Demon. Take it. This is what you’re good for. This is all you’re good for... that was the night I’d first killed, the night I realized that as much as I wanted to be all human, sometimes the demon needed to come out too. I’d been ten.

  “Neph,” Billy’s voice was a gentle warning.

  I hissed, and twirled on the voice. My eyes swirled with bands of lavender and deep purple.

  “Pandora.”

  I blinked. That was me. I blinked again. I wasn’t in a marshy field. I was here. With him. With Billy.

  “Priest,” I whispered his name like a prayer.

  “Yes.” He nodded. I trembled, his silky voice cutting through the memories like a swift blade.

  “Yes. Listen to me.” He was cool reason, pulling me back from the demonic abyss. “You can’t kill him, not now.”

  The muscle under my eye ticked as I fought to understand and regain control of myself.

  With one hand still firmly pressed against the man’s throat, he reached up and cupped my cheek. I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. After several seconds I was finally able to open my eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Can you do this?”

  I glanced at the man, who was clearly slipping into unconsciousness from Billy’s death grip on his neck. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, heart fluttering panicked wings in my chest. But I wouldn’t back down, not now. I had to get inside. Oh god, did I really want to? What the hell was down there? Did I want to know? Could I handle the truth?

  Billy gripped my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Can you do this?” he asked again.

  With a deep breath, I nodded. “Yes.” Then smiled, attempting to put on a happy face. Grin and bear it, as they say.

  He moved his hand and let me lean over the man. It took every ounce of courage I possessed to touch him. Not because I feared him, but because I wasn’t sure I trusted myself not to grab his balls, rip them off and shove it down his throat. Maybe later, if I had time I’d gift him to Bubba. One less bastard like this in the world would help me rest easier at night.

  I shoved his eyelids open. His pupils were wide, but his breathing was easy. Billy had cut off his oxygen, but not done much damage otherwise. He’d have one helluva headache when he woke up, couple of stitches, but the bastard would live. At least for one more night.

  His face was covered in his own gore, and it made it difficult to keep his eyes open.

  “Dammit,” I growled, “he’s slippery.” I used the edge of my dress, to try and clean as much of the blood off, but it kept oozing. Head wounds don’t even have to be bad to bleed profusely.

  “Here.” Billy scooted back, resting on the man’s thighs and patted the chest like one might pat an extra space on a couch. “Maybe you can get better leverage this way.”

  I sat, and even for me, using the dude like a chair was a bit bizarre. But then I thought about what he did to little girls and I wished I was my buxom size sixteen again so I could squish him.

  Billy leaned around me, grabbed the eyelids and held them open. I peered into the doorway of the soul and sieved the information I needed.

  All at once I felt myself begin to shrink. My legs, my arms, my torso, even my face. I had to push chubby hands against his chest to hold myself upright. I turned, and instead of staring straight into Billy’s eyes, I had to look way up.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” I said in high pitched falsetto, the lisp coming naturally.

  Billy’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t look at me. He got up, offered me his hand and I clasped it tight, feeling suddenly very insecure and unsure. I hated this. I’ve never turned into a child before and prayed I’d never have to do it again.

  Before we left I gave the guy a swift kick in the groin with my tiny slippered foot, then dug in my heel for good measure. “Stupid sack of—”.

  “Don’t swear,” Billy said, turning me and walking toward the alley.

  I narrowed my eyes. “I may wook five, but don’t forget who you’re tawkin’ too.” Unfortunately the high-pitched voice, coupled with the fact that I said “w’s” instead of “l’s” made the threat more than absurd.

  His lips twitched and I had the irrational urge to kick him in the shin. “You’re five,” he said patiently, grabbing my hand in his. I sighed and snuggled into his thigh. He looked down, a frown worrying his brow. “If you want this to look believable, try to act it.”

  We were nearly to the door. “Fine, but one last thing...” I pinched his butt and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Don’t do that,” he snapped.

  “What?” I grinned. “You don’t wike it?”

  He glared at me.

  I giggled. “Oh, I think I’m gonna enjoy dis.”

  Billy knocked on the door. Pounded it more like, with the tap, tap, taptaptap, I’d heard tall man use yesterday.

  I straightened my face, and gripped Billy’s hand tighter. It wasn’t really much of a stretch to pretend nervousness, I was. My mouth had grown dry and my stomach roiled.

  A bald head poked out; the shiver of parasite pulsed across my skin. I stared up at the scar-covered face peeking out from behind a red cowl and felt immediate sympathy for all the countless children who’d been in my position.

  “Molech. Sacrifice,” Billy said.

  What? My heart thudded violently. I shot a glance at him. Molech, as in the ancient god of sacrifice? As a girl in Edom I remembered the streets filled with obelisk statues of the half-man, half-bull idol. The granite stones usually a dark shade of brown from the countless children sacrificed upon it.

  I squeezed Billy’s hand until I nearly crushed the bone. This was supposed to be about a rogue neph, maybe even a widespread molestation ring, not about some antiquated god whose popularity had died out eons ago.

  “Cool it,” he whispered, smacking my hand.

  “Sorry.” I released some of the pressure.

  The vamp stepped aside and ushered us in.

  When I stepped inside, a rush of cool air lifted the skirt of my dress. I glanced at the large gaping hole that led into utter darkness. This was an underground cave, lit red by the soft glow of lamplight spaced at odd intervals.

  A crowd of maybe fifteen to twenty men and women, each holding onto a child’s hand, huddled inside the stone antechamber. None of the children screamed, but many of them cried softly for their parents and friends.

  My heart squeezed.
>
  For a kid, this must have looked like the gateway to hell. I clenched my jaw, breathing growing harder and faster. Billy knelt and grabbed my face between his large hands.

  “Relax,” he whispered.

  “Why didn’t you warn me about this?” I snapped.

  Some of the people turned, casting hard frowns at both Billy and myself. “Trying to calm her down,” he said

  A redhead with frizzy bangs laughed. She patted the dark hair of her charge, a little guy who snuggled his face into her neck seeking comfort. “Sometimes I find a firm hand can go a long way with the more...” she eyed me up and down, “rebellious ones.”

  I shook with the violent urge to scalp that mop top off her head. I smiled, licked my lips and tagged her. Redhead was dead.

  Billy snapped his fingers.

  “What!” I hissed.

  “Remember why we’re here.” He lifted a brow.

  “Oh, I remember all right. Don’t you worry about me.” I crossed my arms.

  The vamp who’d opened the door walked to the front of the group and held up his hands. An expectant hush spilled over the crowd. All eyes turned toward him, even the children’s. It was a minor thrall. Bubba was better, or maybe I was in the mood to be contrary.

  “Follow me,” he said, then turned and entered the yawning hole.

  The people moved out, we followed, last to get in line. At the top of the staircase Billy scooped me up and held me in his arms. I frowned.

  “Not that I mind,” I whispered, “but what do you think you are doin’?”

  He rested his cheek against mine, his warm breath on my ear when he said in a voice audible to few, “As soon as we can, we’re going to separate from the herd.”

  I squirmed as he started down the flight of stairs. The squeal of rubber soled shoes on the wet metal the only sound around us.

  It was quiet, and the deeper we walked the more eerie the hush. The procession felt somber, like marching toward a funeral.

  I shifted in his arms again. It actually wasn’t comfortable being held like this. No wonder kids were always trying to squirm out of their parents arms.