Pure abject horror transformed Jay’s face when he looked down at August.
The petite minx was still bound. She must have toppled out of bed and slithered across the floor like a snake. Now she peeked around the doorway.
Jay waved his arms. Everything on his face said no, no, no. He threw his hands up and then let them fall pointlessly.
August seemed struck dumb by Jay’s horror. Jay mouthed the word sorry, then headed down the hall.
“Jay, wait!” August pushed the bedroom door all the way open with her elbow. Arlan hurried to her side, bent down and began to untie her.
“August.” All he could do was whisper her name, although the thought of her slithering across the floor with her hands tied, just so she could catch them kissing almost made him laugh.
The front door slammed shut with an all mighty bang, and Jay was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Duvessa slapped the riding crop she was holding onto the desk in front of her, making Hendrik Kruger jump.
The woman was tall, strong and elegant, her cheekbones high and wide. He might have compared her to Grace Kelly, but Grace had never had that cruel twist to the mouth that excited and, yes, if he were honest, frightened him. He’d been very excited when she’d first invited him into the play room of her holiday home, but now he was unsure.
Still her tight black dress revealed the delicious curves of her breasts. Looking at her tall athletic body, those ripe melons and lustrous chestnut hair made his cock hard enough to cut diamonds.
But when he gazed up from her cleavage to her face, the sneer she gave him dashed his hopes. Kruger sighed and sank into a nearby chair. He imagined he’d had the same expression on his own
face when young, unattractive students stammered or blushed in his presence. He knew he was an attractive guy. But Duvessa was way out of his league.
“Hendrik, when I was a baby, my fae mother abandoned me and left me with my human father. My father was an extremely handsome man, but he was poor, he was lowly. He made other humans coffee in some stupid coffee house, and he was religious. He beat me if he caught me trying to practice magic. I gritted my teeth, Hendrik, and I endured, and I swore I would never be poor as an adult.”
Kruger nodded.
“I built up wealth and power over a long period of time.” Duvessa went on tapping the crop on the desk as she spoke. “I had help from no one. And I don’t intend to lose the nest egg I’ve built up. I intend to keep building it higher till the day I die.” She put her hand to her forehead. “Things are not working out, I have…debts. Debts I should not have. I shouldn’t have a mortgage on my casino like a common, imbecilic human. I was born the daughter of a fae princess.”
Kruger smiled to himself. There was more than one way to interest a woman. “Once we find out where the witch doctors get their power from, we’ll both be using it to build more wealth. We’ll be rich.”
Duvessa’s lovely cerulean eyes narrowed.
Only the daughter of a fae princess could have such eyes. By the dark path, she’s magnificent! “If our parents hadn’t interbred with humans, Hendrik, if you and I were full-blooded fae, we wouldn’t have these mundane problems to worry about. We’d have an unlimited supply of money.”
“Well, that may be so, but I don’t find tales of the storm tower mundane. It’s exciting to me, a mystery. How do the witch doctors tap all that power? All the research I’ve done indicates these people have very little fae blood of their own. Their magic comes from some other source. Once the tower is found, we’ll solve that mystery.”
Duvessa fixed him with an ice-dagger stare. “What progress have you made in ensuring the tower is found?”
Kruger squirmed. “It’s under control. I have Arlan Leonard completely convinced that I just want to work this magic for the good of the children. He thinks I have no other motives. Jay and August are working with him. He told me your daughter’s been willingly doing sex-magic with them.”
Duvessa frowned and tapped the handle of the crop on her desk. “I still don’t like this Arlan being involved. He’s rumored to be a Warrior of the Light. Why couldn’t you just do all this yourself? Seduce my daughter?” She scrutinized him. “You’re passably attractive.”
The faint praise made Kruger clench his jaw, but he held himself in check.
“I have plenty of toys you could use on her here.” She nodded at the riding crop in her hand, and then the toys on the wall of her playroom.
Kruger frowned, annoyed with himself that he’d thought she meant to play with him. His cock finally began to soften at her lack of her interest.
“Well? Answer me. Why don’t you seduce her?”
He spread his arms wide, emphasizing his points with his hands as he spoke. “Duvessa, I’m forty-five years old. Arlan is young. Everything I’ve read on this indicates the magic works best if done by the young and so-called pure of heart. August is twenty-three, and Jay Nandoro is younger still. He’s only twenty-one. It should be perfect.”
“But it hasn’t worked yet, has it?” Duvessa’s snarl made his heart slam in his chest.
“I-If you have a problem with Arlan being involved, then I really don’t understand why you wanted your own daughter involved. Maybe she’s the problem. You’ve told me a dozen times you believe she’s a Warrior of the Light herself.”
Duvessa smiled. “No. What I said was that she was born a Warrior of the Light. And I believe that in all certainty. But I fixed it. August is no threat to any of our plans. Believe it.”
“How does that work, exactly?”
“Low self-esteem in a half-fae kills their power. I’m her mother. I saw to it that she has none.” “None of what?”
“No self-esteem. She has none. Zip, zilch, nada.” “What?”
“The first man she ever fell for was the son of some friends of mine. They are the couple renting me their house here in Zimbabwe, the house down near the Zambezi River. Ryan Garrison. Handsome young man. She never even knew I set her up. She was humiliated. I believe she gave her virginity to him.”
Horror snaked down his spine. “You did that to your own daughter?”
Duvessa’s eyes glittered. He swallowed so hard, they could both hear the sound of it. She raised a brow. “You seem surprised. You know I’m a daughter of the dark-fae princess Zenia, do you not?”
Kruger nodded. Terror gripped his belly. He’d admired the dark fae all his life. Or thought he had. But this? Abusing one’s own child. Setting her up for some kind of humiliation with a man?
“You know I am dark-fae.” He nodded again.
“Then why are you staring at me like an imbecile?”
Kruger shrugged and glanced down at the floor. “I don’t know. She’s your daughter, light-fae tendencies or not.”
“Don’t mutter and look at the floor, Hendrik. It’s very unattractive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Dark fae are above the common horde. We are too intelligent, too powerful to be tied to petty morality and the tedious path of virtue.”
“Yes, but…”
“I have four daughters. I was more than happy to play mother to the two who obeyed me and respected my wishes. I had no use for the two who did not.” She leaned forward, the coldness gone as the fire of rage sparked in her eyes. “I spent my childhood in a trailer, because my mother left me with a stupid human father who didn’t know how to make money. Who whipped me with a belt for practicing magic.”
“Yes, you said that.”
Duvessa paused and stared at him so hard his balls drew up. “I didn’t let jealousy of others affect my self-esteem. I always knew I was above him. Above all of them.”
Thwack! Duvessa smacked the crop against his leg. His cock went instantly stiff in his shorts, but he cried out from the pain.
Duvessa had no reaction to his scream. “You want to know why I knew I was better than my mortal father? Why he could never ever damage my self-esteem?”
He gasped, the zing of adrenal
ine racing through his blood. She referenced his fascination, his passion. “I know, I know, because of the diary. Your mother’s diary. You own a real diary written by a full-blooded fae.”
“That’s right. Because my mother, Princess Zenia, left me her diary with its marks of magic. A diary explaining who and what I was.”
He began to recover his composure. “I’d love to read it sometime, the diary. What an extraordinary thing. A diary written by a full-blooded fae containing information on the Fae Realm. To study such a document would be a dream.”
“Silence!” She shook her head, her lustrous chestnut hair swaying as she poked him in the belly with her crop. “I am frustrated, Hendrik. I am exasperated. It’s hideous to be trapped on this dull mortal plane with only a modicum of magic.” She slid her hand back and forth along the smooth surface of the riding crop. Every muscle in his body clenched, waiting for her to strike him again.
But instead she dropped the thing on his desk and began to pace. “They are young, they are willing, they are all of them half-fae. They should have found the tower already.” She stopped pacing. “Are you quite sure this Arlan isn’t holding out on you? Maybe he’s lying because he doesn’t trust you. How can we really trust him when he’s a Warrior of the Light?”
Kruger swallowed again, embarrassed by the creeping, unmanly fear that had almost made him dizzy. His chin rose. “I am certain. Arlan trusts me completely. The fact that he’s actually only a quarter fae to be precise, but he’s a naïve Warrior of the Light just makes it even more likely the sex magic will work. He’s a textbook example of the kind of people we need to make it work. They’ll be doing the magic for good, to save the child prisoners, and then we swoop in and find the source of the witch doctors’ power.”
Duvessa shook her head. “I just find it difficult to believe these two men are as innocent as you say. Arlan may be naïve and scholarly, but I’ve seen their mansion while scrying. It’s much larger than this house I’m renting here or even my mansion on Long Island. Where do they get their wealth?”
“It was inherited. Indeed, I believe Arlan’s father chose the dark path. Not so his son.” Kruger read aloud from the grimoire he had brought that now lay open on his desk. “Success at achieving sex magic requires two men of fae blood and a willing female of a superior nature forming what is known as a ménage. Elements of power exchange, submission and domination between the parties involved may also increase the chance of success. All participants engaged in sex magic must be pure of heart.”
“What does that mean, pure of heart?” Duvessa’s eyes flashed fire.
“Well?”
“I…I’ve take it to mean that the participants must be somewhat naïve. Like the characters in a Disney movie. Innocent, lacking in greed, those who don’t crave power, or ambition. That’s my take on it, anyway.”
“Stupid, you mean? Well, my daughter fits that.” “Your daughter is working on her PhD.”
Duvessa waved her hand. “She’s still stupid.”
Kruger rubbed his temples with both hands. “She is naïve. She trusts me, for a start, even after I…” The image of August grabbing his hand before he could touch her breasts filled his mind. Perhaps it was still not a scenario to relay to a mother, even one who cared so little for her child.
A tightness in his chest, confused him. He wasn’t a man used to feeling…guilt? August had been ridiculously forgiving and kind, more interested in focusing on her research than on questioning his motives.
Duvessa didn’t seem to notice the unfinished sentence. She continued to silently read the grimoire. After a while, she shook her head and closed the book. With one finger, she traced the edges of the cover’s elaborate embossing. “So, you think all three of them are stupid, naïve, or whatever you want to call it?”
“Pure of heart?”
She tapped the cover of the book impatiently. “Yes.”
“Arlan is, certainly. August, most probably. Jay Nandoro? I’m not so sure.”
She sat in one of the leather chairs on the other side of his desk, crossing her long, perfect legs. “So, it’s possible he’s the bad egg, and we simply have to replace him?”
“I…I don’t see August and Arlan agreeing to that easily.”
Duvessa gave him the most arrogant sneer he’d ever seen. “I guess I’ll just have to do some scrying to see what the hell is going wrong. That’s one kind of magic my worthless mortal blood hasn’t robbed me of though I can mostly only see faces. It’s hard for me to see more.”
“Oh yes,” Kruger said, exerting every bit of control he had to keep his voice even. “Scrying is something I’ve never seen, and I’d love to watch you do it.”
I’d love it more if the three of them happened to be working the sex magic at the time.
Duvessa smiled as if she could read his mind. “Who knows what we might catch them doing, huh? It’s not something I want to watch obviously. But you could catch them at it. I only watch their faces. And once we find out what the three of them are up to, we’ll take matters into our own hands.”
Kruger shifted in his chair again, his cheeks heating, when she glanced at his lap. “How?”
“I have friends. Other half-fae that admire me. They can help us capture them. We can experiment.”
“What do you mean?”
Duvessa rose to pace again as she spoke. “Well, this threesome… It doesn’t have to be those specific three, does it? We could try other half-fae with them. We could try different people.”
“But it took me some time to persuade them to work together on this. And we don’t want too many people knowing about what we’re doing. We don’t want to share the power source we find. Duvessa, the good thing about these three is their naiveté. August and Arlan, at least, have no clue. It’s really only Jay Nandoro that I worry about. He’s the possible risk factor in this.”
“So, we eliminate Jay Nandoro. Simple.”
Thwack! Duvessa hit the desk again before she hung the crop neatly in its place on the wall.
Chapter Fifteen
Arlan’s mouth was dry as though it were filled with sawdust. He wanted to roar and shift and scratch his claws down the wall.
But he needed to remain calm. For a start, he needed to untie her. His claws were itching beneath his nails to spring out. He inhaled deeply, drawing air into his lungs, one…two…three calming breaths. He looked down, saw his hands had become golden paws, his claws unsheathed. By force of will, he slowly made them contract.
He would stay in control. He would not shift now, for her sake. Arlan closed his eyes tight. When he glanced down, he had hands again. August swore as she nearly toppled over. He rushed to her side, bent down and untied what was left of her bindings.
“Hell. I am so sorry, little one. Jay and I… We’re just a pair of screw-ups. Damn!” Arlan put his hands over his face, self-loathing like a choking fog around his throat. He dropped his hands. “Shit, I’m sorry about not untying you earlier. I was going to, but I got waylaid and distracted. That was a big fuck-up. I’m so sorry.”
She laughed. “Yeah I noticed you got waylaid and distracted.”
He searched her eyes, trying to gauge her emotions. “Exactly how pissed off are you about all this?”
The glint of humor floored him. “I’m not pissed at all.”
Arlan shook his head, unable to comprehend her unexpected reaction. “Why the hell did you do that, anyway, August? Topple out of bed and slither across the fucking floor like a snake? Oh my God.”
She took hold of his hands and let him pull her into a standing position. “August. Are you okay?”
Free of her bonds at last, she brushed dust from her knees. “I heard moans, and I wanted to see it, Arlan. I figured out pretty early that you and Jay had something going on. I’m not pissed off…because I’m turned on. It turns me on. As embarrassing as that is to admit.”
Arlan’s eyes opened as wide as they could go, while his dick stiffened in his shorts. “Really!”
Arlan swore and laughed again. “You’re really not upset?” She shook her head.
“You’re fucking incredible.”
“I got that there was something going on between you and Jay almost from the first time I met the two of you. I’ve been waiting for you to just cut all the bullshit and tell me.”
“Holy crap!” He shook his head, then and bit his lip to keep from smiling too broadly. She shrugged. “I mean, like you, I’ve read about fae ménage and how it works.”
Arlan nodded and then lost restraint. He pulled her close. She didn’t fight or struggle when he embraced her, and her small body felt perfect in his arms, exactly right. A roar of contentment carried up to his throat, his lion eager for her touch again. He wanted to hold her forever. He still had the problem of telling her that he’d known her briefly as Gus, but that would have to wait.
When he looked down at her again, all his irritation with Jay, all his confusion melted away. All he wanted to do was kiss her, take her to bed, make love to her properly. “God, you’re amazing, August.”
“I’m thirsty is what I am.”
He laughed, relief bubbling up in his chest. “Shit, I’m sorry. Let me get you some coffee or something.”
“Coffee would be great.”
They went into the kitchen, and she sat in the breakfast nook while he got the coffee ready. “Where do you think Jay has gone?”
Arlan poured the coffee into round white mugs. “At the Mopane Tree, probably.” Her brow furrowed. “It’s a pub, a bar. In Harare.”
“Ahhhh. So, he’s gone into the city.”
Arlan opened the fridge, searching around for the milk. No sign of it. He slapped his hand against his forehead and swore. “Sorry, there’s no milk. Damn.” He slammed the fridge door shut again and turned to face her. “Do you mind, baby?”
She pulled a face. “Um, to be honest, I hate black coffee.”
“Yeah, Jay usually just magics it up for us. We don’t buy groceries much.”
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