20
Bait
Woe
I shifted on the pavement. Even seated, I didn’t take up much room on the ground inside the air column, and besides Jason meandering from spot to spot, the street was empty. The wind had died down. I couldn’t hear any noise from the city.
How much time had passed? Minutes? Hours?
The tornado shivered around me. A small rectangle appeared in the side. The portal opened out onto an apartment with an open floor plan. This one was a lot nicer than the one Jason had gotten me.
I might like to spend more time in a place like this.
From my position, I could see a dining room, a kitchen, a living area, and a high-rise view of New Haven City across the plush room. To one side, flames danced along logs piled in a fireplace.
Two champagne glasses rested on the hearth. Bubbles slid upward in the golden liquid. Delicious smells sweet-talked my stomach until it answered with a growl. I couldn’t stay in this tornado forever. Forward was the only way out.
Which meant it was assuredly a trap.
With good food.
A nice apartment.
An incredible view.
It wouldn’t be so bad. That was a lie I could believe in. Jason would be beside himself. He’d yank out every hair in his beard out. I had to find a way to let him know I was okay.
With that, I stood up. I could only think of one creature that might want to trap me in plush surroundings. If I was honest with myself, I wanted to see him again. A tingle wormed its way through my belly.
I took one step forward and my muscles buckled. Instead of a graceful step into the gilded cage, I tripped. My leg had fallen asleep while I’d been sitting cross-legged on the pavement.
My face landed in a deep brown shag carpet that cushioned the blow. I hoped whoever was waiting for me in the apartment didn’t have high expectations. I was half inside the apartment and half inside the tornado.
Ignoring the pins and needles, I climbed to my feet. Almost upright, the high-heeled shoes nearly dumped me over again, so I slipped them off my feet and tossed them aside. They landed on the pavement with a clatter. Next time I would definitely wear flats.
A voice rumbled from behind me somewhere and interrupted my thoughts. “May I be of assistance?”
Exhilaration fanned the warmth spreading through me. “Arún?” What could he want? I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth as I stepped into the room. “Is this your place?”
“Of course.”
“It’s gorgeous.” I was gushing, but I didn’t care.
“I have a gift for you.” His baritone words brushed across my skin and left goosebumps in their wake.
“Oh?”
Arún got me a present. It did funny things to my insides. Every part of me hummed and blushed. I had to calm down.
Another step forward and the air enclosure disappeared, shoes and all. I turned a slow pirouette in the soft carpet to where I knew he would be.
He stood directly behind where the gateway used to be. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His silver hair brushed against his collared shirt. Instead of a hunter, he portrayed a businessman. Comfortable in this world, but not of it. Shadows shrouded his face, but his glowing-eyed gaze bored into mine.
“But first,” he stepped to the side, “conversation and dinner.” A lamp cast a glow that highlighted the points of his ears and spilled golden flecks in his white irises. He flashed a smile and raised one arm as an invitation.
“It’s tempting.” He was tempting. My cheeks heated then.
Jason. I had to let Jason know I was okay. He had nursed me back to health after my arrival, and he didn’t deserve to worry.
“I hope so,” he said.
The rumble of his voice pushed every other thing right out of my head. Jason was a big boy. He’d be okay for a little while. I stepped closer to Arún.
China and crystal dressed a small mahogany table. Linen swans swam across the plates. Another set of champagne flutes rested on the table, filled with a fizzy liquid. I glanced back toward the fire.
Nope, same ones I spotted before. He hadn’t moved, but the glasses had.
I wiped my moist palms on my dress and smoothed my tongue across my lips. His gaze followed the movement across my mouth. Jason’s warning played through my mind, stuck on repeat. Your attraction might only be spells and magic.
I squared my shoulders and chanced a step nearer. This close, I could smell the earthiness of him, the trees, the wildness. No delicate part of this towering Fae. His presence soothed my nervous shiver and a different kind of hunger took me by surprise. He reached his wide palm toward me as if asking for a pledge I did not yet understand.
Why had he chosen me?
I crossed my arms. “Why did you leave me in the tornado so long?”
Arún smiled. “So you would want to come in. I wanted my home to be enticing to you. Anticipation increases pleasure.” He offered his hand again.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I laid my palm against his.
“And I had to clean my house.” His eyes twinkled as he drew me in.
He was enticing to me. I didn’t care about the apartment, but I glanced around the room. Well, maybe I cared a little. We crossed to the table.
I asked, “What’s on the menu?”
He tilted his head to the side, and I wondered again if he could see into my mind. He tucked both hands back into his pockets and rattled some coins around, so normal of him right up until his ear tips quivered.
“You’ll see,” he said, coming behind me to pull my seat out. He waved his hand across the Georgian curves of the dining room chair. “Please.”
His heady scent muddled my thoughts, and I caught myself leaning into him. I straightened and then settled into the chair as he scooted me nearer the table. He grasped the napkin swan by the neck. When he jerked his wrist, the linen square flattened, and the pop of the fabric startled me. I bit down on a shriek.
He chuckled as he laid the napkin across my lap. Then he brushed his fingers across my upper back as he moved behind me. His fingertips on my bare skin scalded me in three white-hot lines from one shoulder to the other. I drowned in the nearness of him. Yet this topped the park and blue magic spells.
“Where are you from?” My breathy voice gave away my unsettledness. “We haven’t been properly introduced.”
“I’m from the Fae realm. I live there with my family.” He strolled into the kitchen area but turned to offer a half-bow. His magnetism attracted me. “I am Scíath Sciathán.”
Shkee-ah. Shkee-hone. A jumble of vowels and consonants made up his name.
I shifted in my seat. “What does that mean?”
He lifted the lid on a pot and stirred as steam billowed up. “The closest translation is ‘winged warrior.’” He lifted a spoon to his lips and tasted.
My lips parted. That must be delicious. I didn’t know if I meant him or the food. “I’ll never learn to say that.”
“You could call me Arúnsearc.”
“Uh-roon-shark,” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Secret love,” he answered with a raised eyebrow and grin. He was the handsomest man I’d ever seen.
“I don’t think I can get that right.” I didn’t know how to flirt, but he was doing a fantastic job.
“Keep it Arún, then.” He grasped the pot handle and poured the gravy into a shallow bowl.
“Uh-roon.” I tried to mimic the inflection in his pronunciation several times. I nodded and leaned forward to rest my elbows on the table. “I’m afraid to ask what Arún means.”
He chuckled. “It means secret. In keeping with Fae tradition, I was born in secret, hidden away until I could ascend to the throne like my father before me. Since I left my world and came here, I’ve become a secret again.”
I bit my lip. There was so much I wanted to ask. “Why did you come here?”
“To wait for you.” His spoke in hushed tones, his voice a caress.
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He spoke as though it made sense, but it still didn’t.
Arún guided me into the dining room, but, before I could ask more, Arún left and returned with two more dishes. One held a mound of long, thin, spear-like vegetables and the other a mound of white mash. He spoke as he served.
“My kind doesn’t live here, but we visit for different reasons. We stay out of human affairs, and we’re masters of camouflage. I refuse to get involved in the petty differences of mortals. Through time, we’ve learned to create invisibility by bending air and light around us like a suit.”
“How did you know my name?” I frowned. “You knew it before I did.”
Arún set the dish beside me, now close enough to touch. My fingers twitched. What would it be like? His thigh was inches from my shoulder, and he stood there until I looked up at him from beneath my lashes.
Hesitantly, I touched his knee. His whole body flinched, and the air around us shimmered. His nostrils flared and a muscle worked in his jaw. He didn’t push me away.
He smoothed his hand through my hair. When I started to draw little circles on the back of his leg, like he’d done to me in the park, he groaned and made a fist in my hair.
My heartbeat quickened. I affected him as much as he affected me. The power of it intoxicated me. I licked my lips.
Arún stared down at me without humor or any hint of a smile, a stony expression in his silver eyes. “I’ve known about you for a long time, Woe.” He crooked his finger beneath my chin and brushed his thumb across my lips, and when he bent toward me, my whole body throbbed.
In him, I saw explosions, determination, and a passion that might rip this world apart. Passion for me. The realization thrilled me to my core, and I squirmed in my seat. Arún would kiss me if I asked him to. My gaze dropped to his mouth. He leaned closer.
Woe, where are you? Come in. Please come in.
The earpiece.
Jason had perfect timing. And by perfect, I meant terrible. I tried to ignore him, but the squall of feedback in my ear interrupted the mood. I pressed the palm of my hand to my ear and whimpered.
Woe, is that you?
More feedback. I hooked my finger through the earpiece and yanked it out with a growl. Jason was always getting in the way of my life.
Arún raised his eyebrows and leaned backward. “The priest?” At my nod, he added, “You are free to go back to him.” His statement asked a question that I couldn’t answer. Not yet.
I offered a wobbly smile. “Dinner smells delicious. Did you cook it yourself?”
Arún’s chest expanded. “I have learned many things while I waited for your arrival.” He crossed his arms, his gaze hard. “Do you wish to stay?”
I studied the tablecloth as the silence between us stretched. I dipped my chin, but kept my eyes averted. I wanted to stay.
His next words sledgehammered my stomach.
He whispered, “Then open your mouth.”
21
Loss
Jason
It had been hours since Woe disappeared.
Into thin air.
I shoved a hand through my hair. I couldn’t be sure, but the murdering creature was at the top of my list. I wondered for the hundredth time if that’s what or who she’d been hunting with flashlights.
Or… had she gone after the smelly Fae?
The empty sidewalk offered no clues. I’d been over the place where she’d been last, again and again. Nothing.
A whoosh stirred the air. And in the place where she’d been before, two shoes appeared. Her shoes. I’d taught her to stand sexy in them.
I crouched beside them, almost afraid to touch them. I retrieved a pen from my pocket and used it to gingerly reposition the heels so I could examine them without disturbing any evidence.
No sign of blood or anything that might confirm foul play, just empty high heels in the middle of a sidewalk where a woman stood before. I pulled a plastic bag from my pocket. If I hurried, maybe Vic could get something off them. I needed a way to track Woe through the city. Back at headquarters, I could transmit long range on her radio frequency and possibly locate her.
After the shoes were safely in the evidence bag, I fastened the bag closed. Vic would want them as quickly as possible. I glanced at my watch. She might even still be up. I ran.
In the Cavern, I pressed the chime on Vic’s door.
The mechanism turned inside the bomb-proof door. Like all the others, it had been repurposed from a decommissioned World War II battleship.
The door slammed open against the stone behind it. An ebony-skinned woman, her hair buzzed short and dyed bright pink, squinted at me. “Yes?”
She must not have her contacts in. I waved. “Hi, Vic.”
Her baggy t-shirt had the words “Don’t Make Me Go Zelda on You” emblazoned on her chest, but she wore nothing else. “Jason, what time is it?”
“Three in the morning,” I said. “It’s an emergency.” I held up the bagged shoes. “Woe’s missing. Somebody kidnapped her.”
“I told you to introduce her to us from the beginning. She needs to feel like she’s a part of the family.” There were several thumps and a roar. Vic grinned. “Maybe a dysfunctional family of misfits, but at least then she’d know she fits right in.” She waved me inside and moved away from the door. “Come on. Let’s see what we can do.”
I looked away while she slid a pair of board shorts over her hips and seated herself at the work desk that ran the length of one whole wall. She flicked a dozen different switches. Screens blinked to life and fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating stacks of papers, vials of liquid, diagrams drawn on the wall above. Vic settled on a swivel seat and dropped multi-lensed goggles over her eyes.
I said, “I thought I picked up her signal at one point, but I haven’t been able to pick it up again. Can you try the tracking device in the belt?”
“Sure thing,” she said.
There was a growl from the adjacent room, a smack, and then the low rumble of a large creature’s snores.
I nodded toward the bedroom. “Somebody here?”
Vic shrugged. “Sounds like it, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t press. She knew the rules. We’d have to figure it out later. Right now, I needed to find Woe before something bad happened to her. I tossed the bag up onto the desk. “Anything and everything,” I said. “Don’t care about keeping the shoes. Free rein.”
Vic grinned and rubbed her hands together. “Got it.”
I asked, “Need anything else?”
Vic shook her head and flashed two thumbs up. “Get outta here. I’ll let you know when I find something or get her earpiece tuned in.”
I nodded and headed out. Weariness settled over me like a blanket. Maybe I’d get some shuteye. With Woe gone from my apartment, I was even sleeping in a real bed rather than the couch in my office.
Vic called, “Catch the door, will ya?” And then she started humming Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix in between mad-scientist giggles. Those shoes weren’t going to make it out of there alive.
I counted the buttons as I undressed. It was a years-old habit. Finished, I stacked my neatly folded clothes in a pile on the floor. It was still weird to be sleeping in Woe’s bed. After all, even though she’d moved out, I still thought of the bed as hers. At least until I could convince her to move into the Cavern with the rest of the team. If she ever did. Absently, I fingered the key on the chain around my neck.
I still hadn’t figured out who masterminded Hannah’s murder and the others like it or why the Fae had decided Woe was his. What could a creature from another realm want with a fallen angel? I slipped between the sheets and decided to check the old histories in the morning. Maybe they would shed some light.
22
Foreplay
Woe
My eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
Arún’s eyes sparkled. “I said, ‘Open your mouth.’”
It was hard to swallow past the boulder wedged at the back
of my throat, but I managed to ask, “Bu-bu-but why?”
I swallowed again, a little easier this time, and pressed my palms together to stop the trembling. The physical side of things moved faster than I wanted it to. I’d read about that in chapter twenty-two of the how-to romance. The room was growing smaller by the moment. Hotter, too. An oven. I was in an oven.
Arún took my hand and placed it on his chest. He kissed my fingertips, and his lips seared a path along my skin.
“My Queen, as much as I want to explore…” He pressed another kiss to the inside of my wrist. My heartbeat pounded in my eardrums and drowned out the city sounds. “I did not mean what I think you think I meant.”
“Wait… what? Why do you call me ‘my Queen’?” Despite the burn of his hunger, this pointy-eared Fae might be a bit on the crazy side. I shrank back. Arún believed I was something else.
I was conflicted, torn, lost.
Broken.
Certainly not the queen he thought I was.
His eyes narrowed, and he added, “It’s the reason I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Let me guess.” I sighed as truth dashed my desire. “Prophecies?” Religious divinations were always making people do strange things. “Is that why you kill for me?” I hadn’t meant to ask it, but there it was.
“Of course.” He beamed at me like I had just answered his question with the perfect solution. “I’ll explain in a moment, but for right now,” he tugged me nearer, “may I help you get the tooth mic out? I’d rather not have Jason be privy to our private conversations.”
The way he said private made my knees weaker than they were. “Sure,” I breathed.
Arún eased my chin up and leaned my head backward. The silver flecks in his eyes sparkled, and in the dim glow, his oversized irises resembled pewter. He rested one hand on my shoulder and smoothed the other up the length of my neck in a soothing caress. He waited patiently for my approval. After a moment of indecision, I opened my mouth. He studied my teeth and asked, “Lower right side?”
Woe for a Faerie Page 13
