Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (3 page)

Or . . . death.

Holy cow. He'd bigger problems than one too many bullets in that pistol.

I fought not to rip my gaze away, hide my face, do anything but look at him. Who'd made him like this? No one
chose
what he was. I knew what it felt like to be a prisoner of cruel whims, but Jesus.

His mouth twisted, like he knew what I was thinking. He cocked his wrist to the ceiling, releasing me from the pistol's arc. "Go on, then. Run."

I ran, clutching my precious bag to my hip. Wouldn't have done me any good to smoke out anyway. Straight into the lamp I'd go, leaving it there on the floor for anyone to take. For him to take, and claim me. Not on your life.

I skidded around the doorframe, sharp heels tipping under me, and too late, I smelled blood.

Strong fingers wrapped my wrist, pulling me upright into a slender fae body. I stared up at glowing ruby eyes, wet cinnamon-brown hair plastered around a sharp face and lean bare shoulders. His dusky skin glistened, blotted with reddish sweat. A blood fairy. The dead guy's accomplice.

"Bauble girl?" His voice caressed, husky. Pastel purple lips curled, a sweet crooked smile made cruel by jagged fae teeth.

Dirty-handsome-crazy number two. Spare me. At least this one didn't have a gun, not that I could feel. His body heat seared, like he was feverish, and fragrant sanguine moisture seeped from under his fingers onto my wrist.

Memory seared my bones, the same spicy scent of a fairy I once knew and loved. But this wasn't my Javier, no matter the resemblance. It was some murdering corpse's best friend.

I twisted my arm, but he held me, double-jointed knuckles bending impossibly backwards. "Pearls," he insisted, shaking me like he knew he wasn't getting through to me. "Gems, glass, diamonds, something, damn it . . ."

Jewel. He meant Jewel.

My chest constricted. How did he know my name? Some weird fairy mind-reading mojo? I didn't want anyone knowing me, or remembering me. I wanted to be free.

"Let me go, you freak." I wriggled harder, and he jittered backwards, his skinny shoulders twitching like he wanted to flutter away but couldn't.

And he really couldn't.

I stared, swallowing. I hadn't noticed until now. Mind-reading bloodfae boy had no wings.

Suddenly, I regretted calling him a freak.

He stared back at me, black pupils swelling. His grip gentled on my wrist, blood smearing. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to weird you out. I just—"

"It's okay." I didn't pull away. I don't tell anyone my name. It's too dangerous. It gives them power over me. But he'd apologized for
my
insensitivity. I owed him something. "You were right. It's something like that."

He licked pretty lips, a flicker of his sharp-pointed tongue, and he turned my hand over in his, studying it like a marvel. "Brass walls. Smells of dust and flowers. It's dark and cold . . . but . . ." As if on impulse, he leaned forward and exhaled.

His breath scorched my knuckles. My fingers numbed. Faded. Dissolved into spiraling grey smoke.

My pulse galloped, and I jerked back. My hand recrystallized, smoky wisps coalescing with a hiss. My fresh skin tingled. Blood rushed into newly formed veins, pins and needles that sparkled my nerves with threat.

No way. Not happening. The only one who turns me to smoke is me.

I wanted to smash his handsome face to pulp, to grab him by that pretty hair and force his face into the wall and ask him how the hell he'd done that. "Just stay away from me, okay?"

He flitted a few steps after me. "I didn't mean—"

But I didn't wait for another apology. This fae-crazy half-caste knew way too much, and had too much to do with dirty-but-weirdly-sexy-murderer for my taste.

Out of my depth? Sister, you're practically underwater.

I stumbled down the stairs, grabbing the cold steel handrail to keep my feet, and pushed into the crowd. The liquid in my ears thumped in time with the music. I hugged my bag close, safe in the crush. The comforting smells of hundreds of people crashed over me like a salty avalanche, and I sucked them in, filling my lungs over and over to erase the dark taste of fairy blood and the rich, maddening smell of weird. The oxygen rush made my head float and spin, and I squeezed my eyes shut, safe in the press of warm bodies, and let the drunken sway of dancers support me, move me, wash me along.

Bad men. It's always the bad men who want me, the ones who crave excitement and hot blood and the breathless chemical mindfuck of the unknown. Who chase my lamp to the ends of the earth for a chance to test my power, just because they can. The kind for whom giving orders just isn't enough. They have to possess me, dominate me, be my magical master.

The kind who shove guns under my chin with undead fingers, or turn my flesh to smoke with a breath. I mean, hello? How's that for shiver-up-the-spine fascinating?

Why is it always the dangerous ones who turn me on?

I squeezed my bag tightly, the lamp's hard curves pressing into my sweaty palms. Tension cramped in my back and along my arms. Inside me, swollen flesh still ached from the deft stroke of that silvery fae boy's claws. I burned for contact, touching, sensory overload, the electric thrust of sensation along my nerves. Bodies bumped me in the crush, tempting me to open my eyes, but I hardly dared.

Please, for once an ordinary, nice, boring guy. Someone I can trust not to ask questions, whom I can dump in the morning without regret. No surprises. No kink. No haunting memories. Just nice clean ordinary sex, with a nice clean orgasm or two that I'll forget about as soon as I'm done.

Hell, I'm lonely. Is that such a sin, after fifty-odd years in a dark cramped space with nothing but my thoughts?

I took one more numbing breath, and let my eyelids slide apart. The rainbow-lit darkness befuddled me for a moment, shadows dancing, a hundred vibrant smells globbing into one soothing waterfall. Lithe figures undulated, sinew stretching, skin and wing membranes glowing in neon glory. Flashes of warm wet lips, glimmering metal piercings, smooth leather and satin, the dusty glitter of painted lashes.

There, that one. Messy blond elflocks, soft lips, smooth young face with a hint of wistful confusion. Only a human, with comparatively normal clothes, just jeans and a tight T-shirt and a simple silver ring through one earlobe. Icy blue eyes with curling lashes that made me envious. I sidled closer, relaxing, rolling my hips, letting that heart-ripping music thud its release into my veins. Was that a smear of eyeliner? If he was totally into girls, I was a nun. I glanced downwards at some very strokable male shapes. Beautiful, oh yes. Sexy, in a throw-'em-out-when-you're-finished kind of way.

But not fae. Not dangerous. Not dark or angry or corpse-like in any way.

Just what I needed.

I smiled, and bumped his hip with mine, leaning in so I didn't have to yell too loudly. "You here on your own?"

An improbably radiant smile. "Not exactly."

"You are now." I twirled one of his crisp blond locks around my finger, letting my thumb drift along his collarbone. Ragged ends feathered over my knuckles, tingling them with sweet promise, and magic sparked in my blood, a hint of that old Jewel persuasion. Pity it hadn't worked when I really needed it.

"Okay." He didn't even blink. "Can I dance with you?"

"Honey, I'll tell you exactly what you're gonna do." I slipped my wrists around his neck, inhaling woody cologne and sharp aniseed liqueur. Mmm. His hair trailed over my forearms, coarse and wonderful, and my gaze dragged itself to his mouth and stayed there. I remembered kissing, the visceral taste of a man's mouth, the smooth rub of tongues, the scrape of teeth. Can't imagine it's changed. His ripe lips inched apart, and the sight snatched my breath away. "You live near here?"

"Yep."

"Good. You'll take me there, and we'll, umm, pass a bit of time. When we're finished, you'll go live somewhere else and I'll stay there. That okay with you?"

"Sure."

I leaned in and slid my lips across his, left to right. Soft, hot, skin catching on supple skin, a dizzying mouthful of alcohol-sweet breath. Longing stabbed down my body, straight from my mouth to my sex, and my skin broke out in needy bumps.

Oh, yeah. He'd do just fine.

***

Chapter Three

Fuck.

I crack my forehead against the steel and crush the pistol barrel into my temple, itching to pull.

I can't believe I let him get away because of a
woman
.

Some clumsy black-eyed girl in a dog collar, cute ass and sweet breasts, falling over her own stilettos to get away from me. Who I couldn't even shoot, because I kept seeing Katie on the floor drenched in blood and wondering if this girl had someone who'd see her like that, and because her lips were painted blue like a mortuary corpse's and I wanted to kiss them, and because she saw what I am and didn't scream or puke or run away . . . Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fluid squelches under the pistol's metal, dripping down my cheek, and I grind my wobbly teeth together and remind myself there's no point in pulling the trigger. Just another hole in my head, more mess to clean up on the bathroom floor tonight. But my bones judder like I haven't moved or hurt in an age, and damn it if I'm not still quivering and hot from that hard-on.

Chill, Tam. Go home, shower, jerk off. Got a couple of hours?

I bang my head again, and sweet pain teases my nerves, tickling like some feral dominatrix's feather, never quite enough. Again, spreading that wet black stain, blood running sour into my mouth. Again. More. Until pain hurts like it used to, until I can feel again. Until I can go back to being alive. God, I fucking hate this.

"Tam, stop it."

I hate how Gavain says my name, too, and I grimace at that breathy, spaced-out voice. His long hot fingers slide on my wrist, twisting the weapon from my hand.

I squeeze, my knuckles popping, but he's stronger than he looks and the sticky metal rips from my palm, taking a layer of skin with it. My nerves spark at last, current zapping down my arm, and it's bliss.

Not now, Gavain.

My voice cracks, dry and salty like potato chips in my throat. "Don't."

But he does. He always does. Soft hands on my shoulders, sliding beneath my hair, the spice of faeblood sluggish in my nostrils. My tongue stings, foul with stupid rage. I want to twist those goddamn gentle hands behind his back and throw him on the floor. I want to bruise that fragile faeborn face, teach him what it is to rely on me.

I spin around and slam my palms into his chest. "I said, don't touch me."

Gavain's fairy-light, and he stumbles backwards, but his uncanny balance changes it into a graceful tilt-and-straighten. His lips tremble, velvety like raspberries, and wordlessly he tosses my pistol on the bench, scoops his shirt up from the floor and tugs it over his head. A steel-grey T-shirt, slashed off ragged at the shoulders. It suits him.

I wipe his red sweat from my wrist, rubbing it so I don't have to look at him. I might be dead and determined but I'm not beyond a twinge of remorse, and besides, he's . . . well, he's him. Dark chocolate hair, always in slutty wet tangles you want to yank around your fists. Haunted ruby eyes that beseech you for a moment of your regard, that exotic fae-slim body just begging to be dragged to its knees and punished. Half human, half blood fairy, all beautiful.

He looked like strange candy to me even before I died. He has no idea how he looks to me now. Exquisite. Precious. Breakable. Delicate things get broken when I'm around. Just look at Katie and her mother.

Gavain tugs hair from his collar and taps curved claws on his teeth, his knobbly knuckles shining. "I'm sorry, Tam. I fucked up. Couldn't catch the whippy little turd."

"Forget it." I retrieve my pistol and empty the chamber, thankful that he's lucid, at least for now.

"Your lady turned to smoke."

Not lucid for long, evidently. "Uh-huh." I pop the ejected round back into the magazine. Oh, look, it's still got Mr. Whippy Turd's name on it. Later, shitball.

Gavain slides crafty fingers over my shoulder, scarlet fae weirdness glinting from his eyes. "The black-eyed diamond lady. She's made of smoke."

"Whatever you say, man. Let go." His touch crawls, too much and at the same time nowhere near enough. I shrug to get him off, my unease taking a serious shit-kicking from sensation-lust just beneath my brittle skin.

"You going home?" He digs insistent claws into my forearm, piercing, and mottled blood seeps under them, flecked with bits of my flesh. A wicked, glorious stab of real pain goes straight to my balls. And then he wets his lips, slowly.

Aw, shit no. Don't think it, Tam. Not going there . . . too late. Already I can see it. Blood, sweat, his crushed-berry mouth, his tongue . . . Sweet Jesus.

I shake him off, my blood stinging. His claws rip, and fluid oozes from four parallel scratches, but I don't care. I can't pretend he means nothing to me—hell, these days he's the closest thing I've got to a friend. But Gavain's like a lost fairy child, needy and helpless, and I'm not his goddamn mother. He couldn't assert his way out of a soggy paper bag. I'm just not going there. "Yeah. Alone. Go screw with someone else's head, Gavain. It's what you're good at."