Shadowfae (18 page)

His nerves twitch, uncomfortable. Damn it. When did Jade become
her
?

He shoves his unease away and concentrates on his task, letting glamour flow over the yellow girl, caress her, lick her nipples, trace invisible fingers up her thighs, flood her senses with wanting. She fidgets, lips parted, chest heaving.

He taps his fingers softly on the glass, tense, as the elevator rises with a hiss. “Care to join me?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” The yellow girl can’t stand still a moment longer. She stalks over and plants her glossy lips on his in a desperate, rapture-drenched kiss, her hands already tugging at his clothes. She tastes of vodka and the bitter sherbet of cheap cocaine.

Rapture ripples lust into his blood, warming his thighs, filling his cock. He lets her ravish him, opening his eyes in mid-kiss to skewer her purple friend with a dark spear of glamour. The purple girl gasps, her muscles jerking, and he grazes his free hand along her jaw and pulls her close, sliding his thumb into the warmth of her eager mouth.

By the time the elevator slows and the door whispers open, they’re entangled in a three-way embrace, unsure of who’s kissing whom and who wants whom more.

“Let’s go inside.” The yellow girl teases Rajah’s lips with her teeth, stinging. He can smell her juice, hot and salty, her sex sore and weeping with too-sudden need, and his rapture gnashes urgent teeth, wanting. He reaches around her to squeeze the purple girl’s narrow ass, pulling both girls closer.

The purple girl squirms and drags hungry hands across her friend’s breasts from behind, playing with swollen nipples, her breath leaving wet marks on the yellow girl’s shoulder. “How about we fuck right here?”

Rajah’s cock jumps in anticipation, and he swallows a smile. “Inside,” he whispers, and they tumble into the penthouse foyer, limbs tangled. The yellow girl simpers at the security guy, digging one-handed in her bag for her invitation, the other hand occupied in sliding up between her friend’s thighs, while Rajah bangs teeth with the purple girl, her kiss rough and desperate, shaking fingers yanking his hair.

“Uh-huh.” The big bald guy squints casually at the gilt-edged invite. “What about him?”

“He’s with us.” They both say it at once, breathless.

Rajah winks at him, and the security guy scowls back. “Half his luck. Don’t make a mess.” He jerks his head gruffly at the black glass door, and they stand straight for just long enough to pass through.

The penthouse is amazing, a vast glassy space suspended above starry nothing, the sea of dazzling men and women glittering like jewels, but Rajah barely has time to look before the girls yank him onto a soft couch in a dim corner, a pile of supple limbs, breasts, silk, soft blond hair. The sweat-drenched perfume of their sex and the sweet mixture of their moans heats his blood, his balls tight and his cock hungry for contact. His rapture crackles, pure lust searing inside him, and it’s an effort to drag himself away. He extricates himself, sliding one girl’s hands onto the other’s body, one girl’s mouth onto the other’s throat. “Knock yourselves out. Gotta go.”

The yellow girl whimpers in displeasure, but the purple girl cuts off her disappointment with a sensual growl, pulling her on top and dragging her smeared mouth downward, blond waves tumbling.

Rajah grimaces and walks stiffly away, forcing air into his lungs to slow his pulse. His thwarted rapture snarls, bitter heat stinging his skin, and an angry shimmer swells the air around him. Beside him, a slender blood fairy in white velvet glances up from his drink, scarlet pupils dilating with desire, and Rajah curses and flickers out of sight before he spreads his damn glamour all over the fucking place.

Glassy music fractures the air, a happy little song about dying from cancer treatment. Still invisible, Rajah heads for the bar, stepping carefully around people who can’t see him. He scans the crowd for Jade, but he can’t pick her from the mass of color and beauty. His stomach tightens with disappointment, and he realizes he misses her. Nerves clench in his spine, uncomfortable. If he sees Dante touching her, he might not be able to contain himself in his current mood. There must be a way he can make her see sense, instead of seeing just another self-absorbed male who thinks he owns her.

Truth is, he burns to own her. His blood rushes again, painful in his already aching cock, and guilt only makes him want harder. To be the only one allowed to touch her, kiss her, penetrate her sweet body and obsess her mind. To be the one who teases her into a laugh, puts that glorious smile on her pretty face, sends her eyelids fluttering closed with bliss. It’s not what she thinks, not just jealous possession. It’s more like . . . Well, he doesn’t want to think about what it really is.

A mortal couple stop talking abruptly as he passes and fall into kissing, and he grits his teeth and clamps down harder on his glamour. The cool air eventually soothes his twitching skin, his rapture sulking in a tight frustrated coil. The fierce ripple in his blood dims, his pulse slowing, and the boiling shimmer in the air subsides to an occasional dirty spark. When he pops back into sight at the black glass bar and orders lemon, lime, and bitters, he gets merely a sultry glance and a lick of glossy lips from the bright-eyed bar girl.

He sips, citrus fizz cooling his throat, and dark prescience prickles the back of his neck.

He spins, his nerves jerking, but sees nothing, no one who stands out from the crowd. He takes a deep breath, calming. Probably DiLuca, showing off.

Or maybe Luna. Rajah gulps his drink, ice and all. If Luna sees him first, and realizes his intent, it’s all over. He has no idea how to steal Luna’s soul. Overt rapture won’t do him any good. Luna is far too clever to let him get that close again. He’ll need his most artful fakery even to get in the same room.

Dark challenge heats Rajah’s skin again, and he has to bite his lip to halt a mischievous smile. Dismay makes him sigh, but it can’t extinguish the old reckless spark in his blood. Trapping Luna shouldn’t be impossible. His biggest weakness was always his ego. Maybe a confidence trick, a clever sham. Rajah has nothing to lose.

Except Jade.

Cold sensation spears his guts. His spine crawls, and he realizes he’s afraid.

He swallows, overcome. His longing for her cuts deep, the pain sharper than he can ignore or explain away. But his freedom demands her sacrifice. He can’t have both.

Well, why the hell not? What’s more important—to live free? Or to live in love?

The idea stops his breath. Her freedom, his thrall, her love. Everything he’s ever wanted . . . Well, almost everything. He can never give her a child, not in thrall, even if she could conceive. Would she forgive him that?

Shit. Did he really just think that? He flushes, reality souring his mouth, and shakes his head at his own stupidity. She’ll never love him. The way he’s acted, all jealous and possessive and lustful, he’s everything she’s ever loathed about men. She’d rather go with a vicious blood-hungry vampire than be with him. And if she were free, just a regular woman, how long could she stand a lover who screwed other women for a living?

He clinks his glass back onto the bar, skidding it away from him in frustration. His crush on her will pass. It always has before, such idle covetous impulse. It has to.

Beside him, a tall water sprite in a slim silver gown winks at him, white hair flowing to blue-veined shoulders. Her diamond eyes twinkle as she sniffs the air, wet wings shining. “What’s that I smell, incubus? Regret?”

A reluctant laugh twists his lips. “Sad but true.”

She sways closer, remnants of a forgotten song crooning in her throat. She smells of the river in summer, warm and tainted. “You’ve no such sorrow from me, I’ll bet.”

He eyes her, curiosity warming his palms. She does look familiar. Maybe he’s fucked her. Something about her bow-shaped lips or the pale line of her chin puts him in mind of St. Kilda Beach at midnight, salty summer breeze, waves lapping, the warm grittiness of sand on his skin. She tasted of sea salt, not sweat, and water rushed beneath her skin in rivulets, warm like blood but blue.

“The penny drops.” An artful smile, blue pointed teeth glinting.

He can’t help another rueful laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart. My mind’s elsewhere.”

She runs a splayed fingerpad around the rim of his empty glass and slips it into her mouth. The forks of her scaly tongue flicker, lascivious. “Want something stronger, pretty? A splash of sweet forgetful? You’ll regret nothing then.”

To forget Jade would be sweet relief. Temptation slides crafty fingers over his thighs, and he’s about to caress the fairy’s chin and ask what sordid favor she wants in return, when a flash of scarlet satin catches his eye. Slender shoulders, soft brown wisps, a vicious splash of . . .

Urgency slams pressure into his racing blood, and he doesn’t even bother to excuse himself.

14

I
staggered against the glass wall, and a dark shape materialized, warm hands on my stinging shoulder.

“Bring it up. Come on.” His voice was soft, compelling, and despite my agony, I smelled a whisper of familiar oriental spice.

“Rajah . . .” Relief choked me, and another spasm twisted my guts. “I don’t feel so well.” I leaned against him, shivering, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, gently but insistently forcing me back to the bathroom. I went, stumbling, my ankles tangling. My thrall bangles hissed and sparked, the hot metal tightening painfully on my forearms, but I didn’t care. I wanted to pass out, sleep forever. Candlelight gloated on dark mirrors, the metallic stink of the fairy’s vomit still souring the cool air.

Rajah gripped my shoulders. “Look at me. Jade. Look at me, please.”

With an effort of will I dragged my swimming head up, and he cupped his hands around my face, his thumbs caressing my cheeks. “You have to bring it up. It’s making you sick.”

“What?” My lips fumbled, clumsy. “What d’ya mean?”

He spun me around to face the mirror, leaning over to press his head against mine, his hands gripping my waist, forcing me to look. There I was, fatigue drawing lines around my mouth, mascara smudged on my lashes, my red satin dress twisted where he held me, my bare shoulders gleaming golden in the flickering light. He’d shown up in his full glory in a sleeveless black shirt and jeans, showing off glistening muscles and perfect poise. His dark hair mingled with mine, his beautiful lips tense and close to my ear. A faint shimmer of his rapture flowed over me, warm, probably the remnants of whatever he’d done to get in here.

I couldn’t feel the glamour, of course, but I wanted to swoon anyway. His body moved against my back as he breathed, swift and short, but he didn’t seem concerned with rapture. His reflected golden gaze bored into mine, unrelenting. “Look,” he insisted, harsh. “Can’t you see what he’s done to you? Can’t you feel it?”

I blinked, straightening my nodding head, trying to filter my glaring vision. My reflection goggled back at me, dumb. I twisted my neck, aching. My shoulder stung. I rubbed it, wincing, and my hand came away wet and warm.

I looked down. At fingers smeared with sticky blood.

Horror crushed my heart with an icy fist. Wildly I stared up at the mirror, my pulse galloping. Scarlet streamed over my shoulder, pooling in the hollow above my collarbone, dripping, staining my dress. A bruise already blackened on the soft flesh between my neck and shoulder, a ragged red gash freshly torn open by rapacious fangs. Blood welled in the holes, dripping, fragments of scab already crusty.

When the fuck did he do that?
I remembered my fit of dizziness by the bar, that few seconds I’d blacked out.

I wanted to scream, but no sound could escape from my parched throat. My body shook, helpless, my stomach shriveling. Dante had lied to me. I’d been an idiot to believe him for an instant, to imagine for a moment that a man who had everything could be the slightest bit interested in me. And Rajah . . . I didn’t want to think about the things I’d said to Rajah. God, what a fuckup.

Rajah gripped me tightly, his warmth enfolding me. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Did you swallow any?”

I shook my head, my mouth dry with terror.

“Did you swallow any?” Rajah repeated, shaking me lightly to get my attention, his hands tense and hot.

“I don’t know!” I forced out at last. “Maybe. I don’t remember.” But memories squirmed to the surface like worms, of Dante’s body on mine, pushing inside me, his hot coppery warmth tingling in my mouth, down my throat. He’d fed me. Mesmerized me with his blood. Licked my clit, made me like it. Fucked me. Probably came inside me, and I didn’t know anything about it. And all the time I’d believed he wanted more than that.

God, I’m so dumb.

Blood rushed to my face, burning. Claws of nausea slashed into my guts, and my stomach heaved. I scrambled for the toilet, hanging my head over the bowl, and stinking scarlet bile erupted onto the porcelain, scorching my throat. Pain punched into my abdomen, my body spasming over and over until nothing remained.