Soul Surrender (5 page)

W
hat? Me, the Queen? Dread rolled in my stomach and bile rose in my throat. It would have been laughable if not so damn terrifying. Me—the fallen angel—as Queen of the Killer Vagina? That made no sense whatsoever. I was the worst succubus in existence. I hated my job. Hated the entire demon realm. There's no way
I
was destined to be Queen. Then again, Lucifer and his first army of misfits were the original fallen angels. And look at him now, the patriarch of Hell.

I shook the thoughts away until I could tell Kayce and Lucien. Slipping through the crack of the door with Claudette was easy this time. I slid back behind the jukebox, shifting back into the smaller, curvier human I came in as. Cloaked powers? Check. Black hair? Check. Curvy ass? I stole a glance behind me. Definite check.

From behind the jukebox, I could hear Claudette lecturing Ink on the terrible martini—as if
she
was the one who'd discovered the bruised gin.

“How long have you been a demon?” Her voice was bitter, though still collected and poised.

Ink stood straight, a pole in the place of his spine. “Almost four hundred years.”

“And how long have you been a bartender?” Her top lip curled under with the question.

“Thirty.”

“You're telling me that after thirty years, you don't know how to make a martini without bruising the gin?” She was still calm, not screaming like some irrational customers I'd dealt with in my past. I watched on in fascination. There was a hard edge to her facade—and though I'd never seen Claudette lose her cool, she always looked like she was seconds away from cracking. As though her face would disintegrate into dust at any moment.

“My apologies.” Ink dipped his head. She wasn't our ArchDemon here in Vegas, but I didn't blame him one bit. You don't want to get on
any
demon's bad side. “I'd be happy to make you another.”

The saccharine smile she flashed lit her face. There was something innately evil about Claudette. Yes, okay, she's a demon, I know. But as proven by Lucien and George and . . . Hell, maybe even Kayce, “demon” is not synonymous with “evil.”

“No. Just get it right for next time.” She pushed off the bar and, with chin high in the air, exited amidst the crowd of demons and succubi dressed in eighties costumes.

A light, breezelike brush tickled one of my shoulders and a hand clamped down on the other. I screamed, flinching out of the grasp, whipping around to fight my attacker. Kayce snatched my wrist in midair, pressing a palm against my mouth to quiet my screams.

“Shhh! Calm down. It's just me!”

“Could you hear them?” I asked.

Kayce shook her head. “There were enchantments on the room. Which was what I was expecting. The most I'd hoped to get out of tonight was a visual on who was coming.”

I scanned the room; the sea of bodies clad in silver and sparkles and neon colors grinding on each other to Bon Jovi. Man, demons were a weird crowd. “We shouldn't talk here,” I said. My eyes landed on Ink, busy behind the bar, pouring pint after pint of beer. Sweat descended the side of his face past his temple, and his eyes shifted about the room. They swept past mine before landing on Kayce's. She nodded as we headed for the door. Instead of acknowledging her, he simply went back to pouring drinks.

“Yeah,” Kayce said, shouldering the door open. “Besides, all this hot pink is giving me a headache.”

 

I managed to tell Kayce almost everything—except their mention of my being Queen. That fact nibbled at my brain all day at the café. I should have told her, right? She's proven herself; and I trust Kayce. But I knew that I'd feel a lot more comfortable confiding in her after I spoke to Lucien about it. If Lucien didn't know what they were talking about, he'd know how to find out the truth.

My shift at the café came and went with little excitement. Genevieve entered the coffee shop at seven to relieve me of my barista duties; there was more bounce in her step than before, and when I raised my eyebrows at her, a blush warmed her cheeks. She quickly glanced away.

I clocked out, eying the tip jar. Sure, those were my tips, but she could use that money more than me. Centuries of existing will give one a good nest egg, and the extra twenty-five dollars wasn't going to make or break me.

I slipped the apron from around my waist and untied the scarf from my head. After I slowly shapeshifted my hair back into place, blond curls fell below my shoulders.

I hiked my purse over a shoulder, and the Smith & Wesson clunked against my shoulder blade. Though it didn't hurt necessarily, I grunted at the impact.

Exiting the back room where the barista lockers lined the walls, I ran flush into Kayce. Her leather pants brushed my jeans as she hooked an elbow into mine and guided me back out to the front. “Hey,” she said, a tight grin clipping her cheeks.

“Uh—hi. What's . . . going on here?” When we reached the front, Lucien stood, latte in hand, and Damien was beside him, sipping an espresso.

My steps slowed to a stop in front of the group, and I eyed each person individually, finally resting on Damien's pewter gaze. His eyes flashed and a smirk quirked his lips upward. “Hey babe.”

“What is this? Some sort of intervention?”

Damien's head tilted to the side. “Not sure what you mean.”

“Come off it.”

His grin widened, and from beside me Lucien slapped a flyer down onto the counter. The startling noise made me jump, and when I glanced down, between his fingers was Buckley's ad. “We're going,” Lucien grumbled. “Tonight.”

Folding my arms across my chest, I darted a glare at Kayce and then back again to Lucien. “Who's ‘we'?”

Lucien rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. Don't play dumb, Monica. You. Me. The gang. We're all going.”

“Do I get a say in this at all?”

“No,” everyone answered at once in varying degrees of passion. Lucien and Damien were, of course, the loudest.

“Fine. Then I will need some serious caffeine before we go.”

Lucien took a final glug of his latte and tossed the cup into the garbage. “Me too. Damn those things are addictive.” He slid me a look, eyes softening at the corners but not relaxing entirely. “I'll buy yours.”

“Damn straight you will. Caramel mocha latte, please,” I grumbled, and hooked my arm into his elbow. I leaned in, dropping my voice to a level that humans couldn't hear. I only hoped that Kayce and the rest wouldn't pay too much attention. “I need to talk to you about what Kayce and I found last night.”

“I know. Kayce filled me in earlier.” He barely glanced at me, pulling a ten-dollar bill from his leather billfold.

“Lucien—I
really
think I should tell you
exactly
what I heard myself.” I stared at him pointedly and he finally looked up, catching my eye.

He nodded, understanding flashing over his deep brown gaze. “Of course.” He kept his voice casual, but there was a new tension in his forehead. “After the show?”

Once we were all adequately caffeinated, Lucien and Kayce teleported to the Wynn. I, on the other hand, rode with Damien in his truck, as he was our lone group member who couldn't just appear anywhere he wanted.

“How's Baxter?” I asked. I never imagined myself a maternal kind of girl, but something about that damn yellow lab pulled on my heartstrings. Damien had adopted him when his owners tragically died and got blamed for a string of murders in Salt Lake City.

“Baxter's great,” Damien answered, flashing me his stunning, pearly-white grin. “Misses his mommy.”

I groaned. “Oh, Hell . . . do not call me that.”

His grin widened. “Will he be seeing you after the show tonight?”

I nodded, my own smile quirking my lips. “If he'll have me.”

“Baxter would never turn
you
away.” Damien pulled into a parking spot off The Strip. “He's been keeping your side of the bed warm for ya.”

We made our way into the Wynn. The area outside the theater was mostly white marble with red accents. Butterflies affixed to the walls and flew above us, and the entire hotel had a very Asian feel to it.

An usher showed us to our seats. Lucien hung back until the only person left not in the row was Kayce—at which point, he slid in between her and me. He and I had to have a chat about the art of subtlety soon. We all settled into our seats, getting comfortable, and I reached into my bag, pulling out a sack of chocolate-covered almonds.

“What are you, five?” Lucien sneered.

One aisle seat was empty and the lights blinked a few times, signaling to the crowd that we only had a few moments until show time. Kayce strained her neck to the door, completely oblivious to Lucien as he lowered his nose to her hair, inhaling. His eyes fluttered closed.

“Hey, Casanova,” I whispered, tapping his knee. His neck swiveled to face me. “Go easy.”

He sank deeper into his seat as the house lights dimmed. Spotlights zoomed about the audience in various colors. The curtain parted, showing a single spotlight center stage with no one in it. The music droned on in an eerie hum. A drum pounded and Buckley—or should I say Raul—appeared center stage with a
crack.
Within moments, he disappeared and teleported to the balcony, sitting on the edge. The spotlight followed him as he continued to appear and disappear in various areas of the theater.

His “angels,” who appeared to actually be fallen angels—or demons as most of us know them—wore costumes sluttier than most things I wore onstage at Hell's Lair: white rhinestone pasties and a matching thong. There were only four of them, but one by one in a line, they teleported onto the stage in various sexual positions.

Buckley finally landed center stage with his arms to the ceiling, and the music crescendoed.

“Welcome!” The greeting was a demand—not a request.

Kayce leaned across Lucien to me, whispering, “Doesn't this go against every code of ethics sorcerers have?”

I rolled my eyes. “Buckley lives by his own code.”

“He's gonna piss off the other sorcerers living quiet lives,” Lucien said to no one in particular, hard eyes directed at the stage.

Lines etched across his face with the grimace, and though his eyes were still aimed at the stage, his attention seemed miles away.

I nudged him with an elbow, and he shifted his eyes to me without moving his head. Offering him a little smile, I squeezed his hand.

He grunted before turning his attention back to the stage. But not before the lines at the corners of his eyes softened slightly. It was barely noticeable, but it was there.

The show passed in a seamless array of glitz and glamour. Literally glamour—considering Buckley was using his glamour magic to look like an entirely different person: the made-up twin brother of his biological son who had died in Salt Lake City.

The audience was entranced by his performance and the way he wove together his legitimate magic with his flair for showmanship. Each trick escalated into something bigger and bigger until the audience was in an uproar, on their feet, clapping and shouting for more.

The “angels,” as he called them, danced around the stage. A demon's job on Earth was quite different from a succubus in actuality. Demons had pretty simple paper-pushing gigs. They were in charge of getting humans to sign their souls over to Hell before death in exchange for material things.

I mean, sure . . . my job was bad. Taking part of a human's life and slowly corrupting them. But to condemn a soul to Hell for eternity? That was way worse. I examined the women onstage. Their talent was limited and consisted of simply walking around the stage in their flimsy costumes. The brunette was the curviest. Her smile was blindingly bright and yet, behind her eyes, there was barely a dull light. What could have happened to them that they'd lost their humanity so quickly? It had been a little less than three centuries since I was an angel—and yet I still felt that tug of conscience each time I had to take a life.

“For my final trick”—Buckley's voice boomed through the theatre—“I will need a volunteer!” He levitated off the stage and floated into the aisle. Hands shot in the air, a tribute to how well he could fool people. Or perhaps a tribute to what fools people can be.

The beam of light followed him as he floated up and down the aisle, finally slowing in front of our row. The entire aisle of my people hissed, glaring up at him as his eyes fell onto me. They seared through to my soul. A
pop
sounded through the air and another spotlight flashed on—directed right at me.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me, right?”

His smile twitched, but he didn't dare break character. “I'm sensing reluctance.” He spun to the rest of the audience. “Let's give this beautiful young woman a warm welcome, huh?”

The crowd exploded into clapping. When I looked back to the “angels” onstage, their smiles were sadistic and twisted into a look that should have been terrifying to anyone not glitzed by their fancy clothes and stage charisma.

My teeth gnashed into each other. “I don't have a choice here, do I,
Raul?
” I grumbled under my breath.

His eyes sparkled, and even though he was glamoured as Raul, for a flash I could see the Buckley that I knew and hated behind the mask. I braced my hands on the armrests and moved to stand.

Lucien's arm darted out, and before I could lift up he was on his feet, sliding out into the aisle. “Not a chance,” he grumbled.

Buckley actually looked taken aback for all of a moment before he gained his composure once again. “I was actually talking to the lady, here.” He gestured at me once more, sliding a greasy smile in my direction.

“Well, ‘the lady' won't be going onstage tonight.” Lucien folded his arms across a very broad chest, which puffed out even more with his inhalation. “It's me or no one.”