The Shifting Price of Prey (12 page)

‘Are you saying the pendant is’ – I eyed him mistrustfully – ‘spreading its magic around, or something?’

‘Leaking is the word you’re looking for,’ Mad Max said cheerfully. ‘Which means denial isn’t just a river in Egypt; for you, love, it’s a cracked dam leading
to a flood of impromptu orgies every time you feel a tad frisky. Sticking your finger in the hole, however enthusiastically, isn’t going to do a damn thing.’ He gave a barking laugh
then poked me in the side. ‘Dam and damn. Get it, Cousin?’

I got it. Along with a jagged pain that said: cracked ribs. Sonofabitch had really gone for it with his payback.

I also got what he was going on about: the stupid sidhe sex myth, the one where the humans all think we’re gagging for it at the drop of a hat thanks to the ancient fertility rites once
held to replenish the land and encourage its future fecundity, and the salacious tales about the rites being huge free-for-all orgies. Tales I’d been told were the product of humans prurient
imaginations, since the rites, usually held during the main equinoxes –
like the Summer Solstice we were fast approaching
– had always been well orchestrated, rigidly
controlled and only for those specifically chosen participants who’d carefully prepared . . . by purposely abstaining from intercourse in the months leading up to the rite . . .

Like I’d been abstaining!

Shit! How could I have been such an idiot? I’d been obliviously setting myself up for my own personal fertility rite. And the Glamour I’d hit Malik with, along with the frustration
of
oh, so near
sex, had flipped some sort of switch inside me. Only by the time it had, Malik was gone. Hence my desperate self-pleasuring (which really hadn’t been any pleasure at
all) until Mad Max had turned up and the fertility magic blazing hot within me had decided it wanted a piece of him. Even though the thought of jumping
his
bones, blood relationship aside,
was enough to make me want to throw up, it seemed being male had been enough for the magic to go, ‘Screw the crazy sonofabitch!’

Maybe I should thank him for tying me up instead? Nah. Never gonna happen. I was pretty sure he’d gone for overkill, and even if he hadn’t, he was enjoying the pseudo BDSM way too
much.

I glared at him. ‘What’s the spell in the towel for?’

‘Oh, just a little magic poultice I cooked up to help you.’

‘Since when do vamps do magic?’

‘You forget, Cousin,’ he admonished, ‘that my mother is a sidhe queen. Clíona might have chosen to make me human and mortal, but I’m still a wizard by birth.
Becoming a vamp didn’t change that.’

I frowned, suspicious. Was he kidding me? Though now I thought about it, he would be a wizard, as the son of a sidhe and a human (as his dad had been, when Mad Max was – nauseatingly
– conceived). And I’d never known any vamp who’d been anything other than a straight human before they’d Accepted the Gift – unsurprisingly, given the whole ancient
Live and Let Live Tenets between the witches, wizards and vamps: the last thing they did was socialise. So a wizard keeping his magic after being given the Gift could be possible . . .

‘Though Mommie Dearest didn’t actually teach me anything. That was down to your sister, Brigitta.’ He gave me a cat-that’s-got-the-canary smile.

Half-sister, I mentally corrected him, though you couldn’t tell by looking at Brigitta’s picture. We could’ve been twins, if she hadn’t been born forty-odd years before
me. Even though I’d thought of her earlier when Mad Max had first appeared, his mentioning her again, and the fact she’d taught him magic, raised a mix of grief and anger that I’d
never known her, along with the usual frustrated envy that she obviously hadn’t lacked anything in the magical ability department. Unlike me. But then Brigitta’s father had been the
fossegrim, a lesser fae, while my father had been a vamp. For a moment I almost asked Mad Max whether he knew if our having different fathers was the reason why I couldn’t do magic, then I
nixed that idea. No way was I going to discuss the ins and outs of anything with
him
. Instead, I scowled and said again, ‘What’s the spell in the towel do?’

‘Stops you wanting to polish the peanut, Cousin. What else?’

Ah. ‘Okay,’ I said slowly, ‘it’s worked. So you can untie me.’

His smile widened, blue eyes lighting with unholy delight. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, love. No gain without pain, isn’t that what they say?’

He whipped the wet towel away. A cloud of dust motes floated up, the calm feeling vanished, and the painful arousal throbbed back to even more agonising life than before. The shock pulled a
scream from deep inside me; but before it could escape, he stuffed the wad of sheet back in my mouth. I bucked and writhed, desperate to get free, to kill him, or myself, whatever would bring me
release—

His fist slammed into my jaw.

‘Oh, and next time, Cousin,’ I heard him say as I slid into unconsciousness, ‘just fuck the Turk. It’ll sort you out, put the great Malik al-Khan out of his misery, and
save the rest of us the hassle of his bleeding melodramas.’

I woke to the sun streaming round the curtain edges. The clock told me it was not long past dawn. The crazy sonofabitch was gone. No way would he stick around after the sun had
risen, not when he’d have dropped into a vamp’s daytime sleep – a sort of hibernation mode that looked very much like being dead. And if I had my way, next time we met the vicious
sonofabitch wouldn’t just look dead
he’d be dead
. I was going to make sure of it; the mad vamp had left me
still tied to the damn bed
.

He’d also left me draped with the towel, which was now a sludgy mess dripping cold water adding to the existing wet spot beneath me. Ugh. On the positive front, that part of me felt fine.
And I was no longer gagged, verbally or magically; the silver headband was gone. The rest of me felt fragile, in a beaten-unconscious sort of way. Unsurprisingly, since Mad Max had roused me a
couple more times, whipped off the towel, cheerfully watched as my frantic struggles demonstrated that the spell hadn’t done whatever it was supposed to yet, and enthusiastically knocked my
lights out again.

I was going to enjoy killing him. Slowly.

Once I got free.

I debated shouting for help. Unfortunately any ‘rescue’ would come with embarrassment. There was no way this wouldn’t end up in the scandal rags. I’d have to live with
headlines like
SIDHE IN KINKY SEX ROMP
until something more salacious came along. Not to mention the risk of YouTube.

I shuddered. Maybe I should just wait. After all, Mad Max couldn’t leave me here like this . . .

Just as I was thinking the sonofabitch might be crazy enough to do exactly that, a tentative knock sounded on the door.

I froze.

My phone rang, the ringtone coming from the short corridor outside the bathroom. As it went to voicemail the door clicked open. I braced myself, pulse racing, wondering if they were friend or
foe.

The door clicked shut.

A
figure moved slowly into the room, tall, dressed in black leathers, hair pulled back in a sleek blonde ponytail, phone in one hand, half-a-dozen
bags in the other.

Katie. I almost cried with thankfulness.

‘Genny?’ She stopped, shock rounding her eyes.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, forcing a rueful tone into my voice. ‘Practical joke that went a bit far.’

‘Your face is all beat up,’ she whispered, horrified. ‘Shall I phone for an ambulance?’

‘No.’ I sighed. ‘I doubt it’s as bad as it looks.’ Not that I knew how I looked, but— ‘Don’t suppose you could untie me, hon?’

‘Oh my gosh, of course.’ She dropped the bags, and rushed to me, tugged at the knots, then resorted to nail scissors to cut me free. Never had I been so grateful for the girlie
contents of Katie’s huge designer handbag.

As she snipped away freeing my wrists, I gave her a short, highly edited version of the night’s events. I’d had a problem with my magic, a ‘friend’ had helped me, and to
stop me hurting myself or anyone else they’d had to tie me up. I hadn’t been too happy about it, which was where my injuries had come from. Only the ‘friend’ had a crazy
sense of humour, and hadn’t untied me when they’d left. None of which was a lie; something I physically can’t do.

‘Frigging frenemy, you mean, leaving you like this,’ she growled when I’d finished. ‘They need a taste of their own medicine.’

‘Already with you,’ I muttered, as she started work on my ankles. I sat up carefully, mindful of the cracked ribs and the aching stiffness in my shoulders. Not to mention my head and
face which felt tight and swollen, like my skin was about to burst like a rotten plum. Crap, the mad sucker had really done a number on me. I’d heal, and way quicker than a human, but quicker
wasn’t instant. How the hell was I supposed to work like this?

My gaze fell on a glass on the desk. It was full of dark red-brownish liquid.

Suddenly hopeful, I asked Katie to get it for me.

The glass had one of the hotel’s cardboard hygiene-covers on it. Scrawled across it, in what looked like blood, was: ‘Drink Me!
’

‘Is it another joke?’ she asked.

‘Better not be.’ I took the cover off and sniffed. Sour apples tinged with copper. Definitely Mad Max’s blood. I knew it had healing properties, almost on a par with
Malik’s blood, having been injured once before (also Mad Max’s fault, albeit indirectly) and healed by his blood. I looked for a catch but couldn’t think of one, mainly because I
regularly gave my donated blood to Mad Max’s faeling grandkid, Freya, my whatever-number-removed cousin (since she’s only eight, it’s easier to call her my
‘niece’).

Thanks to Freya’s mixed-up genetics (vamp/sidhe/fae/human), she’s ended up with a vamp’s need for blood along with the more usual need for solid food in order to survive. With
Ana (Freya’s mum and Mad Max’s daughter) pregnant, I’d stepped in as Freya’s blood donor instead. Mad Max knew that and, despite his seeming lack of family values, I could
probably stake my life on his never doing anything to harm Freya.

Plus it was like the crazy sonofabitch to leave me a way to heal the damage. After all, he’d enjoyed watching me suffer through bouts of painful arousal, while at the same time making a
spell to rid me of it . . . or so he’d said.

I put the blood down. No way was I drinking it unless the spell had worked. I explained briefly to Katie, then before her worried eyes, slowly peeled the sludgy towel away.

Once it was gone I waited for the agonising throb to start up. It didn’t. Relieved, I let out the breath I’d been holding. I was okay. Mad Max had been telling me the truth about the
spell. Another thought struck me.

I looked up at Katie. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I got a text from you. The keycard was left in an envelope at reception.’

Mad Max was evidently Mr Organised.

I sighed. It was either drink his blood or send Katie out for an expensive, and not so quick, healing spell from the Witches’ Market.

I couldn’t afford to show up anywhere looking like a victim of domestic abuse. Even without the embarrassment it would cause my clients, all it would take was one paparazzo and my battered
face would be splashed across the front pages.

Decision made I picked up the glass and slugged the sour-tasting blood down. My stomach clenched as it hit, then I grunted as it spread through my body like battery acid, burning me from the
inside out.

‘Okay, that’s just . . . gross.’ Katie’s quiet mutter made me look at her.

‘What?’

‘Your face,’ she said, quickly dropping her gaze back to the sheet she was cutting. ‘It’s moving like there’s something running around under your skin.’

Nice! ‘It doesn’t feel too good either,’ I mumbled around what felt like a mouthful of tiny crab apples. Not to mention my rippling skin was making me nauseous, or maybe that
was Mad Max’s blood. I started picking at the sheet round my right ankle, hoping I wasn’t going to puke.

Katie cleared her throat, the sound nervous, then keeping her gaze fixed on her scissors, said, ‘Did anyone get back to you about last night? The Carnival or the police?’