Wicked Whispers (23 page)

She felt like Sparkle’s shadow, but a shiny shadow nonetheless. If Ivy had been one of the kick-butt heroines in the urban fantasies she read, she wouldn’t worry about how she looked. Hey, kick-butt heroines didn’t care about attracting men. They were totally focused on the next kill. And they were all so naturally gorgeous that they didn’t need artificial enhancements. A little lip gloss to combat chapped lips, and they were good to go.

Ivy didn’t fool herself. She might not be focused on the next kill, but she
was
waging her own brand of covert action. Call her shallow, but she wanted to look good when she walked into that room. For Murmur.

She’d allowed the cosmic troublemaker free rein, and Sparkle had created a minor miracle. When Ivy had looked into the mirror, she’d barely recognized herself. And her red dress hugged her bottom and plunged just as far as Sparkle’s dress. If Murmur said he preferred the natural look, she’d know he was lying, because the mirror told the truth: Ivy had
never
looked better.

Still, Ivy felt jittery when Murmur opened the door.

Sparkle leaned past him to see who was in the room, and he looked past Sparkle to meet Ivy’s gaze.

Murmur’s eyes widened, and then his gaze slid slowly down her body, lingering on strategic spots. When he finished the return journey back to her face, he simply smiled.

That smile made sitting still for an hour so Sparkle could do her thing worth every minute. She returned his smile.

“Ganymede isn’t here yet?” Sparkle sounded disappointed.

Murmur finally looked at her. “No. I suppose that will ruin your grand entrance. I didn’t know you were coming.” He glanced at Ivy, proving he had a good idea how Sparkle had found out about the meeting.

“I don’t need a grand entrance.” She swayed past him into the room. “And this is my castle, so I have every right to be here.”

Murmur’s gaze stayed on Ivy even though he was still speaking to Sparkle. “Where’s Braeden?”

“He’s attending some cultural event with Asima tonight.” Her smile was a wicked twist of her lips. “I’m hoping that when he abandons her she’ll go into a decline and disappear. Do you think I’m asking for too much?”

Sparkle didn’t wait for an answer. She took a seat in the middle of the couch. She leaned back and crossed her long legs. She patted the seat beside her. “Sit here, Ivy. I might want you to take notes tonight.”

Ivy joined her on the couch. She mentally scrolled through the actions Sparkle had tried to pound into her head while she’d worked on Ivy. Attempting to look casual, Ivy crossed her legs. Only an iron will kept her from trying to yank her dress down farther on her thighs. She barely remembered to dangle one stiletto from her toe. According to Sparkle, this drove men crazy. Go figure.

Murmur didn’t look as though he’d need a mental health facility anytime soon, but he did watch her as he closed the door and then returned to his seat. When he met her gaze, she saw the hunger there.
Yes!

“Why is
she
here?” Tirron sat on the end of Murmur’s bed. He didn’t try to hide his outrage that not only would he have to tolerate Ivy, but now Sparkle would be cluttering up their meeting as well.

“
She’s
here because she wants to be.” Sparkle’s voice was a dangerous purr. “You look uncomfortable. Why don’t you scoot back and lean against the headboard?” Her expression turned sly.

He scowled. “An
iron
headboard. Not exactly an enthusiastic welcome for your fae guests. And I still don’t think you should be here.”

Sparkle widened her eyes. “Oh, we have alternate headboards for those we
truly
welcome.”

“Did you miss the part where she said she owned the freaking castle?” Bain sounded frustrated as he leaned forward in his chair.

Tirron seemed ready to quote the Privacy Act, but someone knocked on the door.

Sparkle still looked casually sexy, but Ivy sensed her tension. Ivy was feeling her own tension. She nervously twisted her ring. Loose stone. She’d have to get that fixed. She hoped everything went well, because if anything bad happened, she’d have to grab Kellen and run. Not something she wanted to contemplate right now.

Murmur didn’t even get to the door before it swung open and Ganymede padded into the room, still in cat form. Someone else was with him.

The someone else was male. Tall and muscular with a tangle of dark hair and eyes a shade of blue so dark they almost looked black, he fit right in with the other men in the room. Crossing the room, he took the seat on the other side of Sparkle.

Ganymede leaped onto the coffee table and lay down with his back to Sparkle. His tail twitched, each twitch thumping against the glass top of the table. He didn’t look happy.

“I brought Dacian with me. He’s my bullshit meter for the night. That means if I think you’re handing me crap, I’ll confer with Dacian. If he agrees that you’re bullshitting me, then the meeting is over, and you’ll need to find a new home.”
He turned his unblinking cat stare on Bain.
“That means all of you.”

“Not so fast.” Sparkle uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.

Every male gaze in the room except for Ganymede’s snapped to Sparkle’s plunging neckline. Ganymede didn’t turn his head to look at Sparkle, but his twitching tail pounded out a furious rhythm on the table.

“As the castle’s owner, I have the final say on who stays and who goes. Remember that.” Satisfied that she’d asserted her authority, Sparkle leaned back and crossed her legs once again. Slowly.

Ganymede chose to ignore the interruption.
“Dacian, you know
Bain and Murmur. The two new ones are Tirron—he’s the faery who looks like he has a stick up his ass—and Ivy. She’s sitting next to the freaking ‘castle’s owner.’”

The temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees.

Ivy ignored Sparkle’s hiss. Well, at least she’d finally gotten to meet Dacian the vampire. She offered him a smile and a small wave. He smiled back. Wow, Cinn hit the mother lode with this guy.

Ganymede indicated he was ready to get down to business by sitting up and wrapping his tail around himself. He scanned the others, skipping over Sparkle.
“Today a damn Gancanagh showed up at the castle.”

Dacian looked interested. “I thought there weren’t any more of them.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t mind making them extinct.”

Sparkle narrowed her eyes to amber slits, and Ivy decided that Ganymede needed to cut out those kinds of comments if he wanted her back. Ganymede seemed blissfully clueless, because he kept sticking his paw further into his mouth.

“Anyway, a bunch of dumbass women were all over him.”

“Jerk.” Sparkle didn’t even try to lower her voice.

Ganymede flattened his ears but kept going.
“The faery calls himself Braeden. He claimed Murmur’s music drew him to the castle. And since he was blasting Murmur’s music all over the great hall, I sort of had to believe him.”
He speared Murmur with a hard stare.
“I know you don’t make those kinds of mistakes, demon. I want an explanation.”

“Guess that’s my job.” Bain sounded resigned. “I asked Murmur to use his music to draw the Sluagh Sidhe to the castle.”

Sparkle clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and horror-filled. For the moment she was speechless.

Ganymede had no problem verbalizing his reaction. Ivy winced. She’d never heard so many curses strung together in one sentence.

“You’re bringing the fucking faery host down on my castle?”

Ivy didn’t for a minute believe the flash of lightning outside their window, followed by a deafening clap of thunder, was Mother Nature’s idea.

She frowned. Faery host? What did that even mean? Sparkle had removed her hand from her mouth and was glaring at Ganymede. Evidently the cat’s “my castle” claim trumped the faery-host news.

“You have about two minutes to exist, so you’d better start talking now.”
Ganymede stood, ears pinned and a low growl warning of bad things to come.

Jeez, could Bain be more freaking stupid? Didn’t he know you worked up to bad news gradually? You eased into it to avoid triggering messy slaughters. It was called being subtle. Murmur raked his fingers through his hair. Instinctively, he began building a tune, one with the power of a heat-seeking missile. He’d have to disable the chaos bringer before he could visit death and destruction on them. Not that Murmur was feeling a deep need to save his fellow plotters at the moment.

Murmur glanced at Tirron. The faery looked as though he was mapping out the best escape route. Figured. Tirron was a runner not a fighter—unless the odds were in his favor.

Murmur had to admit, though, that Bain made the best use of his two minutes. He told his tale of woe with lots of extra embellishments.

The kidnapped woman had been the great love of his life, and the Castle of Dark Dreams was the best place for his heroic last stand against the evil faeries, because of the insanely powerful entities that lived there.

And those insanely powerful entities were also heroic beings who would step up in defense of a helpless woman and her devoted lover, because they were fierce defenders of what was right and just.

Murmur thought he would puke. Bain was absolutely driving nails into their coffins with every word he spoke. Time to stop this train wreck.

“What Bain is trying to say”—Murmur shot a shut-up glare Bain’s way—“is that no one would be dumb enough to attack the Castle of Dark Dreams, because they know Ganymede would be here waiting for them.”

He stared at the cat. Because as the cat went, so went the rest of the nonhumans. Edge was almost as powerful as Ganymede, but he wouldn’t challenge the other troublemaker over castle business. The only problem Murmur foresaw was with Sparkle.

You’d think that a being who had existed for millennia would’ve learned something about women along the way, but Ganymede was a total dumbass when it came to Sparkle. And she was pissed at him. But right now Murmur couldn’t worry about her. He had to concentrate on the most powerful one in the room.

“Of course, we all want a peaceful settlement.” Not. Tirron would be doing everything he could to precipitate a battle so he could slaughter the Unseelie horde. Bain? Well, his friend just wanted the woman back, and he didn’t much care if it involved a few hundred bodies along the way.

And Murmur? He gave lip service to the peaceful-settlement concept, but inside, where his demon lived, he wanted blood. Lots of it. He wanted to free his music to tear apart bodies, to destroy and destroy and destroy until nothing was left alive.

A red film slid across Murmur’s vision, his heart beat faster, and music leaked from him. Poisonous and corrosive, it searched for a victim.

He heard Ivy’s gasp at the same time Dacian’s voice slammed into him.

“Shut it down, demon.
Now
.” The vampire curled his upper lip, exposing his fangs.

Murmur took a deep breath and shoved his music back into his mind. He shook his head to clear it. This was what it meant to be a demon, and he’d better always remember it. No matter how much he might seem human, he wasn’t. He would always have to guard against moments like this, moments when he could lose control. Somewhere in the Underworld, his master was laughing.

And what had happened to his claim that he didn’t want a war with the faeries? His bloodlust swept rational thought away.

He dared a quick glance at Ivy. She stared at him wide-eyed, and there was fear in those eyes. Shit. She’d heard the music.

He took a deep breath. “Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, the peaceful settlement. We all want it.”

“Some more than others.”
Ganymede’s amber eyes said he knew exactly what Murmur hoped for.

“But if the faery host won’t give Elizabeth back to Bain, we’ll have to fight.” He slipped Ganymede a sly glance. “I know your Big Boss has set limits on how much carnage you can create, but surely you have a right to protect what is yours. And if the faeries are the aggressors…” Ganymede could figure out the rest.

Everyone not named Murmur, Bain, or Tirron sat frozen. Murmur couldn’t read their expressions.

The silence dragged on and on and on. Finally, Ganymede spoke.

“Can’t take a chance. Now that Sparkle is Big Boss in Training, he’s keeping closer tabs on the castle. I’d be in deep shit if he turned up in the middle of things and caught me using… unnecessary force to flatten the faeries. So you probably need to go somewhere else. Hope you get your woman back, though, Bain.”

Then Ganymede remembered his original mad.
“I think I’ll still kick your butts down the stairs and out the door for sneaking behind my back and trying to draw me into your fight.”

Murmur cursed. They were screwed.

“Not so fast.”

Sparkle uncrossed her legs and stood. She did her sensuous swing around the coffee table until she stood behind Bain. She put her hands on his shoulders, and he tensed. Ganymede flattened his ears.

“Bain’s story touched me. It made me teary-eyed. I want to help him recover his love.” She met Ganymede’s glare. “Besides, Murmur can’t leave yet. We have unfinished business.” She smiled. “My castle, my decision.”

Murmur fought not to smile. Laughing at Ganymede never paid future dividends.

“What can you do against hundreds of faeries, compel them to have sex with each other?”

Ganymede had a convenient memory. Murmur remembered Sparkle doing just that a few weeks ago. Okay, so most of those involved had been human, but not all. Bain and Holgarth had fallen to her compulsion. Sometimes the cat forgot that Sparkle had her own brand of power. The Big Boss wouldn’t choose anyone other than a heavy hitter to take his place.

Sparkle’s laughter taunted Ganymede. “I could, but when I’m really ticked off, I simply take away their balls. Men seem incapable of thinking without them.” She shrugged. “Women are more reasonable. I could probably sit down with them and come to an agreement.”