Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (19 page)

I want to scream at her to get the fuck off me. I want to forget she said anything and just do it. "You don't have t— oh, shit."

She flexes her hips, and slick feminine wetness slides along my cock like sweet heaven. So hot, so willing. My balls tighten, my eager pulse throbbing deep. God, it's welling up in my mouth, the demand she wants, the thrall-sick hell of compulsion.
Fuck me, Jewel. Get on your knees and swallow me, Jewel. Beg me for it until you cry, Jewel, and maybe then I'll let you have it.

No, I'm not doing it. I won't let her. No matter how she begs me. No matter how hard I want it . . .

. . . but . . . but, but she's here and she's hot and she's got those hard little legs and that sexy hair and she's rubbing herself on my cock and begging for it and it's been like a hundred years since I had a woman and fuck shit screw it damn her to hell.

I squeeze my eyes shut, rage sweetening my lust. Tam, you're the dumbest, stubbornest, stupidest . . . fuck, now she's stretching up on tiptoes, guiding me, her hot little hand pushing me into her. I can feel her entrance, tight and burning, inviting me in. I can't breathe. I can't think. She presses her sweaty cheek against mine, her lips sizzle on my ear, her whisper cuts me like a torturer's exquisite blade. "Fuck me, Tam."

No. Sweet Jesus, yes. But no.

A rough, tortured sound fills my throat, and I shove myself away from her. "I can't. I'm sorry . . ."

Her breath rasps. She trembles, scrunching her hands into her dress on her thighs, bereft. Her smeared lips glisten, a besotted glaze distancing her eyes. "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing. It's not you. I just . . . can't give you what you want." My pulse won't slow. My skin won't cool. I turn, so I don't have to see her. I can't give her a reason. I don't even have an excuse, not one she'll understand. How did I ever let it get this far, this lonely, wonderful girl with her weird chattel fantasies?

Because you
like
weird, Tam. You like lonely and desperate and glorious. You just can't deal with it anymore.

A sniffle. "You were doing fine. What's the problem? You afraid of me?"

Hell, yes. "No. I just—"

"I can take care of myself, you know. It's just a game."

"No, it isn't! It's never just a game. Not for me." My hands shake. Somehow I button my jeans, they're tight and my fingers bruise and it hurts but I don't care. I just want away from her.

A laugh, scraped raw with bitterness. "I'm not your daughter, Tam."

The hair on my arms stands up. My stomach twists tight like a rubber band, and I choke on steamy bile.

Katie, bleeding on the floor. This gorgeous girl and Kane. Gavain and Joey DiLuca.

Everything I touch turns to shit. And I can't even do the decent thing and fuck her like she wants before I ruin her life.

Just when I thought I couldn't get any more pathetic.

I swallow, my throat searing, and there's not much left of my voice by the time I speak. "No, you sure as hell aren't."

"I'm sorry. I just meant it's not your fault—"

"Forget it." I can hear her sniffling, trying not to cry—Jesus, Tam, what's that, three times today?—but I won't look. I can't look.

"Tam—"

"I've gotta get some stuff. You . . . just don't do anything stupid, okay?" I tug my shirt straight, scrape my hair back with hands that still smell of her body, and leave her behind me.

***

Chapter Nineteen

Out in the stairwell, Gavain stares up from the landing below with awe-bleeding eyes. Shadows coil around his crouched limbs. At the top, Tam curses and kicks at the metal railing, his knuckles white around the peeling handhold. Tam looks eerie in the dark, a glowing idol of anger and lust and sorrow, his wonderful brackish scent mixed with flowers and gritty smoke.

Gavain's heart crunches tight, his fae-mad blood squirting insane suggestion into his muscles. Twitch up the stairs, stroke that flowing hair, kiss away the darkness. Leave the smoke girl behind and hide away together, forget Delilah and the greasy brass trap and broken dream-wings and . . . what?

Gavain doesn't know what happens after that. He's never been there.

He wraps spindly arms around his knees, fever shivering his skin. From above, some television voice unfolds metal fingers to scratch in his ears, sharp and rusty. It smells bad in here, birth and breath and old bones. He concentrates, copying Tam into his mind, every twitch, every shift of limb or hair or lips. Choose, Gavain. Up or down? Fight or flight?

Tam jerks away from the railing, cursing.

Strangled breath swells Gavain's throat. What if he's been seen? He stays crouched in heat-drenched shadow, motionless but seething inside with bloody indecision.

Tam paces, and spits sweet-smelling blood onto the floor.

Choose. Now. But what?

From here, the sounds within were strained, muffled by the door and the chafe of bugs and the roiling black air. Gavain didn't hear everything. But he heard enough. Tam and Jewel will climb the wall, sniff out the smoky lamp, trick the purple demon queen like naughty rats. A satisfied giggle itches inside Gavain's chest, and he crunches his teeth together to swallow it before it gives him away. Serve her right. He'd laugh, happy-sweet like chocolate rabbits to see Delilah fume.

But what then of smoke girls and charms? What of tomorrow, so effortlessly far away he can't even smell it?

Gavain clutches his empty brass bottle, an echo of jasmine rolling fresh on his tongue. He's never thought much about tomorrow. As well imagine yesterday, dried-up and flavorless like discarded bread, already forgotten. But Tam begins and ends. He has edges, like a crumbling cookie. Tam is finite. Once he's gone, nothing's left.

Gavain's head swims just thinking about it, and he wrenches himself back to more chewable concerns.

Choice: watch Tam leave, try again to trap Jewel and this time don't fuck it up. Or: let Tam take Jewel to Delilah himself.

Truth: Tam can do things, knows the difference between a good plan and a bad one. Gavain never gets anything right.

Plan: Tell Delilah what they're up to. Wait. Let her do the work. And then, Gavain will get everything she promised him. Even he can't make a mess of that.

Broken symmetry flashes behind Gavain's eyeballs, bright like a shattered mirror, and warm pleasure coats his tongue. Yes. He takes one last gulp of Tam—beautiful, kaleidoscopic, spilling confusion into the air in brittle rainbows—and slinks soundlessly down the stairs and out into blessedly fresh heat.

***

God, I want to punch something. My knuckles itch like a hundred mosquito bites, screaming at me to scratch. Fuck her. Fuck
me
and my goddamn conscience. I wish I'd never seen her. I wish I'd never heard of her and her toxic lamp.

I kick the bent metal rail, and pain echoes in my ankle, but it's better than this mindless want. Horrid memory creeps under my skin, tempting me with the way she felt, her sweet jasmine scent, the smoky taste of her mouth on mine. My hands still sweat with her, the slickness of her sex still under my nails. My balls ache with that angry iron fire I just know will last for hours, and what's left of my reason treads water and gulps for air, drowning in my desire like a shark-savaged child.

All I know is: I can't stay here.

Not with her. Not like this. I've got a few hours before it's dark. There's stuff I'll need if we're going to pull this off.

Or, I can walk back inside, sit down, make conversation. Heh. Don't think so. So where were we again? Oh, yeah, you're a gorgeous, clever, mischief-possessed chick who oh by the way needs to be taken care of like a pretty kitten with a bell on her collar, who any minute now will gambol happily out onto the street and get squashed by a truck. You're everything I want and I hate you. You're the woman from hell. Care for another bowl of noodles?

I wipe my hands on my jeans again—still sticky, damn it, why can't I get it off?—and head for the stairs before I can change my mind. I'll take the excuse, even if it makes me look scared. Hell, I'm scared witless by this girl. She makes me remember what it's like to be alive. And no matter how I rage and kick back and pretend none of this is happening? In my darkest heart, I know that I'll never be alive again.

There's Kane's lamp, and then there's Joey. That's it. I don't have time for anything else.

Especially not for dreams that'll never come true.

As I skid across the landing, a whiff of chili-hot chocolate stirs other, equally unwelcome memories. I flick a glance around. Gavain's not there. Just peeling paint and rainbow-sprayed plaster, broken glass gleaming on the floor.

Stupid guilt creeps into my veins like syrupy poison, and I wriggle and fight it but it won't go away. Christ, it's not like we were engaged or anything. What is this, some kind of weird threesome? As if I didn't have enough to beat myself up with.

The screen door squeals open, and dry heat steals my breath, the afternoon sun already baking my skin. Too much of this and I'll start crackling like a leg of pork. Already I can smell it, that sickly sweet taint as muscle fibers cook. I tug my hair loose and let it fall around my shoulders to make me sweat. At least that way I'll deep-fry instead of roasting. What fun.

I turn right this time, away from town, and every sun-cracked building and shadowed doorway I pass stinks of traps and ambush. The crunch of loose stones and litter beneath my feet makes me wince, and even the unmoving shadows of parking meters and traffic lights get me looking over my shoulder like a hunted beast. I don't feel safe, and it isn't just because I threw my pistol away on the tiles at Valentino's. Security means friends, and I might just be the most friendless guy in town.

Well, it's time to test that out. Maybe I can still call in a favor or two.

I heave myself up the old concrete steps and cut across Flagstaff Gardens, where trees droop listlessly in summer heat and dead grass curls in the sun, already parched after last night's rain. Beside the steep gravel path, a pair of fae girls roll giggling in a pile of mown clover and capeweed. Dead yellow flowers litter their shining hair, and grass flutters into the air on the draught of bright mauve and yellow wings.

My nose twitches out of habit, but no more hay fever's one thing I actually like about being dead. I take a big fat breath, just because I can, the crisp scent of pollen just a faint twinge in my nose like all the rest. My eyes don't water, and no sneeze seizes my sinuses. Heh. I win, fuckers.

The ache in my balls is easing. I stretch as I walk, trying not to pop anything, and cautious relief cools my thighs even though my hair's sticking to my elbows in a squelch of dirty sweat. A slim, tanned woman wearing a midriff top, glaring white shorts and high heels trundles an expensive rubber-wheeled pram along the path. I avert my gaze, but she narrows a mother's suspicious eyes at me and edges away, showy golden bracelets gleaming in the sun.

Yeah, yeah. Zip it, princess. Tattoos, bruises, disintegrating skin, my ever-subtle aura of crooked queer. Hard to tell which scares you more. A screw-it-all, balls-to-the-wall über-chick like Jewel's worth a thousand of you.

Not that I'm still thinking of her.

A bunch of kids who don't seem to care that it's cricket season kick a scuffed red football back and forth on the dead lawn, skinning their elbows as they scramble for spectacular marks. Is it still school holidays? I used to know stuff like that, back when it mattered a damn. I never got to pick Katie up for the weekend, or take her to the beach or anything. But I still knew.

The littlest kid's wearing a sleeveless dark blue Carlton Football Club jumper that hangs down to his knees, and he shanks one, spearing it off towards me. I collect it, one-handed so I don't have to use my weeping palm, and kick it back to him. He marks the ball and waves at me. Very domestic. If I wasn't less than twenty-four hours from getting my ass dragged back to hell for eternity, I'd be having a nice day.

I duck out into thickening afternoon traffic and limp across the sunny street. The sun-drenched parking lot at Victoria Markets is packed with vehicles, exhaust fumes souring the heat-shimmered air, and I dodge through the queue towards the big grey market sheds. Sun slants down between the cantilevers, reflecting from the bitumen to raise the temperature to stinking hot. Shoppers stroll and mill, clutching green shopping bags stuffed with wilting vegetables and brown paper packages held with sticky tape.

I wobble through the crowd, trying not to touch anyone. The stall I'm looking for is jammed in between a skinny Indonesian guy selling stuffed koala toys and painted wooden boomerangs, and an Indian clothing store packed with hangers holding beaded wedding costumes and embroidered suits in rainbow colors. There's some sexy silk harem pants there that Jewel would look beautiful in, all thousand-and-one-nights or whatever. Show off her pretty smooth hips under that sash.

Not that I'm still thinking of her at all.

Behind a display case in the next stall crouches a fat nut-brown spriggan, poking his spindly fingers at a shiny blue smartphone. Tran sells up-to-the-minute phone and camera hardware that fell off the back of a rickshaw somewhere in Ho Chi Minh City, and he's got a dusty counter showing the latest models, still glinting in offshore shrinkwrap. It's a nice sham, not too clean, enough obvious graft going on that no one ever looks quite deep enough. The coppers bust him every now and then for fencing, but he's useful enough to people like me that it never sticks.