Shadowfae (20 page)

I let out a pent-up breath, blinking to empty my mind of those horrid, hypnotic eyes. My thrall bangles yipped and stung, angry like insects. I ignored them. I was well rid of him. I’d just have to find some other way to satisfy Kane’s demand. The scarlet stink of that fairy’s spew drifted once again in my nostrils, and I suspected I knew the answer to some of Kane’s questions already. Dante was poisoning the fae with his own blood. But I still didn’t know why.

Rajah cracked his neck, rubbing scarlet scratches on his throat, and sighed. “Yeah, so I handled that well.” He scraped a tense hand through his hair, fury still tightening his muscles, and gave me a lopsided smile. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”

His bashful gallantry shone on my heart like sunshine, and I wanted to kiss him. “It’s a wonder you’ve lived this long, Rajahni Seth. Leaping to girls’ defense like that.”

“Not girls. Just you.” He winked, and disappeared.
Don’t worry. If Luna tries anything, I’ll stay invisible while I throttle him.

I straightened my purse on my shoulder, scaly dread coiling in my bowels. “You’d better be kidding.”

His invisible lips brushed mine, burning, and his tongue flicked my teeth, the unexpected sensation shocking through my core.
We’re in this together. I’ll help you when I can.

I nodded, anxiety still raw on my skin like a rash, and stepped from the corridor, trying to look like my legs weren’t shaking. I could trust him, right? He’d never fool Luna on his own. So he’d keep his word, and help me. Wouldn’t he?

The glittering party still mingled and laughed, the bar still festooned with drunken fae and improbably perfect mortals. At my end a muscled football player I recognized chatted up a golden-skinned fae girl, trying to ease his hand down the front of her dress while she giggled and snorted a line of sparkling blue dust off the glass bar, spiky green hair flopping. On a pile of white cushions an identical pair of sly blond fae boys shared a sleepy-eyed vampire girl, thin silvery limbs entwined, their tongues flicking together as they kissed her, her long black hair fluttering on the pale carpet.

I walked up to the bar and asked for cognac and absinthe on ice, two of. I glanced around while the girl mixed my drinks. I couldn’t see Dante, and I hoped he’d left without me. But there stood Luna at the massive window, golden hair flowing over his silk-clad shoulder in a haze of mauve aura. Talking into his phone. On his own. Perfect.

Nauseating. Are you really going to drink that stuff?
Rajah’s amused whisper slipped softly into my head like a caress, but I couldn’t feel him near me, and I wondered about the range of his sexy little mind tricks. I resisted a nervous smile, and the girl eyed me strangely as I took the two cocktail glasses.

My heels clicked softly on the dark glass floor, and my guts lurched at the heights, the city impossibly distant beneath. I approached him, the stems warming in my trembling fingers, and my nerves twisted as he turned. Had he heard me coming? Did he feel my body heat? Sense me? I had my rapture under control; I wasn’t emanating anything. Hell, maybe he’d smelled me. I wouldn’t put it past him. I could smell myself, warm and salty, the hot fluid still coating me from Rajah’s touch. My cheeks warmed, my pulse swelling in my temples.

Luna looked me up and down with sharp amber-green eyes, still speaking into his little silver phone. “Yeah, well, I told him a hundred and fifty or he can go to hell. No pun intended. Listen, I really gotta go.” He flipped the phone shut and vanished it away with a twirl of long fingers.

I swallowed and offered him a glass, ice clinking in clouded green vapor. “To old times?”

He studied me, cool, before giving me his shattering smile and taking the drink from me, his hard fingertips shocking mine with static. I struggled not to flinch. Was that a tease, or a warning?

He clinked his glass against mine and took a mouthful, rolling his eyes in a caricature of pleasure as he savored and swallowed. “Damn, that’s good. You know what I like. But I’ll drink to new times and screw the old.”

“That’s fair.” I sipped, the fiery alcohol zinging on my tongue, fumes dizzying. I’d need it, to stomach his charm.

“Eminently. Anyway, were we really that long ago, you and I?”

“Long enough. Aren’t you afraid I’ll poison you?”

He smiled, beautiful eyes flashing. “You don’t smell like poison, wildcat.”

“Really. What do I smell like, then?”

He slitted his eyes, pretending to consider, but ruined the effect with a cheeky turn at the corner of his mouth. “I’d say . . . regret. Frustration. Angsty shit like that, you know. But poison’s a coward’s weapon, and you were never afraid. Besides, you’ve something better now. Those sexy bangles.” He let his gaze travel over me, cool.

My nerves stung a warning. “Not that I ever needed such a thing with you.”

He laughed, dropping his arm around my shoulder and gesturing to the window with his half-empty glass. “God, I’ll never tire of this. Never. Remember those nights in Sultanahmet, the torchlit barges on the bay? We swam in the warm ocean naked and swore we’d live forever. And here we are.” A laugh rumbled his chest, his mauve aura whispering warm and hungry on my skin. “Not totally what you had in mind, I guess, but still.”

Intentional or not, his barb skewered my heart. Bastard. I’d forgotten his carelessness, his reckless disregard for feelings. No wonder he and Kane got on so well.

His scent of orange blossom and cloves drifted, too close, unpleasantly disarming. Warm silk-clad muscles pressed into the back of my neck, tempting, but his familiarity sickened me. I tried to concentrate on the sensations, forget our history, ignore the screaming impulse to rake my nails down his face, choke him, smack his head into the glass until he bled and tear home to scrub myself clean. Just a man. A handsome, powerful man, a candy feast for my eyes and a snarling feline god in bed, but just a man. I’d had hundreds. I could surely have this one.

His fingers lay slack against my upper arm, casual, like he’d no intention of letting them stray elsewhere. We’d see about that. I tilted away, sliding my hand into my bag. “I brought you a gift.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have—” His tone changed when he saw the vial, his pupils dilating, and when I slipped it into his hand, he swallowed, golden glitter reflecting in his eyes as he held it to the light. “But I’m so glad you did. What is it? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

He put his drink aside on the metal window frame and loosened the cork, tracing his fingertip around the vial’s lip to collect a sparkling drop. As he touched it to his lips, the air shimmered around him, so slight, I thought I’d imagined it, and my stomach clenched in anticipation. Rapture, while I distracted Luna’s senses with the drug. My admiration for Rajah slipped up another notch. That was good. That was very good.

Luna’s eyes sparkled, and he sucked his fingertip with relish. “Not sure if I’m flattered or disappointed. You gave up the night we met for this?”

I wetted my lips, delicate, and the shimmer flashed again. “I wanted you to have it. She asked for something . . . fierce.”

His gaze fixed on mine, entranced. “Never mind, then. We made plenty like that, eh?”

I held his stare, daring him. “Hundreds.”

He watched me, and electricity stung my skin as he searched, suspicious.

I didn’t let my gaze slip. The rapture was all Rajah’s. He’d find nothing.

Finally he gave a soft laugh and popped the cork, bringing the vial to his nose. Golden glitter swirled as he inhaled deeply, savoring the fresh fae essence. His face colored, his green eyes glazing, and he let out his breath in a rush. “Good god.”

More,
murmured Rajah, and Luna’s aura writhed and rippled under the slow caress of rapture.

I smiled, careful. “Like it?”

“I love it.” Luna sniffed, swallowed, and offered me the half-empty vial, his tawny lashes shimmering. “Try some.”

My heart thudded, my fingers clenching on the hot stem of my glass. I hadn’t anticipated he’d want to share. The last thing I needed with him around was a head full of reckless fairy shit.

Take it.
Rajah’s whisper was urgent, tense.
I’m watching. You’ll be fine.

He was right. I couldn’t back down now. I took the vial, willing my fingers not to shake, and snorted.

Lemon-splashed fire exploded in my skull. My pulse leapt into a sprint. My vision tumbled, drenched with falling stars, and I swayed, water stinging my eyes. Holy shit.

Luna laughed, gripping my shoulder so I wouldn’t stumble.

I steadied myself, acid citrus searing my palate, air fresh and cold in my nose. My body warmed as the drug rushed into my blood, sweat seeping onto my skin. I felt a foot taller, stronger, my hips curvier, my breasts bigger. Rapture kindled deep inside my womb, and I clenched it tight so it couldn’t escape. Not yet.

His gaze slipped to mine and stayed there, his fingers gentle now on my shoulder. “Now that’s worth an old memory, eh?”

Cloves stung my tongue, seductive, my drug-washed sense of taste heightened. I hadn’t realized he was so close. I tucked the empty tube away in my purse, and it clinked on the waiting soultrap, surely audible. I swallowed, my lips parting. “Want to make a new one?”

He raised his fine eyebrows, amused, but his lips shone wet, and he slipped hot fingers up my cheek, tucking away a loose curl. “Well, well. If I didn’t know better, wildcat, I’d think you a trickster.”

I rubbed my cheek against his palm, letting my eyelids flutter as if I lost myself. His silken cuff brushed my collarbone, warm. “You know all my tricks,” I whispered. “You liked them once.”

“More than once, as I recall.” He traced his thumb over my bottom lip, speculative.

Excellent. Jade, you’re a genius.
Rajah’s wicked rapture twinkled over us like snowflakes.

Luna’s gaze darkened, scorching. He twisted my glass from my fingers, drained the drink in a single gulp and dropped it. It shattered at our feet, green-stained fragments scattering. “Let’s see if you’ve learned any new ones.”

He slid his perfumed wrist around my neck, pulling me toward him. His lips came down hard on mine, tilting my head back, filling my mouth with his strong taste. I gasped, triumph and seductive memory burning deep holes in my composure. He forced my mouth open and slanted his head to get his tongue in deeper, and for a frightening instant I remembered how I’d loved him. He’d broken me, burned my life to endless ash with a careless shrug, humiliated and hurt me like no one else ever had. But I had loved him. My body singing with it, my senses drenched in it. I’d whispered it in his ear, screamed it to the world, gasped it into his mouth with my legs wrapped around his hips and his hot length buried deep inside me.

My heart ached with loss. I stretched my tongue deeper into his warmth, searching for anything that remained of what we’d had. His long fragrant hair flowed over my hands, silk raw on my palms as I slid them up his spine.

My front teeth scraped against his, and the shock hauled me back to reality. He’d said he loved me, too, and I’d ended up chained to a filthy wall in his dungeon. Fingers of nausea curled in my stomach that I’d enjoyed touching him again even for a moment. Maybe Luna had rapture spells of his own.

He smiled, his lips curving in our kiss. “Didn’t think I’d leave this to chance, did you?”

My throat swelled in alarm, but he spun me around, forcing me against the window, pinning my wrists to the glass, his body unyielding against my back. My breasts flattened on the window, my taut nipples compressing. He was hot, his heartbeat strong and quick, his cock pressing hard and inviting into the base of my spine. He dragged ravenous lips across the curve between my neck and shoulder, his tongue savoring the sticky fang marks. “Mmm. You still taste good.”

He released one of my hands to crush my skirt in his fist, pulling it up over my thigh, fingers grasping for my skin. The glittering city loomed below, dizzying, and I pressed my cheek against the cold glass, my hot breath misting in a damp cloud over my hand. He’d take me here, in front of everyone. My heart pounded, the drug dilating my vessels. I’ve never fucked eighty-seven floors above nothing.

I folded my head back against his shoulder, breathless and squirming for more reasons than nausea. “Not here. Take me to bed.”

He forced my thighs apart with one of his, and his urgent fingers traced the curve of my naked ass, tempting. “Never so shy in Constantinople, wildcat.”

I resisted the urge to thrust back onto him, get him inside me any way I could, get this over with before he could screw with my mind. “No phone cameras in Constantinople.”

“True.” He released me and slipped his hand into mine, tugging me away toward a darkened doorway beside the bar.

An amused, lustful tingle along my spine made me jump.
Pity,
whispered Rajah.
I was getting hot watching that.

I swallowed a smile. So Rajah liked to watch, did he? Well, he’d get an eyeful pretty soon. My insides heated at the thought of him watching us, those gold-flecked eyes molten with lust.

Luna dragged me into the dark corridor, grating electric music fading, and my nerves wriggled, shaking off my levity. The fairy’s drug sharpened my vision and put a sway into my hips as I walked, but deep-seated unease still dragged me down. Luna was dangerous. Forgetting that could hurt me.

We emerged into his vast pine-scented living space, the tall glass ceiling distant and star-flecked, pale carpet glowing under soft spotlights. On a low table by the window an old-fashioned brass oil lamp gleamed beside tortured blown-glass figures in black and scarlet. Bizarre art decorated the walls, dark scrawls and bright painted slashes of color, stunning nature photographs of sunsets and waterfalls digitally warped and stained to look like scenes from hell. Slate tiles covered an alcove in one corner for a bathroom, with a shower, a wide white bathtub, and a mirror over the sink.

Luna nipped my ear with wet lips, his seductive tongue curling. “Make yourself at home,” he whispered, and shoved me backwards.