Steal the Day (21 page)

I slipped into the dark room, closing the door quickly before anyone could fumble into the hall. Darkness swallowed me, and I had to take a deep breath before starting to feel around for a light switch. My hands ran up the wall, though if that slight stench was what I thought it was, I might be better off not seeing. The switch was next to the door on the right side. I was glad it was daytime so I didn’t have to worry about light spilling under the doorframe and giving away my position.

The light blinked on, coating the room in yellow harshness. I did a double take because it was hard to believe what I was seeing. Looking around that little room, I realized that my crazy-ass bitch meter was functioning just fine.

It was an altar room, and Mary Jo was definitely a witch, and not the white kind.

There was black magic all over that room. The rest of the house was a distraction. This little room was Mary Jo’s soul. It was where she did her real work. Small and devoid of any of the fussy trappings of the rest of the house, the altar room reeked of darkness. Hex bags sat on a small work table. A small clump of red hair was waiting to go into one of those bags. Mine, I would bet. For the thousandth time, I considered cutting my long hair. I might just shave it all off and wear a wig because I really hated hexes, and they worked better when a piece of the person being hexed could be included. Hair was the easiest way to go. I picked up the hair and shoved it in my pocket because I wasn’t leaving a piece of myself behind for her to play with.

An open book sat on the altar surrounded by black and red candles. I assumed it was Mary Jo’s grimoire, her personal book of spells. From the look of the leather, it was old and probably passed from crazy-bitch witch to crazy-bitch witch for generations. The pages were yellowed with age, frayed around the corners. The grimoire was opened to a page, a spell laid out in red ink. Ick. Blood. “
Dico Angelus
” was spelled out in ornate letters across the top of the page. I wasn’t great with Latin, though I’d been brushing up since I lost my witch. I was pretty sure it was a spell to call angels.

The rest of the altar was decorated with photographs. There were at least twenty taped to the side, the interior, and down the front. Some were old Polaroid pictures, but there were several new photos that could have been printed off any home printer. It was good to know that even a witch as obviously disturbed as Mary Jo kept up with technology. It was not good that there were several photos of one Felicity Day. She could have mentioned that she was being stalked by Mary Jo Renfro, but no, the ever-perky angel merely described her as difficult.

My heart half stopped when I saw the latest photos. They were of Dev. One was through a window as we had eaten dinner last night. That answered one question. She had help since she’d been with us during dinner. The second one was the most terrifying. It was of Dev asleep, alone in the big heart-shaped bed. I remembered Mary Jo talking about the glow Dev had. The witch thought Dev was an angel or something close to one. It was not a good sign because from the feel of this room, she wasn’t going to be asking him for advice or protection.

We needed to get out of here, and we needed to do it now.

I turned to a little bookcase. It was full of all the crap one would expect a black magic practitioner to keep hanging around the office. There were various jars filled with part of things that used to be alive. It was formaldehyde that I’d smelled when I first entered the room. Formaldehyde scared me worse than the smell of decomp because there was always the possibility that the decomp had happened naturally. No one naturally shoves fingers into a jar and covers them with formaldehyde.

I tried to ignore the ick factor as I looked for the Revelation. I found it in a small box on the third shelf. As I opened the box, the amulet was glowing and pulsing softly. I sighed with satisfaction because I had what we came for, and now I could get Dev out of here.

“I thought it was just the man,” a voice said from the doorway, which was swung open.

I turned and wished I had been smart enough to carry a freaking gun, but no, I hadn’t wanted to hurt the civvies. If Felicity had been more open with her info, I wouldn’t have come into this house without an arsenal. John Renfro moved quickly, and there was no room for me to run. His hands tightened around my neck before I could scream, and then there was a stinging sensation in my shoulder.

“Our master is going to love you,” Renfro said as the world went wobbly and dark.

* * * *

I woke up with a dry mouth and a sense of déjà vu.

“Yeah, sweetheart, this is how all our big dates seem to end,” Dev said wryly.

I tried to hold my head because it was throbbing like it was going to attempt to separate itself from my body and run away, but my hands were tied firmly behind my back. Handcuffs, and not the sweet cushioned versions Dev used when he played cop and call girl. My legs had been bound as well, our captors proving themselves very thorough. “What the hell happened?”

Dev, who was tied up similarly beside me, sighed. “I got roofied. I don’t know what happened to you, but I bet it was the same thing they used on me, only the injectable version. Our hostess is completely insane.”

“Yeah, I got that.” I flipped from my side to my back. My bound hands helped me roll onto my butt where I could look around. My eyes adjusted to the low light, but I wasn’t surprised to find myself in a shed that could have been used as a
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
set. There were carcasses of woodland creatures hanging everywhere. “I take it this is the farm?”

“Yes, and maybe if your husband had been concerned about the job last night instead of getting into your pants, we would have been more cautious.” Bitterness dripped from every word. I’d been thrown on the floor, but Dev was tied to a post. His shirt was gone and someone had used his chest as a demonic art project. Arcane symbols covered his chest, painted in a dull, metallic red. More blood. I was sure if I could read whatever dead language it was written in, the symbols would form an invitation for demons to come and take a bite.

“We weren’t off somewhere doing the nasty, Dev,” I shot back at him. “He met a pack of werepigs. It was a meeting. I’m his queen, so it makes sense for me to help out. Daniel needs allies if he’s going to take down the Council.”

“Daniel needs his head examined if he’s going to take down the Council. You’re seriously telling me Daniel is trying to join the packs to form some sort of army so he can take power?”

“The Council is the one planning a war, Dev.” I knew where Dev stood, firmly in a neutral position. He was the supernatural equivalent of Switzerland. “They want to take over the supernaturals, and then I think they’re going after the humans.”

“Well, it won’t matter now, sweetheart, because we’re going to be sacrificed after dark. You can stop worrying about potential slavery and start worrying about just which demon is going to show up for dinner. Did I mention we’re on the menu?”

“Daniel will come for us.”

Dev laughed. “No, he won’t. If he tries he’ll be the fried food portion of the evening. While the crazy twins were painting me up, they were discussing all the anti-vampire stuff they were finally going to get to use. You wouldn’t believe it. They have motion detectors that shoot UV light. Apparently Mr. Renfro is paranoid about vampires, and he’s spent a ton of cash on defense which he can now proudly use.”

That was bad news. “How the hell does he know about Danny and Chad?”

He growled a little, a sure sign of his complete frustration. “Well, what do you expect when Danny boy spends the evening introducing himself to the locals? He’s being an idiot about this. He has to start using some discretion or he’s going to bring the Council down on all our heads, Zoey. There are ways to handle these things with more diplomacy.”

“He’s doing the best he can.” I was defending myself as much as Danny. We weren’t raised to play these games. Dev had been raised in a royal court. Plots and subterfuge and coups might be second nature to him, but Danny and I were fumbling.

Dev rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all a huge clusterfuck. The witches don’t even realize we have anything to do with the vamps. They’re just paranoid. That stupid amulet thing we came to steal glows around me, so she thinks I’m an angel. It glows around you, but she thinks it’s because we had sex. She’s sure you’re some evil human who’s trying to make me fall.”

Frustration welled up. “Why does everyone think I’m the one leading you into sin? Have they met you? Since I started sleeping with you I have done things I would never have thought to do. That thing with my feet, who would think to do that? You have the single dirtiest mind I’ve ever met.”

“A lot of good it did me.” His eyes moved away from mine.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Why wouldn’t he just come out and tell me?

Dev seemed to think about it for a moment, and I worried he would shut me out again. “It means I always knew we had an expiration date, Zoey. I just didn’t realize it would be so fucking soon. I knew you would probably go back to him. I just thought I could keep you for longer than seven months. I overestimated my skills, it seems.”

“I wasn’t trying to leave you.” I scooted on my butt to get closer to him. “I was just pissed because you wouldn’t talk to me. You never talk to me about anything important. Come to think of it, you never do anything with me except have sex and run jobs. It makes a girl think.”

He frowned. “We hang out at the club.”

“Great, let me add drinking to our list of activities,” I replied, tears threatening. “You won’t even tell me if you have a kid. I don’t know anything about your life, Dev. I’m in love with you, and I don’t know if you left a family behind when you fled the mound.”

“What did you say?” Dev didn’t have a problem looking at me now. His body was tense, every bit of his focus pointed at me.

I shrank back because I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn’t meant to ever let him know how I felt. It made me too vulnerable. Whatever had been in that sedative was screwing with me. I decided to be obtuse. “You won’t tell me if you have a kid.”

He smiled and looked distinctly wolfish. “Oh, no, darling, you’re not getting off the hook that easily. You love me. You said it.”

“Don’t get excited.” I had to make something very clear. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love Daniel, too. It just means I’m screwed whichever way I go.”

“But you love me,” he said as though the statement satisfied him deeply. “I made you love me.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Unless you have the keys to get us out of these cuffs, it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters, sweetheart,” Dev replied. “We have maybe an hour before the sun goes down and the coven comes for us. I can still check this state off. All you have to do is use your teeth to get my zipper down. I don’t care what anyone says. It counts as sex.”

I laughed because that was my Dev, always thinking with his dick. We were going to be human sacrifices, and he was trying to get a hummer before we went out.

Dev moved his feet so they touched mine. “I thought you didn’t want to sleep with me anymore.”

“No, I just wanted to mean more to you than a warm version of a blow-up doll.”

Dev laughed. “You are so much more trouble than a blow-up doll, sweetheart. You make me crazy with your hazel eyes and those luscious tits of yours, but I have to admit it’s the violence I’m really attracted to. Now shut up and I’ll give you what you want before they slice us up. Don’t waste time trying to get out. They have three guys with shotguns on the door, and I watched them remove everything we could possibly use as a weapon from this room before they left to get ready for the ceremony. Mary Jo is going to the hair salon.”

“Good to know she’s taking it seriously.” I got as close as I could and was able to lean against him. If we only had a little time left, I wanted to hear the story. “Now, are you a daddy or not?”

He smiled sadly. “I don’t know. It’s possible. When my grandfather died back in World War One, he took the tribe’s fertility with him. He got too involved in human affairs. Even a full-blooded Fae will die if you put enough bullets in him and he’s far from a
sithein
. My mother became queen, but she couldn’t bear children, and trust me, she tried with every full-blooded Fae she could. It became clear she should try something else. She came to the Earth plane, met my father, and immediately became pregnant with me and my brother, Declan.”

“You have a twin?” One Dev was almost too much for the world to handle. The fact that there was another who looked just like him made me think things I probably shouldn’t if I wanted to be considered a good girl.

He grinned, likely guessing what was going through my head. “I do, but he’s very different from me. He’s older by a couple of minutes so he’s the heir. He’s much more serious. His training was different than mine.”

“Your grandfather was a Green Man.” A Green Man facilitated fertility rites and oversaw the harvest.

“Yes, and it quickly became evident that I had received his talents,” Dev continued. “Even as a small child I can recall playing with plants. The tribe was thrilled. My brother would be trained to rule, and I would be the new Green Man bringing fertility and sexual vitality back to the tribe.”

I knew where this story was going. “Then they discovered you were mortal.”

“It was a shock since my twin is fully Fae. I was trained to be a priest. You have to understand it doesn’t have the same connotations in the Fae world as a Catholic priest. Pretty much the exact opposite. In the Fae world, sex is a part of the divine. It’s a part of our rituals. There’s no shame attached to it. I was trained to please sexually and to transmit that pleasure to others through magic.”

He’d been trained well. I finally understood why he wrapped up his worth in his sexuality. When I refused him, he thought I was bored with him because he’d never been valued for anything else. Now that I looked at it, Dev tried to work himself into my world the only ways he’d known how. He became my lover, and he worked his way onto my crew. He tried to give me what he thought I needed. He tried to make himself valuable.