Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (23 page)

Why she waited so long escaped her until Niko’s face flashed in her head. Arianne gasped and, with strength she didn’t know she possessed, pushed Balthazar away. He stumbled back but regained his balance just before he hit the low glass coffee table. He blinked at her, dazed.

Arianne covered her wet, still warm lips with the back of her hand. She slumped against the wall and breathed. She whimpered when she still felt Balthazar’s lips on hers. How good they felt.

“What the hell?” Balthazar asked when his shock wore off.

“You can’t kiss me,” Arianne stammered out, on the verge of tears.

Balthazar grinned. “I thought that was what we were doing. You seemed to be enjoying yourself. My ears don’t lie.”

Had she been moaning? Her eyes welled up. Balthazar’s grin disappeared. He returned to her in two steps, slamming his hands against the wall on either side of her head. She flinched, still covering her mouth. His breathing was hard and deep.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” he growled.

The tears flowed then. They
had
done something wrong. At least she had.

“You can’t kiss me again,” she said through her hand. Tears streamed down her face. “Promise me.”

“I won’t.”

She couldn’t understand why Balthazar decided to be stubborn.

“Promise me,” she insisted, more force in her words. Her breathing turned into hics and sniffs.

Balthazar breathed in deeply and closed his eyes. On the exhale, he opened his eyes. When he moved his hand to dry her tears, Arianne flinched away. Thankfully, he returned his hand to the wall beside her head. If this was his punishment for disobedience, she’d follow orders from now on.

Balthazar sighed. “I promise not to kiss you again…”

Relief flooded Arianne. She breathed easier. She’d deal with her overwhelming guilt later. For now, she had work to do. She’d have nothing to feel guilty about if she didn’t save Niko. She wiped away her tears.

“Good,” she said.

The grin on Balthazar’s face should have been a red flag. His next words definitely were.

“…unless you ask me to.”

Chapter 25

SWAK

T
HREE
C
HANDELIERS
H
UNG
from the ceiling, along with pixies dancing like floating ballerinas from some freak version of Cirque de Soleil. It all seemed a bit excessive. But the Voyeur wouldn’t have anything less. Solara lived in excess. She ate, breathed, slept in it. Her guests, in their finest, drank from diamond champagne glasses. Not diamond encrusted. Actual glasses made from polished and cut diamonds. Platinum platters, not silver. Hors d’oeuvres and an assortment of finger foods decorated the platters, some of them actual fingers for the more carnivorous types. For the blood drinkers—vampires weren’t the only creatures in the Underverse that enjoyed drinking from the vein—various females from different species were tied along the walls. Some already had blood dripping from various cut points on their bodies. The life force and residual energy drinkers were offered the same refreshments at the other side of the room. Balthazar spotted a unicorn and made a mental note to drink from it before they left.

The Underball packed the ballroom of the Voyeur’s mansion with the Underverse’s elite. Heavenly Hosts, Demon Kings, Warlocks, Fairy Queens. Even Granmare Baba made an appearance. The witch gave him a wink as she mingled with an assortment of the worst the Underverse had to offer. Balthazar swallowed the sudden flood of saliva in his mouth when a Demon King—the biggest, baddest of demon kind with their large leathery wings—ambled by. He hadn’t had a Demon King since the Nethers. Their life force tasted the best, the most potent. It could keep him full for a month without depleting his reserves no matter how much power he used. Maybe a Demon King would be better than a unicorn?

Balthazar shook his head and forced himself to focus. The only beings missing from the gathering were Reapers. Nikolas had accompanied him to an auction once. He’d purchased a siren while Balthazar went to bed that night with conjoined twins. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. The wild days.

Because of the lockdown, none of the Reapers could make an appearance, not even those in the human world. They needed the Crossroads to get into the Underverse, like the Heavenly Hosts needed Haven to enter the Underverse or the human world. Of the many entry points into the Underverse, specific creatures had specific places they used—a safety mechanism in place since before Balthazar became a thought in his mother’s head. He didn’t question it, and neither did anyone who made the Underverse their home. But, of course, like with the Oni, accidents happened.

Just as well
.

Balthazar had other things to worry about than Reapers not being in attendance at the auction. Mostly, that he’d kissed the girl. Totally not the plan. Damn if he didn’t enjoy himself. Called her by the name the Nixies used too. Ari. Rolled off the tongue like a bell note. Ari. And the taste of her almost brought him to his knees. If he’d known humans tasted so good, he would have kissed one a long time ago. Yet, in the back of his mind, he knew not just any human would do.

Ari.

He tugged at the leash, causing her to stumble forward, pushing up against his back. She grunted but didn’t complain. He grinned. Since they’d left the suite, she’d been playing the silent slave girl. He’d like to think he had a hand in her obedience instead of the promise he’d made her. He intended to keep it too. Oh, how this game had progressed. What better way to ruin Nikolas? If the Reaper of Georgia truly had feelings for the girl who tried to save him at the expense of her own life, then taking her away from him would be the best kind of torture.

Arianne had become an unexpected prize. Those curves he cared nothing about before suddenly took on a new light. Maybe under the light of the damn chandeliers everything changed. That sinful bikini didn’t do him any favors either. He noticed a few pointed stares at his slave from several attendees. Some leers more than stares—hungry. Balthazar scowled back at them. The creatures knew better than to mess with him. The stares he could forgive, but if someone so much as drooled in the presence of Arianne, he’d have them for dinner.

The change in his mindset toward the girl disturbed him profoundly.

When he’d walked into the suite, he’d been ready to hand out her punishment. Teach her a lesson. Instead, he ended up making out with the chit. How was that possible? He blamed the damnable slave’s uniform Solara’s lesser demons had put her in. A little slip of a thing. It barely covered the important bits. Balthazar didn’t know if he wanted to curse the Voyeur into the nine circles of hell or kiss her on each cheek for handing him a tasty morsel she’d wrapped nicely.

Or should he say, barely wrapped?

“They’re staring at me,” Arianne mumbled.

“Took you long enough to notice,” he said, not looking back at her. He gave a passing Fairy Queen a smile. The creature’s glamour couldn’t fool him. What might look like a wondrously beautiful woman to others hid a tentacled creature with a taste for young demon boys. Balthazar barely suppressed a shudder. He considered himself depraved, but he had some standards and quite a few limits. Some of the creatures walking around in the Underball looking all tame and urbane made a mockery of the civility in the ballroom with the things they liked to do behind closed doors. Sometimes blood-curdling screams filled the mansion when they stayed under its roof.

“I hate Solara for putting me in this…I don’t even know what to call it,” Arianne complained.

“You’re a slave.”

A long pause. Balthazar grinned when he felt her thoughts. She imagined their little interlude in the suite. Likely she blushed. Oh how he wanted to face her and see. But he couldn’t draw attention to them. His presence in the Underball already created ripples. If he acted like he cared too much for his slave, he’d be putting Arianne in needless danger. He didn’t want to get bloody tonight if he didn’t have to. Tempting on any other day, but the ever weakening pulse on Arianne’s ring didn’t afford him the luxury of a massacre.

Once she’d convinced herself the kiss wouldn’t happen again—not if Balthazar could help it—Arianne spoke again. “I’m just not used to being looked at like an object.”

“Honey, right now, you are.” Balthazar sobered. “Solara’s heading this way. Suck it up and shut up.” He gave the leash one more tug before he plastered a smile on his face. “You’ve out done yourself, Solara.”

The Voyeur had exchanged her velvet dress for a revealing sequined gown that left little to the imagination. She smiled back at him before she leaned in and kissed him on both cheeks. Balthazar endured the touch, although he couldn’t stop his shoulders from tensing. He forced himself to relax by grabbing two diamond glasses filled with Nectar, an elixir that gave a better buzz than any alcoholic beverage, and handed one to Solara. Blacking out on Nectar meant worse things than waking up with an ugly tattoo.

“You don’t think the pixies are a little too much?”

Balthazar looked up. “So long as they don’t rain pixie dust on everyone, I think you’ll be fine.”

Pixie dust was the strongest aphrodisiac known to exist. If they started raining dust, the party would quickly turn into one big love fest. And considering the perverse proclivities of many of the creatures at the ball, an orgy would be the worst outcome.

“Oh, I had them drained of dust. In fact, that’s one of the auction items.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I trust your slave is satisfactorily dressed?”

Balthazar cleared his throat to hide Arianne’s whimper. “She’s adequate.”

Delight sparkled in Solara’s radiant face. “She’s already been getting lots of attention. Are you sure you don’t want to put her up for auction, even just for tonight? She does seem so exotic.”

The way Solara said exotic coupled with the intense interest in her eyes worried Balthazar. The Voyeur might know the secret he shared with Arianne. But with several humans used as entrées tonight, he doubted the Voyeur’s attention focused enough on a slave that smelled more like him.

“She’s mine, Solara.” Balthazar bared his fangs.

The always smart, sometimes opportunistic, Voyeur tilted her head and pursed her lips. “If you ever reconsider, you know where to find me.” She finished her glass of Nectar. “Zakariel has arrived.”

Balthazar tensed. A Heavenly Host as powerful as Zakariel shouldn’t have gotten past him without detection. He’d been so preoccupied with his slave girl that he’d totally dropped the ball on noticing Zakariel. He cursed his distraction.

He took a moment to focus and quickly found the Heavenly Host surrounded by a contingent of lesser angels. Why someone like Zakariel attended an auction as sleazy as Solara’s escaped Balthazar’s understanding.

“I need five minutes with him,” he told Solara.

Her eyes narrowed. “What will you give me for it?”

Sometimes Balthazar cursed the barter system of the Underverse. “Three drops of my blood to auction off tonight.”

Solara’s eyes changed from purple to gold. “That would be fantastic. The price of the blood from someone like you…oh!” She shivered in delight.

Balthazar removed a small vial from one of the pockets in his coat and a needle from another. He pricked his finger, squeezed out three drops into the vial and sealed it. Then he dangled the blood in front of Solara.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked.

Solara nodded, never taking her golden gaze away from the vial. “I’ll set the meet.”

“You do that.” He tossed her the vial.

The Voyeur caught it in mid-air and hugged it close to her chest. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Very well.” She licked her lower lip. “The auction’s about to start.” She turned and walked away.

“What is it about your blood?” Arianne whispered from behind him.

Balthazar frowned. “Let’s just say it’s a very rare commodity around here.”

“Granmare Baba seemed like she would lose her mind after tasting it. What the hell’s that about?”

He barked a laugh. “Hell? Really, Arianne?”

“You’re not the only one who can curse around here, you know.”

“Saying hell isn’t cursing.”

“Well, from where I’m from it is.”

Balthazar had a ready answer when he noticed the auctioneer, a giant lizard that walked upright in a tuxedo, moved to the podium positioned to one side of the platform. Red curtains covered the rest of the stage, presumably to give the assistants time to move the items in and out without the bidders seeing.

The Voyeur kept the list of items confidential until the auction, but sometimes information about certain items were leaked. Balthazar considered this in relation to Zakariel’s presence. But what would he buy in an auction geared toward the carnal arts? Last time he’d checked the Heavenly Host wasn’t really into sex toys. So why? It couldn’t be chance that D had sent him and Arianne to the Voyeur only to meet with the one creature who could give them information about the Redeemer. It seemed way too easy.

The lizard banged a gavel three times on the podium, capturing the attention of everyone in the ballroom. A hush fell. Only the servers moved among the guests, keeping them fed and happy while the main event proceeded.