Wicked Wonderland (2 page)

Nick leapt to his feet, ready to find the culprit and beat the bastard to a pulp. But when he turned, a burly bouncer was already manhandling the drunken fool toward the door and out of the strip club.

Jesus! What kind of moron would complain about a few extra pounds on a body like that?

His heart went out to the stripper as he remembered the announcer saying she’d only been at Venus Girls a week.

Even with tousled hair and tears streaming down her face, she was beautiful. She turned and ran off the stage into the wings.

Something fell off her arm and clunked onto the stage. Her bracelet? Nick sprinted up the steps to the stage two at a time. The heavy silver glinted in the spotlight. The crowd booed him. He ignored them and stooped to pick it up.

It was a handcrafted turquoise-and-silver cuff bracelet. And he’d know it anywhere. The same heavy silver with its pebbled design, the same stunning robin’s egg blue turquoise stone. And now he held the bracelet again, he knew who this stripper was for sure. Or at least who she’d been—an angry eighteen-year-old girlfriend who’d once thrown this bracelet at his head, that was who. The hurt he’d seen in those eyes… He shook his head to remove the image from his mind.

Lacey must be Lilly’s stage name. Why hadn’t he realized it sooner? She’d had a nose job, he guessed. And he’d also have to guess she’d gone back to her natural red hair color too, whereas in college she’d dyed it different colors, trying to hide from some man who’d been stalking her. The police had never been able to catch the bastard. But Nick still couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized her.

Has it really been ten years since I broke up with Lilly?

He traced the smooth stone of the bracelet with his finger, remembering the first time he’d seen it.

He’d taken Lilly on a date to the fair, where they’d seen the bracelet in a stall of Native American jewelry. Lilly had exclaimed over it, and he’d tried to buy it for her. She’d been insulted at first and refused the gift as if she thought it was some act of charity.

Lilly had a chip on her shoulder about being found in a Dumpster as a newborn, and she was a typical touchy orphan, proud and angered by anything she perceived as pity. But he’d explained to her she
had
to accept his gift, because the stone was almost the same color as her eyes.

Lilly’s eyes were actually so unusual a color you could have sworn she was wearing colored contacts, but he knew she didn’t.

He’d held the bracelet tightly and closed his eyes, telling her he was pouring magic into the stone to protect her from harm. She’d laughed and called him crazy, but she’d accepted it at last.

In the Fae Realm, turquoise was rumored to have magical properties if given as a gift between true lovers. Sylphs called it the Blue Spirit Stone.

Fat lot of good it did my relationship with Lilly.

Nick shook his head.

“Hey, you! Get off the stage, moron, before I drag you off.”

Nick jumped, startled by the shout, but the insult from the dickhead didn’t faze him.

Holding the bracelet in his left hand, he began to run. Almost colliding with the next stripper, he managed to dodge aside and head for the back stairs of the club. Checking over his shoulder, he saw the bouncer wasn’t following him. The guy had been waylaid by a couple of angry, shouting drunks.

One burly, red-faced man shouted, “We want the angel with the big tits. Bring her the hell back!”

Nick laughed. He looked over his shoulder and caught Kris’s eye. Tony and one of the other men were trying to talk to him, but Kris held up a hand. Nick motioned to him, and Kris pushed his way through the busy crowd and ran over to catch up with him.

Kris gestured at the many men around them. “Damn strip clubs are full of assholes at Christmastime! This dump is packed.” Kris noticed what Nick was holding. “Holy crap, is that Lilly’s bracelet?”

“Yup, the one I gave her.” Nick held the bracelet out for Kris to have a better look. “You know I left it on the doorknob of her room the day she threw it at me? She’s kept it all this time.” Nick looked down at the bracelet, stroking the turquoise stone, then lifted his eyes back up to Kris. “That has to mean something, right?”

Kris nodded. “She still wears it. She remembers you and thinks about you. Sure, it means something.”

Nick gestured toward the door. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He pushed open the heavy back door of the club and headed out into the winter night.

The wind howled as it whipped the snow around his legs.

“Fuck, it’s cold!”

Kris looked at him, startled. “Damn, you forgot your coat. In all the confusion, I forgot to grab it for you too. You left it hanging over the back of your chair.”

Nick shrugged. “S’okay. I’ll summon it.”

Kris grabbed his arm. “Nick, stop, don’t even go there. Someone will see.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so what? They’re all drunk as fuck. They’ll think they’re hallucinating.”

He closed his eyes and hummed a quick spell to bring his warm red Santa coat to him. Pale blue light shot from his palm, and the coat came sailing through the air and into his hands.

Normally, if he or Kris wore coats like this, the material would be green and much richer and warmer. The standard uniform when they worked at the North Pole.

Nick did up the last button on his coat. “You explained to Tony we couldn’t make the wedding itself, right? You explained we had business commitments?”

Kris’s eyes twinkled. “Yup, he said he understood. Imagine if he knew what those ‘business commitments’ actually were, though. It would blow his little mortal mind.”

Nick grinned.

Kris turned serious. “So that really was Lilly. Do you think she still hates me?”

“Hates us, you mean? Hell, I don’t know.” Nick rubbed his hands over his face. “Damn, how did a straight-A classical music student like Lilly end up working in a strip club? It doesn’t make sense.”

He grabbed Kris’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to find her. How about you go back and search inside the club. She could still be in a dressing room or something. I’ll search out here. I might catch her on the way to her car.”

“They’ll think I’m some creepy pervert stalking the girl’s dressing rooms.”

Nick gave his lover’s biceps a squeeze. “You
are
a pervert. The one I love. Now
hurry
.” He winked and pushed Kris’s shoulder in the direction of the strip joint. “We
have
to find her. Just have a quick check in the dressing rooms, and if she’s not there, come back and meet me here.” Nick gave him a pat on the ass to send him on his way.

Kris started to walk toward the club, muttering something under his breath about “bossy doms”.

Nick watched him leave, too depressed to even enjoy his fine back view.

“Why couldn’t you have just been honest with me, Nick?”

The last words Lilly had ever said to him pounded in his head as he touched the turquoise stone of the bracelet and walked out toward the parking lot. He hadn’t understood them at the time.

Since their failure with Lilly, he and Kris had stuck to sylph women and left mortal girls alone.

A knot formed in his throat. It amazed him how clearly he could remember Lilly. What she felt like, how she tasted. Now that he’d found her again, he ached to touch her.

He wanted to run his fingertips over her face and lips, wanted to see his hands and Kris’s worshipping her fine, curvaceous body, wanted to take her sweet mouth while Kris took her pussy and watch Kris kiss her everywhere before he put his own mouth on her.

The closeness they’d shared years ago with Lilly
hadn’t
been an illusion. It had been real! The problem was, back then they’d been too focused on the rules Dad had set for their time in the mortal world. No doing magic in front of humans. They hadn’t explained themselves to Lilly; they hadn’t really let her know who they were.

He blew out a breath and glanced behind him. He needed to find her and talk to her now, no matter what her reaction and no matter what the consequences. Kris would understand and want her too. He had to. Because there was no way Nick could substitute one for the other.

Chapter Two

Lilly’s eyes still stung with tears of humiliation as she stumbled down the corridor in her ridiculously high, strappy, platform sandals.

So they thought she was fat, or one of them did, but Ron, the owner of Venus Girls, had said she’d do fine at the club. He’d said the place needed a few girls like her, with large, natural breasts and a different look. Some men went for that kind of thing. Not every man wanted a statuesque, leggy, peroxide blonde. That’s what Ron had said.

Anyway, who the hell cared what those sleazebags thought of her? Lilly Rudolph was
not
a stripper. Not really.

Who was she, then?

A reviewer for the
New York Times
had called her a “passionate flute player who combines extravagant technique with broad stylistic range”. She’d placed third in the Concert Artists’ Guild awards two years in a row.

She was also a devoted daughter.

And that was the only reason she was stripping as a side gig right now. She would do whatever she had to, whatever it took, to help her mom out of this mess.

She clutched her handbag to her side, grateful that Tucker, the security guard, had had it ready for her the moment she came off stage. Inside was a good three hundred dollars she could add to the five hundred she’d already made this week. Not bad. A decent start.

As Lillian rounded the corridor, the sight of the other four strippers knocked her out of her reverie. Bambi, Tasha, Sonya and Kandy stood outside her dressing room. Bambi stood in front of the door, blocking her path.

Fear nipped at the edges of her mind. Something seemed a little off here. But there was no reason to be afraid of these girls. Women.

“Hey, Bambi! Hey, Tasha…”

“Grab her.” Sonya’s voice hissed with venom.

Before Lilly had time to react, Bambi grabbed her and forced her in a headlock so tight it made her ears burn. Kandy tugged at her handbag.

Tasha stood nearby, shaking her head with disgust. “We know you’re the thief, bitch!”

Lilly struggled to free herself, but it was no use. “What? I’m not the thief, damn you! When did you decide it was me? I don’t know what makes you think it’s me.” Inwardly, she winced at the tremor in her voice. She couldn’t afford to sound weak.

For the last few days she’d heard the other strippers gossip about how someone was stealing their tips and how they’d beat the thief if they caught her. Fear of a beating shrieked in her blood, urging her to run from her attackers, but she couldn’t wrench herself out of Bambi’s grasp.

Kandy continued to tug on Lilly’s handbag while Lilly held on to it with all her strength. Kandy sneered, “Ever since you started working here, girls have had their tips go missing. Every day this week, one of the girls has had her money stolen.”

Sonya, the tallest of the strippers, poked her in the back. “And you don’t make many tips ’cause you’re fat. So it has to be you.”

Lilly’s jaw tightened. Fear twisted into rage. “I did fine with tips up until tonight. I’m not your damn thief. Let me go.”

“Grab her wallet!”

Lilly cursed as she realized Kandy had unzipped her handbag. “Got it!”

Bambi rapped her on the head with her knuckles. “If you have our money in there, we’ll fuckin’ kill you.” She turned to Kandy. “How much she got?”

Lilly couldn’t see Kandy, trapped as she was in Bambi’s headlock, but she heard her grunt. “She has three hundred dollars.”

Tasha tsked. “Well, that’s not much. She might have made that herself.”

A little bit of hope surfaced at Tasha’s words. Lilly felt the petty, desperate-to-be-liked feeling churn in her stomach, an emotion she’d battled ever since her youngest years in the orphanage. Before she’d felt the love of an adoptive parent. She knew she’d never fit in with these women, but she’d sort of liked Tasha before now. Tasha seemed different from the other strippers, nicer. She tried to make eye contact with the slim, stunning brunette. “See! I’m no thief. Why did you guys even think it was me anyway?”

Tasha avoided eye contact with Lilly, turning her head away. “She’s probably hidden the rest somewhere else. She’ll go back and grab it later when she thinks we’re not around.”

Tasha’s words hit her like a kick in the stomach. They were obviously directed at the other strippers. It was like Lilly was so unimportant she didn’t warrant speaking to.

Bambi pulled Lilly’s head up by her hair. “We’ll catch you out eventually, thief. You can count on it. Hey, Kandy, what’s her real name?”

Kandy flipped through Lacey’s credit cards. “Lillian Rudolph.”

“Ha! Rudolph, all right. With that red hair and ghost-white skin, she sure stands out.”

The other strippers snickered. Spite made their eyes glint in the dark hallway.

Sonya towered over her, an impressively tall and athletic young woman. Hours at the gym must have honed such a strong, slim but muscular body. Sonya had a sharp but attractive face and long, straight, blonde hair. Lilly could remember when Sonya’s hair had been a rich chocolate brown.

She and Sonya had some history. She’d met Sonya before working at the club. The stripper’s eyes were a solid amber, an eye color which, for some reason, always gave Lilly the creeps.

“Do you want to go out there?” Sonya asked, indicating the open door with her thumb. “Out where the trash cans are?” Malicious pleasure gleamed in Sonya’s eyes and chilled Lilly to the bone.

“Yeah!” Kandy cried. “Let’s put the thief out with the trash.”

Anger made Lilly flush. Struggling mightily in Bambi’s grasp, she tried to stomp on the much-taller stripper’s foot but missed.

Bambi laughed. “Here, you do it, Sonya. I’m not going out there until I’ve put on my coat.” She thrust Lilly at the taller woman. The blonde stripper already had her coat and scarf on. She grabbed Lilly in a tight grip and pulled her out the door toward the trash cans. Lilly kicked and struggled. Kandy followed with a smirk on her face.