DAEMONEUM

by Laney McMann

  Kade stood outside the Carnival Grande Masquerade Ball, Cole’s arm over her shoulder, stunned. She’d read in the brochure on the train that the ball was held in a fifteenth century private palace, but until this moment, she’d had no idea what that really meant. The venue was tucked in on the left bank of the Grand Canal, gondolas docked all along the water’s edge, and the building—the palace—resembled a castle.

  Park-like grounds surrounded it and offered stunning views of the water from winding walkways that weaved in a maze through a garden overflowing with lush green plants and flowers. The palace and the grounds were illuminated by tiny twinkling white lights that dangled from tree branches and were strung from lamppost to lamppost and all along the waterway. A white, hazy fog had settled over everything with a dreamlike quality, and there were bubbles suspended in the air.

  People dressed in eighteenth century finery gathered from all directions, laughing and talking, making their way from boats along the canal, the cobbled street, and through the decorative grounds into the ballroom.

  Cole led them forward, his arm over Kade’s bare shoulders, taking their time through the maze-like garden grounds, both of them relishing in just that—their time. Time that only an hour ago Kade thought was over.

  “Beautiful.” Cole tugged her closer, his steps leisurely, relaxed.

  “Amazing.”

  “Do you need my jacket?” His thumb rotated in small circles on her shoulder.

  She kissed him softly as they walked, still shocked by everything he’d told her a little while ago in the villa and now by their surroundings. “Your body makes me warm. Do you like Venice or Verona more?” she asked, as they stopped in front of a large fountain swathed in a white haze and filled with blooming lotus flowers.

  “Verona, probably. It’s smaller. I was here a few weeks ago, actually. In Venice.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mm hm. The night we met. Only for a few minutes.” They strolled to another fountain, this one with lily pads floating on the surface of the water. “Danny and I were tracking a Daemoneum Hive, and we ended up in that church over there,” he pointed a ways down the canal and across the street, “the Gesauti.”

  “It’s beautiful.” The spires cut through the night sky toward the stars.

  “It is. My dad always had a thing for old churches. That one was one of his favorites.”

  “That’s a nice thing to have an affinity for.”

  “Yeah. Sure you’re not cold?” He wrapped both arms around her, turning her to face him. “We could go inside.”

  Kade leaned in close, feeling a little bit weightless for some reason. Happiness, she thought. “Can I have one more kiss first?”

  “You can have a thousand kisses if you want them.” Cole guided her mouth to his, giving her a lingering, adoring kiss Kade felt in every cell of her body. He smiled against her mouth. “And you wanted to break up with me,” he teased with his cocky grin. “What were you thinking?”

  She stared into his sparkling eyes and kissed him again. “I wasn’t.”

  The closer they ambled toward the entrance of the ball, the louder the festivities from inside the palace became, and the thicker the white haze and bubbles. Flanking the doorway were several large tables decorated with neon pink rope lights nestled underneath off-white linen cloth. Small shot glasses filled with bright green liquid had been placed decoratively within the lights, which made the contents glimmer. Party-goers picked up drinks as they entered the ball.

  Cole eyed her. “I’d ask you if you wanted one, but I’m not sure how well the wine went the other night.”

  “What is it?”

  He picked up a shot glass and downed it. With eyes sparkling, he said, “if I had to guess, I’d say something you want to stay away from.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  Cole stared at her, eyes darkening with every blink. “How do you feel?”

  “Good.” She smiled wide, her blood zinging in her veins “Electric.”

  “Mm hm.” He guided her through an arched doorway away from the drinks, and whispered in her ear. “Try not to breathe in the fog.”

  Kade wasn’t sure that would work—it surrounded everyone. She also wasn’t sure what to expect of the masquerade ball once she entered the palace, but whatever she’d expected—maybe something out the eighteenth century itself, in way of a formal ball room with little round tables and white table cloths, and polite waiters dressed in black tuxedos with pristine white gloves taking coats or something—this wasn’t that.

  There had been a formal dinner prior to the ball itself that might have resembled that, but the ball—the dance—really threw her. There were several patrons in formal white wigs with traditionally made up faces of white powder and rosy pink cheeks, as well as elegant staircases and crystal chandeliers, but there were no little tables with pristine table cloths or properly spoken wait staff taking coats. No formally dressed dancing bodies ambling about like marionettes.

  Instead, the Carnival Grand Masquerade Ball was like Crystalline on speed. Blue and purple neon strobe lights illuminated a dark and massive room and pulsated across the walls and the polished dance floor. Thousands of vanilla candles, from tapers to pillars, flickered on narrow lace-covered tables. A mirrored ball hung from the ceiling and threw tiny reflective lights across the packed dance floor and gold painted walls, and the same blanket of whitish smoke that had settled over everything in the garden in a dreamlike glow, was three times thicker inside.

  The aroma of clove cigarettes mingled with the familiar sweet smell of liquid fog and melting wax. Another sweetness, like burnt sugar, permeated the ballroom that she thought had to be the white haze. The place was intoxicating.

  Unlike Crystalline where the bass of the latest dance music blasted from speakers set in the carpeted walls, there was a live electric band mixed with traditional cello, violin, piano, and clarinet on a raised stage at the far end of the venue. The music reverberating off the walls was a combination of Classical and Trance—a deafening cacophony and utterly hypnotic. It lit Kade up from the inside out and sent charges of electricity through her veins.

  Dimly lit, huge crystal chandeliers dipped from the ceiling of the long room, and floor to ceiling windows adorned the entire east wall. The windows were strung with tiny white Christmas lights and overlooked mind-blowing views of the canal outside. Amidst the burning vanilla candles, multi-colored drinks and glasses of champagne sat on long, narrow tables. The golden and colorful bubbly liquids picked up all the flickering lights and played tricks with Kade’s eyes.

  Near the highly polished dance floor, a solid glass semi-circular bar was stocked with every kind of liquor likely ever made, as well as hundreds of bottles of red and white wine. Kade’s gaze kept shifting, bouncing from one place to the next, taking it all in. Bubbles floated in the air like a magical scene from some other world, and everywhere people were laughing, drinking, kissing, smoking, and dancing way too close. The formal eighteenth century dresses and suits were stunning, immaculately tailored and fitted. The ages of the guests varied from teens to much older, and it was clear there were no rules. She’d never seen anything like it—never even read about anything like it.

  They wound their way further inside, Cole at Kade’s side, and she turned, glancing up at him. His gray-blue eyes danced behind his black mask as he took in the scene, his shoulders broad, proud and predatory in his beautifully made suit. His eyes sparkled under all the lights and shifted as he glanced down at her watching him.

  His gaze tracked her body, her bare shoulders, the curve of her neck, and her eyes behind her delicate, filigreed mask. It sent shivers up her arms and down her spine. Bending down, he placed his mouth close to her ear. “Like it?”

  She nodded, the beat of the music pounding in her chest, the energy of the place speeding through her veins, and traced the outline of his perfect mouth with her gaze.

  “Please don’t look at me like that,” he whispered, his warm breath lilt
ing down her throat.

  “I can’t help it.” Something about being there, or maybe that they’d just made up after breaking up, made her want him more than she ever had.

  A growl escaped his throat. “Let’s walk over there. The air is a little bit clearer.” He led her through the crowd and all the hovering bubbles.

  The place was packed, and with the white mist everywhere, it was hard to focus. Music ricocheted off the walls, and Kade wanted to dance, but she was blazing hot. “Can we get something to drink?”

  “Yeah.” Cole steered them toward a table laden with multi-colored liquids in various shapes and sizes of glasses from tall and slim, to short and wide, to a few in the shape of a cork screw. “I’ll try to find you some water,” he said, looking around, but Kade had already chosen a corkscrew glass off the table and drank a purple concoction that tasted like grape bubblegum.

  He grinned sweetly, gaze shifting across her bare shoulders. “You need water. Not this. I need water.”

  “You drank one of these at the door,” she said. “Anyway, it tastes like Kool-Aid.”

  “It’s not. And I shouldn’t have.” He took her glass from her hand, still smiling, but he seemed jittery. He rolled his neck on his shoulders a few times, jaw clenching and unclenching. “Where is my uncle?”

  Kade shrugged. “He’s coming.” She picked up a tall, narrow glass filled with pink liquid. The contents of this one were swirly with a streak of white in the center. It was pretty like one of those giant lollipops. She took a sip of it. Cotton candy.

  Cole tilted his head, staring at her. She swore that, jittery or not, he couldn’t stop grinning. “I’m trying to be responsible.”

  “What are these?” she asked, holding his gaze. “They’re much better than the wine we had.”

  He took the drink out of her hand, his fingers brushing hers, and set it on the table. “They’re the liquid version of this white fog that’s everywhere.”

  “Yeah?” She glanced around. They were swathed in the white smoke. In their own little piece of the world. “So, it doesn’t matter if I drink them then.”

  “It matters.”

  She picked up the glass again and took another sip, eyeing him.

  Cole watched her. “It’s not liquor. Or wine. Or anything you probably want.”

  “Aaah,” she laughed. “It’s not?”

  He shook his head, jaw muscles tense. “Between these drinks and the white haze in here, we’ll both be flying soon.”

  Kade pushed up, smaller than him even in her high heels, and whispered in his ear, “Remember when you told me you could teach me how to fly?”

  He let out a breath, and he was kissing her, his mouth hot against hers. He tasted like fire from the drink he’d had and smelled of clean cotton the way he always did. Kade breathed him in, biting his lip, wanting him. Cole’s hand wrapped her throat where the black choker encircled it, beckoning her closer. The purple and blue glow of neon, flickering candle light, the music, the sweet aromas and darkness, consumed her, and the next thing she knew, they were dancing, surrounded by the crowd on the dance floor.

  Cole watched her, his eyes black with desire, and all she wanted to do was melt into the crowd with him, lose themselves in it so no one could find them again. People whirled around, laughing, kissing. The beat of the music thumped in her chest, and everyone seemed oblivious to everyone else. As if they had all stepped into a world that existed only for them. Cole pulled her close, holding her waist, their hips moving together, and the warmth of his breath on her skin almost unglued her. Her hands slid up his chest, underneath his tailored tuxedo jacket, onto the flat planes of his stomach.

  “I wasn’t kidding,” he said, “when I said not to breathe the fog. It’s not like Crystalline.” His eyes were smoldering and glittery. “Neither are the drinks.”

  Kade glanced to her right and her left at the crowd surrounding them, all dressed similarly for the ball. Colorful masks covered faces, drinks spilled from glasses, smoke mushroomed in the air. Everyone was laughing and dancing with reckless abandon, and all, like the two of them, were swathed in the blanket of whitish fog. Like fairy land, she thought with a giddy smile.

  “We could leave,” he said, “if you’re not comfortable.”

  White plumes hung in the air like fluffy clouds, all the bubbles floating around them like fairies. The lights and the colors danced. Dreamy. She held his dark gaze. “I want to stay.”

  Cole grinned in a way he never had before. It set her nerves buzzing.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  The edge of his mouth tugged upward. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  He kissed her, hot lips grazing her mouth, scrambling her thoughts. Still kissing her, he steered them through the crowd, people knocking into them without a care as they went. Two winding staircases led off the palace ballroom, nestled in-between the tables bedecked with burning candles, champagne, and neon colored drinks. He led her up the stairs into a hallway, and they collided into each other. Cole's hands and lips were everywhere, his heart pounding against her chest, ragged breaths caressing her neck, her mouth.

  Unfastening the buttons on his tuxedo jacket, Kade shrugged it off, dropping it on the floor, and drew his mouth back to hers. She unbuttoned his dress shirt, hands running all over the ridges on his hard stomach, and felt him shudder. They’d been through so much—too much—and she wanted him. All of him. Unlike all the other times Cole had slowed her down when they’d made out, pulled away, he only pulled her closer now, breathing her in with every kiss, every touch. She could taste the pain on his lips—the knowledge of what he thought he’d almost lost, but had hung onto with everything he had, and every motion, every breath, told her he wanted only her.

  Gazing down, pupils blown black, breaths racing, his hand rested on the back of her dress near the zipper. His expression asked a simple question: yes or no. Kade kissed him, and he moaned against her mouth, and unzipped her dress Reaching, she tried to turn the knob of a door a few paces from them, they were in a hallway, after all, but it was locked. Cole grinned and sent a tiny bolt of electricity into the key hole. The lock clicked, and Kade tugged him into a dark room.

  Chapter 30

  Cole couldn’t get enough. And he knew he needed to stop. Had to stop. Kade pulled him into the room—another ballroom, he thought, but much smaller than the one they’d just left. There were round tables full of folded linen tablecloths and a small raised stage. He’d told himself enough times that he wanted the first time with Kade to be right. But she smelled so good, and his thoughts were so rambled—the sweet taste of grape on her tongue only drew him in. Her skin was soft under his touch, and he couldn’t stop kissing her, especially when her hands were all over him and she kept undoing buttons everywhere.

  The back of her gorgeous dress was unzipped, and it was taking everything in his power not to rip the front of the bodice down. He wanted everything to be the way he’d imagined, and being under the influence of a drug fog wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. Kade smiled against his mouth, tugging on the waist of his dress pants, and Cole couldn’t think anymore.

  They made their way toward a row of chairs with padded seats crammed side by side, and Kade yanked his shirt off, her hands tracing the scars across his back. The bodice of her dress came down, Cole’s hands explored her stomach, her ribcage, the lace trim of her bra. She unbuckled his belt, and he stopped her. It took all the willpower he had left.

  “Kade,” he breathed like he’d been running, looking down at her, holding her hand in his on the belt of his pants, “if I wasn’t desperately in love with you, I’d have sex with you right here on the floor.”

  She gazed at him, bewildered.

  “But I am completely, desperately in love with you, and I’d rather we both be sober and possibly in a bed the first time.” He glanced around at their surroundings.

  Her breaths sped. “I am really hoping, at some point soon, we’ll be on the same page
with this.”

  He wrapped her in his arms. “At some point we will be.”

  The underground of Kade’s house was no better on the second trip. After searching the entire second floor, Danny wasn't all that surprised Dracon wasn’t there. He covered his mouth and nose with the collar of his shirt as he descended the dark steps into the laboratory below. Jake copied his movement the second Dan had shifted the washing machine in the laundry room and revealed the passageway below the house.

  “I met the guy,” Jake said, as they walked down the steps. “When I asked Kade to the dance, I came over and introduced myself. He was definitely off.”

  “Yeah, well, wait ’til you see what’s down here.” Danny flicked on the light, illuminating the wide open space underground, and Giselle gasped behind him. The room was empty. Spotless.

  “Not good,” Giselle said, and Danny heard her moonstone telums slide down her arms as she released them, holding both in her hands. Lindsey followed suit.

  “What?” Jake asked. “There’s nothing here.”

  “That’s the problem. There was.” Danny walked toward the far wall, trailing his hand along the surface. A distinct thump, like bass, vibrated under his palm. Glancing around the room, all the walls were solid, no entry or exit except for the stairs. “Check the walls,” he said, “the floors. There’s a gateway in here somewhere.”

  “There’s nothing down here,” Giselle griped. “Look around, Dan. It’s just a concrete shell.”

  Jake was already on the other side of the huge underground room, opposite Danny, trailing his hands over the concrete block. Lindsey followed suit beside her Alpha, and after a huff, Giselle began to scan the floor.

  “This is ridiculous,” she griped. “Who searches empty rooms?”

  “Cole does.” Danny stopped three-quarters of the way across the wall and looked up. Fluorescent tube lights lined the ceiling in two straight rows overhead, casting bright yellow light on the floor. The tip of one end was dark, as if a fuse was blown.