Misery Happens

by Tracey Martin

I did as asked, my worry changing to confusion. “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

  Lucen didn’t answer, and his breathing was loud and jagged. Although Tom called my name, I didn’t move. Fear was chilling me in spite of the heat. What if Lucen had landed badly? Had Tom brought any medical supplies in that bag? What about Lucen’s protective charms—were they not working in here? We’d known there was a possibility that any charms we carried in might act strangely or not at all.

  Wetting my lips, I pushed a strand of stray hair from his cheek, and he grabbed my wrist. Hard. “Jess, I know you’re concerned, but I meant it when I said not to touch me. Please.”

  “Okay, okay.” He let go, and I retrieved my hand and sore wrist. Tom was glaring impatiently at me, and I scowled at him. “Just tell me if you’re okay.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  That wasn’t quite the same thing as “I’m fine”, but I got the sense that I wasn’t getting another answer. Reluctantly, I shuffled over to Tom.

  He handed me a generic magic-detecting charm, similar to the ones used around Gryphon headquarters. “The magic in here is definitely interfering. I’m not sure these will be any good. They’re too weak.”

  Indeed, the charms, which turned from green to red in response to magic, were glowing a pale pink already. Nevertheless, I strapped the one I was given around my neck, and Mitch did the same. “Will the main detector work?”

  If it didn’t, we had a serious problem. With no idea what the key we needed looked like or where it might be hiding, finding it could be impossible.

  “It seems to be.” Tom played with the dials, each of which controlled a different type of sensitive charm. It was far more powerful than the dinky single charm around my neck, but it required actual skill to use. Tom had described it to me as being like the scanners Gryphons used to detect magical residue in blood, only portable. “I’ll need to calibrate so it filters out the background noise.”

  He wandered away, leaving Mitch and me squatting by the supply bag. Mitch’s brow pinched with concern. “This is a creepy-ass place. Is he okay?”

  The he in question was clearly Lucen, who was finally moving, though slowly. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, but he was getting to his feet.

  I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  Lucen shuffled down the length of the dungeon-like room in a controlled, deliberate motion. When he reached an open cell, he swung the door open wider. Ancient hinges creaked, and the bars shuddered. With the cell opened like a dark maw, Lucen rested his forearms along the far wall.

  “I’m going to take a look around,” Mitch said, climbing to his feet. “Maybe I can find that key before Tom gets his gadget ready.”

  While Mitch wandered away to explore, I hesitantly approached Lucen. We were all dressed in our best attempt at battle-ready clothing, seeing as we didn’t know what to be ready for. For the Gryphons, Mitch and me, it was the sturdy but flexible uniform p-squad members wore into raids—some kind of magically enhanced material, both lightweight yet armored. Lucen hadn’t been offered such things by the Gryphons, so he wore clothes similar to what I’d seen other preds wear when they intended to fight—pants and a form-fitting jacket made of soft dragonhide. It offered the same basic protections with the added benefit of being incredibly sexy.

  The dark material also made it difficult to assess his body language in the dimly lit cell. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are you going to let me worry?”

  He twitched, still facing the wall. “Sorry, little siren. I don’t want to worry you. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m going to be useful in here.”

  Shouting from behind startled me, and I spun around before I could ask why. Holding my breath, I stayed back as Tom ran over to where the other two Gryphons were agitated about something.

  “Did you see that?” the woman asked in heavily accented English. “It was a dragon.”

  The other p-squad member shook his head. “No, it was too long, too low. A snake maybe.”

  “Oh, I do not like snakes,” Mitch said.

  “We’d better hope it’s just a snake,” Lucen muttered. “No telling what we might find.”

  Whatever it was, it had been too fast for anyone to see where it went. Turning away from the commotion, I started to ask Lucen what was going on again when the answer dawned on me—emotions.

  The fear I was sensing from Mitch and the others wasn’t having the effect on me I’d have expected. In fact, my magical energy reserves were not as juiced as they should be in general. Locked in here, I was cut off from the usual supply of human negativity, just as the demons had been for thousands of years. Obviously some hint must have been seeping through the open portal to have roused them, but if so, it wasn’t much. And if my magical batteries were running low, no doubt Lucen’s were doing the same. Possibly his were worse seeing as we’d never figured out how much negativity I needed to be around to survive.

  “You don’t have the energy. Shit.” I rested my shoulder against the wall next to him.

  “It’s not the energy. Between the five of you, I’m okay. It’s everything else.”

  I reached for him, and he flinched. Right. For some reason, he didn’t want me touching him. Damn it. “I’m not following.”

  “Going through the portal severed my addict bonds.”

  “Oh.” Oh. Thanks to Devon, I very much understood what happened to preds—satyrs in particular—who lost their addicts. No wonder Lucen was keeping his back to the group. Now that I knew to check, I could see a telltale bulge through his dark leather pants. All the lustful magic that he usually dispersed among his addicts was building inside him. “So you have plenty of energy, you’re just…”

  He winced. “Having a hard time concentrating, and it’s only going to get worse.”

  “I suppose ‘think of demon jokes’ isn’t going to help.”

  “Talking to you isn’t going to help.”

  I frowned and scooted a few inches down the wall, torn about what to suggest. I had no way to know whether Lucen’s bonds would simply reform when he returned to France, and I couldn’t imagine he had a clue either. Given what had been going on when we left, trying it could be even more dangerous for him. At least for the moment, no one was attacking us.

  We were unlikely to remain that lucky though. It sounded as if Tom had the magic detector ready, and the others were beginning to search the vicinity. I should join them, but that would mean leaving Lucen alone to cope, and I didn’t care much for that idea. This room went on and on. If I left his side, eventually we’d be separated, and he’d be vulnerable.

  That settled it. There was only one thing to do. I returned to his side and discreetly—I hoped—slipped my hand over that tempting bulge in his pants. He jerked at my touch. “Addict me.”

  “What? Jess, no.”

  His tortured expression was painful to see, though I wasn’t sure if it was caused by unhappiness at my suggestion or the agony of unfulfilled desire. But I knew which one I felt, and I cupped him harder. In this state, he didn’t need to purposely work any power on me to rile me up. I was getting seriously damp between the legs, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

  I pressed myself against him, and he moaned quietly. Unpleasantly aware of the voices down the cell block, I lowered my voice. “I’m serious. You can offload some of your tension on me. It’ll help better than sex alone, and I can handle it.”

  Lucen swore under his breath, and the color rose on his cheeks. “I appreciate the offer, but you alone aren’t going to be enough to make this manageable. Besides, it will interfere with your own ability to think straight, and we’re all relying on you and Mitch if the rest of us lose our minds.”

  I declined to remind him what had happened to me with the purple-skinned demon, distracted by the hard edges of his body and the potent scent he was giving off. The
re had to be a zipper on these pants of his. Why the hell couldn’t I find the zipper?

  My brain had taken a turn for the lascivious, and the damned demons and their key were having a hard time competing for my attention. I wanted to lick the thin sheen of sweat from his throat. Wanted to breathe in his skin and run my tongue over the stubble on his chin. The thought of the Gryphons noticing what was going on didn’t bother me half as much as it had a minute ago.

  I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and nibbled on his tender skin. Lucen shoved me against the wall, releasing my hand and grabbing my backside. The heat from his erection burned through my clothes. The fabric might be resistant to salamander fire, but it was helpless against satyr flesh. “This is a bad idea,” he murmured.

  “I told you, I can handle it. Dump what you need to on me. I can channel and release it.” I was fairly certain I could anyway. I’d been practicing how to control that sort of thing, and if I could do it with Claudius, I should be able to do it with Lucen.

  His mouth slammed into mine, stealing my breath. Our tongues met, and he struggled to take all he could from the kiss. I gave it gladly, desperate for more as a moan rose in my throat. My lips were sore when he let go, but my nerves were scorching. I wasn’t sure how I could be so wet when the air was so dry.

  “Release is definitely in order.” His grip on me tightened, and I closed my eyes in anticipation. “Are you sure about the rest of it?”

  “Oh gods, yes.” It occurred to me that even if the others were too busy to be aware of what was going on between us, Mitch would certainly be able to sense my lust. But Mitch had succumbed to being Lucen’s addict—temporarily—for the greater good as well. Surely he’d understand that our bad sex timing was all done in the task of saving the world.

  Then Lucen freed himself from his pants, and thoughts of Mitch and the fact that I wasn’t normally an exhibitionist died in my mind. I dropped to my knees and took him in my lips. As I did, I could sense Lucen’s cinnamon magic swirling around me, my mind becoming heavy with the onslaught of his power.

  The short burst of panic I’d always felt when Dezzi and Claudius had bonded with me never came. I trusted Lucen completely, wanted him utterly and welcomed his power. I was so high on him already and so lost in my lust, I barely noticed a difference when the bond took hold. My nerves sizzled, begging to be blown apart by his touch.

  But Lucen tensed and tugged my head away. He picked me up and carried me deeper into a rank but dark cell. “Channel it, Jess.”

  “I will. Soon.” I gasped, not thrilled to be wasting my mouth talking, and I clasped my hand around the length of him, craving more contact. “Give me this first.”

  Backed against the new wall, Lucen fought the complication of dealing with my utility belt so he could unbutton my pants. “This will be temporary. You’ll need to focus afterward, or I’m going to break the bond.”

  I wrapped my arms round his neck, entwining my fingers in his hair. “I know.”

  Not only was an addict’s relief fleeting, it was terribly unsatisfying. I came almost as soon as Lucen thrust into me, and I buried my mouth against his shoulder to keep from crying out. All the erotic energy in me was only weakly satisfied. Lucen couldn’t even pull out before I was ready for more.

  “Jess?”

  Damn it. Why was focusing so difficult? I could do it with Claudius’s bond. But you don’t like Claudius, the voice in my head reminded me. Maybe it makes a difference.

  Gritting my teeth, I gave Lucen a light shove because touching him certainly wasn’t making this easier. Then I pressed my hand to my bare abdomen and imagined I could feel the bond connecting us.

  It showed up easily in my mind, pale blue and silky ribbons that sang with power just as they had the time I’d practiced with him. Normally, such a bond showed most of the energy flowing toward Lucen with a scant amount heading my way, but Lucen was already helping me out as much as he was able. We weren’t quite at even flow, but it was closer than I’d ever been with anyone else.

  I sucked more power in, and the flow faltered in my imagination as more of the ribbons reversed course. My longing grew, but the sweet pain of the unfulfilled lust was muted under the influx of energy. My blood warmed, and I grew lightheaded.

  After channeling the immense magic of a pred as strong as Claudius, Lucen’s magic scarcely affected me the way it once would have. It was a good thing and indicative that my ability to contain power had grown as planned. But damn if I didn’t miss the overwhelming high that I used to get.

  Get moving, I told myself. I held my hand out as I’d practiced with Claudius and directed the power out through my fingers. I was careful in my aim and better with my control than I’d once been. The energy passed smoothly through me and struck the dirty floor. Grains of sand and other detritus shuddered with the impact then fell still.

  I kept my hand poised for a few more seconds to make sure the channel would hold when I stopped concentrating, then I lowered my arm. My nerves continued to tingle, but that was mostly ignorable. But was it enough?

  “Lucen?” I blinked a couple times to refocus my eyes.

  He buttoned his pants and exhaled slowly. “You’re draining me of energy, but it’s not too bad.”

  “But is it helping?” Realizing I was pantsless myself, I pulled mine up.

  “It’s muted. I’m better.” He paused for a moment. “It’s not so much like you’re taking the lust away, but you’re making it easier for me to ignore it.”

  I didn’t care what I was doing or why. Those were questions for people with a far greater understanding of magic than me. I only cared that he seemed better able to cope. It didn’t hurt either that I was feeling more energetic in the process. “Then let’s—”

  The ground trembled, and I fell into the wall. Lucen lost his balance too, and he tumbled forward, hitting the spot next to me. Outside the cell, I could hear chains rattling and raised voices. The rumbling stopped all at once, and the silence returned.

  Warily, I let go of the wall. “Earthquake?”

  “In something that’s not of earth?”

  I had no answer to that and was spared thinking of one because Mitch appeared in the cell opening. Breathing hard, he looked us both up and down, then politely turned away. “You both all right? What did you do?”

  Oops. I hadn’t finished buttoning my pants before the quake, and I quickly fixed that. My cheeks flushed, making me feel like an idiot since Mitch had to be well aware of what we’d done. “I aimed the power I channeled from Lucen at the ground, but that couldn’t have caused it. Could it?”

  “You did destroy Purgatory’s bar,” Lucen said.

  “Yeah, but…” I bit my lip. “I’ve gotten better at control.” After we left Devon’s apartment that night, I’d practiced with Dezzi and Claudius.

  “But we’re not in a normal space.”

  Mitch cast a cautious glance over his shoulder and seemed relieved that I’d finished buttoning up, which made two of us. “It might not have been you at all.”

  I didn’t like that idea any better than the suggestion that my power was acting weirdly in here.

  Head held high, as if emergency sex in a demon prison was totally part of the contingency plan, I strolled out of the cell. “I don’t suppose you found the key yet.”

  Mitch retorted with a snort. “Kassin’s picked up a promising reading with his gadget, and we’re ready to follow.”

  “Let’s do it.” I checked to make sure my weapons were where I expected them to be, and the three of us rejoined the others.

  The two p-squad members’ eyebrows shot up on seeing me. In their magical senses, I appeared as just another lust addict. Tom’s expression was more nuanced, but he didn’t look happy. Since I was bonded with Lucen, I couldn’t sense his emotions at all. That was probably for the best.

  “Where are we going?” I ask
ed, continuing to pretend nothing was up.

  Tom pointed in the direction opposite of where we’d come from. “It’s strongest this way, and stay alert. There’s no way to tell what exactly is causing these readings.”

  “So you could be leading us to the rest of the demons,” Mitch said.

  “Theoretically not.” Tom slung the pack over his shoulders. “These charms won’t detect preds. It’s the wrong sort of magic, but there could be other things in here.”

  We started walking with Tom in the lead, and I cast a glance back at the doorway. No one else had made it through. What did that suggest about what was going on the other side? Even if we found the key and Mitch or I figured out how to use it, would it matter? Were the Gryphons and magi able to finish what else needed doing to close the Pit?

  These questions made me nervous, and to calm myself, I focused on sensing the magic flowing from Lucen to me. For all my former fear of becoming an addict, there was something weirdly endearing about being attached to him this way. Sharing his power was the ultimate act of trust for both of us.

  Soon enough, the unsettling thoughts about what I’d left behind escaped my noticed as I became more curious about my never-changing surroundings. A fine layer of sandy dirt covered every surface, turning the world the same dusty brown. Light was provided by torches along the walls, and their flames flickered and danced unnaturally in the stagnant air. The shadows along the floor and in the cells shimmied with them. More than once, a wild shadow out of the corner of my eye made me gasp as I thought I saw a sign of life. But the strange creature the Gryphons had seen earlier didn’t make a reappearance.

  Interspersed with the cells and their formidable iron-barred doors were rows upon rows of metal shackles. They hung from heights that varied from shoulder-high to those barely inches off the ground, and a few had been yanked out of the wall with what must have been a frightening show of strength. Of those, some showed rusty patches that, on closer inspection, weren’t rust at all but blood splotches peeking out from under the grit.

  Both the cell doors and every cuff of every pair of shackles had a chunk missing, a random spot where the metal seemed to have evaporated in a clean line. The first two times I saw it, I thought the missing pieces were an anomaly or a trick of the light. But after finding the same pattern on everything, we stopped to investigate more closely.