Uninvited (Etudes in C# Book 3)

by Jamie Wyman

  Pain shot up through my left foot as Marius stamped on it. I hissed, roared in protest and slugged Marius in the shoulder. “Quit that!”

  Still, Malcolm’s images dissipated. The whispers went silent, and the world returned to its normal upright position.

  “Stop it, Malcolm,” Marius barked.

  Though he slipped his booted foot away, Marius pressed his thigh against mine, a constant presence. I shifted uncomfortably, but his knee followed the movement and held the contact.

  Taking deep breaths and sipping at my water, I tried to convince my body that my mind was full of shit. But desire still coursed beneath my skin, and I wondered if I’d have to resort to pouring the whole pint of water over my lap. No matter that Malcolm’s stare went straight to my pink parts, I’d long since vowed to avoid romance with the nonhuman types.

  “So,” I said, “this is…fun? Is this what satyrs usually do on holidays? Have family time at the nudie bar?”

  “I’m not here for a reunion.” Marius glared at his brother. “What do you want, Malcolm?” he spat.

  “You need to come home, Marius.”

  Though it flashed quicker than a snake’s strike, fear stung my friend’s eyes for an instant. When he spoke, his voice was hard and dry. “Why?”

  “Father’s request.” Malcolm flicked his eyes to me, then narrowed his gaze. “Family matters.”

  I looked from one brother to the next, trying to read the air between them and figure out what the hell was going on. Marius tightened his fingers around my wrist, his grip fierce and damp.

  Marius was incredulous “Father’s request?”

  “Is he ill?” I asked.

  Malcolm waved me off. “Nothin’ like that, love. The man might be as ancient as the missionary position, but he’s spry as ever.”

  “Then what is so urgent, Mal,” Marius said, “that he would send you to fetch me?”

  “How the fuck should I know? The old man said to collect you, and that’s what I’m here to do. You might’ve run off to play with your Greeks, but I stayed near the homestead like a good son.”

  Marius began to protest, but the other satyr struck again. “When was the last time you bothered to so much as call your own father? I know you’ve no love for me, and that’s fine, but to turn your back on the man that sired you is lower than shit. He needs you to come home. Does it matter why? Don’t ask. Just do as the man says.”

  And I thought my Thanksgiving dinners were guilt trips from Hell.

  With a heavy sigh, Marius pinched the bridge of his nose as weariness drew lines across his face. “Fine,” he conceded. “But I’ve got some business to tie up here first.”

  Malcolm leered at me. “Do you need help tyin’ her up?”

  “No one is tying me up,” I said sharply.

  “Are you sure?” Malcolm asked. “’Cause I can promise you a night of delectable sex. A few strands of silk in the right places and you’re powerless. All you can do is lie back and enjoy as I devour you…slowly. Pleasing you. Tasting every inch of you. And I won’t stop until your legs are shaking and each and every single one of your neighbors knows my name.”

  I blinked, weighing the offer. “Now why didn’t you ever try a line like that with me, huh?” I chided with a hard glance at Marius.

  He rolled his eyes. The door opened, and a very male, very pissed-off Loki entered the room

  “Just once,” he simmered, “I’d like a day when nothing goes wrong. And here I thought Miss Sharp would be my lucky charm where that was concerned.”

  I snorted with laughter. “I never said I was good luck.”

  “No shit.” He flip-flopped his way to the coffee table and retreated to a sofa with an entire bottle of vodka.

  Malcolm lifted a finger in protest. “I was going to have some of that.”

  “You weren’t,” Loki snarled. “You were going to leave before I rip off your nutsack and use your balls for ice cubes.”

  Malcolm hopped up from his seat and bounded for the exit. “Meet you downstairs, brother mine.”

  The door clicked shut behind him. With a sizzle and a gleam of glittering fractals, frost climbed the bottle of vodka. Loki took a long, hard gulp. “Marius, I can’t help you. Not in the way you want.”

  “More good news,” my friend muttered. “And why not?”

  Loki’s scowl darkened. I tried to scooch away so that I wouldn’t get hit by the inevitable lightning bolt, but Marius maintained contact with me, inching over to compensate for the most minuscule of my movements.

  “What do you possibly think you can offer me?” Loki asked.

  “What I’ve always offered and willingly given: Theft. Inside information on other factions. Protecting your various—” his voice trailed off as he turned his eyes to me “—interests.”

  “That was all well and good when you weren’t on every pantheon’s most-wanted list. What made you so valuable before was that only a scant few knew the reach of your sticky fingers. How do you expect to be an infiltrator of any sort when everyone knows they can’t trust you?”

  “Use me as an assistant, then,” he said. The edges of Marius’s calm had long since worn away, so much so that his voice began to tremble and rise as he continued. “Eris did it for quite some time. I’ve got contacts all over town—mundane and otherwise—and I can make certain that—”

  “That no one ever trusts me,” Loki interrupted. “Really, Marius, you’re smarter than this. You know the way this town works, the way I work.”

  “I’ll lie low for a bit. Toss a good glamour on me so I’m out of sight. Let all the hullabaloo die down, and then I can come back better than ever. No one need know I wear your mark until you’re ready to make it known.”

  Loki slammed the bottle down. “I have no use for you!”

  Thick tension snapped in the room with electric ferocity. Even the sound of the club seemed far away as Loki’s anger flared. His gas-flame eyes held no mirth, no joy or mischief. Fury ebbed off him in frosty waves.

  Beside me, Marius went stock-still, every muscle tensed and poised for action.

  “You were good,” Loki simmered. “One of the best spies around. Your greatest gift, though, was your ability to fly under the radar without anyone suspecting you were more than just a hedonistic, lecherous satyr. You blew it.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You blew it! You got greedy. Sloppy. You let something cloud your judgment, and you fucked up. You spread yourself too thin, and she caught you. And now the whole game is ruined. You are too great a risk to be a piece on my board.”

  Marius’s shoulders sagged, and his head fell forward. Those luscious waves of black hair tumbled around his face like a dark curtain. My heart lurched. I wanted to reach out to him, to comfort my friend. I wanted to smack him, too, but that was normal for our state of affairs.

  I did neither. Instead, I looked to Loki with a silent plea.

  “Don’t you start,” he warned. “You’ve gotten yourself involved in his mess, and now I stand to lose two of my greatest assets in one move. Eris couldn’t have planned a better coup if she’d tried.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but the god silenced me with a hard look. My mind raced, looking for another option, any way that Loki would see Marius as a boon rather than an unholy burden. But at every twist, I came up to a blank wall. Loki was right. Marius had been skilled at subversion, at aiding tricksters in their grand machinations. He no longer had the luxury of anonymity, though. The satyr was in the spotlight and no longer any good for subterfuge. All the credit Marius had built over the centuries had crumbled like a house of cards.

  “Are you going to turn me in?” Marius asked, voice humble.

  Loki leaned back and took another drink. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”

  I gasped. “What? You can’t!”

  “It’s the only way I gain anything in this clusterfuck,” he admitted. “But no, Marius. I will not hand you over. Sure, your head would probably fetch a lov
ely bouquet of favors, riches, and secrets to add to my personal stash, but there are a few problems with that solution, as well. The least of which,” he added, “is that my personal ace in the hole would never forgive me. Isn’t that right, Cat?”

  I narrowed my gaze. Ace in the hole? Now what the hell was Loki planning for me?

  “No,” Loki said after a long swig from the vodka bottle. “I can’t do much to protect you, my friend, but I won’t turn you in. I do that and Eris wins. That’s inexcusable.”

  I snorted with appreciation. “Give her hell, Boss.”

  Loki ignored me. “I am, however, in an awkward position. I can’t help you two directly—to do so would be to declare a side and open myself up to scrutiny or even outright attack. I have to keep myself neutral where Marius is concerned.

  “As for you,” he continued, jabbing a finger at me. He started to speak but choked on his anger. His lips worked, his jaw tightening as he tried to choose his words. Finally, he just let out a frustrated grunt and dragged a hand through his strawberry-blond spikes. “Fuck, Cat, why did you have to get yourself involved in this?”

  Now it was my turn to hang my head. Why couldn’t I have been like Flynn? Why did I have to give a damn about what happened to Marius? When we found him on my doorstep I could’ve just kicked the bastard in the shins and stepped over him rather than take on all this bullshit.

  “Look.” Loki sighed. “The city is going to start filling up with your enemies very quickly, Marius. You’ve got a short amount of time on your side to retain some small glimmer of surprise. It won’t last long, though. Enough people know your connection to Cat that she’ll soon be drawing attention of her own while they look for you.”

  “So we’ll get out of town,” I offered.

  Loki shook his head. “They’ll follow.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might be willing to take him on? Someone who can protect him?”

  My boss laughed ruefully. “Sure! The Morrigan is always looking for a fresh body to throw into battle.”

  I winced. I’d heard of the goddesses, but I’d been lucky enough to never set eyes on the Morrigan before. A trio devoted to war and strife, they were a bloody business.

  “I’m no soldier,” Marius spat. “Nor am I a sacrifice.”

  “Those are your primary options at this point, my friend,” Loki said.

  Marius rose to his feet. “I think it’s time I was on my way, then. Thank you for taking the time to see me, Aesir.”

  Loki waved off the ceremonial title and swung the bottle to his lips. “Fuck off, Marius. And take her with you. She’s the best thing you’ve got going for you right now. And the worst.”

  “Hey!” I stood up, hands on my hips and ready to argue.

  “Don’t get my technomancer killed,” he warned Marius, “or I will skin you myself.”

  Marius gave a weak salute and started for the door.

  “Cat,” Loki barked after me, “don’t forget your birthday present.”

  He tossed me a large jewelry box. “If this is your idea of a proposal,” I said, eyeing the black velvet, “it sucks. The rock is probably huge, though.” I popped the lid, revealing a silver cuff bracelet. It was about as wide as my thumb. The plain metal gleamed in the light.

  “Wow,” I said, genuinely surprised. Delicate, yet striking, the bracelet was just my style. I slipped it over my wrist where its cool weight felt perfectly at home. “Thanks! Oh, by the way, since I’m going to be helping him, I’m going to need some time off from the day job.”

  He pawed at the air lazily, his hooded eyes drifting away from me. “You’re fired. For two weeks. With pay. Now get the hell out.”

  Marius breezed past me and opened the door. He looked back at me. “You coming?”

  I waved to Loki. “Later, Boss.”

  Loki’s form melted, and Candy draped herself over the sofa. His hands lingered over those ginormous boobs before he gave me a wiggle of his fingers. “Ta, kiddies.”

  Marius slammed the door and stalked away. I stood gaping at the closed skybox. “Gods are weird.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Easy to Crash”

  When I caught up with Marius downstairs, he was brooding. Again. His dark eyes swept over the booze-soaked crowd. Sapphire’s patrons enjoyed the floorshow from their plush armchairs clustered around tiny tables, the indigo atmosphere split in incoherent patterns of bright white and illicit red. Music thumped and pumped, drums driving against pealing guitars in an industrial orgy of sound, fury, and lust. If I let my senses relax into it, the life of the club would seep into each of my pores and coax me to the same sinuous motions demonstrated on the stage. Sapphire was alive and spoke to me in primal ways.

  Near the stage, the bachelor party I’d seen earlier let out a series of particularly canine whoops. Wolfish whistles pierced the air as a lithe, silver-clad dancer lowered herself onto the lap of…

  “There’s the bastard now,” Marius sneered.

  Malcolm had ingratiated himself with the partiers, sitting among them as if he were not a stranger but the guest of honor. They seemed to love him, and why wouldn’t they? With his satyr skills, money was no matter. A cigar in one hand, a small glass of amber in the other, and a gyrating woman in his lap, Malcolm was the picture of hedonistic joy.

  I followed Marius as he cut a chilly path through the audience. Malcolm threw his head back with raucous guffaws of laughter. When he opened his eyes, I thought for a moment that they reflected the pervasive blue light of the club. As I stared, though, I could see that the blue of his irises was too deep. The air around him shimmered and twisted as his spell reached out and around the girl in his lap. The dancer rocked with the music, her lips parted in a pout as she rode the satyr. The men around him lifted their voices in a chorus of congratulations.

  “Mal!” Marius barked.

  “Right here,” he said, never taking his eyes off the stripper. “Come on over, Marius, and I’ll buy you a round before we go.”

  As I neared the table, the air felt thicker, and not just with the density of body heat and energy ebbing off the audience. I could feel Malcolm’s magic spreading out from him. Tendrils of desire slid up my skin, and I sucked in a breath.

  Those ultramarine eyes flashed to me. Illusory tendrils became groping fingers, silken whispers in my mind. Just listening to his inaudible suggestions left me quivering and glistening with sweat.

  Malcolm’s lips curled into a wicked promise. “’scuse me, lads,” he said as he shoved up from the table. “I’ll leave you to your appetizers. I’m off for the main course.”

  Marius snatched my hand. “No.”

  “Whatever. I’ll have a shag with this one sooner or later. You’ll have to leave her alone sometime, brother mine. I don’t see why you’re so against the idea, anyway. Clearly you’ve no interest in her; otherwise you’d have tagged her already and I’d be no threat to you.”

  “Hello!” I said with a wave of my hand between their faces. “I’m not deaf, dumb, and blind, so you can both stop being asshats. You,” I snapped at Malcolm, “will not be having a shag, or anything else, with me. So quit it with the Jedi Mindfuck before I junk-punch you right in the man business.”

  Softening my voice, I turned to Marius. “And you.” I wrenched my hand free of his. “Quit playing the white knight. I hate that shit, and it doesn’t suit you.”

  “You don’t know him,” Marius protested.

  Mal slid closer, his whiskey-laced breath hot on my cheek. “But you could know me. That’s an invitation.”

  I palmed his face and shoved him away. Putting my back to him, I pulled Marius down so that he could hear me over the pounding music. “So now what?”

  “Now what?” he snarled. “Loki wants nothing to do with me and my bastard brother has turned up.”

  “And is trying to fuck me with his satyr mojo,” I added helpfully.

  Marius rolled his eyes. “Please, he does that to everyone.”

  “Way to make
a girl feel special.”

  Ignoring me, Marius continued to spiral into a misanthropy that would’ve made Eeyore look downright giddy. “As if there wasn’t enough going on, now Father sends Mal to collect me and I have to keep him out of your trousers. What next? Perhaps I should just walk outside and let the nearest hellhound tear me apart.”

  I tugged his hair hard enough to make him wince. “Will you stop with this shit? Did some of the goth from Flynn’s hand-me-downs seep into your blood or something?”

  “I'm being realistic.”

  “You’re being a whiny little bitch.”

  Marius hissed and looked away, but I knew I had him on the ropes. I grabbed his face in both my hands and forced him to look me in the eyes. I didn’t break my stare when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Come on, Marius. Think. You had to know that Loki might turn you away. I know you. What’s the plan?”

  For an instant—no longer than a flash of the spastic lights—fear and sadness gleamed in Marius’s eyes. Then there was rage. “I don’t know,” he growled. “I don’t know what to do or where to go from this goddamn club, all right?”

  I softened my grip on his cheeks and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “You don’t get into a situation without plotting at least three ways out. What were you planning to do after this?”

  Marius closed his eyes and swallowed hard. His forehead creased, and deep furrows appeared around his mouth as he concentrated. I kept my hands on his temples, a gentle, constant touch to help ground him. I felt his weariness like a leaden gray shroud over my own soul.

  “I’m scared,” he whispered. Over the din of the music and crowd, I almost missed it, but the words were there. Again, the fingers tapped my shoulder.

  Without taking my attention from Marius, I snapped, “Not now!” Lowering my voice so that only the satyr would hear me, I said, “I’m scared, too.”

  He opened his eyes. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “What are you afraid of, Catherine?”

  The familiar dread and panic flexed around my sternum, squeezing the breath from me and closing my throat. From the moment I met Marius, I had feared him. He was part of that strange, horrifying new world of treacherous faeries and sadistic goddesses. Marius was other, inhuman. When I had learned his nature, I’d steeled myself against him, suspicious that he might sap my will with his slippery magic. Over time, though, those fears had changed. I didn’t worry that he would seduce me, but that my own heart would betray me and throw itself on his sword. I was terrified not that he would leave me in the heat of battle again, but that some dark creature from the bowels of Hell would swallow him out of my world forever.