by Willa Okati
Praise for the writing of Willa Okati
The Finest Line 1: The Sighting
Magically entrancing; erotically titillating. The Sighting gives the reader all of the old world feel of kings, castles, and wizards combined with the enjoyment of sex and love we've come to anticipate in an erotic romance. A very enjoyable reading experience.
-- Sheri Gilmore, author of Hot House: Dante & Hayley (Loose Id)
With The Sighting, Willa Okati weaves an enchanting tale, filled with mages and soldiers; beautiful ladies and exiled princes; sea sprites and magical cats. Absolutely charming.
-- Stephanie Vaughan, author of Jumping the Fence (Loose Id)
Willa Okati has created an entrancing world in which to place her pair of former lovers who are forced to work together once again. But there's more than one pair of potential lovers to bring together, and many twists and turns in this delightful tale.
-- Jules Jones, author of Spindrift (Loose Id)
The Finest Line 1: The Sighting is now available from Loose Id.
THE BROTHERHOOD:
AMOUR MAGIQUE
Willa Okati
www.loose-id.com
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
* * * * *
This book is rated:
For substantial explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable (homoerotic sex).
The Brotherhood: Amour Magique
Willa Okati
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Loose Id LLC
1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-29
Carson City NV 89701-1215
www.loose-id.com
Copyright © August 2005 by Willa Okati
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.
ISBN 1-59632-157-1
Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader
Printed in the United States of America
Editor: Olivia Wong
Cover Artist: April Martinez
www.loose-id.com
Chapter One
The bass music of a really good dance club pounded like an electronic heart. Liam couldn’t escape it, not that he minded particularly. Once he was inside the doors, leaving the roar of traffic and rush of chattering passersby behind, it swallowed him up with the body of the rhythm, caught him in its pulsating beat until all he could hear was thump-thump-thump. Dancers, unable to help themselves, swung their arms and pumped their hips. They ground up against gorgeous leather-clad asses, tightly packaged cocks, and bare chests slick with sweat. The air was redolent of aroused men and the vital spark of humanity. Being there, Liam felt -- knew ... truly understood -- what it meant to be alive.
Like any physical body, there were bright and open surfaces ... and then there were the dark and hidden places.
Liam moved to one such spot on a small balcony overlooking the main dance floor, checking out the writhing and gyrating bodies below, every one of them weaving their life forces through the club like a tangle of blood vessels. He watched them dance, grope, everything but fuck to the pounding of the music, all as he sipped something toxically purple in a martini glass and waited. But not for long.
Silas Trichton, the owner of the club, appeared from a concealed doorway, nodded to the bartender up on the balcony, and waited for his glass of strong whiskey to appear with the deft and gentle touch the good server had. Just like the way magic should be. When his drink materialized at his elbow, he tipped two fingers to the apron-clad man who’d served it, took it in one hand, and went to greet the stranger on his private observation deck.
The man he’d come to meet -- Liam, Silas thought he was called -- glanced up at him, almost unconcerned at his approach, nodded once, and went back to gazing at the dance floor. Wondering what had him so fascinated, Silas looked down.
“Business as usual,” he said after a moment. “Good crowd for a Thursday night. Mostly college kids, though. Have to keep carding them, or so I hear.”
“You don’t say.” Liam sounded slightly amused, but his voice made Silas look at him with renewed speculation. It was a curious cocktail mix of several old-world accents infused with a taste of American flavor. “Why bother? They’ll get their strong drinks somehow. Speaking of which, I note you have a good Scotch, while I am drinking violet piss. Would there be a reason your ’tender served this noxious refreshment to me?”
Silas glanced at his bartender, who raised his shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “You’d rather have something stronger?” he ventured. “We can oblige. Murray, another single malt.”
They waited in silence for the highball glass to arrive, continuing to observe the dancers. “There,” the stranger said, pointing at two men, each with a hand down the back of the other’s tightly fitted pants. “Do you see? They make love with their hands, and no one notices. No one cares.”
Silas looked at the stranger oddly. “Yeah? You’re not a cop, are you?”
Liam laughed. “Hardly.”
“Well, they’re having a good time, aren’t they? From what you said on the phone, that’s what you were interested in seeing. Doing.” Silas paused. “And you, uh ... you offered up a pretty good price for the privilege, too.”
“Business later,” the stranger said, waving one slim hand. “Drinks first, to celebrate the start of a successful enterprise.”
“An enterprise? From what you said, this was gonna be a one-night --”
“Ah, drinks.” A refill for Silas and a fresh Scotch for the stranger came to rest near their hands, the peculiar purple drink vanishing. Murray nodded without saying a word and hurried back behind his bar. Silas eyed the retreating figure, idly tapping his fingers against his glass.
“I think you make one of my best employees nervous.”
“Are you aware of what I am?”
Silas nodded, rattling his ice cubes a little. “Incubus, you said. We don’t get too many of your kind around here.”
“Indeed. Then you are unaware, perhaps, that as an incubus, my power of enchantment is such that, regardless of a man’s taste, he will follow me at a mere crook of my finger.” He paused. “My cologne, do you like it? One whiff of this scent -- what you would call pheromones -- clinging to the curls in my hair, and a man’s cock will rise and swell. If he keeps his eyes on me, soon his body will scream for release.
“Unfortunately, unless I cloak myself, I have that effect.” Liam tipped his glass back to take a refined sip of strong whiskey. A wisp of his loose, dark bronze hair fell away from his face and back over one ear. “Murray cannot help but want me, you see. He wants me so much, he quakes behind his iron control and polished manners. He’d like nothing better than to throw me over his bar and fuck me blind -- or let me fuck him out of his mind. Either one ... or both.”
Silas blinked. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Here and now? I see no reason to.”
They fell silent for a moment, nursing their drinks. Silas shifted against the expensively padded railing of the balcony. Felt the start of an erection stirring in his own pressed trousers. If what Liam said was true, then Silas should have known what to expect from being near a creature like him -- you didn’t have one of the incubi, a son of Lilith, in a club like this without taking some chances.
Liam finished his drink and placed it neatly aside. “Another, if you please, and we’ll discuss details.”
“You sure you can handle it? You’re a small guy for someone so powerful.”
“I can handle my whiskey better than any man in this club, you included. Have no worries for me.”
“Your call, then.” Silas signaled for two more drinks. When they arrived, he took a sip from his, careful to go slowly. The steadily heating pulse of arousal and the strong Scotch flooding his veins combined to make him a little dizzy. “Okay. You said business, then?”
“Yes. Business.”
Silas waited. The incubus said nothing more. Silas shifted. “Do you want to tell me what kind of business you had in mind, maybe?”
“A proposition,” Liam said after a long draught of his whiskey. “I am involved with a certain ... group here in Charleston.”
“The Freaks? Vamps, wolves, fae, all those types? There’s plenty of ’em already here, just in human guise. Nights when we’re not having sex parties -- hey, you swear you’re not working for the PD? -- I keep the extradimensional rooms closed and the portals open for them to come in.”
The incubus laughed, a gentle, rocking sound timed to the rhythm of the bass. “Involvement with the police is the last thing I want, too, Silas. Rest easy on that matter. And, no, I am not involved with the ‘Freaks’ in this area. They tend to shy away from me.”
“Yeah? Funny. Usually, when we get an incubus in here -- you guys really are rare, you know, especially ones who like cock -- they get swarmed. Put out all kinds of aphrodisiac waves. Even if it’s not a party night, the place turns into one big orgy.”
“As it will soon tonight, if I do not finish this and take myself away.” The incubus dug into one pocket of his slim, form-fitting black jeans and fished out a small blue crystal dangling from a chain. “The price I promised if you would do business with me.”
Silas couldn’t help it. His eyes rounded. He licked his suddenly dry lips. “Is that for real?”
“Quite. One of Lilith’s Tears, shed when she was forbidden to copulate with a thousand demons a day.”
“Long days, back then.”
“You have no idea. I was born of an assignation that Lilith took great pleasure in. She has a ... soft spot for me.” Liam’s mouth tilted in a smile. “It’d be wise to cooperate with a man like myself, Silas.”
“Not that you’re a man. Technically.”
“Semantics.” Liam held the Tear out, letting it come gently to a rest in Silas’s palm. “It is yours, if you do what I ask.”
“If I mount this on the door above my club ...” Silas licked his lips again. “I’ll be a millionaire in less than a year. No gay man with a working cock would be able to stay away when there’s something like this drawing them in.”
The incubus inclined his head. “As you say.”
Silas narrowed his eyes in sudden suspicion. “What do you get out of it, then? This is worth a hell of a lot.”
“A trinket -- to me. But if it gets me what I want ...”
“And what do you want?”
The incubus fell silent. He let his head loll on his neck, rolling gently to the thump-thump-thump of the music. From the look of pure bliss on Liam’s face, Silas could guess he was savoring the pounding of blood and the throbbing of cocks. “I want a free, all-inclusive pass for the friends I spoke of,” he said at last. “One Saturday night of my choosing. Free access to any room, and nothing paid for out of their own pockets.”
“Saturday nights are Freak special nights. Gonna be werewolves, vampires, warlocks, fallen angels -- you name it. Every one of them here, looking for a hook-up.” Silas hesitated, torn. “Your friends, are they human?”
“As human as one can be in this day and age.”
“They might get into trouble on a Saturday, then.”
“Leave that to me.” The incubus turned to face him, all sparkling green eyes, maple-sugar curls, and a wicked white smile calculated to go straight to Silas’s dick. “Do we have an agreement? The Tear for a free pass for my friends?”
Silas swallowed. A Tear of Lilith ... He’d lusted after one of those for years. The ultimate in aphrodisiacs -- a real sexual magnet. Better than any charm he could buy on the Freak black market. Not like he hadn’t tried, but, well, he’d come to find out that money really couldn’t buy everything. You couldn’t purchase a Tear, or steal one. Tear thieves could count themselves lucky if all that happened was that various bits of their anatomy -- the best ones -- fell off. Tears had a mind of their own, but given freely as gifts, they tended to stay put. He’d never been lucky enough to have someone offer before.
With a Tear hanging over the door to his club, sending out a silent siren call that promised pure fucking and orgasmic bliss, he’d get new customers by the hundreds. Have to put up a fucking velvet rope. He didn’t know what Liam’s game was, but if the incubus felt like being generous, who was he to turn it down? And, hell, if anything happened, he could always say Liam had insisted on bringing his friends along.
“Deal,” he croaked, his hand closing over the crystal.
“Good. I’ll be in touch. Soon.” The incubus put his drink down, slipped his hands into his pockets, and turned to walk away, humming slightly in tune with the music.
“Hey, wait!” Silas raised his voice to call after him. “This group of friends have a name -- so I know they’re the ones we made a bargain for when you call?”
Liam turned to grin over his shoulder, another one of those heart-stopping, cock-swelling smiles that nearly made Silas stop breathing. “The Brotherhood,” he said lightly, before turning away.
Silas stared after the slim, lithe creature, straight out of legends, as he made way down the stairs from Silas’s private balcony. Wherever he walked, whomever he touched, the clubgoers began to thrash and grind ever more intensely, groping one another with wild abandon. He thought the incubus noticed, and watched him smile a time or two more before he reached the doors to the club, rested his hands on the phallus-shaped handles for a moment, inhaled, then slipped out into the night.
The club owner finished his own drink in thirsty gulps. Damn. Hot damn! He was set for life. All he had to do was play along with the incubus.
He’d do a good job of it, too. Liam’s “Brotherhood” would have the time of their human lives, even if they did visit on a Freak night ...
Chapter Two
Silence. Intense silence. Chilly air smelling of pine and citrus rushed through painfully neat rooms and corridors, whisking over nothing but bare furniture and knickknacks free of dust. Surfaces sparkled, yet had an opacity that lacked any élan vital. Solemn strains of a Beethoven requiem filled the air.
This was a place where happiness went to die.
In one room, though, a spark of life remained. A scented candle, fragrant with bayberry and red as blood, crackled to life in the semi-darkness. It passed from hand to hand, lighting taper after taper in a circle, until twelve flares of light burned brightly in the gloom. Each candle, held tightly or cautiously in a strong male hand, was lifted high in a circle as the men holding them glanced at one another, took a simultaneous deep breath, and chanted:
“Long live the Brotherhood. May our harmony and companionship be a beacon in the darkness of an unfriendly world. Let the Brotherhood bring light to the murky corners and sweep away the shadows of hostility.”
Again, they glanced at each other. Faint smiles lifted the corners of mouths plump and thin, narrow and wide.
“Here are the bylaws of the Brotherhood, long may they live. Act smart. Look cool. Share yo
ur prick, not your heart. Long live the Brotherhood!”
Smothered laughter broke out as all twelve men tilted their bayberry candles toward a vast central pillar and set its many wicks alight.
“So let it be done,” intoned the man in the position of leader. “So may it be.”
Silence filled the air for a long moment.
Then the doorbell chimed.
“Hot damn -- food’s here!” Micah, closest to the door, jumped up, shoved his candle into a holder, and, with a deft flick of a switch, turned the chandelier lighting on in the main room. “Who ordered tonight? David? What did you get -- Chinese or Thai?”
“Chinese,” David called as he put his taper into another holder, as did the other men. “Moo shu pork, egg rolls, wonton soup, sweet-and-sour chicken, beef with broccoli, sesame beef, General Tso’s, cashew chicken, lo mein --”
“Holy fuck, David! We’re not an army!”
“-- and dessert, too.” He blushed a little. “Well, you guys always say there’s never enough when someone else orders. I figured I’d get plenty.”
“Yeah, plenty of food, since that’s all you’re getting,” retorted Micah.
“Not nice,” Simon, their leader, rebuked, folding his hands. “And would you open the door before the nice delivery gentleman thinks we’re either crazy or not at home and goes away?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m on my way.” Micah smoothed his indigo silk shirt more neatly into his tight-cut jeans, ruffled a hand through his hair, and swung the door open. A delighted grin split his face. “Hwong Li! How did they know to send you? Was it just for me?”