Shades of Wicked

by Jeaniene Frost

  I tightened my one-armed grip on Silver. Then Ian and I shot into the air. We couldn’t go high, though, as we were still beneath the overpass.

  “If you don’t stop, Ian, I will stop you!” Bones shouted. He and Cat had flown right after us.

  Power squeezed me in the next instant. Dammit! Bones’s telekinesis was as strong as I’d thought it was. He must have used more on Ian than me because Ian dropped like a stone. Only my quick grab kept him from falling into the crowd. Worse, the demons had almost reached us. One leap and they’d be able to pull us down. And my magic wouldn’t work on them. Like trueborn witches and warlocks, they were immune.

  But Cat and Bones weren’t. I threw a spell that exploded like a flash-bang grenade in front of them. It startled them enough for Bones’s power to slip. When it did, Ian and I hurtled toward the other end of the overpass. We’d barely touched the open sky when that viselike power slammed both of us again.

  We fell with a thud just meters from the end of the bazaar. Now, I couldn’t move at all. Neither could Ian. Even Silver seemed frozen in my arms. A nearby whoosh had to be Cat and Bones coming for us. We needed a massive distraction to break free, but I couldn’t hurt Cat or Bones. I also didn’t want to hurt anyone at the bazaar. What, then?

  The river! I focused on it and pulled with all of my will, but I didn’t just yank power from the water this time. I tore thousands of liters of the river itself free, then hurled it all at Cat, Bones and the demons who were almost upon us.

  The water slammed into them, flinging them in different directions. It also tore through part of the bazaar, scattering booths and people alike, though I tried to limit its damage there. As soon as I felt Bones’s hold on me crack again, I lunged toward Ian, but he was already reaching for me.

  We surged into the sky, Silver shaking the water off his feathers like an angry duck. I felt Bones’s power grab us again, but we were too far away for it to stop us. I flung a stronger flash-bang spell in his direction and that invisible pressure vanished. There were drawbacks to a vampire’s supernaturally enhanced eyesight and hearing, namely making flash-bang spells that much more effective.

  Even temporarily blinded and deaf, I wasn’t worried about leaving Cat and Bones with the two demons. Not with how lethal they were. That’s why I would have been glad for their help with Dagon. If the demons at the bazaar tried anything, they’d be dead too fast to regret it.

  “Head east!” I shouted to Ian, flying faster.

  He kept pace with ease. Soon, we were too far away for Bones’s power to reach us. If Cat and Bones did extricate themselves from the river mess in time to give chase, I wanted us to be close to more water so I could use its power to stop them. There was an entire ocean on the other side of New Jersey. That was more than enough.

  Chapter 32

  Later, we watched whitecaps froth on the ocean from a private residence near the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The homeowners hadn’t intended for their house to become an Airbnb, but while we had lots of cash, we didn’t have new identification. Plus, a hotel would also be the first place Cat, Bones, or the demons would look for us, not to mention hotels weren’t demon proof. So, after a few flashes from Ian’s gaze and a generous amount of spending money, the husband and wife decided to take an impromptu weekend vacation.

  I was tired after the fiasco at the bazaar. This had been a very long day, but we still had work to do. Our bags from the bazaar were spread across the living-room couch. Silver lay next to them, his wings folded around his head until only the tip of his nose was visible. He’d fallen asleep after a large meal of sautéed vegetables. For Silver, the night was over. For us, it might be just beginning.

  “I suppose we should start doing prep work on the spells,” I said with a sigh.

  “Or,” Ian said in a smooth tone, “you could tell me why you neglected to mention that you’re telekinetic in addition to your other abilities.”

  Of course he wouldn’t leave the events at the bazaar alone. “I’m not telekinetic,” I began.

  “You’re claiming the river suddenly became sentient and had an uncontrollable urge to go shopping?”

  I ignored his sarcasm. “Telekinetic vampires can use their powers on anything. I can only manipulate water, and this ability has nothing to do with my being a vampire.”

  Interest gleamed from Ian’s gaze. “Go on.”

  I spread out my hands. “That’s it. My other nature allows me to draw power from water and also move it around short distances. Nothing else.”

  “When’s the last time you tried to do something else?” At my pause, his mouth curled knowingly. “That’s what I thought.”

  “You don’t understand.” Now my voice was quiet. “My other nature is”—Dangerous. Uncontrollable. Possibly heartless. “Unpredictable,” I settled on. “So, I keep it locked away, but like anything in a cage, it can poke its fingers through.”

  His brows went up. “Your abilities with water are what happens when you pull on your other nature’s metaphysical fingers?”

  It almost sounded like a fart-joke analogy, but whatever. “In short, yes.”

  He came closer. “Have you ever considered that you’re being irrationally fearful of your other half?”

  I gave him a pointed look. “You’ve seen my father. Tell me there’s anything irrational about fearing that.”

  “Valid point,” he said, giving me a quick grin. Then, surprisingly, he reached out and began to undo the remaining buttons on my jacket. Talk about a change of topic.

  I caught his hand. “I, ah, don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Not bored of me already, are you?” His accompanying chuckle said he knew the answer was no.

  I gave a meaningful glance around. “All this stuff is very breakable unless I hold back, and you don’t prefer that.”

  “I don’t,” he said at once.

  “And it wouldn’t be right for us to trash this couple’s house,” I added, in case that hadn’t occurred to him. We’d already left quite a trail of destruction in our wake.

  He traced a finger over the belt in my slacks before unbuckling it and slowly drawing it free from the loops. “There are other ways we can both be satisfied.” He pulled the belt free and circled it around my wrists. “Repeatedly.”

  I laughed despite my instant surge of desire. “You know a belt won’t be enough to restrain me.”

  He leaned down, his mouth brushing mine as he tightened it on my wrists. “An ordinary one? No. One infused with magic? Yes.”

  A tingle went through me before it was muted by echoes that still managed to reach me even through four and a half millenniums. “I’m not sure about trying that.”

  He leaned back enough to look at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never mixed sex with bondage before?”

  “Not willingly,” I said with a note of grimness.

  He took the belt off my wrists at once. “If I’d have known, I never would have held you down last night.”

  I let out a soft sniff. “If I hadn’t wanted that, I would have stopped you. I can still freeze time, remember?”

  “Yes.” His voice deepened. “But you don’t need a spell. Saying no will do, unless you’d prefer another safety word.”

  “I don’t know any.” My tone turned wry. “I’ve never needed one before. The few times I lost control with people when I was young, I knew to stop when I heard screams followed by variations on ‘arrgh, my back, my back!’”

  His chuckle rolled over me with the same effect as a potent intoxicant. “Good thing I heal almost instantly and I love it when you’re rough, so no fears of that with me.”

  I looked down at the belt hanging loosely in his hand. Did I trust him enough to bind me? I had no doubt he’d use a strong-enough magic to make the ties unbreakable.

  He saw where I was looking and tossed the belt aside. “Forget that. There’s an entire beach outside. Not even you can do irreversible damage to sand.”

  I glanced out the window. Moonligh
t now touched upon the water, giving it a lovely, silvery glow. But there was also snow, an icy wind, and more importantly, the knowledge that I’d be letting ancient wounds restrain me more than magical ties ever could.

  He started to propel me outside, but I stopped him. “Wait,” I said. “Pineapples.”

  He shrugged. “Not the first fruit I’d pick to add into sex, but if that’s what you fancy—”

  “Not that.” I shook my head at the thought, then retrieved the belt he’d thrown aside. “My safety word.” I held his gaze as I placed the belt in his hands. “I want it to be ‘pineapples.’”

  He didn’t ask if I was sure, which I was glad about. I didn’t want to be questioned as if I didn’t know my own mind. All he said was, “How far do you want to go with this?”

  I considered that. “No beatings, humiliation, or insults.” Some people might enjoy that, but I didn’t. “And since I’m not sure if I’ll like bondage, keep it vanilla, as they say.”

  His eyes started to change, bright emerald replacing their island-shallows color. “Anything else?”

  “We put Silver in another room.” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t want him watching us again.”

  His laugh was a low, anticipatory sound. “Is that it?”

  “No.” This hadn’t come up before, but I wasn’t about to leave it to chance. “No one else except the two of us.”

  Something flashed in his eyes, gone faster than the brief illumination from a lightning strike. “Vanilla or no, I intend to spend all my energy on you, so neither of us will have anything left for anyone else.”

  With that, he yanked me close, his mouth covering mine while his hands did absolutely wonderful things to my body. Tomorrow, I’d worry about how much I felt when I was in his arms, but right now, I just wanted to feel more of it.

  “Now,” he murmured against my lips. “Let’s get started.”

  Chapter 33

  I was in the bedroom, my hands tied behind my back with the belt that now felt stronger than the mythical vibranium. I was still wearing my clothes, which surprised me because whatever Ian had in mind, nakedness would be required at some point. I also wasn’t on the bed, but that was less of a surprise. Ian seemed to find beds too limiting during sex.

  He’d left me here while he went downstairs to do . . . something. I was tempted to see what it was, but when I tried to move, I realized the belt wasn’t the only thing he’d spelled. I could move my legs to shift position and stretch them, but I couldn’t walk. I tried to hop next. It didn’t work. I could bounce in place, but I couldn’t move forward or backward.

  He’d only been gone a couple minutes, but I began to feel uneasy. What if I’d made a colossal mistake letting him render me essentially helpless? As his friends had repeatedly pointed out, we hardly knew each other. I might feel like I could trust him, but I of all people knew the treacherousness of someone caught in a demon’s deal.

  What if he’d maneuvered me into getting trussed up so he could deliver me to Dagon? Ian knew how much the demon hated me. He could probably negotiate better terms on his deal from Dagon or be released from it entirely if he presented me to the demon like a wrapped-up gift. And I’d deserve all of Dagon’s laughter for falling right into such a trap.

  “Here we are,” Ian said, coming back into the room. In one hand, he held a mixing bowl containing different cooking utensils, of all things. He tutted when I craned to see what was in his other hand. “No peeking or you’ll spoil the surprise.”

  “It better not be a summoning spell.”

  My voice was low, but he heard it. His gaze narrowed as he set down everything he’d been holding and came over.

  “I’d say I was insulted,” he bit out, “but since I have set other people up in similar ways, that would be hypocritical.”

  I felt even more uneasy now. The word pineapples hovered on my lips, not that it would do any good if my fears were founded. Ian let out a harsh sound as he stared at me.

  “Don’t bother with the safety word. I’m well past being in the mood now.” Then his fingers executed a complicated set of swirls and the belt fell from my hands. “And for the record, if I had been intending to betray you to Dagon, I wouldn’t have chosen a private residence he couldn’t enter. I also wouldn’t have left you alone long enough to consider that this was a trap, and I wouldn’t have used a summoning spell. You’d only thwart me by freezing time when you saw it. But if I sliced off that warding spell while shagging you from behind, you wouldn’t notice what was happening until it was too late.”

  Everything he said made so much sense, I winced. “Yeah, that’d do it.”

  Even so, I couldn’t help myself; I tested my arms and legs. They moved as normal and relief swamped me, followed instantly by guilt as Ian turned on his heel and left.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, hating how inadequate those words were as I hurried after him. “I don’t know why I said that—”

  “Because you were thinking it,” he threw over his shoulder. “You desire me, but beneath that, you still consider me to be a lying, manipulating killer. You’re half right. I do lie and manipulate and kill, but I only do it to other liars, manipulators, and killers. I don’t harm those who’ve never harmed me, and it’s not my fault that that list has precious few names on it.”

  “Your friends and your dossier say otherwise.” It flew out before I could stop it. Then I was so appalled, I slapped my hand over my lips as if I could force the words back.

  He whirled so fast, I ran into him. “Your precious dossier,” he said in a blistering tone. “Did it tell you Cat murdered my longtime friend and very nearly killed me the day we met? Yet I didn’t repay her as she deserved. I merely kidnapped her mates and blackmailed her over them. Wouldn’t even have done that had Crispin been honest with me about her. I gave him every freedom while he was under my line, and how did he thank me? By betraying me in front of both our lines. He’s right; if he’d simply told me he loved Cat, I wouldn’t have come between them. I would have found a gentler way to avenge my fallen friend.”

  “What about Spade?” I asked in a much softer tone.

  A scoff. “Even two hundred years can’t diminish Baron DeMortimer’s inherent snobbery. He still sees me as a conniving commoner, so that’s how I treat him over small, insignificant matters. But when he needed help taking down a Red Dragon dealer after Denise, or when he was possessed by a bloody demon controlling his every action, I was there for him.”

  “And Mencheres?” I almost whispered.

  He looked away. “He’s frequently given me the rough edge of his tongue, and I can’t count all the instances he’s put me in his telekinetic version of ‘time out.’ But he’s always stood by me. That’s why, when I saw Vlad murder him, I summoned Dagon and sold my soul in order to bring Mencheres back.”

  Shock hit me. Yes, a video of Vlad supposedly murdering Mencheres had circulated on the Internet, but it had been debunked almost immediately. “You believed that was real?”

  Ian’s mouth twisted. “I was there. Didn’t find out it was a sham until after I dealt away my soul. Dagon had a grand laugh telling me how I’d sold it for nothing, because the bloke Vlad beheaded was only glamoured to look like Mencheres. But you know demon deals. No backsies, even if you’ve been tricked.”

  My shock ebbed, replaced by the most poignant kind of sadness. “I was there when Vlad told Mencheres about the fake video, but no one mentioned what you’d done because of it.”

  “Only Leila knew, at first.” He flashed me a humorless smile. “Dagon froze time as soon as I summoned him, but Leila’s a trueborn witch, so it did nothing to her. She saw the whole thing, including Dagon revealing that Mencheres’s death was a ruse. Knew she’d tell Vlad about it, so I made sure the pair of them were indebted to me by finding the necromancer who’d tied himself to Leila. That bought her and Vlad’s silence, ensuring Mencheres wouldn’t hear about what I’d done.”

  Vlad owes me, Ian had said after arranging for Vlad to
send his private plane to us. Yes, the Impaler did, and far more than plane loans and other favors could repay.

  “Now,” Ian said, his tone turning hard. “If you don’t want me to leave and never return, tell me who betrayed you so badly that you were convinced I was going to barter you to Dagon only five minutes into being bound and alone.”

  I didn’t know what startled me more; the abrupt change in topic, or his threat. “What?”

  “Has to be a betrayal,” he went on in that flintlike tone. “I know from personal experience what a rape panic attack is, and it wasn’t that. I gave you time alone to see if you could tolerate being restrained without those kinds of flashbacks, but you were dead calm . . . and convinced I’d betrayed you. Why?”

  I cast about for anything to say except the truth. “You’d really leave? That would destroy our plans to kill Dagon!”

  His jaw tightened until I heard a cracking sound. “For a smart girl, you do ignore the obvious at times. You don’t need me for that anymore. You’re right—if you mute the spell on Silver’s blood, Dagon will come, which now makes my presence optional instead of necessary.”

  I knew my mouth was open. Knew I should shut it and say something measured and rational, but the thoughts swirling in my head were anything but. Worse, they all culminated into a cry of Wait, don’t go! that was so desperate, I was afraid if I tried to say anything else, that’s what would come out instead.

  A harsh smile curled his lips. “I’ll take your silence as my answer.” Then he spun around and strode down the stairs.

  “Wait, don’t go!”

  I shouted it with all the feelings I’d tried to suppress. Hearing them so clearly vocalized horrified me. I couldn’t pass that off as concern over losing his fighting skills. My voice had been too raw, too revealing, too honest. He’d know how I felt about him now. He’d have to be deaf not to.