Damian had had enough of lonely to last him a lifetime. All his life he’d felt like he didn’t fit in with his people, a round peg in a square hole. He couldn’t ever lay his finger on exactly why he felt that way, only that he did.
Damian scooped the tie off the floor. “Okay, let’s go.”
“I don’t know why you want to keep a woman like Cassidy waiting,” Tom muttered, herding him out the door. “I’d kill for a girl like her.”
“Cassidy is awesome.”
“Yeah, she is. So what’s up with dragging your feet?”
“I don’t know, man.” He shook his head and opened the door to his apartment. The traffic on the busy Las Vegas street in front of his apartment building hummed and honked. “It’s just…the permanence of marriage, I guess. Losing my freedom.”
Yeah, maybe that was it.
Cassidy was great, there was no denying it. She was beautiful and intelligent. She shared his taste in music and movies and when they were together they had a great time. They could talk about anything. He should be racing to the church to marry her and counting every one of his lucky stars along the way.
So why wasn’t he?
He was ready to settle down. He’d just landed a job as an insurance agent, allowing him to leave his job as a poker dealer at the Gold Diggers Casino down on the Strip. He wanted to buy a house, have kids. Cassidy would be a great mom. He and Cass had been together for two years now. They were best friends.
It was just…
If he truly examined his feelings in this moment, he’d probably be happy if something prevented him from ever getting to the White Wishes Chapel today.
He followed Tom out the front door of his apartment and turned to lock it. A man stood to his immediate left outside.
Noooo…make that two men. One on either side of the door.
Big men.
Thugs. Oh, shit.
“Hey, guys,” said Damian with a friendly grin. “How’s it going?”
One of the men grabbed him by the throat and pushed him up against the wall. Another man grabbed Tom. Damian gagged and desperately tried to think of all the people he’d pissed off lately. Or maybe this was Tom’s deal. He knew his friend had some gambling debts.
Then he noticed the man’s eyes.
For a moment, they seemed to shimmer…like a fish cresting the top of the water on a sunny day. Molten silver, brilliant blue, green—then back to prosaic brown. Damian stopped struggling and stared, wondering if he’d really just seen what he’d seen.
“Stay still,” the man growled.
Odd. He wanted to do as the man asked. In fact, his compulsion to do exactly what the thug had demanded of him was overwhelming. He knew he should be fighting, but he just…didn’t want to.
The other thug holding Tom against the wall pressed his hand to his friend’s chest and stared into his eyes. Tom went motionless, limp. “You will forget this incident. You will forget you ever came to Damian Porter’s apartment this morning. This morning Damian called and told you he wanted to get ready alone. Now you will go to the chapel. When Damian doesn’t show up for the wedding, you’ll be as surprised as everyone else.”
What?
The partial hold on Damian’s will evaporated with a pop. He pushed against the guy holding him and brought his fist up in a hard and fast right hook. To Damian’s total surprise, it connected. The thug fell backward to collapse against the railing behind him.
The other guy left Tom, who just stood there staring ahead as if caught in a trance, and came after Damian. They scuff led. Damian threw another punch and missed. By then Thug One had recovered and they were both on him. They yanked his arms behind his back and pressed him face-first against the wall.
Tom didn’t even look at him. He just walked away, down the stairs and toward his car, parked in the lot below.
“Hey! What the hell, man? I thought you were my friend!”
“He can’t hear you,” Thug Two said. “Save your breath.”
“What the fuck is going on? Who are you guys? How do you know me? I have a wedding to go to, goddamn it!”
“Not today. Not any day if your people have anything to say about it.”
His people?
Thug One leaned in, holding his cheek where Damian had punched him, and grimaced. Damian was happy to see the thug’s nose was bleeding and his lip was split. “It’s your birthday, boy.”
Damian made a scoffing sound. “It’s not my birthday, you IQ-challenged ape. You have the wrong guy.”
“Don’t have the wrong guy,” Thug Two snarled, hauling him away from the wall and pushing him toward the stairs. He gave him a good shove forward that made him stumble. “And don’t make us do this the hard way. As long as you come along nice with us, we won’t have to hurt you.”
Chapter Two
They loaded him into an SUV and took him to the Strip. Secreted in between two buildings and across from the Liege casino, was a nightclub that Damian had never noticed before. Not in all the times he’d been up and down this street. He’d been born and raised in Las Vegas; he thought he knew every stick and brick in this city. Yet, there it was, hidden away in an odd space that seemed to suck away and make disappear all the light around it. The club was aptly named.
Darkness.
The thugs parked the SUV on a side street and yanked him from the vehicle. They muscled him up to the front entrance of the building, pushing him through some unseen film of stickiness that made his stomach turn. It made him want to turn around and run the other way…even more than he already did.
Another thug opened the door and Thug One produced a card and flashed it at him. Damn. This was obviously an establishment of many thugs.
They pushed him inside.
“Look, guys, nice as this visit has been, like I said, I’ve got somewhere to be.”
Thug Two pushed him forward again, into the club proper. “Elena wants to see you.”
He spoke as if that answered everything.
Damian stumbled forward and caught himself against a chair. When he looked up, he gawked. The interior was done in all blacks and dark, deep red…bloodred. It looked like a place where Goths would hang out.
A bar lined the wall and the place was filled to bursting with tables and chairs. This time of day, he’d expect a night club to be closed, but this place was pretty packed…and these patrons were definitely not local. His eyebrows rose into his hairline as he examined the nightclub’s unique customers. Some guy with pale skin and prosthetic fangs peeking from curled lips snarled at him.
“What is it, Halloween?” he mumbled as Thug One took him by the arm and pushed him to the left.
A tall, tattooed woman passed him, bared her teeth and hissed, her eyes flashing that strange silver sparkling whatever at him. Okaaaaaay. Yeah, this was a Goth club all right.
They prodded and muscled him through a door near the bar, then through a kitchen to another door at the back of that room. They pushed him through that one so hard, he stumbled and fell to his knees.
“Fuck! I’m really starting to get annoyed,” Damian said, staring at the bloodred carpet he’d landed on.
Nothing. No response but the sound of a closing door.
The thugs had left him alone.
Damian raised his head, looking up slowly. Standing in front of him with one hip cocked was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. That was not a good thought to be having on his wedding day, while Cassidy waited for him at the altar this very moment.
God, he was such an asshole.
He lowered his forehead to the carpet, closed his eyes and counted to five. Maybe this was all some kind of hallucination brought on by the stress of impending lifetime commitment. Maybe when he opened his eyes the next time, the Most Beautiful Woman In The World would be gone.
“You punched Hugo,” his dream woman said in a liquid silver voice. “That’s why they manhandled you. Otherwise, your trip to Darkness would have been uneventful.”
Damian
opened his eyes and stared into the red. Damn it, she was still there.
He raised his gaze. She wore fuck-me shoes of tooled black leather. From there things just got better. Her legs were bare, shapely and creamy pale. She wore a short black skirt, slit to show one mouthwatering thigh. Her shirt was a shimmering blue button-down, opened to show just a hint of cleavage. Long, dark brown hair tumbled around her shoulders and framed a heart-shaped face with a small, pointy chin, a longish nose and beautiful dark brown eyes. She wasn’t tall, but she was curvy.
Full ruby-red lips parted and she spoke again. “Do you have a brain in your head? You haven’t said a word.”
She was pretty, but apparently not all that nice. And he was on his knees in front of her.
Damian stood. “Hey, Hugo grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall first. He had the punch coming. Who the hell are you people, anyway?”
“We are your people. We’re the thooahaw day dah nawn.”
Damian resisted the urge to say God bless you. He blinked. “The who?”
“The people of the goddess Danu,” she replied patiently. “A lost race of Ireland thought by mortals to be only myth and so much legend.” She paused a beat. “We’re the fae, Damian, and you are one of us. I am one of the daughters of the king who rules here in the Las Vegas fae underground.”
The Tuatha Dé Danann. That’s what she was talking about. He remembered the term from one of the books on Irish history his sister had been reading. Suzanne was a nut for anything about the history of Ireland. The name and the story of the Tuatha Dé had captured his imagination and he’d read a bit about them after finding her book open on the kitchen table one night. He’d just never known how to pronounce their name.
His brief flirtation with faery tales wasn’t something he’d ever told anyone about because that’s what it was…a faery tale. As in not real. Anyway, that stuff was for girls so he’d never admit how much it had fascinated him.
“Though Hugo and Aaron, the men who picked you up from your apartment, are not fae, they’re demons. We hire them once in a while.”
“Elena? Is that your name?”
She nodded.
“Well, Elena, I think you’re bat-shit crazy.”
“I know you probably don’t believe me yet,” said Elena, casting her eyes down so that her eyelashes shadowed the peaches-and-cream skin of her cheek.
She really was pretty enough to be a faery. The thought bit into him with a good dollop of guilt.
“Yeah, you’d be right on that count, all except for the yet part. I don’t believe you now and I never will. Now I don’t know who you people really are or why you’ve brought me here, but I have to leave. This suit I’m wearing isn’t just for show. I don’t wear one of these every day. I’m supposed to be at a chapel marrying my fiancée. She’s there, right now, waiting for me…at the altar!” He yelled the last part, his control finally shredded.
Elena jumped, but quickly regained her composure. “You’re supposed to be marrying Cassidy Williams right now, I know.”
“How do you know—”
She held up a hand. “Listen to me for a just a moment, Damian, please.”
She didn’t wait for his reply, which was good, because he had none. Elena walked to him and took his hands in hers. Her palms were warm and silken. As much as he wanted to deny it, the touch of her was good.
“You may not believe me yet about the Tuatha Dé, but believe this—I am a fae princess and I can see into your heart and soul, Damian Alex Porter. Don’t ask me how, not yet, just accept that I can.” She lifted a brow. “Don’t believe me? I know how you really feel about Cassidy. I know what you’ve told no one else in the entire world. I know that you don’t really want to marry her. I know you only asked because you thought you should, that you’d been together for so long it was a question of either marriage or breakup. I know you like Cassidy a lot and that you think she’s a wonderful woman and you can’t figure why you can’t just love her like she deserves. You think that if you marry her the love will eventually come.” She paused. “But it won’t.”
Damian opened his mouth, but she covered it with her hand. He was suddenly caught between wanting to bite it and wanting to suck every one of her slender, pretty fingers into the recesses of his mouth.
She continued, “Cassidy is the best of women, it’s true, but she is not the one for you, Damian. And you are not the one for her. Don’t blame yourself, but do let it go…let her go. If you marry Cassidy this day, you will be making the worst mistake of your life and of Cassidy’s. If you marry Cassidy today, she will miss meeting the man she should be with, the one who will love her with all his heart and soul the way she deserves. Do you want to do that to Cassidy, Damian?”
“No.” He couldn’t say anything else. It was like she could see into his heart and soul. Guilt swelled.
“Cassidy will be all right, Damian. You should have broken it off before now and it’s a pity you couldn’t find the courage, a pity you were so afraid of ending up alone. She’ll have a rough year, it’s true. She’ll doubt her ability to fall in love again and she’ll fear it. She will suffer for the rejection you give her today. But in the long run, she’ll be better off.” Elena smiled. “You see, she’s already met her true love—she just doesn’t know it yet. And Damian?”
“Yes?” His voice was a rough, emotion-filled whisper.
“I’m sorry to put a chink in your ego, but it’s not you. Don’t go off and marry Cassidy when you don’t really want it way down deep in your heart. It’s not fair to her.”
Damian stared into Elena’s eyes. Her gaze hadn’t wavered from his even once since she’d begun speaking. How did she know any of this? He’d never told anyone about his doubts. No one, ever. His family and friends thought he and Cassidy had the best of relationships, that they’d been made for each other.
Elena finally let go of his hand and walked to a table in the corner. Damian blinked. He hadn’t even noticed the room beyond the carpet and the woman. It appeared to be a living room, but a bit more formal…more like a waiting room in a really fancy doctor’s office. On the table, near a vase of expensive flowers, she picked up a phone. Then she walked back and handed it to him. “Press One for the White Wishes Chapel. I put it on speed dial.”
Oh, God. He stared at the sleek black phone in his hand.
“You know it’s the right thing to do. No matter how much it might hurt Cassidy today, it’s best for her in the long run. You’re best removed from her life to make room for another.” Elena looked thoughtful for a moment. “His name is James, James Carter.”
James. His best man. Why didn’t that surprise him? He’d known James had the hots for Cassidy.
Oddly, it didn’t even prick his ego—the thought of James and Cassidy together. He just wanted Cassidy to be happy and loved. James was a good man. He’d treat her well.
No, Damian didn’t feel jealous or hurt. He didn’t pine for Cassidy and want nothing more than to be at the chapel right now marrying her.
“Call her,” Elena said again.
“And tell her what?”
She tipped her head to the side and gave him a sad little smile. “The truth.”
Chapter Three
He glanced up at her. “That two demons kidnapped me on the way to my wedding, brainwashed my friend and brought me to a nightclub on the Strip I’ve never noticed before—and I thought I knew every place on this street—where I was greeted by a faery princess? Yeah, Cassidy won’t believe that. I don’t believe that.”
Elena lifted a brow. “The other truth.”
Damian stared at the phone in his hand some more. He felt freer at the simple contemplation of calling off the wedding. And that, ultimately, is what made him give the phone back to Elena and take his own cell phone from his back pocket.
He called his best man.
“Where the hell are you, Damian?” James demanded as soon as he answered. “She’s waiting for you.”
“Can I talk to
Cassidy?”
There was a lengthy pause before James handed the phone over.
“Damian?” Cassidy’s voice was shaky.
“Hi, Cassidy.” He paused and tried to form the right words. Emotion tightened his chest. “I’m sorry, but I’m not coming. It’s not because I don’t care about you that I’m doing this. I do care about you…and that’s why I can’t be there today.”
“I—I don’t understand.” Cassidy’s voice broke on a sob. “You unbelievable bastard!”
“Yeah, I am. I know I am, Cassidy. God.” He sighed. This was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “You may not think so right now, but I’m doing you a favor.” He closed his eyes. “Have a good life.”
She hung up on him.
He turned off his cell phone and stared at it for a moment before repocketing it. He felt like absolute shit for hurting her, but he knew, knew he’d done the right thing. He was a total asshole for letting it go as far as he had. A coward.
Anger at himself billowed up from the bottom of his toes and exploded at Elena. He stalked toward her, looking menacing enough to cause her to take a few steps back. “You’re going to let me out of here, lady,” he growled. “You may have been right about all that, but that doesn’t make you my friend.”
She bumped against the table behind her. “I understand that you’re upset.”
He pinned her against the table and bracketed her there with a hand to either side of her luscious body. “And being right doesn’t make you any less crazy. I want out. I want out now, so I can go home, lick my wounds and clean up the fucking mess I’ve made of my life and hers.”
Elena’s eyes widened and her lips parted. Damian tried hard not to stare, but the attraction he’d felt for her before seemed to have exploded with his rage.
Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was cutting that tie with Cassidy. Whatever it was, he fucking wanted the woman in front of him with a desire so deep it was nearly uncontrollable. He wanted to turn her around, yank up that silly, frivolous little skirt and bury his cock deep inside her silken pussy.
What Happens in Vegas…After Dark Page 24