“He has your scent.” Shaw didn’t look happy about it. “I don’t think the swimsuit is necessary.”
“I agree,” Righty said. “If, as you say, he has a thing for skin, the less you show, the safer you will be.”
Lefty threw his weight behind the motion for me to stay covered up. Diode graced us with a kingly nod in agreement. Motion carried.
“Okay. The swimsuit’s out. I still need fresh clothes.” This outfit was linty from my nap on the floor. “But I’ll keep it casual.”
“I assume you mean to use Thierry as bait.” The cat sounded displeased.
“The guards will be with me.” I shrugged off his worry. “I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t let her get hurt,” Shaw promised.
“Don’t let the boobs fool you.” I smirked. “I’m trained for this.”
A slight grin crooked Shaw’s lips. “Yes, you are.” The look I cut Diode was smug. Shaw continued, “But that doesn’t mean any of us want to see you—or your boobs—get hurt.”
Utter mortification swept through the fluorescent-yellow cat and turned him sallow. “Her—” He strangled on the word, unable to cough it up. “Her anatomy is not up for discussion.”
Wrong of me, I know, but I laughed at the prudish crinkle of Diode’s nose. “I’ll hit the bar and see what happens.”
“Don’t drink your order,” Shaw warned. “We don’t know how the drugs got into Mai’s drink.”
“Well, shucks,” I drawled. “This here’s my first rodeo, Mr. Incubus. Are you sure you ought to let this little filly run wild?” I lowered my gaze to the vicinity of his belt buckle. “If I need emergency wrangling, how good are you with your…lasso?”
He ignored me, my twang and my lasso reference.
Spoilsport.
The cat’s whiskers flexed in thought. “The bartender might be fae.”
“If he is, we’ll get him relocated.” Shaw’s expression darkened. “There are kids here.”
I could have pointed out that children didn’t belly up to the bar, but some fae preferred the young and had no qualms mashing herbs into lollipops or mixing spells into chocolate bars. For now we would focus on the pattern we knew, the option that would give me fewer nightmares later. Linen liked sexy fae women. Sexy wasn’t happening. I wasn’t that girl. But I was half-fae.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
“I assume you’re going to hold down the fort?” I asked the lounging cat.
“Not that I have much choice with my charm nullified,” he said dryly.
I walked over and scratched under his chin. “If he comes up here looking for trouble, don’t hog all the fun.”
He leaned into my palm. “You and I have very different ideas of fun.”
If I hadn’t seen him shred those hounds in Faerie into confetti, I might have believed him. “No.” I kissed his nose. “We don’t.”
His playful swipe at my legs with his sheathed claws made me grin.
After dancing out of his reach, I spun on Righty and Lefty. “Did you see any signs of the gray men?”
Both guards shook their heads. “The beaches are clear.”
No surprise there. “Did you sense any other fae in the area?”
“No,” they said in unison.
Fae weren’t as common as humans, but in a resort this size, this time of year, and so close to the ocean, we should have had company. “So, either there are fae here and someone, maybe Linen, is concealing them, or this area has been claimed by something dangerous enough to run off visiting fae it views as competition.”
And if Linen was the something dangerous claiming this as his territory, how powerful did that make him?
“It doesn’t matter much,” Shaw finally said. “If Linen is powerful enough to hold territory here, we’re going to have a fight on our hands removing him. As tight as the competition is for beachfront hunting grounds, I doubt he leaves his home unguarded. That’s assuming he isn’t working for someone else.”
“Four to one are good odds.” Between the guards, Shaw and me, we could hold our own. “We can test his defenses if nothing else.”
“I want you to wear this too.” He tossed me a small leather pouch on a string.
I caught it, and cold magic rolled up my arm. Then the smell hit me. “Phew. What’s in this?”
His lips twitched. “Do you really want to know?”
Spellwork was his forte, not mine. But I had a good nose, and I trusted what it told me. I also trusted I didn’t want the specifics.
“Let’s go the willful-ignorance route, okay?” I tightened the drawstrings. “What does it do?”
“It defuses spells and enchantments cast in your vicinity or on your person.” Grim lines hardened his expression. “It won’t last more than two hours. Three max.”
The spell was active. That meant the clock was ticking. “Then we better get started.”
The bar scene spawned a migraine. Lights flashed. Drinks splashed. Half-naked women jiggled while guys filmed their next YouTube upload on their cells. Much to my surprise, the desk clerk told me the hotel serviced two bars.
One was tucked in the corner and strained to exude elegance amid the sandaled masses. Maybe that explained why I had missed it each time I passed through the lobby. The lighting was low, which made for ideal hunting conditions, but there were no singles in sight. Only married couples. Paired with the Parents After Dark vibe it had going for it, I ditched that bar and focused on the poolside hangout where Linen had made his first appearance.
A quick check of my phone told me thirty minutes had passed. Time to get noticed.
I ordered a Bahama Mama from a suitably flirty bartender and started making the rounds. Most guys grinned when I cut between them and their partners. The women, not so much. A few men offered to refresh my drink, which I made sure to splash onto the ground while dancing. Not that I wanted to start a drunken catfight over a guy I had no interest in, but hot tempers and loud voices attracted a certain kind of attention.
“All this for me?” a dark voice purred near my ear. “You could have called.”
Chills dappled my skin. “You didn’t leave a number.”
“You left in such a hurry.” Linen clicked his tongue. “I’m pleased to see you’re not a coward.”
The accusation rankled. “I’m surprised you noticed. You liked my friend, remember?”
“I liked her well enough,” he admitted, “but she was never the prize.”
Meaning he had targeted me all along, through Mai. A fissure of unease shot through me, but he was here now, and I couldn’t very well hold up a finger and beat a hasty retreat after telling him this new information meant I had to consult with the fae extraction team I had on standby in the shadows.
His hands landed on my shoulders, and he whirled me around to face him. “Thierry Thackeray.”
Following his lead, I spun again, part flirt and part self-defense. I wanted his hands off me.
“That’s me.” No harm in confirming what he already knew. Besides, it wasn’t my Name.
“I am Balamohan.” That same flat, black gaze as before drilled into me. “I am Makara here.”
Makara. My brain stalled on my rusty Hindu mythology. “That makes you Ganga’s pet, right?”
The dark skin covering his jaw tightened as he ground his teeth. “I was once in her service.”
From what I remembered, Ganga was a goddess of rivers. Her mount was a Makara, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what that meant. A half-terrestrial and half-aquatic mishmash of a creature maybe?
Having a goddess as his patroness explained how Linen maintained a low baseline, easily concealed, while being able to tap into so much raw magic. Mixing energies also explained the muddied power signature.
Though the way he phrased his answer made me wonder if Ganga was still among the living gods. “Who do you serve now?”
He forced himself to relax into his laid back façade. “That would be telling.”
&nbs
p; “You do realize as a conclave marshal, I could force you to state your allegiance.”
“You could try.” Now he was smiling. “The conclave means nothing to me.”
“Well, that’s where you and I are going to have to disagree.” I attempted contriteness. “We have rules in this realm, and everyone has to follow them. If you don’t—” I spread my arms, “—you get a visit from someone like me. And no one wants that. So why don’t we refresh your memory, okay?”
Those black pools set in his face sparkled. “What if I wanted this visit?”
The thought sent a shiver through me. “Now, now. Flattery won’t unbreak the law.”
“This is going to be fun,” he said with a laugh.
A stinging sensation in my arm made me glance down to where a filament from the jacket of his linen suit stretched over to me, like it had unraveled and a loose string grazed me. Only I couldn’t brush it off. It had latched on to me, and the worse it hurt…the less I cared about the pain.
“What are you doing?” I touched my lips and found them as frozen and numb as the ice in my drink. And they weren’t the only thing. A slow paralysis swept through me, concentrating cold down my left arm. Before my sense of smell dulled, I scented my guards nearby. That alone kept me from frying Linen on the spot, before a cast of all-too-human witnesses. Well, that and the fact I couldn’t feel my hand. Hard to feed on someone I couldn’t touch with deadened mojo.
I wish I had a nifty lure like Shaw’s.
“Sparing you.” He caught me when I slid off my barstool. “You didn’t think Faerie would allow a half-blood upon her throne, did you? As you said, there are rules, and everyone must follow them.” He wrapped an arm around my waist, and that nasty string thing bound us together hip to hip, digging in deeper. “Let me take you away from all the politics and protect you from all who wish you harm.”
We speed-walked through the pool area and exited the hotel. A black SUV idled by the curb, and when we arrived, a squat humanoid fae shoved open the passenger-side door and leapt onto the curb. He had the look and gestures almost right, nearly human, but his mustache…
Instead of hairs, his ’stache was a cluster of black tentacles. Make that two. Each section rooted above the peak of his top lip, right underneath his nose, and he had combed them—or whatever one did with one’s facial tentacles—to frame his plump mouth.
Staring was rude, and his tight frown told me he thought so too, but my eyes were glued to him.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said distractedly, “but I don’t need protection.”
Squid Boy opened the rear passenger-side door, and the breeze caught him just right. Curry and spice. Mystery solved. My money was on this little guy being the one who had followed Mai and me up to our room.
A whimsical image popped into my head of Squid Boy sticking his suction cup mustache to the ceiling of the elevator to avoid being seen when the doors opened. It was probably the drugs talking. Probably.
“Yes, you do.” Linen lifted me inside the vehicle and set me on the black leather bench seat like a doll whose limbs he took great care to arrange. “You have made enemies. Luckily, they don’t want you harmed.”
A cold ball of fear formed in my chest. Following him back to his lair wasn’t part of the plan, or if it had been, the guys hadn’t clued me into it. But I had scented my guards, and I trusted Shaw to have my back. The filament thing stung, but I could handle it. Tentacle facial hair was freaky, but I could see someone as self-important as Linen employing other monster mashups as his henchmen.
I would have questioned him more, but the pangs in my arm sharpened. Once he finished arranging my hands in my lap, my eyes had fluttered shut.
Chapter 20
Bark sliced into the tender undersides of my thighs as I wobbled on a scrawny tree limb. Wood crackled under me when I shifted my weight, and my perch jiggled as I inched my butt closer to the trunk.
“Thierry.”
I glanced across from me at the empty tangle of crosshatched limbs where Rook usually sprawled.
“Rook?”
“I didn’t know.” Regret deadened his tone. “I swear I didn’t know.”
My stomach clenched. “What are you talking about? Where are you?”
“She didn’t tell me.” His voice began to fade. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“Rook?” A sharp crack rent the air, and my seat dipped. “What’s happening?”
“Forgive me.”
And then I fell.
“There you are.” Linen towered over me with a drink clutched in his hand. “Where did you go just now?”
A long minute passed while I parsed out where I was (not safe at my hotel), who he was and why those things should frighten me. I inhaled through a stuffy nose, but the only scent I could identify was the kind of damp smell I associated with the earth.
The dim room loomed tall and narrow behind him. Parquet floors. Knotty oak paneling. Drop ceiling with thick-grain panels stained dark. The decor reminded me of a gentlemen’s club straight out of the movies. I half-expected Linen to light up a fat cigar to puff while he swirled port in a squat glass.
My captor leaned closer, and the tickle of alcohol and brine hit my nose. “Did you hear me?”
Shared dreams with Rook were private, almost intimate, and I wasn’t about to answer him.
“Where are we?” Lifting my head sent shards of pain knifing through my brain. “What is this place?”
Talking made my jaw throb like I had been punched. Worse was an incessant chattering noise.
My teeth.
When I shoved off the chilly cushions beneath me and sat upright, the whole world sloshed with the motion. I gritted my teeth until equilibrium was restored. The leather couch where I sat had a new-car smell. When I shifted into a new position, gooseflesh raced down my exposed legs. Shorts had been a bad idea.
If I had known I was going to be kidnapped, I would have dressed more appropriately.
“This is my home.” Linen, whose real name escaped me, beamed. “You are welcome here.”
I stood and swayed on my feet. “I appreciate your hospitality, but I should be going.”
He knocked me back with a tap of his index finger. “You’ve only just arrived.” He snapped his fingers, and a door I couldn’t quite see from this angle creaked open. A painfully thin woman entered the room holding an oversized tray level with her breasts. A single glass of clear liquid sat positioned in the exact center. Her hair hung in sculpted curls down her back, and the makeup caking her face tricked me into thinking she was human. Until she stepped closer and a sharp whiff of decomposition hit me.
“Don’t look at her like that,” Linen chided. “She lasted longer than most.”
As I stared down my possible future, I had to ask, “Is this what you have in mind for me?”
“No.”
He answered a beat too late, and I didn’t believe him.
“What did you do to her?” Zombies weren’t exactly uncommon. New Orleans, for example, was lousy with them in the summer. But I had never seen one in person, and never one so well-preserved.
Linen approached the woman and brushed the hair from her temple, exposing a small, clean dot the circumference of the eraser on a pencil. He leaned in close and opened his mouth. Another filament, this one a fleshy color, passed from his lips into the hole. The woman—corpse—jolted when he closed his lips and hollowed his cheeks. He drank deep before retracting his strawlike appendage with a soft groan.
I threw up a little in my mouth.
Worse than the floorshow was the knowledge that zombies are unfeeling. They can be controlled by the person who raised them, but they don’t act without orders. They’re dead. They feel no pain. They don’t think, either. They are globs of people-shaped clay for their makers to impress their will upon.
The woman shouldn’t have flinched.
Linen enjoyed his production so much, I wouldn’t put it past him to give her cues to act aware just t
o unsettle me, but the motions orchestrated by him—her entering the room and carrying the tray—were jerky. Almost like she fought him every step of the way. That one cringe was fluid, responsive. It was real.
The woman, or what was left of her, was still alive.
I tamped down the fury sparking in my palm. I did not want to become more interesting to him.
“You made your point.” I balked when the woman extended the tray toward me. Her trembling fingers rattled the ice in the glass, but I took it because I worried what might happen to her if I refused. Certain she wasn’t fae, I felt safe saying, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, hon.”
Shocked by the warmth in her voice, I lifted my gaze to hers, and recognition slammed into me.
Jenna.
Little remained of the smiling mother of two from the photo Shaw had shown me, but this was no doubt the same woman from the surveillance video.
I wiped every trace of emotion from my face. Showing concern for her might make things worse. For both of us.
“It’s not poisoned.” Linen’s voice dragged my attention back to him. “You should try it.”
I sniffed the contents of the glass. Numb-nosed, I had no idea what the concoction was. Not water. It stung my sinuses like alcohol. “I’m good.”
“You need to drink,” he chastised me. “You don’t want to get dehydrated.”
“I saw what you did to Mai.” Whatever he gave her, she had gone off her rocker. “I’m not interested.”
“Mai was a silly girl drinking a fruity drink at a bar. You’re a woman who’s gone sixteen hours without fluid. You must be thirsty.” He tilted his head. “Unless… When was the last time you fed?”
“None of your damn business,” I said hotly.
I barely shared that shame with Shaw. No way was I exposing the raw guilt festering in my gut to this psycho. My regret was mine, and I wasn’t in an introspective mood.
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