Enthrall Me (Underbelly Chronicles Book 4)

by Tamara Hogan

  Dissolving into giggles, she yanked her arm away. “Let’s go to the Midway.”

  With the animal barns closing, most fairgoers seemed to have the same idea. As they approached the Midway, the streetlights seemed to dim, like the house lights going down at the theatre just before the curtain rose. Blinking lights, clanging bells, whirling rides, joyous screams…talk about sensory overload. Everywhere he looked, lovers—yes—walked with their hands in each other’s back pockets.

  Tia suddenly veered toward a bright yellow structure. “Let’s buy tickets.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever.”

  As they joined the short line, Tia cocked her head toward the Grandstand. “Fitz and Noelle are tearing it up tonight.”

  “You know the band?”

  She nodded, smiling. “They played First Avenue earlier this year. Awesome show.”

  He’d never set foot in the venue Prince had made famous. He had no clue who Fitz and Noelle were, what band they were in, or how famous they might be.

  The difference in their ages yawned wide as the English Channel.

  When they reached the front of the line, Tia bought a fluttering strip of tickets, refusing his offer to pay. “See what I mean about hiding in plain sight?”

  “Hmm?”

  She jerked her head toward the Funhouse. “Those kids over there.”

  Sure enough, a pack of vampire youth lurked near the corner of the building, half of them with their fangs exposed.

  It was a flagrant violation of law—their law.

  He started toward them, but Tia held him back. “Wyland, look around. No one is paying them the least bit of attention—no more than they’re paying anyone else, at any rate.”

  He looked around, at people from all walks of life, eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves. She was right. The humans were oblivious.

  “Come on,” she said, tugging at his arm.

  “Where?”

  “Let’s go into the Funhouse.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “We can neck in there.”

  One of the youths had noticed him. The teen’s eyes widened. He nudged his friends, gesturing wildly. By the time he and Tia reached the entrance, they’d all straightened from their laconic slouches. Those with shot fangs hid them, as they damn well should.

  “Gentlemen,” he said.

  “Sir. Miss.” They dipped their heads respectfully—all except the teenager who stood most deeply in the shadows. He was too busy staring at Tia’s legs.

  Understandable. They were spectacular.

  “Dude,” someone hissed, elbowing the boy.

  The movement jostled the young man’s gaze up to their faces. “Sir. Miss,” he blurted out, bobbing his head in greeting.

  The hero worship in the boy’s eyes made him feel like a groupie-nailing rock star.

  He couldn’t help it; he winked at the boy. “Have fun, guys. You’re good for my reputation,” he murmured as Tia handed tickets to the woman at the Funhouse entrance.

  She rolled her eyes. “Says no one to me, ever.” As they climbed the stairs and walked inside, the lights dimmed to nearly nothing. “I thought I’d have to get tough with you about the Funhouse,” she admitted. “Somewhere, deep in that straight-laced psyche of yours, a tiny sense of adventure lurks.”

  Straight-laced? He might have spent the last century celibate, but that hadn’t always been the case. He’d seen things, done things, that would rob her of speech—and god knew his fantasies about her were absolutely debauched. Suddenly, his cock was hard as a pike, and his pulse pounded in a rhythm as old as time. “So, it’s adventure you want?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  He whipped her around a corner, deep into the shadows, and pinned her against the plywood wall with his hips.

  “What are you doing? Wyland, there are people—kids—all over the place.”

  He didn’t need a blood bond to sense her arousal, to know she’d locked her knees to keep them from wobbling out from under her. Didn’t need more light to know her pupils were ink black pools, or that her fangs had shot down. Her hitching breath, her shifting hips, enticed him. Incited him.

  Jerking her arms over her head, he cuffed her wrists against the wall with his hands. He stared into her eyes, grinding the hard ridge of his erection into her soft belly. Her needy groan combined with the pre-recorded moans and shrieks. Suddenly, incendiary images filled his head: Tia, pressing him against the wall. Fumbling with his fly…cool air wafting over his penis…her fingers wrapping around him, stroking hard and fast.

  This time, the groan was his. The little witch was in his head.

  She flexed her wrists against his fingers, glanced down at his groin, and raised a brow. “Care to release me?”

  Did she have some siren in her lineage? The sultry invitation in her voice could lure a man to the rocks. She was pinned against a wall, but far from helpless. Her hands were shackled by his grip, held immobile, but he could almost feel them yank at his zipper.

  Was she getting stronger, or was he simply more attuned to her needs and desires now that he’d sipped from her vein? Hell, if he ever allowed her to drink deeply from him—if they had a reciprocal blood bond—they’d never leave his bedroom.

  His phone suddenly vibrated—one ring, then two, in a very familiar pattern. He backed away from Tia, releasing her arms. “I have to take this.” Plucking his phone from his front pocket, he punched the Talk button. “Lukas, hello. What—”

  “You have to come. Quick.” Lukas sounded panicky. Frazzled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Scarlett’s water broke.”

  “When?”

  “Earlier this afternoon,” Lukas admitted. “She wouldn’t let me call you.”

  But he was calling now. Scarlett had probably been in labor for hours.

  In the background, he heard Scarlett call out to Lukas. The thread of panic in her voice cut like a saber. “We need you,” Lukas said shakily.

  “I’m on my way.” He took Tia’s hand and started leading her toward the entrance. “Scarlett’s in labor,” he murmured to her.

  “Who are you talking to?” Lukas asked.

  “Tia.” As they pressed back against the wall to allow an incoming group to pass, a demonic wail split the air.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  The group passed, and they started walking again. “We’re at the State Fair.” He had to get Lukas focused, and fast. “We’ve prepared for this, right? Do you have your task list?”

  “It’s in my pocket.” He heard a crinkle as Lukas removed the well-worn piece of paper from his back pocket. He’d carried it there for months, fondling it like a string of worry beads.

  “What’s item number one?”

  “Make Scarlett comfortable,” Lukas read. “Comfortable? Fuck, how am I supposed to do that? She feels like someone’s stabbing her in the stomach.” Lukas let out a gasp as Scarlett groaned again. “How do women do this?”

  Bloody hell. Lukas, the strongest and most sensitive incubus on the planet, was sharing not only Scarlett’s emotions, but her labor pains. Nothing about how Lukas’s body responded to sensory stimuli should surprise him anymore, but…

  “She wants to sit on the couch.”

  “Good, good. Sit down with her.” The last thing he needed was for Lukas to keel over before help could arrive.

  “Heads up,” Tia murmured. They’d reached the Funhouse entrance.

  “Hey!” The worker who’d taken their tickets didn’t look happy. “You can’t come out this way.”

  Tia jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Medical emergency. He’s a doctor.” Without waiting for a response, she bullied her way down the stairs to a chorus of complaints. Once they reached the bottom, she navigated a route through the throngs of people filling the Midway, calling out apologies as she cut through the crowd.

  “She’s sitting on the couch now,” Lukas told him.

  “That’s good. If she wants to w
alk, let her—it will help the labor advance.” Though from the sound of things, her labor might already be more advanced than he’d like. A hush descended as they left the cacophony of the Midway. The crowd had thinned out considerably, so they put on a burst of speed. “What’s the next item on the list?” he asked Lukas.

  “Call Jack. Start the phone tree.” A pause. “Jack’s downstairs, in his office.”

  “Good.” As Scarlett’s pregnancy had progressed, Jack had quietly picked up whatever he could of Lukas’s workload, piling it on top of his own. “Call him now, then focus on Scarlett. Get some rest if you can. Pretty soon you’ll have more people at your place than you know what to do with.” For some unfathomable reason, Scarlett had put almost a dozen names on her call list. “Claudette and Elliott will be there soon.”

  “Claudette.” Lukas repeated her name like a lifeline. Scarlett’s mother would preside at the birth, singing her granddaughter into the world in the ancient way of the sirens.

  When they reached the parking lot, he saw that the Suburban was gone. Thank the universe for small favors; they’d need plenty of them this night. “Lukas, hang up and call Jack now.”

  “Okay.” Silence hummed on the line. “Wyland…thank you.”

  “There’s no need for thanks, my friend,” he said softly. “It’s my honor. Now—” he put some briskness back in his voice “—call Jack, then focus on Scarlett.” They’d reached the car. Yanking open the passenger side door, he got in, then slammed it closed. “We’ll be there soon. ‘Bye.” He hung up the phone with a punch of his thumb.

  As soon as he buckled his seat belt, Tia put the car into motion. She backed out of the parking place, then carefully exited the lot, weaving around all the pedestrians who’d decided that now was the best time to leave the fair.

  “Don’t these people have homes?” he muttered.

  As Tia joined the long line of cars waiting to turn north onto Snelling, he took mental inventory of the bag he’d transferred from his car’s trunk to Tia’s, and of the treatment room on Sebastiani Security’s first floor. Between the two, he could perform minor surgery if he head to, but it wouldn’t hurt to put an ambulance on stand-by, just in case something happened that was beyond his capabilities. He called Memorial and made the necessary arrangements. By the time he hung up, Tia was on Highway 36 westbound. “I think Lukas is in labor, right alongside Scarlett.”

  “What? Labor pains, the whole bit?”

  He nodded.

  “Ha! A female fantasy has finally come to pass. Seriously, you have no idea how many generations of women have been waiting for this moment. Not that we can tell anyone about it.”

  “Well, let’s just hope his experience is limited to experiencing the pain.” If Lukas’s body tried to carry out labor to its logical conclusion, he could sustain serious internal injuries.

  Yes, he had two patients tonight.

  “All humor aside, that level of physical enmeshment isn’t normal, is it? Not that I know anything about childbirth.” Tia hit her blinker and passed a slow-moving semi. “My entire adult reproductive focus has been avoiding pregnancy.”

  Her words gave him a jolt. As her lover, he appreciated her diligence. Trusted it, given they’d made love at least twice without using a condom.

  Without discussing the matter.

  He could imagine Val’s reaction— “If that isn’t trust, what is?” —and he’d have a valid point. But…what would he do—what would they do—if, despite her birth control patch, Tia got pregnant? Did she want to have children?

  Did he? It was a question he’d never considered.

  “Wyland?” Tia waved a hand in front of his face. “Lukas’s reaction isn’t typical, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t.” All sirens interpreted and amplified emotion with their voices, and all incubi and succubi absorbed emotional energy for sustenance, emitting pheromones in response, but… “Scarlett’s voice is legendary, and Lukas’s abilities are unmatched. Typical is completely off the table.” And if typical was off the table, the list of potential complications was endless.

  How would absorbing Lukas’s pain-laced pheromones impact everyone else in the room? Shit, one more risk he hadn’t considered. The people on Scarlett’s list might really come to regret their invitation to Coco Fontaine’s birthday party.

  “Hey.” Tia put her hand on his thigh. “You’ve got this.”

  He covered her hand with his own, taking comfort in its weight, its warmth. “With any luck, they won’t need me at all.”

  “You’re their friend. They need you there regardless. And when this night is over, I’ll bring you your first glass of champagne.” She tugged her hand from under his, putting both hands on the wheel again. The Washington Avenue exit was just ahead. “Get sloppy drunk if you want to, because I’m your designated driver.”

  “I’ll keep your offer in mind.” He’d never been sloppy drunk in his life, but there was a first time for everything. The events of the night to come might very well drive him to drink.

  And by sunrise, Lukas and Scarlett’s lives would have changed forever, their every future action and decision influenced by the needs and desires of a howling scrap of new life.

  Something he’d never imagined wanting for himself.

  Before tonight.

  When they reached Sebastiani Security, Tia followed Wyland through the lobby to the stairwell door, lifting a brow when he slapped his hand against the biometric pad instead of waiting for someone to buzz them up. There was a soft click, and the tiny light on the panel switched from red to green. “Come on.” He opened the door and started up the stairs. “I can sense pheromones from here.”

  She nodded. “Pain. Pleasure. Purpose.” Lukas was absorbing every nuance of Scarlett’s physical and emotional experience and telegraphing it to the air—to everyone else—via the pheromones that pumped from his body as instinctively as he breathed.

  Her ovaries twinged, like they did when she ovulated.

  “It might be better if you went home.”

  “Why?”

  “Lukas’s pheromones will be challenging enough for bystanders to deal with, but add his family’s reactions into the mix…”

  Understanding came in an instant. Absorbing emotional energy and producing pheromones in response was an instinctive, autonomic behavior for all incubi and succubi. Members of the Sebastiani family would produce pheromones, too. The resulting feedback loop could be overwhelming.

  It was one thing to surf the pheromone haze dancing at Underbelly. Experiencing labor, even second-hand, was another matter entirely.

  “This is going to be an unpredictable experience for everyone concerned,” Wyland said. “You should probably go home.”

  “And leave you to handle it alone? I don’t think so. And that glare won’t work. Save your energy for climbing the stairs.” He sighed but didn’t argue, confirming she’d made the right decision. “Let’s get going.”

  By the time they reached the top floor, the air seemed thicker somehow, as if it had physical weight. Thankfully, she had some ibuprofen in her purse—

  “Aaaahhereitcomesagain. Damn it damn it damn it damn it…”

  Scarlett’s groan speared her right between the eyes. The twinge low in her abdomen turned into an uncomfortable ache.

  “Sounds like things are progressing.” Wyland rang the doorbell, then opened his bag. He withdrew two plastic-wrapped packets, handed her one, and pocketed the other for himself.

  Silicone earplugs. “Bless you.”

  The door opened. “Hello, Wyland.” Scarlett’s mother, Siren First Claudette Fontaine, seemed calmer than the situation merited. “Ms. Quinn.” She cast a questioning glance at Wyland, but covered it quickly. “Please, come in. Don’t let the cat out.”

  They entered the loft. Standing just inside the door, Lukas’s father looked harried. Lukas’s father, the president of the Underworld Council.

  And here she was, looking like an extra from Coyote Ugly. She proba
bly had shit on her boots from walking around at the fair. Wyland, with his khakis, loafers, and rolled-up shirtsleeves, looked elegantly casual, like he’d been sipping champagne in the Hamptons instead of necking in a sticky-floored funhouse.

  Hell.

  “Claudette. Elliott.” Wyland kissed Claudette on both cheeks, then did the same with Elliott. “Please allow me to introduce Tia Quinn.” A slight pause. “She and I were at the State Fair when Lukas called.”

  “Oh, what fun! I haven’t been to the fair in years.” Claudette extended both hands in welcome, kissing her cheeks. “I’m delighted to meet you.”

  She looked like she actually might be. “Please, call me Tia.”

  “And we’re Claudette and Elliott.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Tia.” President Sebastiani leaned down to kiss her cheeks. “In Like Quinn, right? I’ve read some of your work.”

  “No shit?” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

  He laughed. “No worries, I’ve heard the word before.” He glanced over to the couch, where Lukas supported Scarlett, half-reclined in his arms. “Less than a minute ago, as a matter of fact.” Indicating the living area with a sweep of his arm, he said, “Welcome to the madhouse. Make yourself at home.”

  Rafe and Bailey sat curled together on the sectional couch opposite Lukas and Scarlett, and Sasha and Antonia were squabbling in the kitchen. Jack paced by the windows, Calamity hot on his heels. It wasn’t a madhouse; it was a family. In the short time it had taken her and Wyland to drive here from the fair, the entire Sebastiani family had gathered.

  Wyland approached Lukas and Scarlett. “Happy Labor Day,” he said, leaning down to kiss Scarlett on both cheeks.

  “Seriously? You’re making Labor Day jokes?” Despite her surly tone, Scarlett clutched his hands tightly. “Hi, Tia.” If Scarlett was surprised to see her, it didn’t show. “Where are my fucking drugs?”

  Her siren’s voice turned the words into weapons, but Wyland appeared unscathed. “I see things are progressing well.”