Scorched

by Sharon Ashwood

  “What is this crap?”

  “Moss,” Constance replied. “Be careful.”

  “I didn’t think anything grew in here.”

  “The tales say once there were gardens.”

  Mac gave her a disbelieving look.

  She shrugged. “There are dead trees in one of the great halls. The stories might be true.”

  He reserved judgment on that one.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, they started down a corridor that looked different from the others, the walls polished to a dull sheen. It opened into a vast space ringed with balconies. In the center was a dark pool, the sparkling black surface rippled by a faint wind. White marble rimmed the water, the carved lip fluted and curving outward. The overall shape of the pool was geometric, squares overlapping squares, reminding Mac of a Chinese design. Rather than torches, fires burned in four braziers that ringed the space. Beautiful though it was, the hall echoed strangely, making Mac think of people and places he had lost.

  “Where are we?” Mac asked, looking over his shoulder. Something about the open space put all his senses on alert, as if the lightless corners had eyes.

  “This place doesn’t have a name that I know of,” she said. “Atreus used to come here to meditate.”

  No wonder he’s nuts.

  Constance looked around. “I was hoping Viktor would be here. He always finds his way home, but he likes this place. With Miru-kai’s soldiers around, I’d rest easier if I knew where he was.”

  Mac started to follow her gaze, searching the inky shadows, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him along like a child. He allowed himself to be led, his eyes following the way her skirts swirled around her knees. All those layers of cloth made a swishing rhythm that had a seductive music all its own.

  They crossed out of the open space of the hall and entered a long corridor mottled with patches of torchlight. The passageway angled, then branched into three. Constance went to the left. Finally she stopped at the entrance to a large room. Mac reached around her, opening the door. She nodded, accepting the courtesy, and walked in. Mac followed.

  A waft of sweet-scented air greeted him. Mac looked around in wonder. It was like walking from Frankenstein’s castle into the Arabian Nights. “This is called the Summer Room,” she said. “I don’t think anyone knows it’s here.”

  It didn’t look particularly summery, but it was extraordinary. The space was gently lit by a scatter of pillar candles. Tapestries hung on the walls, strange-looking birds and animals glittering with silver thread. Swaths of silk draped the high ceiling, giving the impression of a tent. There were couches and chairs and a canopied bed in the corner, piled with a mountain of gold and black velvet cushions. Books were scattered everywhere. A violin case on one shelf. A waterfall ran down one corner of the stone wall, splashing into an enormous marble basin that drained away below. Expectation hung in the air, like words formed but not yet spoken.

  “This isn’t like anything else I’ve seen in the Castle,” Mac said, his voice hoarse. He turned around, and around again, trying to take it all in. “This is the opposite of the Castle. It’s beautiful.”

  Then he remembered Holly’s description of the room she had found, and wondered whether this was the same place. The one place in the Castle where natural appetites were not repressed. This could be interesting.

  Constance trailed her fingers down one of the tapestries, making the silver threads glitter in the candlelight. “There are a few havens like this. Remnants, I think, of another time. I found this place not long ago. It belonged to Atreus’s household once, but he doesn’t come here anymore. He left everything under a spell so that it wouldn’t decay.”

  Mac touched the arm of one of the chairs, feeling a faint ants-over-the-skin vibration of magic. It went straight for the gut. Growing more and more curious, he looked around again, taking in additional details this time. A wardrobe, the door ajar to reveal feminine clothes hung on hooks. Soap, towels, a silver-backed hairbrush. Everything had a careful neatness.

  “Do you live here?”

  “I’ve always come here as much as I could, but now I . . . Yes, I live here now. I needed a new place to stay.” Her eyes seemed to go dark, as if she was retreating from him. Whatever Constance was thinking, it was painful.

  Mac’s gaze fell on a stack of women’s magazines—Vogue and Chatelaine—that looked like they dated from between the two World Wars. A few were later, perhaps from the early sixties. “Do you read these?”

  An inane question, but as he’d intended, it snapped her out of her thoughts.

  Constance looked momentarily sheepish. “Oh, um. I found them. Sometimes people smuggle things into the Castle. I like to read them to see what people wear now. How they talk, what words they use. I don’t like to feel like I’m old-fashioned.”

  Never mind her clothes look like they came from Colonial times. And her pronunciation was sometimes off—though some of that might have been the Irish lilt. It didn’t matter. He could understand her well enough.

  Now she was busy as a model homemaker, straightening the ornaments on a dainty side table. There was a fleck of goblin on her skirt, which she cleaned off with a fussy little grumble. No, I can’t say I’ve met anyone quite like her before.

  Mac picked up one of the magazines. It had been read so often it was nearly in shreds. “What do you think of the new styles?”

  “Oh, they’re lovely, but clothes that fine would be wasted on this place. What I have is good enough for me.” Constance turned away and rearranged the cushions on the couch.

  Mac set the magazine down. At least by his standards, Constance had been too young to begin living when she was trapped in the Castle. Now she was trying to catch up vicariously with magazines a good seventy years out of date. That was just wrong.

  He slid the Jane Austen out of his jacket pocket and beneath the top Chatelaine. The gesture felt good, especially after blasting the goblin to chunky soup. Not that he had a big choice when Tusky came yodeling out of the shadows, but his karma still felt like a twelve-car pile-up.

  Constance turned to face Mac, extending a hand to the chair where she’d just fluffed the cushions. “Please, sit.”

  Mac sat down in the chair. The Castle’s magic felt thick in this room, almost touchable. Conscious. The vibes—or maybe it was the aftermath of the fight—were making him feel light-headed, as if he’d had one too many shots on an empty stomach. Which reminded him he’d skipped lunch.

  Wait a minute. If he was hungry, that meant the lid was indeed coming off his appetites. This must be the same room Holly’d been talking about, the one that let a person’s natural desires run free. Keep an eye on your impulses. Keep an eye on the pretty little vampire.

  His gaze traveled to Constance, who was pacing back and forth, her slim, straight back a fierce exclamation. Her hips swayed when she walked, twitching her skirts like a cat’s tail. Mac blinked, fascinated by her curves. It was getting hard to think.

  Reynard. Incubus. Bran. Right.

  At least where the guardsmen were concerned, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what would happen next. The captain might be an okay guy, but there was only one Reynard and a whole Castle full of Brans. With a prize like an incubus at stake, it was only a matter of time before the guardsmen’s already shaky discipline came tumbling down like a house of cards.

  So not good.

  Mac leaned his head against the back of the chair. Constance took the seat facing him, her expression intense. “What can we do?” she asked, fingering her necklace again.

  It was an odd moment, but in many ways the situation was familiar. He had a missing youth, a grieving mother, and a gang of bad guys. Not exactly a no-brainer, but he knew how this stuff worked. It was a problem he could wrap his head around and, with so much in his life that made no sense at all, that was good.

  I’ll take kidnapping for two hundred.

  “Tell me more about this demon trap. It will catch a demon in cloud fo
rm, right?”

  “Yes. The traps are usually about this big,” she said, describing a small cube with her hands. “A demon can be forced to enter by a command, or they can enter of their own free will.”

  “Sylvius?”

  “He went in on his own.”

  Mac heard her ragged, sawing drag of breath. He could almost feel her composure crumbling with the same inexorable collapse as his own body giving way to dust. He’d seen this with victims and witnesses so many times, and still it hurt him to watch.

  No emotional investment. Keep a clear head. But that warning had lost all its teeth. He’d saved her from the bad guys. She’d offered him a case. There was mutual need.

  Constance was still trying to talk. She gestured with her hands, but no words came out. She did it again, a strangled sound choking whatever it was she was going to say.

  She covered her face with her hands.

  Mac froze. “Constance, what happened?”

  “Sylvius did it to protect me,” she said, pulling her hands away. She gulped back a sob. “He gave himself up to save me. And Atreus just watched.”

  Fury hit Mac like a hook to the jaw.

  Constance drew in another breath, the air dragging past the ache in her chest. Mac was kneeling by her chair now, looking at her with that worried expression men got, as if she were about to catch fire or foam at the mouth. In her experience, not one male could stand tears.

  Mac was holding one of her hands in his. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her free hand. “So what should we do?” she asked. “Where do we start?”

  The muscles in his jaw bunched, as if he were grinding his teeth. “You tell me everything again. Every detail.”

  Bitter disappointment caked her tongue. She pulled her hand away from his. “I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to do something. They’ve got my boy.”

  There was sympathy in the strong, square lines of his face. If it was sympathy for anyone else, it would have melted her heart. Because it was for her, she felt exposed.

  He took her hand again, engulfing it in his own. “Slow down. No one thinks clearly when they’re upset.”

  Upset? How could he describe the grief and fear she was feeling as upset? She nearly slapped him. “There’s no time to slow down!”

  She knew that sounded childish, but his patient expression didn’t flicker.

  “Stealth will count more than strength,” he said gently. “Stealth takes planning. Do you know where the guardsmen keep their prisoners?”

  “I was following Bran when you interrupted and beat him to a pulp.”

  He showed an instant of surprise, then chagrin that slid into humor. “Ah. My bad.” His momentary smile showed slightly crooked teeth.

  “Indeed.” Constance pulled her hand from his and stood. She was too nervous to sit any more.

  He stood, folding his arms. He was wearing a soft sweater the color of mulberries. It brought out the darker undertones in his skin. Next to him, her skin was as pale as bone.

  These were details she shouldn’t have noticed. There wasn’t time except—oh, he smelled deliciously human. That had fooled her the first time they’d met. The demon scent was there, but right then the human overpowered it.

  She could feel his heat like a lamp, drawing her in as if it could ease the furious pain of loss. She wanted him to hold her. No one ever held her. She remembered his salty skin, that delicious musk of man. Those thoughts had flitted past, dark butterflies of desire, when she got the idea to come to this room, where there was no spell to keep passion buried.

  And the urgency of passion was exactly what she needed. Whether Mac was half demon or not, Constance was willing to gamble that his blood was still human enough to Turn her. She had led him to believe he was safe, but she hadn’t given up on the idea of taking his blood. The room, with all its sensuality, was her trap.

  People believed she was so innocent, but up until now Constance had chosen to stay that way. That didn’t mean she was oblivious to the ways of deceit. She’d just never thought anything worth the sacrifice of her morals. Not until she’d lost her son.

  Now she was faced with a choice of evils. Surely taking her first drink of human blood inside the Castle—even in the permissive confines of the Summer Room—meant that she could avoid turning into a ravening beast. Didn’t it? Wouldn’t that excuse deceiving Mac?

  He had been wary earlier, but no man was all that careful in the throes of lovemaking. At least, that’s what other girls had said. Her own experience was woefully sparse. She had to play her hand with great care.

  But was it right to bite him now, after he’d just saved her? Been so kind? Promised his aid? A sense of fair play shouldn’t hamper her, but it did. She was terrible at this biting business. Just get on with it, for heaven’s sake!

  Mac was looking at her curiously, as if he’d caught her daydreaming. Constance realized she couldn’t remember what she’d been saying.

  He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, an intimate familiarity. His skin felt rough and warm. “Our first task is reconnaissance. We can’t make any other choices until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  He looked down, his pupils reflecting the image of her face. Constance felt a chill of need and dread course over her limbs.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Kidnapping is exactly the kind of thing I was trained to handle. This is going to be a bit different with, y’know, the monster factor, but I’m seeing the possibilities here.”

  He gave a dry smile. “It’ll be fun. Really.”

  Swept along by his magnetic warmth, Constance put one hand on each of Mac’s shoulders. Almost automatically, his hands grasped her waist. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Attraction? Certainly. Hunger? Yes, but many kinds. Drumming like thunder inside her veins, those hungers called to places deep in her belly.

  Mac’s nostrils flared, his dark eyes growing darker. He was feeling it, too. She pushed against him, her body aching, itching to be free of the laces of her garments. They confined and teased, pressing against the soft flesh of her aching breasts. The throbbing beneath her teeth made her part her lips, easing the burning sensation that only feeding would cure.

  Mac seemed to hesitate, teetering on some knife-edge of decision. She watched him fall, the surrender in his eyes and in the sudden quickening of his breath. He was aroused, hers for the taking. On shaking breath, Constance murmured a prayer to whatever saint guided untried lovers and beginning vampires.

  Mac caressed her, a low growl rumbling through his chest and into her bones. His lips crushed hers, pricking against her fangs, a burst of blood radiating across her tongue. Constance stood on her toes, leaning into the hard, bruising grasp, lapping at the strange, demon-spiced blood. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and it only sharpened her need.

  Strong hands ran up her body, making her twitch as they pressed against a sore place left from Atreus’s punishment. The scent of him was exotic, drawing her face to his skin. His hands were on her bodice, peeling away the thin scarf she wore. He bent, his lips, his tongue finding the arch of her collarbone and following the valley between her breasts. His breath was hot, electrifying, sizzling against the wet trails his tongue had left.

  Mac’s dark, wavy hair brushed against her cheek, the springy texture of it begging to be touched. Her fingers fell against his neck, feeling the pulse that called to her through her belly, her nipples, through the painful clenching of her sex. Her knees quivered with it. She could feel the hard evidence of his desire pressing against her flesh.

  Take him. Take him now.

  But her senses were swimming. Her body wouldn’t obey, only react.

  With a groan, he lifted his head. The irises of his eyes glittered with a scarlet fire. There was nothing there but pure, primitive possession. His scent was changing, the human smell fading as they stood there.

  No. Oh, no.

  What have I done? I’ve called forth his demon.

  She’d missed he
r chance to feed, but here was something else. Fear and desire was a potent combination. Savage delight rose in her, ready to fight. Ready to grapple, however he chose to do it. This was even more exciting.

  Demon or not, she still wanted him. Maybe she wanted him even more. She couldn’t really hurt a demon. They couldn’t be accidentally Turned. There would be no guilt.

  Mac—or the thing that had been Mac—held her by the upper arms, his grip beyond even vampire-strong. He put his lips to her ear. “If I take you, I’ll hurt you.”

  He pushed her away, leaving every nerve in her body shrieking with rage.

  “No!” she said, grabbing the front of his sweater to reel him back in.

  “I’m not human anymore,” he said, the mirror of her own emotions in his face. “I won’t play by the rules. I won’t be any good to eat, sweetheart.”

  “I know that. I don’t care.” There were more needs than food. She pushed forward, her lips finding the hollow of his throat, salty-sweet with the taste of him. He was hot to the touch, almost burning. For the first time since she had been bitten, she felt truly warm.

  He grabbed her arms, setting her back once more with that insane strength. “If you don’t back away, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Only if you’re willing to take a demon for a lover. I have no idea what my demon might do, but it wants you.”

  And then she felt it, a pressing wave of need that rolled off him and sent her skittering backward. He took a step forward, the very proximity of his energy nearly bringing her to her knees. Her jaws burned with the need to taste him. Her body felt like it was breaking apart in its haste to surrender.

  Constance panted, hugging herself, shivering with frustration. Now she wanted him for so much more than a first meal. A door had just cracked open, and there were all kinds of temptation on the other side. Everything she had missed since she was seventeen. Everything for herself.