Waking the Serpent

by Jane Kindred

Both cat and host were relaxing in a pile of cushions by the time she’d finished, and Rafe had turned the top of Puddleglum’s carrier into a makeshift privacy hood for the cat box, while the bottom held food and water dishes in a separate station.

  “Wow.” Phoebe stared at the scene as she came around the screen. “This is nicer than my place.”

  Rafe laughed as he stroked the cat. “It’s a good spot to curl up in with a book during a thunderstorm.”

  Dear God. He liked cats and he curled up with books during thunderstorms. This man was not human.

  Phoebe knelt in front of the cushions. “So you think the necromancer, this Tezcatlipoca guy, sent the coyote to attack Glum?”

  “No, I think he sent the coyote to warn you away from me. Or he is the coyote. I believe it’s his nagual, his protector animal.”

  “And you think he can transform into it? He’s a shape-shifter?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Rafe frowned as he avoided the stitches on Puddleglum’s thigh. “That’s the mythology. Which until a few days ago I would have said was just that. Mythology. Symbolism and nothing more. But it’s too much of a coincidence. That owl in your yard—it’s a symbol for Mictlantecuhtli—and now the coyote. I saw it yesterday watching us from across the road. I should have said something then but I didn’t want to alarm you needlessly.” Rafe pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, was that yesterday? I need a drink.”

  * * *

  Two gin and tonics later, Phoebe and Rafe had taken over the pile of cushions, while Puddleglum stalked off to curl up under the coffee table.

  Rafe stared into his glass at the melting ice as he held it up to the light. “The last thing I said to my father was a dig about my mother cheating on him.”

  “Beats ‘I wish you were dead.’”

  Rafe’s eyes fixed on her as if he thought she was mocking him.

  “That’s what I said to my parents,” Phoebe clarified. “Not directly to them. But after they dropped me off at boarding school. I said it while glaring at the door as they drove away. They were killed in a seven-car pile-up on I-17 half an hour later.”

  “Wow.” Rafe lowered his glass. “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen. They thought I needed spiritual guidance I wasn’t getting at home to cure me of my delusions about talking to dead people.”

  “Seems like an understandable response from a fifteen-year-old. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “Sure, and I get that intellectually, but it’s still something I have to live with, remembering how much I was hating them at the moment they died, and that they certainly knew it.” Phoebe took a sip of her drink. “That’s just how it is. We can’t predict when someone’s going to die, and as much as we’d like to, it isn’t reasonable to expect to be able to go through life never being pissed at the people we care about in case it might be the last time we see them. I have to believe my parents understood that, too. I’ve communicated with a lot of shades over the years, and no one has ever been on the other side wondering if the loved ones they left behind actually hated them. It’s always the ones left behind who are afraid the people they’ve lost believed that.”

  While Phoebe spoke, Rafe had mixed himself another drink, mostly gin, and he downed half of it. “He may not have died thinking I hated him, but I’m fairly certain my father died hating me.”

  Lounging beside him, Phoebe put a hand on his knee. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I insisted on tarnishing the memory of the people who meant the most to him. I took away all his good memories.” Rafe finished his drink and set the glass on the floor, slipping his fingers between Phoebe’s where they rested on his knee. “And I’d do it again. Not to hurt him, but because it was the truth. I was tired of having to protect other people’s lies at the expense of myself.” He glanced at Phoebe, obviously more than a little buzzed. “We owe ourselves that, don’t we? The right to speak the truth?”

  Phoebe squeezed his hand. “Yeah, we do.” His eyes were intense and full of turmoil. And, damn, was he beautiful. There was a possibility she might be a little buzzed, too.

  Unexpectedly, Rafe rolled onto his side on the cushions and brought his other hand to the side of Phoebe’s head. “Yeah, we do,” he repeated emphatically, and his lips met hers.

  Phoebe closed her eyes and slid her hands over the ripple of muscles at his sides as Rafe dug his fingers into her hair, freeing it from its habitual ponytail. She moaned into him, surrendering to the exploration of his tongue and his hands. His touch was less demanding, less possessing, than it had been under Jacob’s influence, but the sensual, tentative caresses were more arousing in a way, as she could sense his desire to experience every inch of her with a kind of newness and wonder that had been lacking in Jacob’s aggressive presumption of her reciprocation.

  Not that she wasn’t wholeheartedly reciprocating now. Her hands slipped under his shirt to stroke his skin, and the warmth of his flesh beneath her fingers tingled into nerves far removed from her hands. When she reached the tiny peaks of his nipples with her thumbs, he arched against her touch with a groan of appreciation, the vibration of sound in her mouth sending blood rushing to her clit.

  She pulled the shirt over Rafe’s head, separating their mouths, and then placed hers against one of the dark nipples. Rafe swore softly, sexily, arms braced beside her as he paused for a moment at the sensation before he began working through the buttons at the front of her shirt. Leaning back, he pulled her into his lap, freeing the hooks of her bra to let it fall away and expose her breasts. Drawing her close once more with his hands at the sides of her head, he rocked his hips against hers as he kissed her more forcefully, her breasts brushing his chest, and his erection teasing against the damp heat between her thighs beneath the fabric of the leggings.

  Dizzy with need for him, Phoebe undid the button at his waist and unzipped his pants, drawing her nails over the bulge beneath the tight underwear before tearing her mouth away from his to scramble back and dip down to taste him, freed from the elastic band. A musky bead of liquid dripped against her tongue.

  Rafe rose onto his knees to give her room, clutching her upper arms with a groan as she swallowed him, and then tensed after a moment and drew back, pulling her off.

  Phoebe blinked up at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head, though his expression seemed to say otherwise. “Nothing at all. God, that felt good, but I think we’re both a little drunk. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

  “You are not taking advantage of me. Not even a little.” Phoebe tried to reach for him once more, but Rafe held her away. He kissed her again, as if to reassure her, but his hands dropped away from her to put himself back together and zip up before he broke contact with her mouth.

  “Maybe we should slow down a little.” He drew her to the cushions and wrapped his broad arms around her.

  He wanted to cuddle? She rested her head on his chest, heat rising in her cheeks. Was she that out of practice that she’d done it badly? Her head was swimming. Maybe Rafe was right and she really had drunk too much. He was certainly the first guy she’d been with to care about that. Just her luck—she’d met one of the rare actually nice guys. She hoped.

  In the back of her mind, she heard Monique’s voice. Bunch of power-tripping dicks like that Diamante. They act like they’re respectable.

  Rafe kissed her hair. “S’nice having you here.”

  Phoebe sighed and closed her eyes. As much as she hated to admit it, this hadn’t been a great idea, anyway. He’d just lost his father and was drowning his grief in drink and desire. He’d probably regret it in the morning.

  * * *

  But in the pale, otherworldly light of false dawn, Phoebe woke to much more emphatic kisses against her throat. Rafe kissed his way downward, lavishing attention
on both breasts in turn until Phoebe’s moans had become desperate pleas for more, before continuing along her stomach to her navel. She gasped as he pulled down her leggings and panties with his teeth and spread her open with a generous lap of his tongue while he slid the fabric over her thighs to trap her ankles.

  Propped on her elbows, she watched the dark head dip down, buried in her lap, before the intense sensations of his expert oral dexterity made it too hard to focus. She arched back, whimpering moans rising in pitch and tempo, and at last crescendoing into full-throated cries.

  But Rafe was just getting started. Phoebe reached for him as he peeled the leggings off her feet, but he pinned her wrists and descended on her once more. He teased her with his tongue, pulling away repeatedly until Phoebe was thrashing and moaning with delightful frustration.

  He brought his sticky mouth up to hers and Phoebe moaned at the taste of her own pleasure. “Please,” she whimpered when he let up and appeared to be heading back to torment her once more.

  Rafe paused, hovering over her. “Please what?” His voice was deep and husky with desire.

  “I want to feel you inside me.”

  His dark eyes glittered in the dim light of the paling sky. “You want me to fuck you.” The blunt, unvarnished sexuality of the word, and the low growl of the hard consonants in his throat, made the blood rush into all the right places.

  “Fuck, yes,” she breathed. “Please.”

  Rafe pushed himself to standing and Phoebe watched him strip off his pants and underwear, revealing an unabashed and generous erection. He stroked himself as he looked down at her, seeming to ponder something before dropping onto his knees between her thighs and taking a foil packet from his pocket as she hooked her legs around him. The lubed condom escaped the foil when he opened it and Phoebe caught it.

  Rafe groaned as she rolled it over his cock in one swift motion, for a brief instant exhibiting none of the stoic yet delicious control with which he’d been approaching this encounter. The little shudder along his spine made her want to feel him lose control. Inside her.

  She came up onto her knees and straddled his thighs, and Rafe clutched her by the hair at her nape as she lowered herself onto him. She’d been expecting a bit of discomfort with his size after being out of the game so long, but he’d gotten her so wet that her body eagerly took him in deep, his cock filling her like he was made for her. His fist tightened in her hair and Phoebe relinquished control, hanging loose in his grip as he began to thrust into her vigorously. In this position, the curve of his cock hit that sweet spot inside her just right, and Phoebe rocketed into another climax, sure she was making enough noise this time to wake the dead, but not caring. No one had ever gotten her this hot before or fit her so perfectly.

  Tipping her onto her back while she was still shuddering, Rafe dropped his weight onto her, arms wrapped tightly around her body, eager, growling vocalizations accompanying his motions while she wrapped her legs around his pumping hips and hung on for the ride.

  Her whole body was tingling with aftershocks when Rafe made a sudden, frustrated growl against her throat and pushed himself up with his fists balled into the cushions, drawing a moan of protest from her as they separated.

  “I can’t do this,” he growled. “I’ve changed my mind. Fuck off.”

  Phoebe gaped at him as her legs dropped away from his hips. “What?”

  “No, no. Not you. Oh, gods, not you.” Rafe’s midnight eyes went wide with mortification and he scrambled back. “Phoebe, no, sorry, I—Fuck.”

  That tingling, expectant energy traveling over her—that hadn’t been aftershocks. “What the—? Are you kidding me? Jacob?” Phoebe leaped to her feet, not caring that she was naked. “Did you conjure him?” His hesitation was answer enough. She grabbed her underwear and leggings and yanked them on. “You’re unbelievable. Is this how you get your kicks? Was this your plan from the start? A little metaphysical gangbang with the stupid evocator?”

  “No. Phoebe, wait.” He reached out for her but Phoebe sidestepped him, grabbing her shirt from the cushions. Her bra was somehow across the tile on the other side of him. She put on the shirt without it and jerked the buttons into the holes while she looked around for her sandals. She must have left them by the couch.

  Rafe was zipping up his pants when she came back with the sandals tucked under one arm and Puddleglum under the other. “Phoebe, please listen to me.”

  She should have paid attention to Monique’s warning. “I’m starting to get why no one ever sleeps with you more than once. You don’t have intimacy issues. You have asshole issues. You sick freak.” Her reach for the cat carrier to try to put it back together alerted Puddleglum to his imminent confinement and Phoebe lost the battle to hold on to either. “Dammit, Puddleglum!” He was off like a flash and the doors to the foyer were open.

  “Phoebe, let me explain.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Diamante. Puddleglum!” She ran barefoot into the foyer, but there was no telling where the cat had gone. Or how huge this house was. Phoebe blinked back tears, feeling like Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle looking for Pyewacket and realizing from her tears that she’d fallen in love with Jimmy Stewart and given up her power. God, Phoebe was an idiot.

  “I’ll bring him to you,” said Rafe quietly behind her. “You can go if you want.”

  Phoebe whirled on him. So now the creep was dismissing her. At least he wasn’t planning on tying her up in his basement. “You can have your lawyer bring him to me. I don’t want to see you again.”

  Rafe buried his hands in his pockets. “Fair enough.”

  Phoebe put on the sandals, lifting each foot behind her and slipping on the sandal from the back to keep Rafe in full view. Who knew what he was capable of? He’d probably murdered Barbara Fisher. “If you do anything to my cat, I swear, I will hunt you down.” She brushed past him and went out and slammed the door before he could respond.

  Chapter 14

  What had possessed him to do something so stupid? After vomiting up the bitter juniper-berry taste of gin, Rafe slumped onto his ass on the bathroom floor and laughed at the ironic idiocy of the question then fought the urge to cry. His hair still smelled like Phoebe.

  She’d never forgive him for this. All he seemed to be able to do lately was let down the people he cared about. Gabriel, Matthew, his father—and now Phoebe.

  He hadn’t had a chance to tell her he hadn’t let Jacob in. He’d woken up to find her sleeping beside him, dark hair damp against her temple and smelling like the desert dawn itself, and the idea that ought to have been a fleeting fantasy had taken hold of him.

  After trying in vain to go back to sleep, he’d crept away to his altar to utter the invocation and make the bargain with the shade. It had seemed like the perfect solution. Though it was a problem he’d never have had if he hadn’t suggested she stay here last night. And now she was heading straight back to her house, unprotected from Tezcatlipoca’s nagual. He might as well have not warned her at all.

  But what he’d experienced this morning—besides the best sex he’d ever had in his life—might have changed everything. As he’d joined with Phoebe, he’d felt the ink moving again on his back—and then he’d felt...something else. Something inside him waking. Something powerful and strong. If Tezcatlipoca could project or appear as nagual, Rafe had felt at that moment he could simply become nagual. He’d felt a sensation like wings rising from his shoulders, independent of the ink, driven skyward by the sheer delight of being so close to Phoebe. He’d almost been surprised when she hadn’t remarked on them, certain they must be visible.

  If he could reach that state again, he thought he might even be able to fly.

  All of which meant he was very likely losing his mind.

  Behind him in the mirror, Puddleglum slunk past the bathroom door on his suspicious inspection of the house. Rafe
managed to grab him and get him into the carrier with a minimum of bloodletting. Hamilton agreed without question when Rafe called to request the pick-up and delivery of the animal.

  “Your father’s estate is paying me well,” Hamilton assured him when Rafe tried to offer a lame explanation. “If it needs doing and if whatever happened doesn’t impact the case in any way, I’m happy to help out, and it’s none of my business. Besides, given the news that just broke, I don’t think you should be going for a drive anytime soon.”

  Rafe’s muscles tensed as he asked the question he already knew the answer to. “What news?”

  “A source at the police department leaked the information about Barbara Fisher’s sideline business. And your alleged involvement as a client.”

  * * *

  Phoebe stared at the far wall of the shower while the hot water beat down on her. To say she felt violated was an understatement. And yet, how close had she come—twice—to letting Jacob use Rafe for her own pleasure? But she’d stopped him before it had gone that far. And she sure as hell hadn’t conjured Jacob up to take advantage of Rafe.

  What she couldn’t understand was why he’d done it. Despite her initial reaction, she couldn’t believe he’d been playing her this whole time like some kind of psycho. Phoebe leaned her head against the tile, not sure what to believe, the sweet ache between her thighs making it difficult to accept the apparent reality behind the mind-blowing sex she’d just had.

  Phoebe sighed. She couldn’t stay in here forever. She turned off the shower and dried off. Pulling on her bathrobe as she stepped out of the bathroom, Phoebe nearly jumped out of her skin. A shadow had fallen over the narrow window beside the front door. The knock that followed was jarring, even though the shadow had prepared her for it. Rafe’s warnings, and the morning’s unexpected turn, had left her completely on edge, like she’d guzzled an entire pot of black tea. It wasn’t as if a magical coyote was going to knock before it came to rip out her throat.

  Phoebe tied her bathrobe tighter as she reached the door. “Who’s there?”