by Eve Langlais
At least he wouldn’t have to do laundry.
The thought didn’t give Hugo as much comfort as he hoped. As he led Avery deeper into the whimsical warren that was the ComeTrue casino, his thoughts took a decidedly darker turn.
Raze and Yelena had asked him to look into Barrows as another channel for delivering their message. Now he wished he’d focused on the reclusive tycoon and left the spirited but sensitive reporter out of it.
She was overwhelmed at the changes to her worldview, off balance at the possibility her years with her mother hadn’t been madness after all. Worse, he suspected she was still floating on the emotional euphoria of his bite.
The twisted magic that cursed ravpyrii stole their life force and doomed them to an eternity leeching off others to survive. The black hole where his passions used to be triggered a response in his prey, like an allergic reaction, with their emotions seeking to fill the void they sensed in him. Whatever feelings he induced–fear, pain, fury, ecstasy–poured into him. The stronger, the better.
He had provoked Avery’s fascination with him, and now it reverberated through her. It would diminish, eventually. He hoped.
They would find Barrows to give her incentive, then she could sleep off the various surprises she’d endured. In the morning, he would give her the rest of what she needed to finish her article.
Maybe as soon as tomorrow night, he’d claim his reward, and Raze the Ruiner King would lift his curse at last. That he might end his doomed existence on Christmas Eve seemed the best gift he could hope for.
They emerged into a vaulted crossroads, much like a market in the center of a town square. Shops and eateries lined the hall, bustling with activity; buying a scarf or a cinnamon bun was at least a sure thing. A trompe l’oeil sky was painted along the arched ceiling, capturing scenes from a spring morning to a winter’s night as the hall extended almost out of sight.
Hugo halted, frowning into the distance. “I hadn’t noticed before,” he murmured. “There’s no way the hall can be that long.”
She followed his gaze. “But it is, clearly.”
“Nothing is clear.”
“My motto for tonight is believe everything,” she said. “What’s bugging you?”
“There is more magic at work here than even I was prepared to swallow.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I’ll just… I’ll have my editor set aside three pages for the article.”
He glanced down at her with mild alarm. “You’re taking this very well.”
She met his gaze over her knuckles, her eyes crinkling. “And my other choice is…?”
What had she seen with her mother? Had it predisposed her to believe? Or were invisible pressure lines forming that would crack if touched the wrong way? He’d have to be careful until he was sure.
He took another step but she grabbed his arm. “I gotta run to the ladies’ room. Wait here.”
Before he could answer, she darted away. Apparently magic could only do so much.
Impatient, he paced near a group of other abandoned males. Just when it belatedly occurred to him that she might have fled, she returned, smelling of soap, water, lipstick, and, more faintly, of tears.
He glanced sharply into her red–rimmed eyes. “Avery…”
She held up one hand to stop him; the puncture wounds were barely more than memories on her soft skin. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
He balked. “Something happened–”
“Fuck yeah,” she hissed. “A lot has happened. And I’m dealing. Now let’s go.”
Maybe he should’ve anticipated that there’d be a third option: she could believe, break down, and still come back swinging.
Admiration welled up in him. He’d known strong women in his past, though their opportunities to express themselves had been more curtailed than Avery’s. Sometimes fatally so. But like them, she confronted the trials before her unbowed.
As proud as he was of her, a snake of shame slithered through him to think that at his first opportunity, he would run back to the numb forgetfulness of the phaedrealii. Apparently, he didn’t have the same nerve as the women he held in such esteem.
Behind a fake tree between a jewelry shop and a whisky bar, he showed her a service entry. He let his fingers hover over the security pad and then typed in the code. The door clicked open.
She ducked under his arm. “You really are good with numbers… Or did you bite someone to get that info?”
He followed her into the unadorned white corridor. “I told you, you were my first in a very long time.” When she let out a soft snort, he added, “The code changes daily, but I can follow the sweat on the keys.”
“You ravpyrii are full of tricks. I assume you’re awesome at bluffing too.” With her hands on her hips, she turned a slow circle, studying the space, before she finished her perusal and faced him. “How long is ‘very long’?”
She’d washed her face, and damp strands of hair straggled down both her cheeks. The red had darkened to ebony which made her skin seem paler than ever. He fisted his hand against the urge to tuck those locks behind her ears.
“How long?” she asked again. “You know, for the story.”
“Since I tasted the life force of a human, almost seven hundred years.”
“Seven…” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Lucky sevens, I guess.”
“Indeed.” He took a step closer to her, but she spun away from him.
“So where exactly are we going?”
Her retreat bothered him, but he stifled the pang of disappointment. He was only here to get her to help the phae and the werelings, not to help himself. Certainly not to help himself to her. He gestured for her to continue down the hall. “The casino staff have been working around the clock on the holiday parade. Barrows wants to launch with an unforgettable spectacle.”
“No easy task in Vegas,” Avery drawled.
“The preparations are taking place in the basement and won’t be unveiled until tomorrow night. If we make a bit of a scene, I know Barrows will want to deal with us personally.”
She gave a sharp nod, as if something had clicked into place for her. “Because he’s one of you, isn’t he? So why don’t you have him on your speed dial? Why do you have to come knocking at his back door like a nobody human?”
Hugo lifted his eyebrows, again impressed. No wonder Yelena had suggested Avery as their point of contact despite her outlandish by–lines. In dark places where most humans feared to peek, she tore back the veils and stared with both eyes wide open. “We believe he is a phae or maybe a wereling, yes. But a rogue, for some reason lost to the court and the packs.”
“Apparently being lost has worked out pretty well for him. What makes you think he’ll agree to be part of your coming out of the closet?”
“He has even more to lose–and to gain–than most of us. He’ll want a say in how this goes.”
“But humans getting a say… not so much.”
“You’re human. And here you are.”
Her green eyes widened, as if the reality–or the reality of her altered reality–had sunk in anew. “Oh, shit. I am, aren’t I?”
He turned aside to push open another door that wasn’t locked. “Humans first.”
“Ha.” She stomped past him, boot heels echoing in the stairwell.
The descent was longer than one flight of stairs; he hadn’t appreciated how deep the casino went, though this was physical excavation work, not some sleight of phae illusion.
Halfway down, the ring of voices reached them.
Avery stopped him with a hand on his elbow. “It just occurred to me that you never answered if this was the sort of deal that might get us kneecapped. I’m going to amend that question to ask if we might get–I dunno–turned into frogs?”
He frowned. The mélange he’d taken from her earlier was evaporating, but he sensed the fairy tales swirling in her head, tinged with awe and fear. “Why frogs?”
“Because I can’t think o
f anything less suited for a desert in the winter.”
Unable to stop himself, he leaned down to kiss her. It started as a swift impulse but morphed into a long, lingering meld and an unsteady sway on the edge of the steps. She lifted her hand to brace herself, not on the stair rail but on him, her fingers tracing up his throat to the curve of his jaw.
When he finally pulled back, her hand followed him, her thumb resting lightly on the curve of his lower lip. “What was that for?”
“In case you turn into a frog.” He shrugged.
“Oh. Well then.” She tilted her head to one side and glanced away.
This time, he gave in to the urge to smooth her hair back. The strands curled around his fingers, almost but not quite as silky as her pussy had been.
“Onward?” he asked.
“Always.”
That wasn’t necessarily so, but he appreciated her bravado.
In the basement, they found a bustle to rival the crowds upstairs. Most were dressed in employee black–on–black, so Hugo fit in well enough. A trio with boxes stacked in their arms gave Avery a passing glance but said nothing.
They fell into line behind the trio and continued down the narrow hallway until it opened into a vast chamber. Concrete columns rose up into the shadows of exposed ductwork, like they’d been swallowed by a whale skeleton, but suspended fluorescent tubes illuminated a cheerful chaos of holiday decorations. Yards of bunting and lights were strung along the floor, a tripping hazard for the dozen workers assembling miniature cottages built to resemble various sweet confections. Another two dozen people festooned a small forest of fake pine trees with ornaments. An entire herd of equally fake antlered deer, led by one with a red nose, wheeled past them on rollers, pulling a large empty sleigh.
“So Santa’s elves live in the desert,” Avery said. “The kids will be so disappointed.”
“Elves?” Hugo studied the nearest workers. “These aren’t phae. They’re human.”
“I was joking.”
A popping noise jolted them, and somebody laughed as a glittering cloud of white particles descended on the forest. “Found the snow blower!” Somebody else sneezed.
Hugo frowned. “Who is in charge? That’s the person we want to find.”
“Are you sure this is the right time?” Avery shifted from one foot to the other. “Maybe we should wait until things aren’t so whack.”
He lifted one eyebrow at her. “Are you frightened?”
She snorted. “Me, scared? It’ll take more than what I’ve seen so far.” She paused and added, “No offense or anything.”
“Maybe I should’ve bitten you harder.”
She jerked her head back to stare at him, a few flakes of the white glitter sparkling in the red strands of her hair. But it was the glitter in her eyes that captured him.
She was most definitely not frightened.
He took a step toward her, his jaw falling open so he could suck in the scent of her arousal, but she rocked up onto her toes and pointed past him. “Look, I see a suit with a clipboard. If you want to find people in charge, follow the suits with clipboards.”
Clamping an ill–fitting lock on his hunger, Hugo spun on his heel to fall in beside her. “Suits and clipboards will have answers for us?”
“Probably not. But they’ll delegate so they don’t have to deal with us themselves.” She held up her hand. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
The blonde woman, who was directing cleanup of the unexpected snowfall, shot Avery a harried glance. “If you’re here about the body painting casting call or the chorale rehearsal, both are in Convention Room C down the hall.”
Avery answered in the negative, but Hugo was momentarily distracted. Body painting? Unbidden, his imagination supplied a possible explanation. With Avery as the explicit example.
He might be a monster, but if anything could make him sing like an angel…
He breathed out a subliminal growl, nothing that Avery would have heard, but the other woman looked at him.
They both froze.
She was ravpyrii too.
Chapter Seven
Avery continued, “We were hoping you could…” Realizing no one was listening to her, she stopped.
Hugo’s gaze locked on the other woman whose gray eyes were wide with shock.
Avery pursed her lips, feeling like a girlfriend whose boyfriend had just double–taked on an ex walking by. “You two know each other, huh?”
The woman’s focus was as fixed on Hugo as his was on her. “Who are you?”
So much for them knowing each other. But Avery quickly put the pieces together. Which wasn’t hard considering the vehemence of the woman’s question revealed a glimpse of her teeth. Not something Avery would have normally noticed, except she’d been having one of those nights.
Hugo had said he was the only ravpyr in the world. Well, the only one he knew of. Apparently he was wrong. Geez, was she the last human left? She’d have to remember to turn the lights off on her way out.
Shifting gears on the fly, Avery announced, “We’re here with a proposition for Mr. Barrows. It’s, ah, somewhat out of the ordinary, I suppose you could say.”
That brought the other woman’s attention around. She crossed her arms over her navy blazer, her clipboard jostling the little bronze name tag on her lapel. “Mr. Barrows… is unavailable for meetings.”
The reaction should have been rote, but from the hesitation, Avery knew the woman was rattled. “Only with humans?” Avery tilted her head with a smile just wide enough to show her not–pointy teeth as she scanned the name tag. “Tell me, Ms. Dyer, how would he feel about a visit from the king of the phae?”
It was a bluff, of course. But Hugo’s harshly indrawn breath gave it a nice air of astonishment, as if she’d just laid down a royal flush.
Tira Dyer clearly didn’t have the cards to match it. Her gray eyes narrowed to slits. “And what would you know of the phae?”
Avery reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. “Avery Hill, reporter on assignment for Conspiracy Quarterly.” For once, she didn’t cringe as she said it. This was the first time it actually meant something. She flashed the website’s semi–official–looking logo. “And this is my… colleague, Hugo de Grava.” She hoped her own stumble hadn’t been too obvious. “We’re sure Mr. Barrows is going to want to give us a comment on our story.”
“What story is that?”
“That the odds at ComeTrue are even odder than us poor humans could’ve ever guessed.”
With a belated glance around her, Dyer gestured them away from the other workers. They stepped to the other side of the half–dressed Christmas trees. “I don’t know…” She pressed her fingertips over her lips. Her hand trembled, but the weight of her touch was hard enough to blanche her lip over her incisor. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”
Hugo took a half step toward her. “You don’t have to tell us anything,” he said, a lilt of old–world charm in his voice. “Just let us talk to Barrows.”
Avery wanted to smack him for playing the good cop with a pretty woman. Dyer with her sleek blondness–not to mention her good–paying job–was everything Avery wasn’t. Maybe being physically attractive was a cause or effect of ravpyrii physiology. Might make a nice sidebar for her article. Assuming she could get over this niggling sense of jealousy long enough to write it.
She had no right to be jealous, she told herself firmly. Hugo wasn’t hers. They weren’t even the same species.
Dyer let her hand drop to her side and took a steadying breath. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Barrows put me in charge of daily operations here, and I’m not going to betray his trust by talking with reporters.”
Hugo studied her. “And talking with other ravpyrii?”
She lowered her voice so much Avery had to lean in, although there was no one close enough to overhear. “Deon made this place for the ravpyrii so we don’t have to… we don’t have to do the things we used to do to survive. The feelings… everything we ne
ed, it’s all here, all the time, without forcing anyone, without anyone even knowing.”
Feeling? Was that a euphemism for feeding?
“Someone will know, someday,” Hugo said. “Eventually, the humans will discover they aren’t alone.”
Dyer gave her blonde head a dismissive toss. “If the dragon at the bottom of Loch Ness can keep the mystery alive, so can we.”
Avery jerked straight. “What? Dra–”
“Humans haven’t even been able to pinpoint the algae ring portal off Bermuda.” Dyer’s lip lifted in a sneer that showcased her sharp fang. “They still think it’s a triangle, and you think they’ll believe vampires are living in Vegas? CG and Photoshop save our asses every time.”
“They can’t ignore the teeth in their jugular,” Hugo said.
Dyer shrugged. “There’re weirder kinks around here.”
Avery could practically feel the woman locking down, tight as a casino vault. “Mr. Barrows might not have a choice in whether the true nature of his vampire kingdom is exposed.”
Dyer raised one sculpted eyebrow. “Is that a threat, coming from someone who gave up her blood so very, very easily? I smell his saliva on you. How many times did you let him bite you? I’d call you a whore but that doesn’t really apply, does it? Since he gave you nothing in return.”
Avery might have been inclined to blush–especially with the memory of Hugo’s tongue in her mouth–but this stubborn source had her dander up. As long as the mouthy bitch kept talking until she said something useful… “At least he was honest with me. He doesn’t try to hide who he is.” She arched one eyebrow. “Unlike some.”
Dyer took a menacing step toward Avery. “Is that all it takes to suck from you? Honesty? Then I will tell you, no human deserves to share what we’ve made here. Come, leave your money and a few days of your life with us, but then go home and leave us be.”
“Enough.” Hugo grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Avery isn’t the one who will expose you. The phae king has taken a wereling as his mate, and they wish to walk freely in the sunlit realm. This new rule will apply to all. I am here to invoke it.”