A Risky Proposition

by Dawn Addonizio

  “I came upon her in the pool where she had first met my father. She had drowned herself, choosing to end her own life so that her soul could not be claimed, and would return to its rightful place in the Sea of Souls to be reborn. I was taken in and raised by my sidhe kin, for though my mother had cheated Moab out of her soul, he could not renege on her first two wishes.”

  The pain in Sparrow’s eyes seemed ancient and diluted by long acceptance, but it tore at my heart. It flowed into me, making me angry and sad and breathless with injustice. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until he reached up to gently brush a tear from the corner of my eye. His hand remained, cradling the side of my face.

  “Don’t cry, Sydney. All souls pass, and enough tears have been shed over my parents already. I needed to tell you this, not because I wanted your sympathy, but because I felt you should know why I have been so angry around you. The thought of watching you lose your soul to the death djinns infuriates me. Do you understand?”

  I nodded mutely, my tears falling faster.

  “Damn it, Sydney, don’t cry like that,” he whispered, leaning forward to press his lips to the thin rivulets staining my cheeks. “I’m sorry, I should have known better than to lay that on you.” He groaned and cupped my face in both hands, his mouth traveling unhurriedly across my jaw. My eyelids fluttered shut as his lips reached mine and began a gentle tasting, making me forget everything but his touch.

  I opened my mouth to him and he deepened the kiss, my tears salty on his tongue. A slow, profound force moved through me, different from the quick stabs of desire I had felt before. It left me dizzy and reeling as I returned Sparrow’s kiss with a passion approaching desperation. I clung to him, feeling as if I would lose myself if I let go.

  His hands left my face, traveling restlessly down my shoulders. Warm palms moved to lift my breasts in a teasing embrace, his thumbs brushing enticingly over the fabric above my nipples. I arched into him reflexively, drawing his breath into my mouth as liquid pooled low and hot within me. I wanted him so badly I ached. A deep wave of need moved through me and I moaned, reaching to free his shirt from the waistband of his slacks so that my hands could roam his skin.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to touch you like this, Sydney,” Sparrow breathed into my mouth.

  “I think I might have some idea,” I disagreed, my smile melting into a haze of desire as Sparrow’s kiss became more demanding.

  My fingertips brushed firmly up over the unyielding muscles of his back, splaying wide to take in as much of his coveted flesh as they could. I gently raked his smooth skin with my fingernails on their journey back down, before moving my hands around the solid mass of his waist and pushing them up between us so that I could caress his chest.

  Sparrow’s hands left my breasts to stroke my hair and he grasped the nape of my neck to fit my mouth closer to his.

  My hand wandered across his chest, making him gasp when I found his nipples. I rubbed them with my fingertips, creating a gentle friction, and he retaliated by breaking our kiss. I sounded an objection that quickly turned into a moan of pleasure as he pushed up my tank-top and his mouth found my breast, teasing one thoroughly with his lips and tongue and then kissing a path over to the other.

  He tore his mouth away with a groan and pulled me into him, stroking my back as we both caught our breath.

  “I have to get back to work,” he gasped unsteadily.

  Seeing the disappointed look in my eyes, he grasped my hand in his and brought it to his lips, then slowly guided it down between us, pressing it firmly into the thickness of his erection. Goddess, I wanted him inside of me.

  “I want you, Sydney—so much it hurts.” He grimaced. “But I didn’t intend for it to happen like this. I have to stay focused on the investigation and getting your contract cancelled.”

  I wanted to tell him that having incredible sex with him would probably go a long way toward strengthening my resistance to the death djinns, but it didn’t seem like the prudent response. Instead I said, “I appreciate that, Sparrow; I really do. And you can be sure that I’m focusing on getting my contract cancelled as well. But I want you too.”

  He smiled. “A compelling argument—one which we’ll have to explore later, because they really are calling me back to the office.”

  “Your tattoo is glowing again,” I commented, brushing my fingers over the white fabric concealing his upper arm. A mild shock of awareness warmed my hand, sparking along my already aroused nerve endings. “I can see the red pulsing through your shirt,” I whispered in fascination.

  He answered by leaning forward and taking my lips in a swift kiss, his tongue tasting them gently at first, then thrusting into my mouth suggestively, bringing us both back up to the boiling point.

  “I can’t seem to get enough of you, Sydney,” he murmured as he pulled me closer, nipping at my earlobe and sending a delicious shiver down my spine. A soft growl of frustration sounded deep within his throat. “I have to go. But I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  “Soon,” I agreed. I wanted more. I wanted him to tear my clothes off and take me right there. But I wasn’t about to beg for it. If he’d rather go back to work instead, that was fine.

  Not.

  He stood and tucked his shirt back into his slacks, then leaned down to brush his lips across my forehead. His fingers skimmed lightly over my cheek in a caress that left my flesh tingling for his touch long after he disappeared.

  I sank back into the bed with a groan of frustration. When I grabbed my pillow, I discovered that Sparrow had replaced the silver coin beneath it.

  I squeezed it tightly in my palm, cursing all death djinns.

  Chapter 12 – What Lies Hidden

  Figuring that I’d wallowed in my frustration for long enough, I trudged through the kitchen to rejoin Sunny and Lorien in the sitting room. I turned the corner to find the tawny leather couch occupied by Angelica. She wore her French maid’s uniform with her long blonde hair piled neatly atop her head.

  She sat next to Sunny, who was still in her pajamas, with her dark curls spilling over the shoulders of her silky black robe. A sparkling Lorien hovered excitedly between them, and Angelica was listening attentively as she and Sunny gave a joint update on my death djinn predicament.

  Jasper seemed to have taken a liking to Angelica without the offending presence of her vacuum, and had stretched himself out on his back beside her so that she could rub his belly. I thought I’d heard the sounds of cleaning earlier, but I’d been a little too preoccupied to acknowledge it.

  Sunny stopped mid-sentence as soon as she caught sight of me, a knowing grin spreading across her face. “Did Patrick just now leave?”

  “No,” Angelica answered sadly. “Sydney’s lover left almost an hour ago. He continues to withhold his beautiful erection from her, merely teasing Sydney with caresses of his hands and mouth. She has been alone, attempting to quiet her longing since he left.”

  Sunny and Lorien looked from Angelica to me with similar expressions of disbelief.

  “That’s about the size of it,” I confirmed as I dropped onto the vacant loveseat. “But maybe next time you’ll let me tell them myself.”

  “I am sorry, Sydney,” Angelica said, her blue eyes anxious. “It is just that I feel your unfulfilled desire so strongly. I was barely able to keep myself from coming to you.”

  “It’s alright Angelica, really.” I felt guilty for chastising her. It wasn’t her fault that my frustration affected her almost as much as it did me. And it wasn’t news that anything involving sex was a natural topic of conversation for her. A person could learn a thing or two from Angelica about releasing their hang-ups.

  “It’s good that you were able to keep yourself from popping into my bedroom, right?” I asked encouragingly. “I mean, unless you popped in and then left before I saw you.” I tried not to show my discomfort at the thought.

  “No,” Angelica said brightly. “I was better able to control my response this time.”


  “Have you had sex since we talked yesterday?” Sunny asked with an unabashed grin.

  “Oh yes!” Angelica nodded enthusiastically. “I went to a man in his dreams last night and we shared very hot and satisfying sex for many hours. I had weeks of pent-up desire to spend, so I brought all of my favorite toys. I think he especially enjoyed the swing.”

  “Swing?” Lorien muttered under her breath. I giggled.

  “So, do you think you’ll see this man again?” I probed.

  “Well, I did think about your suggestion,” Angelica hesitated, the topic of monogamy making her uncomfortable in a way that openly discussing the use of sex swings couldn’t.

  “I do not wish to return to the unsatisfying lifestyle of endlessly answering countless calls of passion. And I was drawn to something in this man, even though his call of passion was not particularly strong. I think its lack of strength allowed me to fulfill my own desires as well as his.

  “There is something that feels strangely familiar about him,” she continued, a troubled look in her eyes. “I think that maybe I will visit him again tonight,” she admitted, sounding embarrassed. “I am still finding it difficult to control my urges, after all.

  “But we should be discussing Sydney’s situation, not mine,” Angelica insisted. It was an obvious attempt to change the subject.

  “Yeah—what happened with Patrick, Syd?” Sunny propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her chin into her hands, fixing me with an impertinent grin. “Other than him teasing you with his hands and mouth and leaving you longing for his beautiful erection, that is?”

  My cheeks warmed and I shot her a dirty look, but remembering Sparrow’s kisses brought an irrepressible smile to my lips. “He told me how his parents died, and then we made out.”

  That got a mixed reaction. Angelica leaned back into the sofa cushions with a thoughtful expression; Lorien gave me a sad smile of understanding; Sunny just looked concerned and a little horrified. My gaze fixed on Lorien.

  “His dead parents? That was his idea of a romantic prelude to your first kiss?” Sunny asked in disbelief.

  “In my long years as a succubus I have learned that desire can be sparked by many different things,” argued Angelica. “Some lovers never feel so alive as when they are reminded of their own mortality. Maybe Sydney and her lover used this topic as a way to incite their passions.”

  The absurdity of that theory registered distantly in my mind as I continued to stare at Lorien’s sad expression. “You knew.”

  Lorien shrugged, her bare feet twitching in a nervous rhythm beneath the edge of the coffee table. “The details of Agent Sparrow’s past are no secret to anyone who’s interested enough to find them. And his bias against the death djinns and their contract was one of the reasons I was so happy to have him on our side. Nonetheless, I didn’t feel like it was my story to tell.”

  She raised her violet eyes to mine, adding, “And I don’t think Agent Sparrow would have told you if he didn’t care about you, Sydney.”

  I nodded, my heart leaping at her words.

  “The death djinns had something to do with Patrick’s parents’ deaths?” Sunny asked sharply.

  “King Moab did,” I said with a nod. I pulled a squashy throw pillow into my lap and pulled absently at the fringe. “Sparrow’s father was killed in a battle to subdue an uprising of the Unseelie Court. His mother entered into a contract with King Moab thinking she could wish his father back to life. She never intended to use her third wish and give up her soul. But she had already wished for death when she realized that Moab couldn’t bring back Sparrow’s Dad.

  “Moab tried to seduce her into completing the contract, and when she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist him any longer, she killed herself. Sparrow found her. He was only six years old. After that, he was raised by his father’s sidhe relatives.”

  “Poor Patrick,” Sunny murmured.

  “Yes, that is very sad,” Angelica agreed sympathetically. “Was his mother a spell caster or would she simply have become one of the harem King Moab keeps to satisfy his sexual desires?”

  “Uh, she wasn’t a spell caster,” I answered delicately.

  “He desired her sexually then.” Angelica nodded, oblivious to my discomfort with the topic. “As I was telling you before, some of my kind will also use their powers of seduction to convince mortals to give up their souls in return for pleasure. It is a nasty business.” Angelica wrinkled her nose.

  “Do your people have a contract for taking souls like the death djinns do?” I asked.

  “No!” Angelica exclaimed, sounding horrified. “My people consider the soul trade to be an abomination. It is only those living on the fringes of our society—who would deal in dark magic and perhaps even align themselves with the Unseelie Court—who engage in the taking of souls.”

  “What do they do with the souls, anyway?” Sunny asked, frowning as she took a sip from her blue ceramic mug and tasted coffee that must have gone cold.

  She replaced it on the table, careful not to disturb Lorien. “I mean, I know that death djinns use humans as sex slaves or for any spell casting ability they have. But it sounds like anyone in the faerie realm can buy or trade for spells, and I’m sure there’s a pretty much endless supply of humans who would be willing to exchange sex for wishes. So why take on the responsibility of owning a stable full of souls and having to keep up their human hosts for eternity?”

  Angelica shrugged and shook her head sadly. “The death djinns have created an entire societal structure where owning souls is a symbol of power and status. Those from other races who engage in the soul trade generally do not hold onto the souls that come into their possession for very long. They merely keep them until a suitable opportunity to trade them presents itself.

  “But for the death djinns, the more souls they acquire, the higher their status within their society. They will trade souls to gain goods or services that are of greater value to them—but above all, they are collectors. The more valuable a soul is, either because of the host’s spell casting power or their sexual desirability, the more the other death djinns will covet possession of it for their own stable.”

  “It’s about control,” Lorien added softly. “A death djinn trading something of their own for a spell or for sex wouldn’t give them anywhere near the sense of power they gain from the possession of a human who can provide it for them.”

  Angelica nodded. “And even if they choose to be kind to their charges, death djinns are still nothing but slave masters. Choosing to bestow kindness instead of cruelty makes the slave master no less powerful—and although a kind master may seem more pleasant than a cruel one, it makes the charge no less a slave.

  “That is why you must not give in to the seduction of the death djinn to complete your contract, Sydney,” she said, giving me a sober look. “Better to choose death, as your friend’s mother did, and return your soul to the Sea of Souls so that it will remain free to be reborn.”

  “We’re not going to allow it to come to that,” Sunny insisted, crossing her arms and extricating herself from the indention she’d made in the tawny cushions.

  “What exactly is the Sea of Souls?” I asked. I didn’t even want to consider having to make the kind of choice that Sparrow’s mother had made.

  “It is the natural resting place of unaligned mortal souls,” Angelica answered. “It is my understanding that when a mortal dies, their soul is returned to the Sea of Souls until it is time for the soul to be reborn. This happens over and over, throughout a soul’s many lifetimes, until the soul has progressed beyond the bounds of mortality.”

  Angelica looked to Lorien for confirmation.

  “That’s pretty much what I was taught as well,” Lorien agreed. “Each soul’s progression toward immortality is determined by the wisdom it gains through its interactions with kindred souls throughout its mortal lifetimes. Family, lovers, friends, enemies—all of these relationships provide opportunities for the soul to
progress. And certain souls are fated to experience specific relationships together before either of them can progress.”

  “Yes.” Angelica nodded. “This is the main reason why the soul trade is such an abomination. Not only is it a slave trade, but it inhibits the progression of mortal souls. A soul that is prevented from returning to the Sea of Souls by an unnatural immortality cannot progress. Nor can any of its kindred souls progress to immortality while they yet await a shared lifetime with the captive soul.”

  Sunny whistled. “Wow. You guys just calmly sat there and explained what a lot of people would consider to be the meaning of life.”

  Angelica grinned. “Maybe so, but the knowledge of it does not necessarily make the lessons any more easily learned.”

  “Wait, I’m confused,” I cut in with a frown. “If a soul’s value is based on the desirability of the human it’s aligned with, then what’s the point of owning an unaligned soul?”

  “The soul would need to be realigned before anyone could make use of the host,” Angelica clarified. “This forcible stripping and realigning would leave the mortal at the beck and call of whoever held the soul. But without the soul contract, the holder would not be required to grant anything in return.”

  Lorien nodded. “Claiming supposedly ‘willing’ slaves through a soul contract is bad enough. But taking them this way is truly horrendous. Stripping a mortal of their soul without granting them immortality puts them into an unconscious state of limbo until their soul is realigned.”

  “So that’s why the woman in the hospital is in a coma,” I realized. “But why can’t they just realign her soul?”

  Lorien winced. “Sparrow told me they tried. But whoever stripped her soul botched the spell too badly.”

  I sucked a sympathetic breath through my teeth.

  “So for every unaligned soul they’ve found, supposedly there’s a human out there, lying unconscious somewhere, waiting for their soul to be restored?” Sunny asked with a scowl.