by Nadine Mutas
“All right, that’s it.” Rhun slapped Bahram’s hand away and pointed a finger at him, his eyes narrowed. “Zip it, incubus, that’s my witch. Go get your own.”
Bahram sighed and raked her with a longing gaze. “They’re so hard to come by these days.”
Merle sobered as if thrown in an icy Norwegian fjord, and she took a wary step back. “You’re an incubus?” Known for their overwhelming sexual magnetism and the nasty habit of impregnating any female that wasn’t up a tree by the count of three. That explained the underlying hint of danger she’d sensed beneath the outward attraction, the sense of wrong she’d gotten despite her uncontrollable surge of lust.
Bahram bowed. “At your service, darling.”
She cleared her throat and inched further away. “Thanks, but I can service myself quite well.”
At Rhun’s laughter, barely hidden in a cough, she realized what she’d said, her face flushing with heat.
“Although,” Rhun said to her, grinning broadly, “you might have to work a bit harder for that now since we had to abandon your vibrator along with your car.”
She flailed with her hands. “It’s an MP3 player!”
“Uh-huh.” Rhun pushed her into the booth, sitting down next to her.
Bahram resumed his seat, too, and when the waitress—a nymph of some sort—passed them by, Rhun stopped her to order a soda and a burger.
At Merle’s frown, he explained, “It’s for you, little witch. And before you ask, yes, it’s safe to eat for humans.”
“Thanks.” She was desperately fighting the warm, tingly feeling inside her chest. “That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you, demon.”
“Well, I don’t want you to faint from malnourishment. It’s a lot harder to annoy you when you’re unconscious.”
“You’re so sweet,” she said with mock glee.
“Ain’t I?”
Rhun smirked at her, his eyes glowing, and just like that, the tingly feeling in her chest took her over. She couldn’t fight it any more than she’d be able to withstand the current of a wild river dragging her under. Still, she tried. For the sake of her own soul, she had to, for if she didn’t, if she just gave in, she’d be headed straight for disaster.
So while Rhun and Bahram started catching up on old times, she inched as far away as possible from the demon who was stealing her heart, little by little, and she went through every mind disciplining technique she knew in order to fight a losing battle. Her food and drink arrived and she began eating, half-listening to the conversation.
“So, what did you do with my old place?” Rhun asked Bahram, putting his arm up on the seatback behind Merle, leaning toward her, his fingers playing with strands of her hair.
Focus on the food, Merle, not on how good it feels to have him close to you.
“I kept it for a while,” Bahram said, “but after it was clear you wouldn’t come back soon, I sold it. Not everything, though. Some of the valuable items and the more personal stuff I stored. You can look through it, see what you want to have back, now that you’re free.”
There was a heavy silence. Merle glanced at Rhun, whose expression was shuttered, but there, underneath the controlled veneer of his aura, pulsed a sting of pain so deep, it cut right through her.
“Yeah,” Rhun said quietly, “I’ll do that later. Thanks.”
The knife’s edge inside Merle twisted further, and she had to look away, breathing against the sudden, unbidden pain in her chest. There would be no later for Rhun. He wasn’t here to stay, and it was no use for him to look through his old belongings, to plan for a future he didn’t have.
Realizing that, it shattered something inside her.
Rhun’s hand on her back, his fingers drawing small circles. “What happened to Gandalf?”
Bahram took a sip from his drink. “Morana took him in.”
Rhun’s hand stilled. “You left him with a werewolf? What’s wrong with you? Please tell me she didn’t eat him.”
A husky chuckle from Bahram. “Don’t let her hear you say that—she’ll be livid. No, man, she was fond of him. I’ve never seen her spoil anyone like that. Rest assured, he spent the last years of his life as happy as a clam.”
Rhun was silent for a moment, his hand pressing against Merle’s back. “He died.”
Bahram nodded. “Only two years ago, though.”
Rhun whistled low. “Lucky bastard got old, huh? I always knew he’d cheat death for as long as he could.”
In the meantime, Merle had finished her burger and now decided to give in to her compulsive nosiness. “Who was that Gandalf guy?” she asked Rhun. “A friend of yours?”
A slow grin spread on Bahram’s face, while Rhun simply looked sheepish and cleared his throat.
“His cat,” the incubus answered for Rhun.
“A cat?” She half-turned to gape at Rhun. “You had a cat? And you named him Gandalf?”
Rhun shrugged, still looking rather uncomfortable. “He was gray.”
And right there, she couldn’t keep her laughter to herself anymore. She shook with it, eyes filling with tears, and she couldn’t stop even as Rhun glared at her.
“You know,” Bahram said to Merle, playing with the ice in his drink, “our bad-to-the-bone demon here loved his furry little friend to death.”
That set off another set of giggles in her.
“Bahram.” A low warning from Rhun.
Ignoring him, Bahram went on, gold eyes glinting with mischief. “Picked him up from the streets, half-dead and starving. Nursed that little kitty right back to life and pampered him senseless.”
Merle glanced at Rhun, pressing her lips together, her body trembling. No use. At his expression, she burst out laughing again.
“My fist,” Rhun growled, cracking his knuckles, “hasn’t satisfyingly connected with an incubus’s face in a long time.”
Bahram cocked a brow and turned to Merle. “You should have seen him dote on that cat. He even used to cook for—”
His sentence ended in a coughed curse as Rhun’s fist hit him straight in the nose.
“Ah.” Rhun leaned back with the smug expression of a cat having stolen the dog’s treat. “Nothing says ‘welcome home’ like smacking a friend in the face.”
Giving him the finger, Bahram wiped the blood from his nose with a napkin.
“So,” Rhun said after a moment, “I was wondering if we could crash at your place for a while.”
The incubus’s face was a study in incredulity. “And your preferred method of smoothing the way for my compliance is punching me in the nose?”
“Hey, you were asking for that one.”
Bahram shrugged and grinned. “Fair enough.”
“You still owe me one, you know. Remember when I saved your permanently horny ass from that shifter you were screwing? The one who tried to eat you afterwards?”
Merle choked on her ginger ale.
“How was I supposed to know she was a black widow?” the incubus grumbled. “Looked good enough in human form…”
“Let us use your place for a bit and I’ll call it even,” Rhun said amiably. “I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a bunch of nymphs who are more than willing to accommodate you for a night or two.”
Bahram sighed. “All right.” He pointed a finger at Rhun. “But for every piece of furniture you break, I’ll break one of your bones, starting with your head.”
“All right.”
“And no blood stains on anything!”
“When have I ever—”
“That one time,” Bahram interrupted him, holding up his hand to count on his fingers, “when you came crawling back from that bar brawl, bleeding from I don’t know how many wounds, and crashed at my place ’cause you didn’t make it to your own.” He ticked off the next finger. “That one time at one of my parties when you decided to bite that nymph and she bled all over my carpet…”
“I didn’t know she was a hemophiliac!”
“…at yet another party,” Bahram continued, s
till counting on his fingers, “when you had a little one-on-one with that leopard shifter in my spare bedroom, and I had to change the mattress afterwards…”
“She had sharp claws and was into biting,” Rhun muttered. When Bahram was about to tick off another finger, Rhun threw up his hands. “Okay, okay, I get it! If there’s bleeding, I’ll make sure to clean it up. No need to get your panties in a twist.”
Merle had been watching the exchange with a mix of shock, amusement, and a biting jealousy as unbidden as it was inappropriate. Of course Rhun had a history. And she had absolutely no reason to feel anything about that. Maybe, if she repeated that a few times in her head, the twinge in her chest would go away and her blood would stop burning.
Eyeing Merle, Bahram asked, “So how come you two need a place to hide? Gotten in trouble already, Rhun?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I wouldn’t exactly call it trouble. It’s more like I’m helping my favorite witch avoid certain people.”
Bahram’s perceptive gaze darted from Rhun to Merle and back again a few times. “Right. Just make sure those certain people won’t know about my helping you.” His gold eyes focused on Merle. “I have no quarrels with your kind, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I understand,” she said. “We’ll keep you out of it.”
The incubus nodded at her, then turned to Rhun and handed him his key. “The address is still the same. Wards are in place, but they’ll recognize you and let you through—your pretty witch as well, since you marked her.”
“I’m not his witch,” Merle said for clarification.
“Thanks, buddy.” Rhun took the key.
Bahram’s warm gaze fell on Merle again. “You should give me your number.”
“Like hell.” Rhun’s growl shook the air. “She’s mine.”
At that moment, something in Merle snapped in irritation, and before she could stop herself she shouted, “I’m not yours!”
The bar went quiet. The crowd fell silent, even the music paused. Every single otherworld creature in the room turned to stare at Merle. The air grew thick with animosity, charged with aggression waiting to be released.
And she’d just officially denied the only reason keeping them from doing so.
Uh-oh.
Chapter 12
Merle’s face had gone white as a sheet, her breathing shallow, and her scent spiked with fear.
Good, Rhun thought grimly. She should be fucking scared after making a blunder like that, unnecessarily putting herself in danger because of her damn pride. The thought of her being hurt set his blood on fire, made worse by the fact she’d denied his claim. A claim, of course, he hadn’t intended to make, or not seriously in any case, just as a means for her protection as he’d told her. As he’d told himself.
She would never truly be his, not only because she was a witch, but because she was the witch who planned to kick him back into the Shadows once he’d served his purpose. And to keep that from happening he’d have to leave her—after stealing the essence of her being…
So, yeah, marking her and taking it seriously? Bad idea. Majorly bad idea. But damn if he didn’t want her as his anyway. With every furious beat of his heart.
Trying to salvage the situation, he pinned her with a prompting glare. “Care to rephrase that, sweetheart?”
To her credit, she picked up on it swiftly. After swallowing what had to be an enormous lump in her throat, she loudly said, “Sorry, honey—I panicked. Still have some commitment issues, you know.” And she gave him a dazzling smile that tugged at everything inside him he didn’t want tugged.
His left hand curved around her neck in a blatant display of possession, his thumb stroking the mark of his blood on her skin. “We’ll work on that, my little witch.”
And he really, truly wished they could.
While the tension in the bar eased up again—the situation apparently defused—and the din of conversation and music resumed with a hint of lingering wariness, he stared at the witch who was slowly, inexorably becoming his own personal brand of poison.
He’d never cared much if the females he’d gotten involved with hadn’t stuck around, they’d come and gone in his life as fun diversions, providing him with what he needed. He’d always been more than glad if they’d walked out on their own after they were done.
This one, though, he wanted to tie down and tame. He wanted her as his with an irrational drive threatening to destroy all his carefully made plans. Which he couldn’t let happen.
Apparently still playing along with her role, Merle snuggled into his side, placing one hand on his chest. Her fingers dug into the fabric of his T-shirt and gently scratched circle patterns. His eyes nearly crossed at the intense pleasure of that small touch which all but short-circuited his entire system—and then shot straight to his groin.
This witch might just be his undoing.
“Uh, Rhun?”
Bahram’s voice pulled him out of visions of blissful self-destruction at the feet of a ginger-haired spitfire.
“What?”
“You might want to let go of that piece of the booth you got there.”
His puzzled gaze followed Bahram’s to his right hand, which had been resting on the back of the seat behind Merle. He now held what was left of the wooden top of the booth—he’d apparently crushed it without noticing.
Merle had studied the damaged booth as well and now faced him again with a glint in her eyes that was on the wrong side of diabolical. When she slowly, deliberately repeated the gentle scratching caress of his chest without taking her eyes off his, Rhun knew he had met his mischievous equal.
Barely stifling a groan, his every nerve pulsing with pleasure, he couldn’t help crushing the remaining wood in his hand. “You’ll pay for that, tricky little witch,” he ground out.
“Oooh, I’m scared.”
“No, I mean that literally,” he said with what he knew was his most annoying smirk. “I don’t have any money on me, so you’ll be reimbursing the bar for the damages done.”
She quickly withdrew her hand and scowled at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He blew her a kiss, enjoying the way she narrowed her eyes at him in anger.
“All right, you two love birds,” Bahram cut in. “Get a room. Oh wait, you already have my apartment.” He made lazy shooing gestures with his hands. “Go use it already to hump each other. I can’t stand to watch your foreplay any longer.”
That earned him a scathing look from Merle, and Rhun found it delightfully amusing not to be at the receiving end of her glare for a change.
“Well, let’s finish this up, then.” Bahram focused on Rhun, unperturbed by the force of Merle’s resentful scowl. “Do you have a cell?”
“Sure I do.” He leaned back. “Do you prefer a blood or a brain cell?”
For a moment, Bahram stared at him with what Rhun knew was the incubus’s most exasperated expression. “Seriously, Rhun, sometimes I wonder how you make it through the night without someone beating the shit out of you.”
“Hey, cut him some slack,” Merle piped up, looking daggers at Bahram. “In case you forgot, he missed the last twenty years, so he’s not up to date on the whole technology development, all right?” Turning to Rhun, she patiently explained, “He means a cellular—mobile—phone, like the one I have. They’re called cells for short.” She paused, frowning at him. “What?”
He just stared at her, his lips having formed a smile without his doing, his chest seeming too tight for what he was feeling. Curling a lock of her hair around one finger, he softly said, “Nothing, little witch.”
He kept his eyes on Merle even as Bahram continued speaking.
“I don’t have a landline at my place, and since I figured you might not have a cell phone, I need another way of contacting you. That’s why I asked for her number.”
Rhun wrenched his gaze away from his witch to shoot a dark look at the incubus. “Uh-huh.”
“I need to be able to cal
l in advance if I have to swing by my place,” Bahram went on, “so I won’t run into you two going at it like rabbits.”
From the corner of his eye, Rhun saw Merle stir—undoubtedly to give some sort of silly protest against the insinuation. So before she could voice anything that might cause trouble again, he clapped his hand over her mouth.
“Yeah, that would be inconvenient. We don’t like to share.” With a downward glance at Merle, her mouth still covered by his hand, he crooned, “Ain’t that right, sweetie pie? Ow!” He jerked back and yanked his hurting hand away, glowering at the tricky witch volcano next to him. “Did you just bite me?”
She beamed at him and patted his arm. “Affectionately, snuggle bear. I nipped at you affectionately.”
Across the table, his treacherous friend lay flat on the seat, shaking with laughter. “She’s a keeper, Rhun,” he said in between choked laughs, wiping a tear from his eye.
Would that I could, Rhun thought glumly. Would that I could.
They were walking back to the car when it happened.
Merle had just started giving him hell about how much she’d had to pay the bar for damage compensation, and he was momentarily sidetracked by how mouthwateringly hot she looked when she was infuriated, so he never saw it coming. Trust on his past to catch up with him at the precise moment when the majority of the blood in his brain had travelled southwards.
Something massive tackled him from behind, knocking the breath out of him—and his body to the ground. He hit the pavement with a thud and the unmistakable sound of bones breaking. Pain seared through him, his mental shields shook under the assault.
Gritting his teeth against the familiar attack of demon magic, Rhun sucker-punched the son of a bitch on his back with a well-aimed elbow ram. He swiftly turned around, and charged. A quick blow to the other demon’s chest, supplemented by a blast of Rhun’s own power, sent the attacker slamming into the wall of the building on the other side of the street. The demon—a fear-feeding one, human-looking except for the two small horns on his head—sank to the ground as if deflated.
Rhun jumped to his feet and whirled around to Merle. “You okay?”