I glanced over at him, hoping like hells my brilliant partner was closer than I was.
“Ten seconds,” the incubus intoned, and when I glanced back at him, he held a timepiece in his hand, the golden sands spinning through the narrow opening at an alarmingly fast rate.
Heaven and hell, possible wings? Demonic and angelic? But box, what the hells did box have to do with anything? A halo? A broken halo? Box, though. Box was killing me.
“Dammit,” I snapped. “Um, uh. It’s…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s— ”
“The letter H,” Maddox suddenly said, and the timepiece vanished from Rasputen’s hand. He rolled his hands together, creating a whirling vortex between his palms that glowed like the red fire in his eyes.
“You may pass,” he said, and the vortex spread from his palms, growing bigger and wider, creating an arched wooden doorway with a dark eye at its center that stared down on us. The eye was rimmed in a thick band of kohl with sweeping bands of turquoise and gold as well.
The creepy eye blinked, looking eerily at us. Its pupil was jet black, but its iris glowed golden.
“The eye of Horus,” Maddox mumbled. “Midas is truly showing off his wealth tonight.”
Rasputen stepped aside and spread his arm, silently telling us to enter.
Through the doorway, I could see the lights of the party, hear the low chatter of the revelers, and smell the rich decadence of the food.
“Lead the way, my goddess,” Hatter said to me, his voice a silky command, and I twitched at the velvet purr behind his words. Then I realized he was playing his role, and now it was my turn to play mine.
“Let us away, pet,” I purred, remembering the one and only time I’d played dom to a sub and hoped I was doing it right. I wasn’t exactly vanilla, but in this strange world, I was pretty sure Hatter had far more experience than I. He gave a low growl of approval, and I smirked. It might be more fun than I’d imagined.
Tugging on his rope, I guided us into Midas’s ostentatious gala of strange and exotic wonders.
Detective Maddox
THE MUSIC WAS LOW, sultry, velvety, and it blended seamlessly into the background. The foods were all aphrodisiacs: raw oysters chilled on the half shell; golden champagne with floating pomegranate pearls; cucumber slices with cheese swirls and a slice of smoked ruby red salmon; strawberries dipped in chocolate so dark it was nearly black. There were bacon-wrapped roasted asparagus tips with a chili demi-glaze glistening over the top and some sort of miniature pie that smelled of succulent meats and exotic spices. And the tables weren’t made of wood or metal, but bodies, beautiful human and humanoid bodies. If you wanted to eat, you’d have to pick your hors d’oeuvres from off their breasts, thighs, and flat painted stomachs. It was excessive, indulgent, and completely over the top.
But that was just the food. There were court jesters dressed in black, white, and gold paint walking on fifty-foot stilts and acrobats swinging from above on swings made of roped pearls.
We were still in Hel, but it was a refined and elegant depiction of fire and brimstone. There were theater troupes dressed as glorious angels doing battle with equally beautiful demons, their black and white wings spread out as though ready to take flight behind them. They held swords in their grip, high and gleaming in the hazy red lighting.
There were hundreds of couples socializing in groups or smaller bands, all of them dressed in their erotic finest. Most of the women were in leather, some dressed from head to toe in it with only a zipper at their noses and mouths to breathe. Others were dressed only in transparent silks that did nothing to hide the curves of their bodies. Then there were a few like Elle who were clearly the dominant, dressed in suits with ties or leading their subs around by a length of golden chain. I was more dressed than most of the men, many of whom were as nude as Rasputen had been, wearing the absurdly large codpieces and animal masks painted in gold and mother of pearl.
It wasn’t as warm in this place, which made me wonder what kind of air filter the king had used. Hel was never this pleasant. But endless coffers meant nothing was impossible.
I scanned the room, looking for Midas, knowing a retinue of guards would surround him and his entourage. It should be easy enough to get in close once we found him.
Though Elle was far more dressed than most of her gender, she burned brighter than all the rest. She was a phoenix risen from the burning eternal flame, mesmerizing and impossible to ignore or even forget. She’d released a small amount of her siren’s charm, causing her skin to gleam like an abalone’s inner shell. Everywhere she led us, she drew stares. We meandered lazily through the crowds, looking to be in no rush, as though we were truly nothing more than revelers trying to gain our bearings, overwhelmed by the scope of the gala, which appeared to be endless.
Though I’d yet to spot the king, I wasn’t only looking for him. I was looking for potential Slashers hidden in plain sight. But it was difficult to know if they were truly there or not because everyone was in costume, and I doubted any of them would be foolish enough to come wearing plumes of feathers, considering all of Grimm was now wary of anything that even remotely resembled bird shifters.
As far as wealth being on display, it was more than even I could have fathomed.
There were fountains that rained not water but streams of liquid gold, and statues so lifelike that I wouldn’t be surprised if Midas had frozen betrayers forever in gold.
There were looks of anguish and agony twisting their forever-silent faces. Faceted diamonds winked in the red glow of Hel’s perpetual flame from every conceivable nook and cranny, on the floors, embedded within marble white pillars. Even the flowers that had been brought here were not actually flowers but gems so delicately shaped that they dipped and swayed as real blooms would in the lush jasmine-scented breeze that had also somehow managed to be pumped in.
The king had spared no expense. Captain Bo had been right—this place was ripe for the picking. So though I couldn’t see, smell, or sense them, I knew the Slashers would not be foolish enough to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for untold wealth such as this.
After ten or so minutes, Elle headed toward a stone statue of an angel wearing a demon’s face that sat beside the human table filled with finger foods.
“Pet,” she whispered huskily, stopping her meandering trail and glancing back at me over her shoulder, “I tire.”
The siren’s mark upon her forehead, which was usually hidden, burned as brightly as a lightning strike. Her hair glowed deepest blue like the scales of an electric eel. She was absolutely mesmerizing, and it was difficult for me to remember my role for a moment.
Heat rolled through my body. Though I wasn’t often affected by sexual charms, I felt the prickles of hers pressing against me. Elle was a powerful siren, one of the strongest in history. Just one look from her, and I felt the drawing of blood between my thighs, making me hard and excited. Not that anyone in here would care if I walked around with a cock stand—I wouldn’t be the only one.
“Does my goddess wish to sit?”
Normally, Elle’s face was expressive and easily readable. But she was different in here, imperious, aloof. She looked like the princess she truly was as she thinned her lips and dipped her long, elaborate eyelashes behind her black silk mask.
She placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed just slightly.
Understanding what she wished, I dropped gracefully to my elbows and knees, and moments later, she sat upon my back. Her weight was slight, and I purred my approval as any good sub would.
I’d never played submissive for Alice because I’d never believed myself to be one. I still wasn’t, but maybe I was more of a switch than I’d thought.
Ahead of us, a top and bottom were acting out their sexual fantasies in front of a small but gathering crowd. He was paddling her backside with a dainty leather paddle, her skirts were above her head, and she was making no noise. But every time the leather struck her backside, she’d lift up on her sil
k-clad toes. Her skin was as pale as moonlight, her naked arse a pretty bright red. She was draped over the edge of an elegant white couch large enough to host a small orgy of writhing bodies on it.
The spectacle had helped draw most of the eyes away from Elle.
She stroked my back with her fingers, her movements rhythmic and calming. She was acting her part. To anyone not in the know, she’d appear no more than a top caring for her bottom. Her long legs were crossed, and I knew the sight we must make together.
“We mustn’t look desperate. Midas abhors desperation, but he esteems confidence,” she said softly, her voice so low that I had to strain to hear her, letting me know she wasn’t speaking to me as the dominant but as Elle, my partner. “The king is slowly making his way through the crowd, headed in this direction. He should arrive within ten minutes or so. Can you hold me for that long?”
I grunted. “Your weight is nothing.”
She laughed lightly. “If the boys back at the precinct ever heard about this, I’m pretty sure that your reputation for being a ladies man would be well and truly tarnished. How in the twin hells do we always seem to find ourselves in these unusual situations?”
Grinning, I nodded, though I knew she could not see me. “I’m sure I could survive it. And Bo clearly thinks we do weird well.”
“I think you could survive a great many things, Maddox,” she agreed softly, then I felt her shift. “And yes, rumor has it that you and I have been dubbed.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
“The twisted duo.”
“Fitting,” I said drolly.
“I thought so.” I could almost hear her smirk. “Seems incredible that we’ve only been partners for two months.”
“Feels like forever sometimes.”
“Hm. ” She sounded contemplative.
When Elle was in Grimm, she was spun up, like a taut string ready to snap. But when she and I went out on missions, she completely transformed. She smiled more, laughed more. She was easy to be with. In fact, she was fun. Several of the cops teased me mercilessly about getting saddled with the ice queen. It used to piss me off until I realized they just didn’t get it—get her.
Elle didn’t just give herself to others. They had to earn it. And few of them in there had. Ichabod mainly. Bo too. And now me.
I didn’t have to look at her to know she was still alert and scanning the room, but Elle had the capacity to look relaxed even in the most taxing of situations. No doubt her royal upbringing played a role in that talent of hers.
“How did you spot the king? I looked for his entourage but could not find one large enough.”
Her laughter was charming and electrifying. The fine hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms stood on edge.
“Midas is not your typical royalty. He’s… eccentric,” she said, sounding fond.
My brows gathered. “How so?”
“Well, for one, he won’t be surrounded by an entourage. At least not yet. He likes to mingle first, play his little games, pretend to be one of the plebs. Then when it amuses him to reveal himself, he will. He did it all the time at Father’s court, sometimes appearing as a court jester, other times as a commoner. Today, he is in drag. I pegged him almost from the moment we got here.”
“You don’t say. How very clever. I’ll admit I was not looking for a female. Why does he do this?”
She laughed. “So that he can laugh at our expense when the jig, as they say, is up. People talk far more freely about the king when they do not imagine that they are speaking to said king. I’ve seen him turn people to gold for daring to say the wrong thing. He truly is a devious sort of male.”
I snorted. “Then I am lucky I have such a brilliant partner. Otherwise, I might have told him that I found this party clichéd, the food ridiculous, and the entertainment hackneyed.”
She wiggled on her bottom and gently swung her now-uncrossed legs back and forth. There were none as well versed in artless seduction as a siren. She radiated innocent ingénue.
The crowds were growing larger in front of us, and there were a few titters from those with virgin eyes and cries of “Well done, mate” from the more well versed among them.
Elle continued to brush my back with her fingers, and I scanned the faces of those drawing nearer, looking for the disguised king among them. But Elle was still too loose. She wasn’t “on” right now.
“I saw your vision in Bo’s office earlier.”
“I did not try to hide it,” I said, wishing I could actually look her in the face and not down at the marble floor full of strange golden flecks of sand.
“Third one this week—same thing, though, right?” she said. “Any idea yet what it could be?”
Feeling a twinge in my left knee, I desperately wanted to shift but knew I couldn’t, not until Elle gave me the command, and therein lay my reason for why I didn’t make a good submissive—I did not like to wait.
I grunted. “None.”
She sighed loudly. “It’s very annoying, isn’t it? Seeing these visions that clearly mean something but not having the key to deciphering them?”
“It can be. Though the key eventually turns up.”
She was very quiet after that, and I knew she was deep in thought. She’d even stopped gliding her fingers over my shoulder. But I was curious about something and had been all morning.
“Why a dress? Today of all days? Did you know we’d be sent here?”
I felt her twitch, and then she sighed, her magical fingers picking the rhythm back up again. “Ah yes,” she said, and I could hear her grin. “I wondered when your inquisitive mind would get around to asking me about that. It was the faeries’ doing—well, Queen Titiana’s, actually.”
“She speaks with queens. Why am I not surprised,” I said with amusement.
She blew out a heavy breath, and her fingers were suddenly replaced by the leather glide of her paddle down the small of my back. My skin broke out in a wash of goose flesh. I swallowed hard. It was merely an act between us, yet somehow it didn’t feel that way.
She was twirling the tip of her crop in silken, slow motions down my sides, letting the small length of rope trail along the backs of my thighs. I shivered.
“I have to wear this wretched dress for two weeks because it holds my waters, you see.”
“Why two weeks?” I asked, somehow able to focus on what she was saying even though I felt wrecked and alive with dark sensations she’d pulled from deep within me.
“Because,” she said, drawing me out of my dark thoughts, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said to me.”
I thinned my lips, not sure what I should say here, so I went for neutral. “Oh?”
“I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s okay, Hatter. I know what I said this morning, and I meant all that.”
“But?” I prompted.
“But.” She sighed, replacing the tip of the crop with her palm, moving her fingers down my spine, massaging small circles on me. I couldn’t help it. I moaned.
She shifted on her seat, pausing in her circles, and I bit down on my tongue. But then she resumed again, and I nearly sighed with relief. I should probably have pretended not to like it quite as much as I did.
“But,” she whispered, “I can’t stop thinking about it, either. And sometimes I swear I hate you for it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling torn apart and eviscerated by her gentle touch and her impassioned words of odium.
“Why? Why would you tell me such a thing? Knowing what we had or hadn’t had yet? You’ve torn me open, Maddox, and it was cruel.” The tassel of her small crop was suddenly drawing up the backs of my thighs, a threat, a promise. I shivered.
Then she stopped. Stopped touching me. Stopped moving. Just stopped.
In a low voice, barely above a whisper, I heard her say, “I had briefly considered beginning a search for him at the end of our shift. That’s why I needed this fecking garment. So I could have weeks and not
days if need be.”
She growled, and I felt her body grow tense, rigid. She was angry—angry with me or her situation, I wasn’t sure. But Elle was pissed, and I felt guilty for it, though rationally, I understood I’d done nothing wrong, either.
But then, neither had she. I’d known what my words would do to her, what revealing that vision might cause to happen between us, and as much as I loathed the place we were in, I also knew I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, because partners were honest with each other.
“And now…” she said loudly. “Now I owe the queen a favor. I get a free ticket to Neverland to see what the hells a dragon is doing at a stronghold. Which is so much fun for me.” She laughed bitterly, but it wasn’t the dragon that made her this way.
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you wish company?”
The thought of Elle investigating a possible dragon sighting without any backup made me sick to my stomach. Dragons were dangerous, cruel, and cunning.
“You would do that?” She sounded shocked.
I nodded, trying to glance at her over my shoulder at her but unable to. I scowled. “Yes, Elle, I would do that.”
She laughed again. This time, it sounded more angry than anything else. “I tell you that I’m going to investigate your claims, to resurrect my dead lover or whatever the hells I might find, and you say, ‘Can I come?’ What the hells is wrong with you, Maddox? How do you do this? How can you tell me in one breath that you want me and in another be so damned willing to help me find a male you know cannot share me? How?”
I wet my lips. So that was what all of this was about then. Elle was angry, not just with me but also with Hook and herself. Because she was torn, and it made her feel guilty.
I closed my eyes. She was wrong if she thought I did not care. But I was not the type who could ever, ever give in to the depths of my emotions. If I did, it would become a consuming fire.
“You could always whip me.” I said it softly, but my voice was steady. It wasn’t a command—I’d actually meant for it to be more a joke, a way to break the tension, but the second I’d said it, I’d had a flash of her doing just that, and I was more than a little curious.
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