Page 11

CHAPTER 11

Usually, if the three of us were in the vicinity of a shower together, we’d end up in the shower together. But picking off bits of swamp gunk was not sexy. I showered after Victor, then Zee hopped in, and while Zee’s singing voice echoed from the bathroom, Victor and I dressed in our new clothes.

This suit was in a whole different class to the cheap one I’d worn on the SOS Hotel opening day. Its quality even caught Victor’s eye, and drew him over to admire the stitching... and me in it.

“You look delightful, my dear.” He grabbed the front of my jacket and with a jolt, aligned it just so.

I beamed. “You look pretty good yourself, mister.” Daddy may have been the better word. When he’d first arrived at the SOS Hotel, and stepped out of the black car under an umbrella to keep the sun off, he’d looked like this. The pinnacle of refinement. Not a thread out of place and no speck of fluff dared touch him. He was a man of control, right down to the way his shoe laces were perfectly tied and each crease had its place. But now I knew that control was a thin veneer, and the person he was inside was a lot more complicated, and vulnerable, but also mine to love.

“Hm. I see your thoughts in your eyes, my dear.” His thumb skimmed my cheek, skirting close to my mouth.

“I was just thinking about how we’ve changed—well, not changed, exactly...”

“How far we’ve come?” he corrected with a quirk of his lips.

“Yeah...”

The bathroom door opened, and through a waft of steam, Zee strode out, tiny towel clinging to his hips, water droplets gleaming on his chest, and his purple hair almost black from being wet. He flopped onto his massive bed, bouncing a little as he landed. Somehow, the small towel covered up that generous part of him the tattoo arrow pointed to... but only just.

“You look fine as fuck in that suit, Fancy Fangs.” Zee flashed a hungry, lingering smile. “Both of you do.”

I caught my reflection in the wall-length mirror. We did look good. The expensive fabric clung to me in all the right places, and a thrill ran through me at the sight of Victor watching me closely. His cool gaze reminded me of his Reynard Technologies days, when he’d been powerful, feared, and utterly untouchable.

Except by me and Zee.

We’d touched him. A lot.

I kinda wanted to touch him now too.

I caught Victor’s reflection looking me over, then Zee’s.

We had a little time to kill.

“I believe,” Victor said, unwinding his tie with deliberate slowness. “We have several hours to fill at our leisure.”

His voice held that special kind of rumble, the rumble that made my dragon heart skip. The silvery swirl in his eyes intensified, and I knew that look. Hunger.

Zee propped himself up on his elbows. “I do not need to be an incubus to pick up the fuck-me vibes you’ve got going on.” The tip of his tail stroked the bedsheet.

Victor’s lips curled into a smile, confirming Zee’s senses.

“I ain’t lettin’ either of you out of those suits without getting my hands all over them first.”

I loosened my own tie, feeling heat crawl up my neck and also sink lower. “Wait... Don’t you want us out of the suits?”

“Oh, I do, Kitten.” Zee’s eyes flashed glittery purple as he shifted onto his knees on the bed. “But so very slowly.”

Victor stepped behind me, his cool breath ghosting over the back of my neck. His hands settled on my hips, tugging me against him. “Zodiac has excellent ideas, on occasion.”

“On occasion?” Zee snorted, but his eyes were fixed on Victor’s hands as they slid around to undo my fly. “Wait, was that a fuckin’ compliment from Vampire Daddy? It’s official. Fancy Fangs has it bad for a demon.”

“I make no secret of it. And not just any demon, the best demon.”

Zee gasped and placed a hand on his chest. “He said it.”

Chuckling at their banter, I let my head fall back against Victor’s shoulder as his fingers worked, achingly slow. “You’re both overdressed,” I managed to say, my voice turning rough with need.

“Patience, my dear.” Victor’s lips brushed my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

Zee crawled to the edge of the bed, reaching for me, tugging me by my loosened tie until I was standing between his spread knees with Victor behind me. Our gazes locked, revealing a need in his eyes. He had something on his mind, a question he hadn’t yet asked.

“What is it?”

“I want you first,” he said, looking up at me with those hypnotic eyes. “Then I want to watch Vic take you apart.”

“And then?” I asked, my imagination already running wild. When Zee had worked at Razorsedge, he’d rarely gotten what he wanted. But those days were gone. Here, he could have it all.

“Then me an’ Vic are gonna team up and take turns until we break the fucking bed under you.” Zee’s grin was wicked as he began unbuttoning my shirt, exposing my skin inch by tantalizing inch. He leaned forward to press his hot mouth against my nipple, wrenching a gasp from me.

The two of them working me in tandem? I gulped, and nodded. “Yeah, yes... I want that.” I glanced at Victor, checking he’d be game too.

In response, Victor’s hands slid under my untucked shirt, cool against my burning skin. The contrast of temperatures—Victor’s cool touch and Zee’s hot mouth—had me trembling between them.

“Look at you, my dear,” Victor murmured, his voice a deep rumble against my back. “So responsive. So perfect.”

I wasn’t the only one fired up. Zee’s wings fizzed into sight, a sure sign he was getting into the rhythm, and their pretty expanses shimmered purple, bathing us in an otherworldly glow. Two sharp pinpricks scraped my neck as Victor pressed open-mouthed kisses over my shoulder—not biting, just teasing.

“Bed,” I managed to gasp as Zee’s talented mouth skimmed lower. “Now.”

Zee pulled back, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You heard him, Vic. Our dragon’s got needs.”

Victor stepped away, long enough to shed his jacket in an elegant motion. My gaze tracked the mesmerizing sight of him unbuttoning his shirt cuffs, then his shirt buttons, one at a time. He shrugged it off, revealing his pale chest. “Then let us not keep him waiting.”

I’d never been able to resist Victor, but when the pair of them had me in their sights, I was helpless. I fumbled with my own buttons and zipper, clumsy in my haste, and stumbled out of my trousers.

Victor, of course, was a picture of grace. He undressed with the same deliberate poise he approached everything with, folding each garment before setting it aside.

“For fuck’s sake, Vic,” Zee groaned. “Could you move any slower?”

“Some pleasures...” Victor replied, stepping out of his trousers with maddening slowness. “Are worth savoring.”

Turning back from watching Victor undress, I laid eyes on the glorious sight of Zee, towel gone, naked from his head to the tip of his tail, kneeling on the bed, expectant and glorious.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I tackled Zee to the bed, capturing his surprised laugh with my mouth. He tasted uniquely Zee —wild and intoxicating.

“Greedy kitten,” he murmured against my lips, but his hands were everywhere, pulling me closer.

The bed dipped as Victor joined us, his cool hand sliding up my spine. “Such impatience,” he scolded lightly, but there was fondness in his voice too.

“You like it,” I shot back, breaking away from Zee to look over my shoulder.

The smile Victor gave me verged on predatory, especially now his fangs had come out to play. “Like is too small a word. I adore everything about you, my dear.”

Zee’s hot mouth tracked down my chest, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. I faced him again, dizzy from their attention. When he wrapped his hand around my cock, I sucked in a tight, hissing breath.

“Sensitive,” he purred, stroking me with agonizing slowness. “I can make you come just like this. One delicious stroke at a time until you’re begging me to finish you. Would you like that, Kitten?”

“Like is too small a word,” I mumbled, repeating Victor’s earlier line, trying to keep up with them.

“Your next move, demon?” Victor enquired, while he caressed my shoulders, my back, sliding lower with each pass.

Zee flipped me suddenly, pinning me to the mattress. His eyes glowed with unholy light, wings casting purple shadows across the room. His hard dick pressed against my thigh, hot and insistent. “Gonna make you feel so fuckin’ good, Kitten.”

I panted hard, staring back, demanding more.

Victor stretched out beside us, one elegant hand trailing lazily down my chest, stopping just shy of where I ached for him. “Exquisite.”

I wasn’t exquisite, but in their eyes I felt like I could be. As though I were the most precious thing on this earth.

Zee rocked against my thigh, doing more of that teasing, driving me toward desperation.

The click of a cap opening was obscenely loud in the heated quiet, joined only by our panting breaths and the rustling of sheets. Victor must have found the lube, because Zee’s attention was all on me.

Zee bent to kiss me again, slower this time, deep and thorough, his tongue sliding against mine in a rhythm that matched the roll of his hips. When he pulled back, his smile was softer than before. “Mine,” he murmured, and the tenderness in that one word nearly broke me.

Victor leaned in from the other side, his lips finding the sensitive spot just below my ear while his slick fingers worked between my legs, diving lower, preparing me with maddening precision. “Ours,” he corrected, and the possessiveness in that single word sent a shudder through me.

“Yours,” I agreed, arching into Victor’s touch as he slipped a finger inside me. “Mercy, always yours.”

“Let me,” Zee said, positioning himself lower, between my thighs, his cock nudging where Victor’s fingers had been. “Need to be in you, Kitten.” There was no teasing now, just needs, demands.

The slow push of him entering me had me clutching at the sheets. I was dimly aware of Victor watching us, his silver eyes burning, one hand wrapped around his own impressive length.

“Fuck, you feel good,” Zee groaned, building a slow rhythm. “So tight for me.”

Victor shifted up the bed until he was kneeling by my head, his erection inches from my face. “May I?” he asked, always so polite.

In answer, I took him into my mouth, reveling in his sharp intake of breath.

“That’s it, Kitten.” Zee’s eyes sparkled, alive with lust. “Take him deep.”

Time seemed to stretch and compress as we found our rhythm. The drag of Zee inside me, the weight of Victor on my tongue, the electric current of pleasure building at the base of my spine—the both of them overwhelmed me in the best possible way.

During the blur of pleasure, Victor withdrew from my mouth, replacing his cock with his fingers. I sucked them eagerly, my gaze locked on his, knowing—hoping for what came next. Sure enough, he shifted down the bed, effortlessly replacing Zee between my knees.

Zee shifted up to my side, the mirror image of where Victor had been moments before. How had they gotten so good at this dance, or was it just instinct?

“Allow me, my dear,” Victor said, voice tight with restraint as he pushed inside me. Where Zee had been a smoldering fire, Victor was controlled, cool precision, each deep thrust calculated to drive me wild.

Zee moved to kneel by my head, his dick glistening. “Do you want me, Kitten?”

I nodded, beyond trivial words. Zee fed himself into my mouth.

I was caught between them, filled from both ends, pleasure spiraling tighter and tighter as Zee began to match Victor’s rhythm.

Victor’s fangs sank into my thigh, the sharp pain giving way to a rush of pleasure so intense I cried out around Zee’s cock. Zee’s tail captured my wrist, guiding it to my own throbbing erection.

Power spiraled between us, like lightning in my veins, raw and wild and untamed. With the guidance of Zee’s tail, I stroked myself faster as Victor thrust deep inside me, his rhythm growing erratic. Zee’s cock slipped from my mouth as he threw his head back, wings flaring brighter.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Zee groaned, fisting his dick just inches from my face. “Wanna see you come first, though.”

“Finish for us,” Victor commanded, his voice rough with need as he gripped my hips hard enough to bruise. “Now, Adam.”

And I did.

The pleasure crested like a tidal wave, and I cried out Victor’s name, then Zee’s. Almost immediately, Zee followed, as he cursed in words that had to be demon. Victor lasted only moments longer, driving deep one final time with a strangled groan that might have been my real name—Mydros.

The few lights on in the room flickered and died, although it didn’t matter since it was daylight outside. A few seconds later, they blinked back on. At least there weren’t any wards here we might have accidentally boosted.

I shuddered as we came down together. That had been intense. Wonderful. Amazing. Zee burrowed his face into the crook of my neck, folding himself close, and Victor lay on my right, breathing hard. The three of us became a tangle of limbs and cooling sweat.

Zee lazily traced patterns on my chest, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “That was... fuck,” he mumbled.

“Eloquent as always,” Victor said dryly, but his hand was gentle as it stroked my thigh.

I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in days. Maybe weeks. “I think we broke the electrics.”

“Worth it,” Zee declared, pressing a kiss to my collarbone.

“Most definitely,” Victor said in agreement, his arm tightening around my waist.

Outside, the Miami traffic still hummed, horns honked, people went about their day. Inside, it was just us, wrapped in each other, safe in our bubble.

* * *

My mission was to find a phone. As Victor was allergic to bright sunlight, Zee and I left him back at the apartment and headed out of the building to the South Beach Strip. We’d walked a block when Zee swiped us two pairs of sunglasses from a rack outside a tourist store, as though the shades might hide him, but no single pair of sunglasses could hide his fabulousness or natural magnetism.

Other demons and Lost Ones were out too, enjoying the sun, dining at outdoor restaurants. Zee quickly relaxed into his typical demon swagger. No wings, though. The sidewalk was too busy and his wings were too distinctive to flash in public, since we were trying to stay hidden.

My gray suit looked fine, but I may as well have been invisible next to the seven-foot-tall, sparkling purple demon who glittered in the sunlight as though he were on fire. He soaked up every lingering gaze like I soaked up the sun.

No one would have guessed we didn’t have a dime to our names, or that we were on the run and were wanted for murder. We blended right in with the shiny, smartly dressed, fancy people, and it wasn’t long before everything that had happened just hours ago in the Everglades felt like last night’s weird dream. Or maybe walking the Miami Strip was the dream.

I could also have just been exhausted and hallucinating.

Zee had a destination in mind, so I let him lead, and ambled along beside him, trying on some smiles whenever Zee acknowledged an appreciative shout or whistle. I’d forgotten what it was like to be next to him in public whenever he got his swagger on.

We’d walked for half an hour, enjoying the scenery, when I spotted someone I’d seen before, back by the coffee and ice-cream stand. He was definitely tailing us. Probably one of Skrinde’s guys. They’d be fools not to keep an eye on us after going to so much trouble to kidnap us.

Zee took a left off the main street, then a right, heading into the less bustling streets several rows back from the beachfront. I figured we were heading for the bar, with its bustling tropical outdoor space filled with scantily clad people.

The banners proclaimed it The Peach Pit , with an emoji peach as their logo. It probably had some kind of double meaning that was lost on me.

Zee stopped at the front, whipped off his shades, gave the doorman a thousand-dollar smile, and the rope was lifted.

“Hey, that guy lurking on the corner... Make sure he doesn’t get in.” Zee had spotted our tail too. “They’ll have others on us,” he said to me. “But that guy’s outfit sucks balls.”

“Zodiac!” A high-pitched squeal rang across the outside dining area. I didn’t have time to see who had yelled his name before a demon poofed in front of us in a hail of pink glitter. Shorter than Zee, the demon was all white, with baby-pink wings and a tufty, hot-pink tail.

“Kat!” Zee threw his arms around him.

“Oh my purple stars, look at you. It’s been too long, baby. You lookin’ fine. Love your horn ring. Did you get out from under that sewer rat, Sebastien? How’s things on the West Coast? And who is this little dime?”

Pink eyes fixed on me, and it took me a second to realize Kat’s breathless gushing had stopped and he was waiting for my name.

“Hi. I’m Adam.”

“Adam is my ke-ach ,” Zee said, using a word I was unfamiliar with. I’d ask him later. “Fuckin’ touch him and die,” he added with a careless laugh. “Adam, this is Kat. We hunted suckers in our previous lives. He looks as soft as a marshmallow but will cut a bitch.”

Kat giggled. “I fuckin’ will! Come in, drinks are on me.” Kat’s pale arm looped around my shoulders and I was hauled deeper into the dining area. “We need to catch up. Adam, tell me everything . Like how you met, how you managed to convince Lycian to go domestic?—”

“Oh, I don’t—I didn’t?—”

“You’re his ke-ach , aren’t you. Look at you. I could eat you right up.” Kat smiled, revealing rows of sharp demon teeth. Kat’s tail flicked, and while the studded tail bling mixed in with the fluff looked decorative, I suspected one whip from that tail could take a man’s head off.

I glanced behind, trying to convey help with my eyes. Zee leaned in and whispered, “ Ke-ach is life mate. You got this.”

I was Zee’s... life mate?

My heart melted and a weird little lump of emotion clogged my throat. Kat’s slap on the back while he thrust a pink drink into my hand cleared it. “So tell me, why are you two in Miami?”

“Got on the wrong side of a gang turf war, made a drug lord angry, probably gonna do some killing later.” Zee swiped a drink from a nearby table. “You know, the fuckin’ usual.”

He said it so casually, even I wondered if he was joking.

Kat laughed. “Still the party animal. Did you end Sebastien?”

Zee’s grin turned predatory. “Seb got his card punched.”

“Then we shall celebrate!” Kat twirled and led us through the dining area, toward a cozy corner surrounded by lush plants that gave us some screening from the public.

It was likely Kat had served with Seb in the demon armies. Zee and Kat clearly had history, maybe even a bond forged in battle. If Zee trusted him, so did I.

We chatted some more, mostly about how Seb had messed up in San Francisco and about how the Razorsedge family were doing. Kat had started The Peach Pit with a human partner right after the veil had sealed five years ago, but instead of taking advantage of Kat like most humans, they’d worked together. A true partnership. Kat’s business partner—maybe life partner too—had died two years ago. Killed. Wrong place, wrong time. Even if Kat hadn’t been intimately involved with his human partner, it was clear talking about the man’s death remained painful.

The story of how Kat had come to be here wasn’t all that different to how Zee and I had hooked up.

“So, you know anything about this guy, Skrinde?” Zee asked, after a few more rounds of drinks and free table snacks, which he had unashamedly devoured.

Kat’s demeanor chilled. “Skrinde, fuck. You weren’t joking about the drug lord, huh?” His flighty smile fluttered and died. “Yeah, the Lost Ones here know Skrinde. Asshole troll, thinks he’s king of the Strip.” Kat sobered and leaned forward in his chair. “If you’re going up against Skrinde, you’re going to need an army.”

“I got one,” Zee said, smiling at me. “Where’s his base of operations?” he asked Kat, slipping into soldiering speak.

“Multimillion-dollar mansion on Pointe Drive. Makes Mar-a-Lago look like a fuckin’ summer house. Security up the tits. Rumor is he’s got a fuckin’ Minigun at the entrance gate. You can’t get in there, babe.”

Zee smirked, and in his purple suit, shades tucked into his jacket pocket, he looked every inch the badass I knew him to be. “You’d be surprised what we can do. Hey, you got a phone we can borrow?”

“Sure, use mine.” He took a fake-diamond-encrusted phone from his pocket and handed it to Zee, then looked up as someone called his name. “I’ll be right back. Eat, drink, enjoy yourselves.”

Zee handed the phone to me. The diamonds looked real up close.

“You’d better fill Agent Fae in before shit gets more real, Kitten.”

“Right.” Where did I even start to explain everything that had happened since my brother showed up.

I dialed Leomaris’s number and listened to it ring. Oh hey, so there’s this thing , I could say. I have a brother. Surprise! And he wants to eat everyone. In fact, you’ve probably already met him.

An automated voice picked up and asked me to leave a message after the tone. All thoughts vacated the building. “Erm, hey... so, we’re in Miami and uhm...” Zee frowned, suggesting I get to the point. “We’re uh... I guess we’re not really on vacation, exactly.”

Zee rolled his eyes. “Tell them your name.”

“Oh yeah, it’s Adam. And Zee is here, you probably just heard him. Victor is back at the apartment a mafia boss put us up in, I guess.” Zee blinked. I felt like maybe I was doing this wrong? Or I’d started at the wrong part of the conversation. “You know what, let me start again. So, there was a troll, who we thought we saved but?—”

“Oh, sweet baby Gareth, you are so bad at this. Gimme the phone.”

“Uhm, so Zee wants?—”

Zee stole the phone out my hand. “Hey, Agent Fae, in case you didn’t know, we’re kinda fucked. Adam has a big bad brother and—” He lowered the phone, staring at it. “It cut me off.” Huffing, he shook his head. “You waffled on for too long.”

“Redial. But you explain it all this time.”

“Okay, fine.” He flicked his hair, redialed, and crossed his legs, jangling a foot as he waited for the answering service to pick up again. “Yeah, so, hey again,” he sang, and examined his nails. “It’s Zee. Obviously. So, Adam has a psycho brother who wants to eat the world.” He sang that in a jovial tone too. “You should run far, far away. If you’re screaming, you’re probably not dying. But if you’re dead, I guess you won’t get this message?—”

“Zee!” I stole the phone back and muffled the microphone with a hand. “You can’t say that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“It sounds bad.”

“It is fuckin’ bad.”

“No, I mean it sounds like we’re threatening Leomaris.”

“But it’s true.”

I raised the phone to try and better explain, but the line had died again. This was terrible. We couldn’t keep leaving messed-up messages. Leomaris would think we were crazy... well, more crazy than usual. I set the phone down on the table and stared at it. “Victor would know what to say.”

“Call Madame Matase at the hotel.”

“Right, yeah.” Scooping up the phone, I dialed the SOS Hotel’s front desk number. Even if we couldn’t explain everything to Leomaris right now, we could at least warn Tom Collins and the others that the Adam with them was a fake. The line rang once, and Tom Collins’s straightforward recorded voice told me that he was the head of customer relations and to call back later. The recorded voice also said if I didn’t call back then I obviously didn’t want to stay at the SOS Hotel anyway, so good riddance. Then the line died. “Did you know Tom’s in charge of customer relations?”

“What?” Zee snorted. “If anyone should be in charge of relationships with customers, it’s me.” Zee frowned again. “Why didn’t you leave a message?”

“There wasn’t that option. Maybe they’re all busy?”

“When has the hotel ever been that busy?”

That was true. Madame Matase never left the front desk unattended. My heart sank, and kept right on sinking through the floor, through the bedrock, deeper and deeper. “What if something terrible has happened? What if it’s burned down? What if my brother has already eaten everyone? Zee! What do we do?!” The SOS Hotel was our home, our sanctuary. My heart hammered, breaths coming fast.

Zee scooted over to squish into my chair with me. His arm crushed me close. “That’s not what’s happened. They’re fine. Everyone is fine.”

“How do you know that?” I wheezed.

“I do... I just do.” He patted my head, which turned out to be oddly comforting. “I feel it, like I know you’re right here and you’re okay.” He tipped my chin up. “Trust the Fucking God.”

I snorted. “ That’s the name you decided on?”

A commotion, then the sounds of a glass shattering drew our gazes. Across the dining area, three beefy trolls were muscling their way over, with Kat looking distraught, trying to block them. He poofed next to us, raining pink sparks. “I tried to hold them up.”

“It’s alright,” I told him, rising to my feet.

Zee stood, tail swishing. “We can take ’em.”

“Not here.” I really did not want to bring any trouble down on Kat. He’d worked too hard to make this place safe and I knew what that felt like. “It’s time we went back to Victor anyway.”

“You guys be careful, huh?” Kat said, his eyes sheepish and sad. He wanted to help, to do more.

Zee bristled when one of the trolls tried to grab for his arm. “Hey, hands off the merchandise! I’m fuckin’ expensive.”

Kat caught my wrist and pulled me aside. “Look out for Lycian, he’s one of the last good ones.”

“I know. I will.” I squeezed Kat’s hand, then followed the surprisingly big trolls’ directions to leave the club. A black pickup waited outside, and in we climbed.

One look at Zee’s serious expression, and it was clear fun time was over.