Page 17

SEVENTEEN

Sorsha

As we reached the apartment building, I started rummaging through my backpack for my lockpicking tools. Before I’d even set my hands on them, Ruse had slipped through the shadows into that of a potted plant on the other side of the lobby door. He opened it for us with a flourish. “Gentlemen, madam.”

Right. Breaking and entering was a hell of a lot easier when you had supernatural powers on your side. For a second, my skills seemed to pale in comparison.

On the other hand, I couldn’t be defeated by a spotlight and a few pieces of iron and silver, so maybe it was fairest to say we simply had different strengths.

Getting inside the building didn’t solve all our problems. “We can’t waltz into any old apartment,” I whispered. “The current tenants aren’t going to be as welcoming to uninvited guests as I was to you three.”

“I can check to see which are unoccupied,” Ruse said, and tipped his head to Snap. “If you take a taste of the doors for those, you might be able to tell how soon the residents were planning on coming back.”

Snap nodded, eager as always to contribute to our plans.

As we checked out the hall of apartments that branched off from the dingy lobby, Thorn kept scanning ahead and behind, his stance tensed, as if expecting another attack. Based on the threadbare carpet and its faintly musty smell, this clearly wasn’t a five-star residence—but that was better for us as far as security went. All the same, the atmosphere combined with the scene I’d just fled set my skin crawling.

With my next breath, I quietly sang a lyric I’d mangled into pure nonsense. “Til now, I always got pie on my own—I never really dared until I met brew.” Ruse raised an eyebrow at me, and I grimaced back at him. “It makes me feel better. And I could use a whole lot of better right now.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Miss Blaze,” he said with a grin, and slipped through the shadows around the first door. He emerged seconds later shaking his head, and we moved on to the next.

“How many people know of your involvement with this ‘Fund’ and where you live?” Thorn asked, managing to keep his own voice quiet to fit our current stealth mode.

“No one outside of the Fund knows about the Fund,” I said. “Well, other than some of the higher shadowkind who live mortal-side, like Jade—and the hunters and collectors are at least vaguely aware that we’re around. I haven’t had anyone over at my place since I adopted Pickle.” I reached into my purse to scratch the dragon’s back between his wings, and he let out a hum that was almost a purr. “Even the Fund people wouldn’t really approve of me keeping him, despite the circumstances.”

“But someone who’d visited you there before might have remembered.”

“Possibly. That’s still a very limited number of people—and no one I can think of would have given my address to a stranger.” I sucked my lower lip under my teeth to worry at it as Ruse returned from the fifth apartment. He motioned to Snap, and we stopped while the godly shadowkind worked his powers.

“Whoever’s decided they need to bring me in—or shut me up—wouldn’t need to drag the information out of my friends anyway,” I said. “If someone saw us at the bridge or the market, or realized I was at the bar asking questions, it wouldn’t be hard for them to find out my name. Which is unfortunately a pretty distinctive name. Anyone who can orchestrate some kind of conspiracy against the higher shadowkind should be able to dig up my address from that no problem.” My black market contacts did the same with collectors using less definitive information.

Snap drew back after several flicks of his tongue around the doorknob. “They expected to return in the morning,” he said. We needed longer than that.

“The real question,” Ruse said as we moved on, “is what made our enemies so sure you were going to cause trouble for them.”

“They could be monitoring Fund activities—could know I’ve been involved with that. And then seeing me poking around at all made them nervous.” Which made me even more glad that I’d kept Vivi out of this mess. If she’d come along on our earlier investigations, would they have stormed her apartment too? She wouldn’t have had three shadowkind guards ready to jump in and protect her.

No, I couldn’t let my best friend hear a peep about this, not while the assholes who’d come for me tonight were still on the loose.

“The sword-star people are very powerful,” Thorn said darkly. “We can’t know everything they’re capable of finding out—or doing.” He glanced over his shoulder again.

“There’s no way they could predict we’d come here ,” I reminded him. “I don’t even know where here is.”

“We weren’t truly prepared for them to launch an attack at your apartment. It could have gone much worse. I won’t be caught off-guard again.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him there. As irritated as I’d been with my unexpected—and stubborn—houseguests, I was awfully grateful that they’d been around tonight.

“Next time,” the warrior added, “if there’s a chance that doesn’t risk our escaping unscathed, I’ll take one of the attackers for questioning. Ruse can persuade them to talk.”

“You bring me the guy, and I’ll work my magic,” the incubus agreed as he wisped from the last first-floor apartment. “Looks like we’re heading upstairs.”

Uneasiness itched at my skin as we tramped up the steps, but after a few more unworkable apartments, Ruse found another that was currently empty. “There was a calendar on the fridge with the next week marked off as a vacation,” he said. “We may have our jackpot! Snap, do the honors?”

Snap leaned in to sample the impressions that floated around the door. He straightened up with a brilliant smile. “They were imagining a plane ride and beaches on the other side. One of them asked the other if they’d remembered to have the mail held until they got back.”

“Then they’re not expecting anyone else to be dropping by either. Perfect.” Ruse clapped his hands and vanished through the shadows again. A second later, he was opening the apartment door for us from the inside.

Crashing in some stranger’s apartment had sounded like a sensible enough option when it’d only been in theory. Going to anyone I knew was way too risky, and I hadn’t seen any hotels around here we could check in to. Stepping over the threshold into someone else’s home, though, sent an uncomfortable prickle down my spine.

Everywhere I looked, my gaze caught on remnants of the people who lived here. A bright pink jacket with rabbit fur trim on the hood hung on one of the hooks in the front hall next to a scuffed-up leather duster. They must have eaten bacon for breakfast the morning before they’d left, because a hint of that salty, greasy scent lingered by the kitchen. The living room held an old record player and a stack of cardboard sleeves way more ancient than my CDs.

Standing in the living room doorway, the sense of mourning crept over me again. Those CDs were gone—melted in the fire, most likely. So were all my clothes except what I wore on my back. The pieces of furniture that might not have matched but that I’d picked out based on comfiness. My laptop, which had been lying on my unmade bed where I’d last been using it. The goofy hand-painted mug Vivi had given me several Christmases ago.

Everything I’d owned that I wasn’t carrying, from the practical to the sentimental, had been burned away. Even if the fire hadn’t reached every corner of the apartment, it’d be too dangerous to go back to scavenge. The thoroughness with which I’d thrown the life I’d built there away hit me at full force for the first time. I gripped the doorframe, riding out the wave of loss.

I’d picked up the pieces of my life before with nothing but a single duffel bag’s worth of possessions and strength of will. I could do it again. And I couldn’t say I regretted the actions that must have brought on tonight’s attack. I’d rather get to the bottom of Luna’s death than have all that stuff .

But still. It’d been my stuff. It’d been my home, the first one that had really felt totally mine after bouncing from one Fund member’s house to another and then shacking up with the one serious boyfriend of my early twenties. I inhaled and exhaled, groping for my self-control, willing back the tears that had started to burn at the corners of my eyes.

Before my shadowkind trio could notice my momentary fragility—or at least, before they could ask any questions about it that might break open the floodgates—I pushed myself onward down the hall.

Mercifully, there were two bedrooms. The first one I peeked into, a small, windowless space that was probably meant to be a den, had just enough room for a double bed and a tiny birch table beside it, both of which might have come straight from Ikea.

I guessed that one served as a guest bedroom, because the master bedroom next door blared personality. A pink shag rug, flower decals all over the walls, lava lamp on the dresser, orange-and-pink patterned bedspread framed by velvet cushions—it was a ‘60s-style dream.

“Well, I can’t possibly sleep in there,” I said, grateful for the excuse. Slipping into a bed someone else had clearly made their own gave me even more creeps than simply entering their apartment. “My sensibilities are fully offended.”

“It does have plenty of character,” Ruse said, his tone amused.

Thorn shifted his weight on his feet. “I’m going to take a circuit of the neighborhood,” he announced. “Ensure there are no additional dangers lurking that we should be aware of.”

He strode off without waiting for a response. Snap had already bounded off into the kitchen, the cabinet doors squeaking as he opened each to ogle the contents. I should probably have felt guilty about the food that wasn’t ours he was going to be chowing down on, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to care in that moment. I’d just lost the majority of my worldly possessions. Mr. and Mrs. ‘60s fanatics could spare a little grub.

I crossed the hall to the other bedroom and set down my purse. Pickle sprang out, shook himself with a huff, and trotted down the hall to join Snap, maybe pursuing a late dinner of his own.

Ruse had lingered at my side. When I turned to face him, his warm hazel eyes searched mine. “I expect you could use some rest. If you need anything, you know where to find us.”

“Yeah,” I said, and my throat tightened for a different reason. The incubus had worked awfully hard to lighten my spirits tonight—and then had his efforts ruined by that unexpected assault on the apartment. He hadn’t needed to try to cheer me up.

All at once, I was sure that I didn’t want to be alone right now. I wanted to be with someone who cared about my happiness.

He bobbed his head to press a light kiss to my forehead, his fingers grazing the side of my face with a trace of heat, and then he was swiveling on his heel to go. I caught his hand before he’d taken more than one step. He shot me a questioning look.

“There are a few things I wouldn’t mind doing in that bed before I get to the resting part,” I said.

Ruse offered me a crooked smile. “A generous offer, but there’s no need. After our last interlude, I should be in tip-top shape for at least a few weeks.”

Oh. Had the other night’s encounter really been about nothing more than feeding for him? Embarrassment constricted my chest.

It’d been ridiculous for me to think anything else, hadn’t it? He was an incubus—that was what sex meant to him. Just because he’d had fun setting up the impromptu dance party didn’t mean he was interested in more intimate activities for nothing but the pleasure of it.

I dropped his hand, pulling back into the doorway. “Of course. If you don’t want to?—”

Something flickered in Ruse’s eyes as he took in my expression, and then he was reaching for me, his hand teasing along my arm to grasp my elbow. His head bowed close to mine again. My pulse stuttered with desire I couldn’t suppress, but maybe I didn’t have to.

“I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend my time more than sparking a different sort of fire with you, Miss Blaze,” he said, his voice dropping low. “The only thing I don’t want is for you to feel obligated.”

All right then. I found myself grinning at him, maybe a little goofily, but really, can you blame me? It was about time I got a little good news.

I rested my hand on his firm chest. “You promised me the best sex I’ve ever had, and you delivered, and we haven’t even really had sex yet. I promise you my proposition has exactly zilch to do with any sense of obligation.”

“In that case…” He nudged me backward into the room, kicking the door shut behind us.

In the cramped space next to the bed, he cupped my face and dipped his to claim a proper kiss. The press of his mouth, hot and determined yet tender, woke up every inch of my body.

It’d been a long, hazardous night, but I definitely wasn’t too tired to welcome this escape.

And I didn’t want this time to be all about me. I intended to get the full incubus experience—well, emotional meddling aside.

As I kissed him back, my fingers sped down the front of his shirt to unbutton it. When the muscular planes were bared, I couldn’t resist dropping my head to kiss him just below his shoulder, drinking in his bittersweet cocoa scent. Yum.

Ruse trailed his fingers over my hair. As soon as I eased back, he tilted my chin up to recapture my mouth. As his tongue twined with mine, he found the zipper at the back of my dress and slid it downward torturously slowly.

With each inch, his thumb stroked over the naked skin he’d uncovered. By the time he’d reached the bottom, a hair’s breadth from my ass, my body was swaying toward his, wanting more: more closeness, more heat, more of that tantalizing touch.

“This looked exquisite on you,” he murmured as the fabric slid down my thighs to pool at my feet, “but I think I like it even better off.”

“I think I’d like everything you’re wearing off,” I informed him, tugging at his shirt.

He chuckled and shed it in a second. When he tipped me back on the bed, I reached for the fly of his slacks, and tonight he didn’t stop me. He obviously understood that I was in this for the entire act now.

And he was clearly into it too. The length I encountered through the fabric of his underthings—an incubus wearing briefs; who’d have thought?—was rigidly erect. A pleased thrum emanated from Ruse’s throat as I teased my fingers over it. He bent closer to jerk the cup of my bra down with his teeth, and gods above, I’d never seen anything hotter.

He sucked my nipple into his mouth, and for a few minutes, the pleasure he was conjuring in my breasts distracted me from my own mission. My head leaned back onto the pillow, a gasp slipping out of me. As he slicked his tongue around one stiffening peak and then tested his teeth against it, I dug my fingers into his hair, finding his horns.

Ruse rumbled again, low in his chest. He tossed my bra aside and turned his attentions to my other breast.

Every swivel of his tongue sent me soaring higher, but I didn’t lose sight of my goals completely. When he traced his hand down my side to remove my panties, I sat up to make sure the rest of his clothes came off too. He drew back to slide out of his slacks and briefs, and then he knelt before me in all his leanly carved glory. His cock jutted so solidly aloft, I had the urge to down it like a shot at the bar.

One of the benefits of sex with the shadowkind—one I’d never needed to consider before—was that they didn’t produce children. They simply sprang into being rather than being born, and there was no record of any human involvement resulting in pregnancy on either side. Which was a very good thing, because I hadn’t exactly thought to pack condoms.

The mouth-watering visage I was taking in wasn’t his real glory, though. This was only the human appearance he put on to blend in. I hauled my gaze from the parts I hoped to have penetrating me soon to his face.

“Like what you see?” he said with one of those typical smirks.

I ran my fingers down his chest, following the grooves of his muscles, until I reached his cock. I couldn’t resist giving the silky skin that covered the rigid length an eager stroke, but I held his gaze.

“I do,” I said. “But I’d like even more to see you as you really are.”

Ruse tensed—just slightly, but his nudity made it hard to hide. He opened his mouth with an intake of breath that already sounded like a protest.

Before he could speak, I held up my hand to stop him. “I’ve seen a hell of a lot more than I’d bet any woman you’ve been with before had. If they could handle it while high on your seductive vibes, I’m pretty sure I can while sober. And I am totally sober now to make that call.” Any lingering effects of the drug had dissipated during my frantic bike ride.

Ruse peered at me for a long moment. “Why?” he said finally.

I shrugged. “You can see me exactly as I am. It’ll feel more equal if I can say the same about you. Besides, it’ll make a much better story if I can say I got it on with a fully-fledged incubus rather than just a dude with horns.” I knocked his hip with my knee playfully.

Something about my explanation appeared to make up his mind. His smile returned. “All right,” he said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He closed his eyes, and a shimmer ran over his body. Ran over it—and stayed, a hazy golden glow emanating from his skin as if he were part firefly. His little horns lengthened, curving in a full loop and pointing toward the ceiling again. His cock curved too, his pubic bone protruding farther out at the same time. When he opened his eyes again, the pupils had dilated, but the irises had expanded as well, nearly filling the whites. They gleamed a gold as bright as if the brilliant summer sun were reflecting off them.

“Well?” he said, with a new smoky quality to his voice that seemed to wind around me in its own embrace.

Sweet shiny sugar-puffs, a story for the ages indeed. Had he really thought I’d run scared from this ?

I raised my hand to touch his glowing cheek. “You were handsome before. Now you’re fucking magnificent.”

His smile stretched wider. He bowed his head to kiss me hard, the tingling heat of his lips spreading into mine and all through my body. “Let’s get on with the fucking then,” he murmured against my mouth.

He gave me a gentle shove to lie down, joining me as I did. Everywhere our skin touched, little shocks of bliss quivered into me. He wasn’t even inside me yet, and the rush of my release was already building to a peak.

We kissed again and again, until the scorching pleasure of it blurred my thoughts together. His hand dipped between my legs, his thumb flicking over my clit, and just like that, I did come, with a shaky moan that had me thanking all that was good in the world for the existence of incubi and their soundproofing magic.

The sound had hardly finished leaving my lips when Ruse delved his fingers right inside me. With a few quick pulses, I was coming again on the heels of my first orgasm, my body trembling with the combined force. “Oh my God,” I gasped out.

Ruse stole another kiss with a chuckle that vibrated into me. “I’d prefer you give me the credit.”

I let out a laugh that turned into another moan as he rubbed the head of his cock over my slit and plunged inside. My fingers dug into his shoulders as if the ecstasy might wash me away if I didn’t hold on tight. The next sound that leaked out of me was embarrassingly close to a whine of need.

“I’ve got you,” Ruse murmured in the smoky tone that set me even more ablaze. He rocked deeper into me, and I discovered exactly what was so special about his official incubus equipment. The curve of his cock veered perfectly to press the hot button of bliss deep inside me. With each thrust, the bulge of his pubic bone stroked my clit. Pulses of a pleasure I’d never even imagined raced through me, faster and more searing by the moment.

I arched up to meet him, wanting to pay him back as well as I could with my more limited human means. Remembering how he’d reacted to the caressing of his horns before, I lifted my hands to his head. My fingers tangled in his hair and then found the enlarged points with their graceful spiral.

When I squeezed them, Ruse groaned and drove into me even harder. Another orgasm crashed through me, sending me flying and then dragging me down into depths like a blissful undertow. And once I started coming, I couldn’t stop. Each thrust of his cock into me tossed me up and under all over again with just enough time to gasp for air. My entire existence became a gale of pleasure.

Through the storm of ecstasy, I had just enough awareness to realize that the incubus hadn’t joined me, not with his own release. I managed to raise my jellified legs to his waist, welcoming him even deeper as I gripped one horn and ran my fingernails down the muscles of his back.

“Come,” I mumbled. “Come with me.”

Ruse’s next groan shuddered as it fell from his lips. His mouth crashed into mine. With a roll of his hips, bliss tossed me up and over once more. A flood of tingling heat filled me as he followed.

As he eased to a stop over me, I couldn’t help thinking that everything considered, this hadn’t been such a bad night after all.