The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Nine

‘You’ve had some dealings with Declan,’ Malik said, ‘the head of the Red Shamrock blood-family, have you not?’

I frowned at his seeming change of subject, then realised what he was suggesting. Red Shamrock vamps could influence mood by evoking a person’s emotions from memories; it was why their Irish pub, the Tir na n’Og, was as successful as it was. Punters always experienced the best craic ever, thanks to the vamps trawling their minds for happy memories and bringing the associated feelings to the surface.

But Declan, the blood-family’s head vamp, could do more. He could share or even steal memories. I’d seen him do it once with Fiona, his seneschal and human partner. They’d kissed. It hadn’t been a quick peck on the cheek either. Well, that explained why Malik was watching me like he expected me to pitch a fit. Either he was worried about the memory bit, the kissing bit, or both. Easier to go with the kissing, which after what we’d just nearly done . . .

I looked up at him. ‘We’re talking about a kiss?’

‘If you have no objection.’

I showed him my finger and thumb, almost touching. ‘Malik, we were this close to doing a lot more than just kissing right on this very table. Why would I object?’

‘Our actions were dictated by magic,’ he said stiffly. ‘They were not consensual.’

Oh. Was he still worried I was about to cry the-big-bad-vamp-enslaved-me, or something?

‘Well, yeah,’ I said slowly, wanting to reassure him I was okay with things. After all, it had been my idea, sort of. ‘I know we didn’t exactly start out planning to have sex with each other, but it’s not like it’s never been a possibility.’ Hell, I’d practically laid myself out on my bed for him at one point during the ToLA case to persuade him to help me. Not that he’d taken me up on my offer, thanks to his pact with Tavish about protecting me. At least, not in real life. In my fantasies, however . . . I felt slight heat rise in my cheeks as I carried on, ‘And as I told you when we last had this discussion, I’m perfectly willing if you . . .’ I trailed off. He looked like I was asking him to inhale garlic.

‘You may be willing, Genevieve. I am not.’

Hurt and rejection stung me more painfully than the jellyfish had. Looked like I’d really got my attraction wires crossed somewhere along the way. Maybe his refusal last time hadn’t just been because of his deal with Tavish. Though if his body language was anything to go by, he wanted me as much as I wanted him. He was either lying to me or to himself. Well, fuck that.

‘Are you saying that you don’t want to have sex with me?’ I snapped out. ‘Because, spell or no, that’s not the impression I’ve got.’

His black eyes turned opaque and unreadable. ‘Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol is performing scenes from Scars of Dracula all this week, Genevieve. I would be honoured if you would attend as my guest, and after the show, it would be my pleasure if you would join me for refreshments.’

I stared at him speechless. Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was in the Blue Heart. He wanted me to go to a vamp show in a vamp club. Then join him for refreshments . . . Was this some sort of weird sucker crap? Something to do with showing off his property? My mind stuttered between annoyed disbelief and bewilderment—

Unless, was he asking me on a date?

A heady lightness filled me, only to deflate like a pricked balloon. Hell, even if it was a date, why ask me to go somewhere I couldn’t be seen? I might not need the Witches’ Council’s protection any more, but I was the boss of Spellcrackers: it’s a witch company, and I needed my witch employees. If I started publicly hanging out with vamps when I was off-duty, the Council would forbid them to work for me. No employees. No Spellcrackers. Malik knew that—

‘Genevieve?’

I shot him a narrow look. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

‘I believe that is the current term, yes.’ Amusement twitched his mouth.

I blinked. He thought this was funny? It was more like inviting a starving woman to a banquet then telling her she couldn’t eat. ‘Then why invite me to a vamp club? You know I won’t visit one unless it’s on witch-authorised business.’

His amusement died; replaced by . . . regret? Sorrow? ‘That you even think to ask that question, Genevieve, is the reason I ask.’

Damn. Now he was doing the cryptic thing. I hate that. ‘I’m asking because I want to know the answer, Malik. So explain it to me.’

‘It is not only yourself you hurt,’ he said softly, ‘when you deny who you are and refuse to embrace your true heritage.’ Then he was gone, leaving me frowning up at the ceiling. I sat up to see him lift a shirt from the table nearest the door and slip it on.

What the— ‘You’re leaving?’ I said, stupidly, as that was obviously what he was doing.

‘There are clothes here to replace the ones I damaged.’ He indicated a suit carrier on the table.

When the hell had he organised them? Not to mention why was he running off in the middle of . . . asking me on a date? And how the hell had we got here from his asking permission to kiss me to check out my memories of the tarot card? Damn it! I was missing something here, something important, only I couldn’t work out what past the confused whirl in my mind. And judging by the way he was leaving— Crap. Had left! He wasn’t prepared to stick around long enough for me to sort things out.

I scrambled off the table and ran to the door. The corridor outside was empty.

Fuck. ‘Malik?’ I called, hoping he’d come back. ‘What about the Emperor?’

I will look into it. His voice sounded distant in my head. If you wish to accept my invitation, leave a message with my answering service. Then there was nothing but silence.

Angry and confused, I grabbed the suit carrier and headed for the en suite restroom to find myself surrounded by more bland beige luxury: marble sinks topped with well-lit mirrors that flattered, expensive toiletries that smelled of lilies, and towels rolled and tucked into wicker baskets. The replacement clothes – black trousers, silky cream T-shirt and a dark lilac linen jacket that wasn’t a colour I’d have chosen, but looked surprisingly great with my hair – were from a local 24/7 chain store. Whoever Malik had got to shop for me had good taste. Briefly I wondered who, and if they’d seen me unconscious and naked on the table . . . which was kind of creepy . . . then decided that wasn’t worth worrying about. There was underwear too. The cream lace would look good against my honey-coloured skin, or it would have if not for the rose-coloured bruises marking me.

He’d said they weren’t permanent. Not that I cared one way or the other right now. I yanked the labels off the underwear. Damn it! The beautiful vamp had reached whole new levels of annoying. He’d told me he wasn’t willing. Then asked me on a date. To a vamp club. Then spouted some cryptic crap about hurting myself, and him, by denying who I was and not embracing my heritage.

Only I wasn’t denying anything. Everyone knew my father was a vamp, but I was sidhe like my mother. And while I might want to embrace Malik, no way was I going to rock the boat by going on a public date with him, not when I didn’t know what the hell he was playing at. And not when he was making iffy comments about knowing what my answers to his questions would be. Almost as if the irritating vamp was testing me . . . I tugged on the briefs, following that thought . . . As if he wasn’t willing to have sex with me unless I made some sort of grand gesture or declaration that he meant something to me.

Damn. Didn’t he know that he did? Hell, I’d already forgiven the idiotic vamp for doing his mind-meld on my memories, for ordering me about as if I were a blood-slave, and for killing me more than once – not that I’m masochistic, and the circumstances were extenuating; I’d even asked him to, that last time – but hey, how much more of a declaration did he want? A date. In public. In a place you wouldn’t normally go. For no other reason than to be with him. And my knee-jerk reaction had been: no way. Crap. I’d failed his test. He was right. Why the hell should he want sex or anything else with me when I wouldn’t even be seen with him in public?

I jerked the bra’s straps to adjust them, and slipped it on.

Except, by that same standard Malik was wrong too.

If he was going to play stupid games with me, instead of talking things through, then why the hell should I want sex or anything more with him?

Only I did want more. My heart thudded erratically as the trembling, indefinable emotion I felt for Malik crystallised into something steady and tangible in my heart.

‘So I should probably go on this date and sort things out,’ I told my reflection, then scowled as my mind threw a huge curve ball at me.

The Autarch.

The psychotic prick had been pulling Malik’s strings with the Jellyfish spell, trying to stop me removing it. And then there was Malik’s answers about the Emperor. Or rather his non-answers, seeing as he’d started prevaricating as soon as I’d mentioned the tarot card. How far could I trust that whatever game Malik was playing was down to him and not the Autarch?

And if it was the Autarch speaking through Malik’s mouth, then the Blue Heart date scenario made more sense. It was vamp territory, I’d be more vulnerable, and so would Malik. Damn. I needed to talk to him; without the Autarch’s interference. I touched the rose-shaped bruises on my wrist that hid my bracelet; I could use Malik’s ring and contact him through the Dreamscape: that might work. And the best place to do that was— well, not here; it wasn’t safe.

Last time we’d met in the Dreamscape, he’d used Tower Bridge as a backdrop, but really it could be any place we were both familiar with, like oh, say, my bedroom? After all, I couldn’t get much safer than my own bed . . . My pulse raced as my Malik fantasies roared back to life, fuelled by our recent near miss. We’d been a breath away from sex. Lust and longing twisted low inside me. And, boy, was I missing sex after nearly a year of no touch but my own. Sighing, I traced the bruises on my breasts, following them down my body to the last mark, which disappeared beneath the lacy briefs, remembering the glorious feel of his hands on me—

Sudden excruciating arousal made my legs buckle. I fell to my knees and, desperate for release, shoved a hand into my briefs. As soon as I touched myself, an orgasm rocked through me, more pain than pleasure. Panting, I collapsed against the mirror. My reflection stared back at me with molten-copper eyes wide with shock. Magic wreathed me in a swirling golden haze, and Malik’s marks suddenly gleamed like blood-tinted silver pennies.

The mark on my wrist had never done that – I looked – was still not doing that. Arousal flamed through me again, making me feel I’d perish in agony if I didn’t come. This time it took much more than a touch to get me off as I crumpled over on the floor, forehead on the cold marble, arse in the air, my fingers working feverishly, unable to stop – what the fuck was wrong with me? – until finally the orgasm ripped through me as if the pain/pleasure were trying to tear me apart. I screamed my release, the sound reverberating like a banshee’s screech in the small room.

The door slammed open.

A vamp stood framed in the doorway, his platinum hair hanging loose around his shoulders, his hooded blue eyes cold as they scanned the room. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of a tongue-lolling Irish wolfhound’s head on it: an outfit that would’ve seemed odd if you didn’t know him.

I did. He was Maxim Fyodor Zakharin a.k.a. Mad Max. My uncle on my sidhe mother’s side; or distant cousin on my vamp father’s side. Neither of the relationships were ones I wanted to acknowledge, even without the icky overtones of incest. Not that the family relationship, or the incest, stopped there; Mad Max had taken both further by having a fling with his niece, my half-sister Brigitta, who I’d never even known existed until I’d learned she’d been killed by the vamps. I say fling, but it was more than that, seeing as they’d had a kid together, Ana.

But even without the close family connections, there was no way I trusted Mad Max. He was the Autarch’s pet vamp. He was a crazy sonofabitch who hardly cared for himself, much less anyone else; I’d seen him cheerfully stake his own father on a whim. And he was the vamp who’d kidnapped Katie last year. As relatives and vamps go, Mad Max was the last one anyone would want to see, even if they weren’t huddled half-naked on the floor, fighting a compulsion to pleasure themselves again.

A compulsion my gut told me was magical.

Somebody – the provider of the underwear? – must’ve sicced me with some sort of sex spell.

But despite that, and the soreness between my legs telling me I’d been more than rough in my desperation, I still throbbed with arousal. I wanted. Needed. But my gut also told me another attempt at release was likely to drive me as crazy as Mad Max, and quite possibly render parts of me raw and bloody. What I wanted, needed, was something more.

Mad Max stopped scanning and his gaze settled on me. For a moment he stared as if I were some strange specimen he’d never seen before, then he sniffed. A grin broke his face, flashing all four of his fangs. ‘Paddling the pink canoe, are you, Cousin? Good for you. But a bit of rumpy pumpy’s much more fun than flying solo. Want some company?’

Not in a million years, and Touch me and I’ll stake you vied as answers in my head, but the Compulsion riding me had other ideas. It wasn’t too impressed with the faint reddish glow emanating from him, but it decided it was better than nothing, so even as part of me recoiled in horrified disbelief, I flung my magic at him. It snaked out, twisting round his limbs like thick golden vines, and my mouth growled, ‘Yes, I want company.’

He barked a laugh, his eyes flashing from white to gold like manic warning lights. ‘It’ll be my pleasure, Cousin!’ And he stepped towards me, his stance familiar in a way I realised way too late to counter, as he shifted his weight, swung his leg in a fast roundhouse kick and his boot connected with my temple.

The world exploded into the proverbial Milky Way of spinning stars—

And I plunged into darkness.