Darkness Taunts (22 page)

He put a hand at my waist and guided me toward Kristen. “Forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest, Melena.”

I gritted my jaw and focused on my surroundings. There were ten witches and warlocks inside the restaurant—about average for a coven. Several of them were running around getting a buffet ready on the far side of the room. I sensed the others were in the back. The overall mood among them was nervous, but that could have been for any number of reasons. Lucas had told me earlier that several guests flew in from other parts of the country to attend. This had to be a big deal for them.

I exchanged greetings with Kristen when we reached her. Her body felt tense when we hugged. Was she worried about the demons?

“I’ll allow you five minutes with your friend,” Lucas said. “I must speak with the guards outside.”

As soon as he walked away, heading back outside, Kristen relaxed several degrees.

“What have you done to him, Melena?” she asked.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I could have sworn his eyes were shooting daggers at me while we hugged. He’s not the friendliest man in the world, but this is extreme even for him.”

“How long have you known him?” I asked. It had never occurred to me she would know him all that well.

“He’s been visiting Aeson’s home at least once every couple of months for the last few years since I’ve been here. About six months ago he started staying there most of the time until he got that cabin.”

I glanced back at the entrance where Lucas had disappeared. He’d never told me where he went when he wasn’t around. I’d figured he lived somewhere like New York or L.A. since he wore business attire a lot, but it had never occurred to me he might have settled in Alaska.

“You mean he’s been staying here full time since August?” I asked, returning my attention to Kristen.

“Well, yeah.” She gave me a confused look. “Sometimes we don’t see him for a week or two, but other than that he’s been around here most of the time. You didn’t know that?”

I sighed. “Getting information out of that man is an exercise in patience. I asked him a long time ago where he lived and got a less than pleasant response. It never seemed worth the effort to ask again.”

She shook her head. “He’s not one of those guys who likes to talk about themselves, but I still don’t get what you did to rile him up so much.”

I threw my hands in the air. “I didn’t do anything. Lucas has been getting more difficult every day since he bit me.”

“Hmm.” She tapped her chin. “Not that this is any of my business, but have you been holding out on him?”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t answer until a nearby warlock made his way past us into the kitchen. Then she leaned closer to me. “Have you been denying him sex lately?” she whispered.

Now I was glancing around to make sure no one overheard us. “No, we’ve never had sex.”

Her jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious. I’m amazed the claiming mark stuck if you haven’t gone that far.”

I could sense Lucas heading back and indicated as much to her. She nodded her understanding. “I can’t give in to him like that,” I whispered.

She let out a sigh of exasperation. “Melena, you accepted his mark—you’re going to have to accept him. Anything less is just cruel.”

“That’s not fair,” I whispered furiously. “I didn’t even know what he was doing when he did it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s too late to back out now.”

Lucas stepped through the door and we put some distance between us. Kristen’s expression turned from irritated to professional in the blink of an eye. I followed her lead.

“Are you two done?” he asked.

“Yep,” Kristen said. “Ready for the tour?”

He nodded and she led us through the two main eating sections of the restaurant. They had about ten round tables and six rectangular ones each—all covered with white table cloths. They were topped with candles and floral arrangements, as well as expensive-looking plates and cutlery.

Three sides of the restaurant had large tinted windows that went floor to ceiling. With it being dark I couldn’t see much out of them. I didn’t like it. We were on the second floor of the building, but it left the occupants inside vulnerable. They’d decided not to salt the entry points because they didn’t want it interfering with their magic.

Everyone coming was aware of the potential risk by attending, but I supposed it only made it more exciting for some of them. It just made it more difficult for me since my senses were going to be bombarded with such a high concentration of sups. I’d already prepared for that with a dose of Advil. Better to stop the headache from coming by pre-medicating.

Kristen took us to a corridor that led to both the kitchen and the restrooms. We went back there and checked over the prep area. It was large with a decent amount of room to maneuver for the cook and assistants. A back door led straight out to a set of stairs. That made two primary ways in and out if you didn’t bust a window or go through the roof. I could sense one of Lucas’ two vamps already up there.

“Would either of you like something to drink?” Kristen asked after we finished the tour. We were standing in the storage area where they kept the wine and other refreshments.

“Water is fine,” I said.

I’d have something stronger later to blend in, but for now I needed to keep my head clear.

“You must choose a signal to give us should the demons arrive,” Lucas said after receiving his drink.

“What? You think screaming ‘The demons are coming, the demons are coming!’ is too dramatic?” I asked.

Kristen choked on her wine.

Lucas gave me a perturbed look. “Perhaps a little.”

I examined my glass of water. “How about I drop my drink if I sense them? The floor is hard enough it should break without a problem.”

He nodded. “That would be effective, assuming you don’t drop it before then.”

“I won’t,” I said. Thankfully, clumsiness wasn’t on my list of faults.

We moved to the front of the restaurant in time to meet Aniya and Micah when they arrived. She looked amazing with her hair curled and pulled back to flow down her neck. Her dress was more conservative than mine in the sense that it had full sleeves and a long skirt, but its v-shaped neckline exposed a healthy amount of her cleavage. The fabric contrasted well with her olive skin and matched the black tuxedo Micah wore. Seeing Lucas next to him, they looked so much alike that if not for their hair it would have been hard to tell them apart.

We took them through the tour ourselves so Kristen could help her coven finish their preparations. Guests started pouring in soon after, including Aeson and his date—a dark-skinned vampire with a large build and the sexiest smile I’d ever seen on a man. I didn’t know any of the others who came. Nik had a new business venture he was working on, which was the other reason Aniya had made the trip instead. I’d discovered it was supernatural etiquette to send a representative if the master of a territory received an invitation but couldn’t attend.

Lucas left me to speak with an elf couple about twenty feet away. I’d never actually seen any members from their race before since most of them tended to live in the hidden fae cities. They didn’t have any glamour up to hide their pointed ears or the greenish tint to their skin. Only a few small crinkles around their eyes and forehead gave away their middle-aged status. The man and woman were about five hundred years old.

Aniya came up and took my arm. She pulled me over to a less congested side of the room. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“I’m beginning to think Nik’s parties with the orgies and drinking aren’t so bad anymore,” I whispered in her ear.

“You missed the last one.” Her eyes sparkled. “It spilled out onto the lawn and involved a lot of snow, rope and icicles. I’m still trying to get the visions of it out of my head.”

“I’d still take that over this stuffy event,” I said.

Kristen walked up with a plate of food in her hands and a worn expression on her face. I refrained from commenting further. It wasn’t her fault her coven leader was a stick in the mud. I’d seen him walking around before the party giving orders. He’d yelled at any of his people who didn’t move fast enough or get things just right. If covens relied on democracy instead of shows of power, I doubted he would have made it to his position.

She shoved the plate at me. “Melena, you need to eat something. We didn’t prepare all this food for it to just go to waste.”

I set the wine glass down, thinking I could always grab it or someone else’s to accidentally drop. The plate had a sampling of food on it. I tried the pork sausages. They were surprisingly good. I almost offered some to Aniya until I remembered she couldn’t eat human food anymore.

“So do you actually know most of these people?” I asked Kristen.

She shook her head. “No. I’m still too lowly for most of them to acknowledge.”

“I know that feeling,” Aniya mumbled.

She might have come with Micah, but I’d caught her eying a handsome vampire who’d flown in from Seattle. He had darker hair like she preferred.

“Oooh, Melena.” Kristen drew my attention. “You should check out the woman talking to Lucas.”

I followed my senses to where he stood close to the entrance. A beautiful Asian woman brushed her hand down his arm. The sultry expression on her face revealed exactly what was on her mind. Lucas’ eyes didn’t have the heated look they sometimes did for me, but neither did he appear uninterested. When his lips brushed over her cheek, I saw red. My foot took a step forward.

“Shit,” Kristen said, pulling me back. “I just remembered who that is. She’s one of Theirn’s lieutenants from New Orleans.”

Her words barely penetrated my mind. “Doesn’t matter. She’s touching him.”

“Do you have any idea how strong she is?” Kristen hissed out.

My voice came out wooden. “She’s approximately three hundred and twenty years old. Powerful but not unkillable.”

“For you, that’s way too much.”

I clutched my purse in my hand. “Not with a gun it isn’t.”

“But…”

I twisted out of her hold and started moving again. Aniya grabbed me next. Getting free of her grip wasn’t as easy.

“Let go,” I said through clenched teeth.

She jerked me around to face her. “Mel, I’m not going to let you get yourself killed. What is wrong with you anyway? I thought you didn’t like him that much.”

“He marked me like some piece of territory. I have nothing on him. It’s just…making me crazy that he’s so close to her.” I rubbed my head. “I can’t explain it.”

She gave me a sympathetic look. “You can’t let this get to you.”

I took a deep breath. “Fine. I won’t fight her, but I can’t stand here and do nothing.”

We both turned our gazes to Lucas and the woman. They’d stopped touching, but they still stood together a little too intimately for my liking.

“What are you going to do?” Aniya asked.

“Show her who he belongs to.” I took hold of one of her hands and started peeling her fingers away. “I promise not to touch her, but you have to let me go.”

“Fine.” She let go. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

I didn’t bother to answer. My target was within my sights and that’s what I kept my focus on. Lucas’ eyes met mine when I got close. There was no emotion in them, but that didn’t stop me from stepping between him and the woman. I pulled him down by the neck with one arm and pressed his lips to mine.

No response. Not so much as a twitch from him despite the usual tingles that raced between us. He jerked away and gave me an annoyed look. “What are you doing, Melena?”

I took a step back. Horror filled me as I realized he’d just publicly rejected me. How could he do that after everything that had happened between us in the last week? I’d been so sure if I gave him a sign that I wanted him, he’d welcome it.

The woman he’d been talking to laughed. “Oh, you silly little human. You didn’t really think you could keep his attention, did you?”

My hand rubbed the bite mark on my neck. It was still there as a vivid reminder that he might have some kind of claim on me, but I could never have anything on him. “Excuse me.”

I turned around to find everyone nearby had stopped their conversations. A few looked at me with pity, but most seemed to find the scene amusing. I made the walk of shame through them and headed toward the back. Aniya and Kristen met me along the way, but I brushed them off.

“I need to be alone,” I said to them.

Aeson came next, blocking my path. “Mel, it’s not what it looks like. He has business with her master. It’s considered disrespectful in our world to interrupt him like that. They see you as human and weak.”

I scowled at him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“You need to understand how things work,” he said in a placating tone.

“Yeah, I get it.” I gripped my clutch to hide my shaking hands. “He can piss all over me and do what he wants, but I’m supposed to play the weak human role. Well, all of you guys can go to hell because that’s not how things operate in my world.”

He sighed. “We still need you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll still do my job, but you need to get out of my way.”

He stepped aside. “Be strong, agapi mou. You two still have a lot to work out.”

I made it to the restroom. Thankfully no one was inside. I stood in front of the mirror and stared at the forlorn woman looking back at me. My fingers clenched on the edge of the counter, wishing I had the strength to break it.

When had I given Lucas so much power over me? He’d done a lot of awful things to me over the years, but I’d always brushed them off. He was the enemy and I’d learned not to take it personal. At some point since arriving in Juneau, though, that had changed. He’d grown on me and become something else.

Stupid. So stupid.

The man in question came into the restroom. I stiffened and moved away from the counter, looking for a place to run. Of course, there wasn’t one. Step by step he came closer.

“Melena,” he said.

I felt him put a silencing spell up so no one could hear us. Not that I planned to talk. I turned my back on him to face the wall and prayed he’d go away. Was public humiliation not enough that he had to come add to it?