Doomsday Brethren, Book 04: Entice Me at Twilight (9 page)

“Be careful with Simon, darling. He’s
very
much like Alexei.”

Her gaze strayed his way, measuring, before jerking her stare back to the dark road. “Thank you for caring.”

“I do. I have for six years, since I saw that bus douse you in the rain.”

“And turn me into a drowned rat.” She smiled wistfully. “Still, you came to my rescue, as you have so many times.”

“I always will. Please, return to me safe and ready to be my wife.”

She pressed her lips together, her expression turning pensive. “We’ll talk soon.”

“If you want, we’ll elope next time,” Mason rushed to say. “Someplace warm and tropical. I know how you love the heat.”

A vision of Felicia in white on a sandy beach with swaying palm trees and love in her eyes gripped Duke by the throat. The vision shattered when she extended her hand to Mason, not him.

Fury boiled. Mason with Felicia, it was wrong. Duke suspected—
knew
—that if he kissed her, if he tasted her at all, his instinct would identify her as his mate and he’d be bloody tempted to speak the Call.

But she’d belonged to Mason first. If Felicia had agreed to marry his brother, she must love him. For family harmony and her happiness, he would somehow find the strength to return her to his brother untouched.

Desolation seethed inside him. How many decades—hell, centuries—would he spend alone if he allowed his one true mate to slip through his fingers? Yet how could he live with himself if he stole his brother’s fiancée?

Squaring his shoulders and focusing on the winding road, Duke shoved the thought away.

Mason murmured, “We’ll get married somewhere tropical, darling. Just come back to me.”

Felicia teared up, bit her lip. Those tears, along with the idea that he’d stolen something from her that she very much wanted, were a stake through Duke’s heart.

“I will,” she choked out.

Mason sighed. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Let me speak with Simon again.”

“All right. Good-bye, Mason.”

“I love you,” he murmured.

Before Felicia could say anything, Duke ripped the phone from her hand and jerked it to his ear. “What do you want?”

“Two days, you bastard. You have two days to bring her back so I can get her adequate protection or I’ll report you to the authorities and charge you with kidnapping. Plenty of witnesses. And that will be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you personally.”

Duke knew he could avoid all that by faking his own death and disappearing into the magical world. He’d have to someday, before people started questioning why he, like most wizards, looked perpetually thirty. In fact, he’d already begun making arrangements.

Enacting his plan now was tempting. After tonight, there would be scandal, which would be ten times worse if the authorities sought him. Another challenge the Doomsday Brethren didn’t need. And what would all this strife do to his poor mother? Failing to return Felicia in two days could forever mar his already shaky relationship with Mason. And Duke felt certain that his brother’s fiancée would never be interested in him now that he’d abducted her against her will. Mason had warned her off, compared him to some wanker named Alexei. An ex-boyfriend?

But he couldn’t abandon his family to Mathias’s whims before ensuring everyone’s safety. He couldn’t cause his mother grief by “dying.” He couldn’t bring himself to sever all ties with Felicia.

Fucking hopeless
.

“I’ll do my best.”

But deep down, Duke knew it would take far longer than a couple of days to make Felicia safe now that Mathias knew she was the Untouchable. She’d be with him day and night. How could he possibly resist her?

A
S THE CALL ENDED
, Felicia risked a glance at Hurstgrove’s profile, illuminated by the dashboard’s lights. She didn’t know what Mason had said, but she didn’t imagine it was friendly, given the way her captor clenched his jaw and gripped the wheel. Restraining the urge to ask—she knew Mason and could fill in the blanks—Felicia winced and looked at the clock. Two-fourteen a.m.

A new day, a new problem. She’d been abducted from her wedding. By someone not quite human.

Happy New Year
…

She rubbed her eyes, trying not to smear the professionally applied makeup she’d paid for hours earlier, then plucked at her veil until it came free. Draping it across the dashboard, Felicia sighed. She could feel every seam in the heavy, form-fitting wedding gown. Her hopes of a happy family and future lay in shambles. And damn it, she had to use the loo.

Exhaustion beat at her. Nerves had kept her awake most of last night, and she felt every minute of that sleeplessness in the warm car that jetted through the dark night to “safety.” Wherever that was.

“Felicia?”

Shocking how gentle Hurstgrove’s tone could be. How warm. But then, she supposed it came in handy, seducing as many women as he did.

Across the small sports car’s leather interior, his dark stare scorched her. He touched her shoulder. Desire darkened his eyes, tightened his face.

Against her will and better judgment, Felicia’s heart stuttered. Her body heated. She edged away. He dropped his hand with a sigh.

Aside from their one meeting prior to the wedding, Hurstgrove was a complete stranger. Still, he hadn’t lied about her safety. Though he had abducted her, she knew he would never harm her.

Seduce her? That, she suspected, he would try. But would he really abduct her merely to do so, as Mason had accused?

Felicia frowned. That didn’t add up. Hurstgrove couldn’t want her
that
badly. He didn’t know her. At most, he saw a pretty shell, but he bedded actresses and models, women clearly far more beautiful than she was. Though her adoptive parents had praised her looks too often for Felicia to think ill of herself, and male students at uni had frequently asked her out, she didn’t believe she was pretty enough to motivate a duke to risk scandal and alienate his family. And was he so lacking in bed partners that he’d have to stoop to this length to get one? No.

Nor did she think he’d done it merely to annoy Mason. Their rivalry was obvious, but her built-in lie detector told her that Hurstgrove had not gambled his familial connections for a fleeting affair.

It would be so easy to be angry, to wonder why Hurstgrove had done this
to
her. But he’d abducted her from her wedding
for
her, and at great expense to himself.

Why?

He might not be the most honorable man ever. He objectified women and didn’t seem to care much about resolving Mason’s animosity. But he had risked much to help her, attempted
diplomacy, then took quick action when talking no longer worked. He wasn’t afraid to do what needed to be done. In a weird way, Felicia admired him for it. Beyond the fact he wasn’t human—what sort of “other” he was, she had no idea—there was more to Hurstgrove than she’d previously imagined.

What would he be like in bed?

The question came from nowhere, unbidden, unwanted. A thousand sensual images pelted her at once: his hand fisting in her hair, the other gripping her hip; his lips on hers; hard muscles sliding over her skin, covering every inch of her body; his shoulders bunching under her nails as he slid deep inside her … and she lifted her hips in welcome, arching her back and hissing with pleasure.

Felicia lifted shaking hands to her hot cheeks.
Oh goodness
. She was breathing too fast. How could that one little fantasy—the one that would never actually become reality—affect her so quickly?

He was her fiancé’s half brother, her abductor. He wasn’t even human, yet … she couldn’t
not
be aware of him. Every time he drew near, her body lit up like a Christmas tree. Of course she was grateful that he’d saved her from Mathias tonight. But it wasn’t gratitude making her breasts ache or her knickers turn moist. Why? She should hate everything about his rich, womanizing ways. But she couldn’t hate him.

Did that non-human part of him draw her in? Did aliens possess such powers? Or maybe he was something else from myth or lore? Did such beings truly exist? It seemed fantastical…but she knew, in this case, real life was stranger than fiction.

She took a deep breath and turned to him. “What are you?”

He stilled.
“What
am I?”

“Yes. I know you’re not human. Your conversation with Bram in the garage … It’s clear your normal mode of transportation isn’t an auto. He tried to simply concentrate, as if that would transport him to another location. That’s not normal. Not … human.”

Duke gripped the wheel tighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Another lie, but accusing him would get her nowhere. “I’m not stupid. You claimed I’m in grave danger from a madman I’ve never heard of and that only you and your friends can protect me. Then a lot of robed villains arrived unexpectedly and in minutes demolished a building that had stood for hundreds of years. What am I to make of that?”

Hurstgrove winced. “The evening has been harrowing. I’m sorry.”

“You’re missing the point. There are holes in your story, and I want the truth.”

He sighed. “Felicia …”

“You’re too high-profile to be a government agent. You don’t need money, so you’d be barmy to deal in drugs or arms. Nor does—”

“I would never do either!” He cast her an outraged glance. “I obey the laws.”

“Except those pertaining to kidnapping,” she pointed out, brow raised. “Besides, even if you regularly broke laws, I’ve never seen drug dealers or third-world generals crash a wedding with an army in black robes. Not a very inconspicuous way to do business. But all that is very human, which you’re not.”

“This is ridiculous, Felicia.”

“Is it? Why else would you imagine that you could close your eyes and beam yourself to … Tahiti? So I ask myself, who—or what—would imagine they could? Are you an
alien? Do you have eight arms or tentacles or—”

“What?”
A frown of incredulity cut deep into his brow. “Of course not. Don’t be mad.”

So he wasn’t an alien. “A ghost?”

“Do I look dead?”

No, very much alive. Healthy, gorgeous, so masculine her pulse wouldn’t slow— Bad train of thought. “Answer the question.”

“This is absurd. Stop—”

“When I get the truth, I will. Should I protect my jugular around you? Invest in a garlic necklace?”

Hurstgrove downshifted, took a curve a bit too fast, and swore. “Vampires are nasty creatures, a small step up from cannibals. I’d destroy myself first.”

Right, then
. “Do you turn furry during certain phases of the moon?”

“Oh dear God.” He rolled his eyes. “This is preposterous. Lupines don’t eat meals with utensils. Do you think I could be a member of the peerage and photographed as often as I am if I couldn’t manage a fork?”

Did that mean he knew one? Or did he answer questions with questions simply to throw her off? “So, not a lupine?”

“Definitely
not
. I like to shower more than once a decade. I’m plain human.”

She wrinkled her nose at the stench. “You’re not. Zombie? Demon?”

“Christ! I haven’t risen from the grave or come from hell.” He glared at her, his patience clearly running thin. “Though I feel as if I’m there now.”

She harrumphed. “Elf? Fairy? Some other magical creature?”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Stop. In three minutes, I’ve gone from a street thug wielding dime bags to a pale
midget with pointed ears. I’m exhausted.”

Felicia sent him a mulish glare. True, Hurstgrove looked tired, but it was mostly an excuse not to answer her questions. And still, her nose told her that she hadn’t hit on the truth … yet.

Felicia tapped her chin in thought. Duke couldn’t help but stare. She looked adorable when she was tenacious.

She cocked her head and speared him with another probing stare, one that made him hot. “Your Grace—”

“Simon,” he corrected. He hated being called “Your Grace,” as if he was a damn ballet dancer. But even more, he wanted the intimacy of hearing his given name on Felicia’s lips. “No more questions.”

What was the point in confessing that he was a wizard? Around her, he couldn’t prove it. Since she was likely the Untouchable, any sort of
abracadabra
was impossible. So if he divulged his abilities, Felicia would think him a nutter. More than she already did. Besides, magickind only revealed their existence to humans in extreme circumstances. Though this was perilously close to qualifying, the less she knew about magickind, the safer for her.

Felicia frowned. “But—”

“No.”

She glared at him. “You can’t shut me up indefinitely.”

He sent her a tight smile. “I can try.”

Crossing her arms tightly across the lush swell of her breasts, she looked out the passenger window. Duke breathed a sigh of relief. She’d given up—at least for now. He wasn’t fool enough to believe he’d heard the last of her questions.

“Where are you taking me exactly?” she asked into their thick silence. “In all the commotion, I never asked.”

Duke hesitated. Felicia had been through so much today. He’d
whisked her away from the man she loved. He’d withheld the truth about his magic. But she’d already figured out that he wasn’t human, damn it. That likely terrified her. The least he could do was comfort her with one truth.

“We’re going to Ice’s caves. They’re in Wales.”

She cast him a furtive glance under the thick fringe of her lashes. In those blue eyes was pique. And something curious, breathless, that aroused him far more than he cared to admit.

Had she imagined them together in bed?

Felicia shifted in her seat, turning away slightly. Her pose spoke volumes.

Of course she hasn’t thought of you sexually, you fool.
She’s marrying your brother.
Stupid, wishful thinking. She wasn’t his to take.

One night. He had to get through one night alone with her, then never allow himself this temptation again. He and Mason might not be best chums anymore, but Duke didn’t poach, especially where he wasn’t wanted. And he refused to hurt his brother and disappoint their mother … at least any more than he already had.