Lie Down with Dogs (18 page)

“I can’t argue with that logic.” Though it was clear he wanted to.

I patted his thigh. “Just think, now we won’t have to worry about that pesky bed situation.”

He grumbled.

“You can take Mai’s room.” I clasped my hands together. “We’ll have locking doors between us and everything.”

Behind us, Diode chuffed with amusement, but beside me, Shaw wasn’t laughing.

No matter. I chuckled enough for the both of us.

––––––––

S
neaking Diode into the bustling hotel this time around was harder. I sent Shaw ahead to secure a baggage trolley from the front desk and had Diode crawl onboard. We used our luggage to hide his paws then draped a couple of shirts over the top of him. It would have to do. With the guards in the ether, we were on our own. Besides, if someone stared too hard at the trolley, Shaw could use a whiff of his lure to draw any unwanted attention onto him.

Even without his lure, he drew more looks than our wobbly cart.

Once the elevator doors closed with a
whoosh
, I exhaled and relaxed against the cool metal wall.

A warm hand enveloped mine, and Shaw interlaced our fingers. For a minute, I expected the stinging tug of magic as he fed. Palm to palm was less intimate than other ways, and he had to be starving. But the pain never materialized. He stood with his back flush to one wall, and me with mine on another. The corner between us stood empty and significant as our hands stretched across it to touch.

Breaking the silence, I stared up at him. “Working on our cover story?”

“Husband and wife?” His lips twitched. “Newlyweds? Honeymoon or vacation?”

I yanked on my hand, wanting it back with a fierceness that startled us both. Surprise transformed into need on his face. The heat in his gaze faded to familiar stark, gnawing hunger that echoed in my gut. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” he replied in a rumble I felt clear to my core.

I held perfectly still, staring into his frosty eyes so I could gauge when the danger had passed.

The man who taught me fledgling control of my powers was losing his iron grip on his.

It terrified me. Almost like a ghost from the past had held up a mirror in front of my face and shown me a reflection of my history. Of that circle of dead teens, their glittery pink nails shining, their hands still linked from the silly game we had been playing.

That first terrible, magical current had exploded out of me and raced through them, snatching their souls and stuffing all their raw power inside me until my pores bled with energy.

Even with Shaw standing in front of me, when he got like this, I saw too much of myself in him.

Maybe that was what frightened me the most.

“There are cameras in here.” I used a low, nonthreatening voice. “We have to be careful.”

“Thierry?” Diode made my name both question and warning.

“Need to feed,” Shaw grated out. “Should have done it in Orlando.”

A
ting
signaled our stop.

“Our room is right over there.” I jerked my chin toward it. “You can hang on that long.”

He nodded and shut his eyes, throwing his arm out to catch the doors before they shut.

The task of wheeling Diode down the hall and into the room fell to me. Shaw kept hold of my hand, so I made steering a team effort. I shoved from behind and used Shaw’s body as a guide. I don’t even think he noticed.

The room door locking behind us he registered, because he pinned me against it by our joined hands and wedged his knee between my thighs. I had trouble moving air through my lungs when his nails extended, their razor tips nicking my knuckles. Color slid from his skin like paint washed down a drain. Hunger peered at me from his face. Its expression of endless craving—for
me
—hit me hard, made my body soften and my brain fog. I remembered how it felt before necessity drove him to obsession with my taste. I recalled the exhilaration of his complete adoration being channeled into me.

If I was death in spirit, then Shaw was rapture incarnate.

No one I killed would have thanked me for it. It was a brutal way to die. But seeing him this way breathed life into the old lore, stories where incubi feasted on their victims’ souls as well as their flesh, draining the spark from their lovers, leaving behind an empty shell with a smile on their lips.

Diode’s weight leaned against my leg. “I can restrain him.”

Tightening his grip on me, Shaw bared his teeth.

“I can handle him.” I wiggled my hips to get his attention off Diode. “Are you hungry or what?”

His head whipped toward me.
“Yes.”

With a hungry growl, Shaw’s mouth sealed over mine, and all polite dinner etiquette flew out the window. His first draw brought power tingling into my lips. The ant-bite-like stings made my eyes water. Pain was there. The soreness in my chest was more than bruised feelings. It was a loss of self as Shaw devoured fragments of me. The way he broke me down, left me empty and aching, appealed to me more than it should have. I could get lost here, beneath his urgent lips and strong hands. I could forget all that I was or would be, and become his.

The hand not pinned to the door grasped Shaw’s belt buckle, and a tentative finger dipped inside the waistband of his jeans. His groaned response melted my knees until I sagged astride his thigh. He teased his hands under the hem of my shirt, claws grazing my rib cage. With a startled grunt, his warm weight vanished.

Without his support, I hit the floor with a gasped
oomph
. The burst of pain in my tailbone cleared my head.

Three feet from the toe of my outstretched leg, Diode pinned Shaw beneath him to the floor. His muzzle hovered less than an inch from Shaw’s nose, and his ears flattened against his broad skull.

“That is enough, incubus.”

Shaw bucked under him, head turned toward me, clawed hands grasping.
“Mine.”

The cat flexed his paw, and his claws pressed into Shaw’s throat. He leaned forward until Shaw’s face burned scarlet.

“Get off him.” I scrabbled toward them and jerked the cat’s tail. “You’re suffocating him.”

“Good.” The yellow tail flicked. “Let him experience the panic you feel when he doesn’t stop.”

Panic had been the farthest thing from my mind, but telling Diode that might shorten his fuse.

“I should have made him feed earlier.” I shouldered my weight into shoving him. “I knew he had to be getting close.”

Whiskers stood on end. “Are you a goddess like the Morrigan?”

“No.”
Even the comparison made me ill.

“Are you omniscient? Or omnipresent? Or omnipotent?”

Two-thirds of that sailed right over my head. “No?”

“Then why do you shoulder so much blame? Why are you responsible for the actions of others? In all my long life, I have never met another being so determined to be at fault for every wrong thing that happens to everyone around them.” He shook his head. “You have your father’s best traits, and his worst. You share the same fire, the passion to protect those weaker than yourself, and I admire that.”

I let his tail slip through my hands.

“I will share with you a concept it took him centuries to grasp.” Diode shifted his weight. “Your actions are your choice, just as the actions of others are theirs. You lay no blame at Shaw’s feet, even though he is decades your senior—” a dismissive whisker flick, “—and well aware of the limits of his self-control and that being with you tests them. You find no fault with your mother’s behavior, though she is as much of an adult as you are.”

With his attention on me, he rocked back, applying less pressure to Shaw’s windpipe. I bit my tongue and let him speak his mind.

“Thierry, you must learn not only when to lift a burden, but when to set it down.” He patted Shaw’s lax face with his paw. “Otherwise, your back will break under the strain, and everyone who depends on you will be left as sheep without their shepherd. Do you understand?”

I nodded that I did. “Did you stage this as some kind of intervention?”

“No.” Diode slinked away from Shaw and found a patch of sunlight on the carpet to warm himself. “Staging implies effort to bring about a series of events. It was only a matter of time before this occurred.”

I leaned forward and pressed two fingers to Shaw’s pulse and counted. Strong and steady. “Out like a light.” I traced the shadows beneath his lashes. “Sleep tight.”

Diode turned a circle, kneaded the carpet and lied down. “You should rest while you can.”

“I think I will grab a nap.” I stood with a groan. “Can I trust you to play nice with him?”

The great cat blinked. “I haven’t killed him yet, have I?”

“I’ll take that as a
yes
to the good-behavior thing.” Opening my senses, I scanned the area for an indication my guards had arrived. No scent of them. “Keep an eye out for the guards’ return too.”

“They know their way in.” His eyes shut, and he settled. “Now go to bed before I bite your nape and carry you to your room myself. Nothing will happen until nightfall. You can rest for that long.”

Knowing he was right, I turned on my heel. “I need to check in with Mom first.”

Odds were slim, infinitesimal really, that Mom would cross paths with Mai. But if she did and I wasn’t with her and hadn’t called Mom to explain where I was, her momma-bear switch would flip.

“How is your mother?” Diode’s voice sounded far away.

“She’s recovered from her
vacation
in Faerie.” Sarcasm dripped from the word. “It’s like it never happened.”

His head bobbed once before he lowered it to the carpet and resumed his sunbathing.

Phone heavy in my hand, I went to my room and called my mother.

I lied, told her that Mai had food poisoning and went home but insisted I finish out the week. Mom, who enjoyed sand and sun more than anyone else I knew, agreed wholeheartedly. She signed off with an
I love you
and a wistful note in her voice.

Guilt had me dragging a pillow and blanket into the living room to make Shaw comfortable. By the time I had wrestled him into position, I was so tired I curled up beside him and shared his pillow. His unconscious mind must have sensed me. He rolled onto his side, tucking my back against his front. His arm draped over my waist and hauled me closer, until his nose buried in my hair and his even breaths hit the back of my neck.

Safe in his arms, I teetered on the brink of falling asleep. That’s when Shaw sighed. A contented huff. The sound a man made when he was right where he wanted to be.

Sleep eluded me after that.

Maybe that was the reason Rook didn’t visit, though I was starting to wonder.

S
tiffness in my back woke me. I rolled over and found myself lying alone on the carpet. I pushed onto my feet and stretched while a yawn popped my jaw. No one had turned on the lights after it got dark, but Shaw’s laptop screen illuminated his face. I made my way toward him then peered over his shoulder at the grainy surveillance footage playing on a loop while he scrawled notes on a legal pad.

Onscreen, a slight, beautiful woman shopped for toilet paper. “Is that your sister-in-law?”

He glanced at the screen instead of me. “Yes.”

Hello, post-feeding awkwardness.
“Will you go back to Orlando when we finish up here?”

“No.” The snap of his pen hitting paper emphasized his response. “I’ve seen what I needed to. The trail is too cold. There’s nothing I could do from there I can’t do from home. Besides, I have cases waiting.”

An offer to help him parted my lips, but first things first.

I plopped down onto the closest chair. “How do you want to play this tonight?”

The pen got threaded between his fingers. “Both times Linen went after Mai, she was alone?”

“As far as he knew...” I turned the events over in my head. “Yeah.”

Shaw’s head lifted, gaze zeroing in on a spot at the far corner of the room. “Ask if there’s anything to report.”

Righty materialized next to my arm, and I startled. “How long have you two been back?”

“Hours.” He bit off the word. “We let you sleep.”

The implied,
with Shaw
, I heard loud and clear. “So is this a recap?”

From the shadows by the door, Lefty materialized. “We report to you, not the incubus.”

Touchy, touchy. “We’re all on the same team here.”

“No.” Distaste curled Righty’s lip. “We are not.”

A feline yawn gave Diode a spot in the conversation.

“What am I missing?” I glanced from face to face. “Did everyone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“You didn’t make it to the bed,” Lefty said under his breath.

“Oh.” I drew out the word. “I get it now. This is you two judging me.”

“You are wed to Rook.” Righty stared down his nose at me. “Consorts must be approved.”

I snorted so hard my nostrils burned. “Sorry, guys, but no. Just no.”

Lefty stood straighter. “I fail to see what amuses you so.”

“I didn’t agree to be Rook’s wife. It just happened. Like walking through a mountain pass and a boulder falling on top of your head.” I pushed to my feet. “The person squished underneath the rock doesn’t have to ask it for permission to keep breathing. The person can fight to get free all they want, and the rock can stuff it where the moss don’t grow.”

Judging by the blank looks, my analogy had gotten away from me. They did that sometimes. “I support monogamy. I won’t share a straw in my milkshake, let alone share the person I plan to spend the rest of my life with. The consort thing was skeevy even before you mentioned my husband getting to approve my choice of lover.”

The furrowing of Righty’s brow amused me until he said, “It is the way things are done.”

“We aren’t in Faerie, and those rules no longer apply.” I scrubbed my face with my palms. “The thing with Shaw isn’t what it looked like, but even if it had been, it’s none of Daire’s business or yours.”

“A closed door does wonders for preventing such misunderstandings,” Diode rumbled.

I pointed at him. “You are not helping.”