Soul Surrender (21 page)

“Now this is a position I could get used to.” He pushed a half-ready erection into me.

The door blew open and we both jumped as it crashed. “Lucien!” I hopped off of Tom, running over to him. “You're back.”

Tom cleared his throat, adjusting his shirt and smoothing his hair with a palm.

He raised an eyebrow, glancing between Tom and me. “Yes.”

“I-I didn't get to thank you. For . . .” I threw a look over my shoulder at Tom.
“. . .
for going on that trip in my place.”

I stepped back, examining Lucien. His face was pale where it was usually tanned and glowing, even in New Jersey's bleak winter. His eyes drooped and sagged just a little more than I was used to seeing. “Are you well?” I asked more quietly.

“Of course,” he clipped. “I see you're taking good care of our Patriot here.”

“We were reading.” The words rushed from Tom's mouth without any prompt from Lucien or me. When we both just stared at him in response, his eyebrows creased with worry and he shrugged at me. “Well, we were.”

Lucien inhaled deeply, dropping his eyes to the moistened circle of my skirt. It fell just between my legs, and I quickly covered it with my hands. Lucien chuckled in a way that was anything but amused. “Come now, Monica. I could smell it from the other room,” he whispered as he stalked farther into the bedroom. He circled the area in front of the fire where Tom and I had been.

I cleared my throat and sat at the edge of the bed. I looked to Tom, then back to Lucien with a deep breath. “Lucien—we came up with a plan. A way to win the battle. But we'd have to be ready by Christmas.”

Lucien's face lit, sparked by surprise. “Do go on. I love a good battle. Especially one on Christ's birthday.”

“G
rayson! Get your potato-chip-covered hands off the map! They're leaving grease stains!” George snapped, rolling his eyes.

Grayson lazily lifted his hand, wiping it along his flannel shirt.

George watched with a curled lip and straightened his black-fitted vest. “Just because you're an animal doesn't mean you have to constantly act like one.”

Grayson leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet up, crossing them onto my kitchen table. He threw a chip into the air and caught it in his mouth. It crunched loudly and he smiled, proud of himself. “Au contraire. I think that's exactly what it means.” He wiggled his eyes at George. “Tell me something, incubus. Is your excalibur as magical as they say it is?”

Grayson grinned at George, chomping away at the salty snack. He was referencing George's long past and having fathered Merlin. A flush of red crept onto George's mocha cheeks.

A grin curved on my face before I could stop it from forming. “Man, I missed you, George. It's good to have you back.”

George sent me a wink. Deep dimples creased with his 100-watt grin, and bouncy black curls complemented his smooth skin. He looked up, honey-brown eyes regarding me warmly. “Unfortunately, I have to go back in a couple hours. But that's the beauty of teleportation, right?”

I slapped the bottoms of Grayson's feet, considerably harder than maybe I should have. “Get your dirty-ass feet off my table. And chew with your mouth closed. No one wants to see that.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Grayson grunted, shifting to sit straight in the chair. “I think pretty boy there wouldn't mind seeing all of me. Even the dirtier side.” He winked at George, who rolled his eyes again, shooting me a narrowed gaze.

“How long do we need to dog-sit this fool?”

“Oh, please,” Grayson said through a grin. “You know you want to pound me like a slab of steak.”

“Oh, for the love of . . .” I trailed off, flipping the tracing paper and popping the crumbs off of it and into the air.

“Enough,” Kayce snapped. “Grayson, stand up. Put the chips down and fucking help out, already. You're part of the reason our girl is in this mess.”

“Me?” Grayson drawled. “Y'all have a twisted memory.”

“So!” I raised my voice in an attempt to get us back on track. The tracing paper drifted down onto the map of Las Vegas. “According to Rhea, the five points of the upside-down pentagram will show us the areas in which a human can perform a summoning.” Collectively, we all leaned over the map. “From there, we can narrow it down to spiritual areas in which a black magic idol could not have transported.” I tossed George a marker. “Rhea said the pentagram had to have these measurements in ratio to a standard map to be accurate.”

George glanced at the slip of paper I handed him as well. “Jesus.” He trailed a hand over his hair. “You realize this is not easy. Do you even have a protractor?”

“Only guys have them. Though I hear it enhances orgasms gloriously.” Kayce humped the table, flicking her tongue.

“Not prostate. A protractor,” George quipped. Despite his seemingly annoyed voice, a smirk broke through.

“We know, we know,” I said. “I bought one earlier.” I slinked over to the office nook off the kitchen and grabbed the Staples bag, tossing it to George.

He cleared his throat, turning the Sharpie and protractor over in his hands. “And just how do you expect us to get in there to save Lucien if it's blessed ground?”

Tipping my head farther down, I refused to make eye contact. In truth, I hadn't thought that far ahead just yet. “We have angels and humans on our side who can help, you know,” I said quietly.

“Uh, Monica . . . I hate to be the one to point this out, but I'm not so sure Drew can go on the holy ground anymore, either.” Kayce's gaze shifted between me and George.

“He's still human. He should be fine,” I snapped.

“And Jules and Adrienne might not be allowed to help us,” George added.

“Look!” I slapped a hand down, the map crinkling beneath my touch. “We'll figure it out later. But step one is simply
finding
Lucien in the first place.”

Even though George still looked skeptical, he leaned over and, with one thick line, started the pentagram. My breath froze in my chest as I watched, gripping the edge of the table until my fingers grew numb.

“You know”—Grayson examined his fingernails in a haughty attempt to look uninterested—“while I am not in wolf form, I am for all intents and purposes . . . a human.”

We all turned to glare at him. Slowly. Purposefully. “What do you mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Pushing off his knees, he stood, peeking over my shoulder at the map. “Unless I shift myself into wolf form, I'm no demon. Werecreatures are weird hybrids of human and beast. We're demonlike as an animal, but human while—well, human. The only time we can't control it is in the full moon. And that's the only time we can create other weres. Saetan can't create us. Nor can he destroy us.”

“Then why are you under his rule?”

Grayson shrugged. “Because where else were they going to put us?”

“So . . . you're a human?”

He nodded.

“And you live a human life span.”

Again he nodded.

“So as long as I don't shift into wolf form on holy ground, I'm safe.”

George, Kayce, and I exchanged a look. “No,” Kayce stated with raised brow. “We can't trust him yet.” She slid her eyes to the sides, looking at him. “He hasn't proven himself. So he can go in only if there's someone else to join him. Damien?”

A lump formed in my throat so fast, I barely had time to swallow it down before speaking. “I-I'll have to check that he's around.”

“Of course he'll be around,” George said. “That boy's crazy protective of you.” I couldn't see George's face as he bent over the map, his nose practically touching the opaque tracing paper.

“Yeah,” Kayce snorted. “A damn lotta good he is at that. If Damien were a condom, our girl would have been knocked up months ago.”

“I said I'd ask him, okay? Can we just figure out where Lucien is in the first place,” I snapped, ignoring the looks that passed from George to Kayce.

“Okay, okay. Jeez, calm yourself.” George squeezed my shoulder.

It took roughly twenty minutes, three sheets of tracing paper, and a handful of “Fuck!”s for George to get the pentagram right. He stood, fists triumphantly in the air. “I did it! That's it, right?”

I measured the edge, eying the lines carefully. “It looks right to me. . . .” I failed to add
but what the fuck would I know
to the end of that.

“Seriously, I think that's right!” George bounced, and his curls sprung about the room with him.

“Yeah, yeah.” A yawn escaped as Kayce stretched, having long given up on watching the upside-down star being drawn. “Great job, Aristotle.”

“Aristotle was a philosopher,” George added. “Pythagoras was a mathematician.”

“Whatever.”

“Okay.” I leaned over the map, examining the points. “The southernmost point . . .”

“The ram's nose . . .”

I slid a glance to Grayson—a guy who just loved to interrupt—and continued. “Yes, the ram's nose falls just south of Paradise. Kayce, can you write down these coordinates?”

She nodded and jotted them down.

“The westernmost point falls on Oakley Boulevard.” George had his laptop out, pulling up the coordinates. “Okay, it looks like the southernmost point is some sort of empty lot. Nothing holy or spiritual. That I can determine at least.”

“We should still check it out for ourselves,” Kayce rasped. “You never know with shit like this.”

I nodded. “Wow,” I gasped. “The easternmost point falls right in the center of Las Vegas Valley.” I snapped up, looking between my friends. “Could that be holy?”

“That's the annoying thing,” Kayce said. “Any of these places could be spiritual or blessed in some way or another. All it takes is your precious Jules popping in and giving it a blessing and
bam!
Instant spiritual ground.”

“Shit,” I muttered, clamping my hands onto my hips.

George chuckled from behind his laptop screen. “Well, well, well . . . all but one place, that is. Guess what address pops up with the coordinates on Oakley? Our friendly resident succubar. Suck 'n' Swallow.”

“Succubar!” Kayce exclaimed with a laugh. “Why the Hell didn't they name it that instead? That's way better.”

“Kayce, please! Focus!” I scrambled to peek at George's computer screen. “Are you absolutely sure? That's an awfully big coincidence, isn't it?”

George shrugged. “Seems like it to me.”

Kayce raised an eyebrow, resting her elbow on George's shoulder. “And we know Mia's gunning for you.”

“But it's not blessed. Otherwise none of us could get in there. . . .”

A clatter to my right startled all of us. Grayson scraped the chair back, walking to the sink and filling a glass of water. “Let's think about this rationally, shall we? This summoning, five point business is probably relatively common knowledge, right? Your Queen is a smart lady, so she probably knew upon buying that space that it was a summonings grounds. Therefore, she was finding a way to cut back on the illegal summonings.” Tipping his head back, he glugged the water, wiping the excess droplets with the back of his hand. “Doesn't seem that coincidental to me.”

“He's right,” I said after a moment. “Fuck. I hate that he's right.”

“Now,” he continued with a slow saunter back to us, “that don't mean that someone couldn't summon Lucien into a holy relic. Any one of these five points could be where it was done . . . and it was simply the vessel—”

Drew's face entered my mind, and I snapped a glare to Grayson, a threatening hiss escaping.

Two hands shot up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Poor choice of words. It could simply be the . . . idol in which they are storing Lucien that is holy.”

“Like . . . a genie in a bottle?”

He put a finger to the tip of his nose, pointing at my chest with the other. “Bingo, darlin'.” He knocked a fist to the table and winked at Kayce.

“Do you just hit on everyone?” I sneered.

He chuckled, scratching dirty fingers into his facial hair. “Well, now, c'mon, Ms. Kettle. Don't be calling Mr. Pot black.” He held up a finger before I could throw out a retort. “One more thing. You mentioned Lucien was abducted during a magic show? That he volunteered to step up for?”

“Sorta. It was a . . . an acquaintance's show.”

Grayson shrugged, using his flair for the dramatics to emphasize a point. “Did he know he was going to be going onto the stage? How could anyone have foreseen that?”

Waves of goose bumps flowed down my body. “Fucking Buckley,” I whispered. “It was supposed to be me in that box.”

“Y
ep,” Kayce said. “Buckley came up to you, and Lucien stepped in with a cock block.”

Yet again, Lucien was in trouble because he was protecting me. In the craziness of the past couple of days, I forgot that I was probably the initial target.

An arm landed heavily around my shoulders, squeezing me into a lean, muscled chest. “You can't beat yourself up about this, baby girl. Lucien knew the risk and it's why he stepped in. He preferred to be the one in trouble . . . not you.”

“Besides,” Kayce added, brushing a wisp of jet-black hair from her eyes. “He knows there's a lot of people looking for him. Wherever he is.”

Everyone's eyes landed on Grayson, and I sniffled, looking away. Kayce chewed the corner of her lip and raised her brows.

Grayson clapped me on the back in a gesture that was not exactly comforting so much as the way you encourage a batter before he goes up to the plate. “Yeah, there, there. Let's all put on our big girl panties and go kick some ass.”

A laugh exploded through my nose, and I nodded. “A for effort, Grayson.”

George gave my shoulder one last squeeze before releasing me. “So, let's say we do go exploring in these places. How will we know if Lucien's there?”

Silence thrummed in the kitchen, and I became all too aware of my leaky sink dripping water every three seconds.

“I might be able to smell him,” Grayson threw out.

Kayce looked doubtful. “Through an enchantment?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged and tapped a finger to the side of his nose. “It's pretty damn powerful, though.”

Kayce stood, walking with her back so straight, she may as well have had a rod for a spine. Ducking into a duffel bag of items we had brought with us from Lucien's house, she pulled out a T-shirt. “All right, oh mighty sniffer. I'm going to hide this. With an enchantment on it. And it's going to be invisible. Let's see how you do.” She snapped her fingers—mostly for effect . . . we all knew she could just turn invisible without the fanfare—and disappeared.

Moments later she was back, empty-handed.

Grayson closed his eyes and inhaled, his chest expanding and hard nipples piercing through his paper-thin cotton shirt. George and I stared on with admiring eyes before we each caught the other. He nudged me in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

“You've got the coffee man
and
the detective. Leave some for the rest of us.”

I smiled softly at George, inwardly sighing. I'd have to tell them sooner or later that I didn't have either man. Later would suffice, I thought, and linked my arm through his. “You speak as if I was competition to a stud like you. Besides, I just like to look.”

Grayson's eyes snapped open and they were glowing yellow.

“Jesus,” hissed George. “Not sure I'll ever get used to that.”

He glared at Kayce and, for a second, I thought he might go primal wolf on all of us. He stared in a way that suggested he didn't speak our language at the moment. But then, he was thundering down the hall, a growl rolling in the back of his throat.

Minutes later, after a triumphant roar and a testosterone-addled beating of his chest, Grayson returned with an invisible clump of something in his hand. He tossed it into Kayce's face, and with a quick incantation the enchantment was lifted.

“Found it in record time. Even with your invisibility cloak, your enchantment, and your dousing it in the lovely lady's perfume.” He looked to me with a wink that passed so quickly, one might have missed it.

“My per—what? Kayce! That shit is expensive!”

I snatched Lucien's shirt, bringing it to my nose and inhaling. Dammit, Kayce.

“Oh, calm down. You shouldn't be wasting your money on that shit, anyway.” Kayce rasped. “Besides, your natural scent is so much better.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

“I'd have to agree with the lady,” Grayson said.

I clicked my tongue. “Damn, dude. You
do
just hit on anything that walks upright.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And some that are on all fours, too, darlin'.”

“So!” Kayce clapped her hands together. “How about we start at the southernmost point? Wolfie—are you able to teleport?”

Grayson rolled his eyes. “Did you not just hear me when I said that when I'm not in wolf form, I am human? No. I can't teleport.”

George looked at the clock. “Unfortunately, you guys might have to start without me. I'll catch up with you later, though, okay?” He kissed me on the forehead before disappearing with a
crack
.

“Okay,” I said to Kayce and Grayson. “Shall we go?” I shifted my clothes, and stars flooded my vision as though something had bashed me across the temple. I fell into a chair, immediately dropping my head between my legs.

Kayce sunk to a crouch in front of me, brushing my hair behind my ears. I lifted my gaze to meet hers, and her eyes watered with concern. “How long has it been since you charged?”

I shrugged. “A few days at least.”

She cursed under her breath, shaking her head. “Jesus, Monica. And in those days, you've been attacked, slashed, invisible—you've probably used more energy in these days than you usually do in a week.”

“You think I don't know that?” I snapped, then pinched the bridge of my nose. “I know. They're not gonna let Lucien go without a fight.”

“Monica,” Kayce added softly. “You have to choose a good man. Someone who will give you ample energy.”

After several deep breaths, I stood. “Don't worry, Kayce. I'm trying something a little new.” Her eyes narrowed so much, they almost looked entirely closed. “Trust me. If it doesn't work, I'll bang a second guy just to ensure I have energy.”

Grayson raised a hand, that annoyingly sexy smirk even larger than normal. “Could I volunteer?”

Kayce spun, storming toward the door and slapping Grayson on the back of the head as she passed. “You're an idiot, you know that?” With a hand clamped around the doorknob, she turned to face me. “You have an hour and a half, Monica. We'll all meet back here at eight.”