Wicked Pleasure (5 page)

Brynn stood on the curtain wall's walkway looking out over the battlements at the Gulf of Mexico. He didn't have Eric's enhanced senses, so he couldn't see too much of the Gulf through the fog that was moving in. But that was okay, because the fog also blanked out most of the traffic on Seawall Boulevard, the street that separated the castle from the Gulf. On a night like this—damp, chilly, and with the fog rolling in—he could almost believe he was the only person alive. And that suited him just fine.

But he wasn't allowed to enjoy his fantasy long. Eric and Conall joined him, one on each side, and all three stared in silence at the fog.

“Hey, relax, I'm not going to jump. Leaping from high places puts a major hurting on me without achieving the desired goal. And if the impact messes up a few body parts, they heal as good as new faster than I can say ouch. Been there, done that, don't want to go there again.” He could write the definitive book on creative attempts to end demonic existence, but since none of them worked, he didn't think publishers would put out the big bucks.

Eric and Conall chose to ignore his comment.

“I guess you're here because someone told you I was with Liz.” He figured that
someone
was about five seven with a mop of curly red hair, huge green eyes, and named Kim. Amazing he remembered even that much about her. There'd been so many women over the centuries, women he'd tried to wipe from his memory as soon as he left them. He'd gotten good at forgetting women.

But he'd have to be careful around Kim. When he'd probed her mind to find an explanation for her reaction to him, he'd found the echo of his own emotions. From the amazed look on her face, she didn't understand how it had happened. He'd have to guard his feelings when she was close so it didn't happen again. His emotions were ugly and not to be shared with anyone.

Eric turned his deadly vampire stare on Brynn, the one meant to scare him into submission. “I'm going to stop Liz.”

“No.” Greatest word in any language.
No
wasn't a word he got to say often, so he savored moments like this.

“Stubborn son of a bitch.” Conall's contribution to the discussion.

“You're letting pride get in the way of common sense.” Eric's input.

“Right on both counts.” Brynn kept his gaze fixed on the Gulf, almost obscured now by the thick fog. Nice metaphor for his life before coming to the Castle of Dark Dreams. Surround your soul with white nothingness where no emotions could find you, and you learned to survive. Oops. Forgot. He didn't have a soul. “Now that we've got that straight, you can leave.”

“Uh-uh. Don't think so.” Eric turned his back to the Gulf and stared down instead at the castle's courtyard where two fanged fakes were weaving unsteadily toward the drawbridge. “Don't know why the owner insisted on a real moat. Someone's going to fall in one night and then sue our asses.”

Conall turned to follow Eric's gaze. “I liked Holgarth's idea about stocking the moat with gators. Can't sue from inside a gator's belly.” Conall sounded like he'd gleefully chuck Brynn into the moat as gator food.

Brynn exhaled slowly. Conall was pissed. Previous experience had taught him a rant wouldn't be far behind.

“Dammit, look at me, Brynn.” Conall got into his face and smacked him on the shoulder, forcing Brynn to meet his gaze.

Eric and Conall were the only two beings he'd take that from. Anyone else would find himself on a one-way flight to the courtyard below. Brynn forced himself to relax. Good thing that Conall was a friend. Even demons and vampires didn't go around flinging six foot five inch tall immortal warriors from castle walls.

“We're pretending to be three ordinary brothers running a theme park attraction, but we're not brothers and we're not ordinary. Don't forget for one minute that you have a vampire and a cursed warrior with a bad attitude watching your back.” Conall speared Brynn with a hard stare and then stepped back.

Eric continued to watch the two who would be vampires below as they crawled into a cab. “I think you're wrong not to accept our help, but I guess I understand. When Taurin was out to get me, I wanted to take him down by myself. It was an ego thing.”

Brynn allowed himself a smile that was more grimace than anything else. “Don't know how much pride there is in doing battle with a woman who barely reaches my shoulders.”

Eric shook his head. “Not a woman. Liz is a vampire. She's only a few hundred years old, but she's powerful and used to getting her own way. And she wants you. A locked door will keep a human out of your room, but a lock won't stop Liz. It'll just tick her off.”

“So how'd you get rid of her tonight?” Conall seemed to have accepted that Brynn wouldn't allow him to kick Liz's evil little behind out of Galveston.

Brynn's smile was more real this time. “Our shiny new architect saved me. I'd gone outside thinking maybe the cold and damp would eventually drive Liz back inside, but no luck. Then the architect showed up. I think Liz was sizing her up for a midnight snack, and while they were talking I attached myself to the architect. Just in time, too. I only had a few minutes left.” Only a few minutes before he would've had to offer Liz his body. Again.

“Don't worry, though. Liz will only be here for two more days. I have five hundred years of coping skills behind me, so I should be able to avoid her for that long. And if I don't?” He shrugged. “What's one more night of sex?” Just another piece of his humanity torn off and chewed up. Of course, he'd never been human, not even for one day of his existence.

Eric frowned. Ever since he'd married Donna, he'd gone all serious about this only-one-life-mate crap. “There has to be a way to find out who or what did this to you.” He lifted his lips to expose his fangs, hinting at what would happen if the entity refused to release Brynn. “Tell me again what you remember about that day.”

“He's told us the story a dozen times, Eric.” Even Conall seemed to understand the futility of searching for clues where none existed.

Brynn shrugged. “Nothing to tell. I woke up at an inn with no memory of who I was or how I'd gotten there. I rolled out of bed, looked at myself in what passed for a mirror, and knew
what
I was and what I was expected to do. No one at the inn recognized me, but there was a horse waiting for me in the stable, and I had gold to buy what I wanted.” He frowned. “Wait. I do remember something I never told you before. There was a cat in the room with me. Big black-and-white tomcat. I didn't know how it got into the room and didn't care. I had other things to worry about.”

Eric nodded. “Someday you'll remember something important, and then we'll nail the bastard that did this to you.”

Brynn grinned. Eric and Conall were fierce in their friendships, and that's what made the Castle of Dark Dreams a place he intended to call home for a long time. “Get over it. I'm a demon. No rhyme or reason, no miracle cure.” He glanced at his watch. “If I'm lucky, Liz will spend the rest of the night hunting dinner.”

“Just to make sure you get some uninterrupted sleep, I'll put a shield across your door and window. Liz isn't powerful enough to get through it.” Eric's mouth was set in a determined line.

Brynn said nothing as he followed Eric and Conall back into the castle. Eric would try to protect him no matter how much he argued, so he let it go.

And as he lay in his bed a short time later, he thought about Kim and her strange . . . Cell phone? Demon destroyer? Gag toy?

By rights he should be more intrigued by the possibility of a machine that could destroy demons than by the castle's resident architect. But amazingly, the memory of full lips with a tempting shine that dared him to slide his tongue across them, and green eyes that shone with all the emotions
he
kept carefully hidden, wouldn't let him concentrate.

Scary. After five hundred years, women only stirred him sexually when he was under the compulsion. Kim Vaughn was a whole new ball game.

“Ack! Wake up, Kimmie. Kitty demon alert.” Fo's screeches poked holes in the warm, comfy lethargy of Kim's sleep, letting the new day in. “Push my Destroy button. Now!”

Kim scrunched her eyes more tightly shut and tried to recapture the fast-fading dream of a perfect male face attached to a perfect male body. Obviously a Brynn-induced fantasy. The whole magnificent package was in the act of performing erotic acts on her willing body. She clenched her teeth. Fo was cheating her out of an awesome orgasm.

“Get your butt out of bed and help me nuke the demon. It's our job, our purpose in life. The demon's sitting on your chest, and it's getting ready to suck your soul out through your mouth. WAKE UP!” Fo was working herself into a frenzy.

Fo's paranoia had taken a sharp right turn from the moment they hit Galveston. Kim would have to do something about her. She got a sudden mental image of Fo's small case resting in the middle of a psychiatrist's couch. She could hear it all now. “So tell me, Ms. Fo, do you harbor deeply repressed memories of Ms. Vaughn attacking you with a can opener, hmm? And how do you feel about that?”

Kim smiled but didn't open her eyes.

“Wake up, Kimmie! You have to teach me how to push the button by myself, because we'll never off any demons if you can't get your lazy behind out of bed.” Fo sounded ticked off. “Fine, just let it sit on your chest all day and suck out your soul, your brain, your heart, your—”

Kim frowned as she tried to ignore Fo's litany of vital organs she was about to lose to the “kitty demon.” She must've caught something, because her chest did have that heavy, hard-to-take-a-breath feel. Great, all she needed on top of Fo's caterwauling was a chest cold.

“You'll be sorry you didn't get up when I tell Lynsay about how you let a demon escape.” Fo had progressed to vindictiveness.

Lynsay and Fo, what a scary duo. Kim's sister would cheerfully zap every person Fo said was a demon—Lynsay was totally into her job—leaving a trail of outraged citizens in her wake. Can we say many, many lawsuits?

Not Fo's voice. The voice was impatient, female, and . . . in her head.

In her head? Kim opened her eyes to meet the unblinking blue eyes of a Siamese cat. It sat in regal splendor on her chest, its tail curled around its slender, elegant body.

“Good. You're up. I was going to meow to wake you, but the noisy ninny on your night table would've drowned me out. Please make it stop that god-awful shrieking.”
The cat slid its gaze to Fo.

Kim stared up at the cat and tried to force words past the boulder in her throat.

“Yo, Kimmie, are you okay? Did it suck out your—”

“Shut. Up.”
The cat studied Fo through slitted eyes.
“Do it. Otherwise I might be forced to abandon my civilized veneer and loose the beast within. The maid would be vacuuming up bits of you for weeks.”

Fo fell silent.

The cat calmly returned her attention to Kim.
“See, you just need to be firm with it.”

Kim concentrated on talking. She could do this. She hunted demons, but she'd never awakened to find one sitting on her chest.
Was
the cat a demon? Had Fo cried wolf once too often, and Kim hadn't believed her?

“What are you?” Three words. Hey, this talking wasn't so hard.

“Not
what
, Kim.
Who
.”
The cat began to wash its face.
“I'm Asima, messenger of Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess. Oh, and to clear up the usual stereotypical misconceptions, Bast is not just a happy, fluffy sex goddess. She's an Eye of Ra, and her wrath is legendary.”
Asima sent Fo a meaningful glare.
“I'm not free to tell you what my true mission is here, but while I'm waiting to fulfill it, I amuse myself by taking an interest in a few select humans.”

Lucky me
. “So you're not a demon?” Stupid question. Lying was a national sport to demons. She'd bet they even had a Lying World Series.

Asima looked down her long, haughty nose at Kim.
“Bite your tongue. Demons are the Neanderthals of the nonhuman entity world. Great bumbling boobies. No sense of taste or culture. I love the opera, ballet, and Shakespearean plays. Demons love mud wrestling and Cheeze Doodles.”

“Why'd you choose me, and would you please get off my chest?” Kim ignored Fo's small noises of outrage.

Asima stood, stretched leisurely, and then leaped gracefully onto the night table, landing beside Fo. Kim always left Fo open at night on the off chance a demon might feel the need to sneak into her room. She sighed. Okay, really so that Fo could see something besides the inside of her case. Now Fo stared up at Asima with wide purple eyes that filled her whole screen. Probably visualizing the maid vacuuming.