In the Company of Witches(2)

She asked for the confirmation, because his almond-shaped eyes were half-wild. He wasn’t like the incubi and succubi who lived in her establishment. Nor even one of those who’d learned to live unnoticed on the fringes of human society. Though he had the shape of a man, everything else about him told her he lived as a dangerous scavenger, an opportunistic feeder who’d never known or learned better. She was all too familiar with the story. What hunted him probably held the usual philosophy toward her kind. Exterminate them.

The old, bitter rage turned over inside her, but she pushed it back. She’d need her wits about her, because it was about to become that kind of fight. The Guardian had fired only the one volley, and that told her he’d been checking to see if she’d turn tail and scamper back into the house. Yeah, that’d be a cold day in hell.

She waited, because she certainly wasn’t going to him. The small fires scattered across the lawn were starting to ebb, though she concentrated more bursts of oxygen deprivation magic on them to finish the job. If he’d damaged her landscaping, particularly the delicate clematis vine on the nearby trellises, she was going to have his ass for dinner.

Maybe he’d called it off, headed to a Starbucks for an overpriced coffee, chalking it up to a bad business. And she’d get that People magazine fantasy tonight. Sure.

The incubus stirred, started to speak. “No,” she ordered. “Be quiet until Mommy and Daddy finish our custody fight.”

Her dry humor went right over his pretty head. Definitely a scrounger. Even though his type could be vicious and savage, she had pity for him. She’d take the straightforward challenge of vicious and savage over the subtle quagmire of cultured and deadly any day. The latter was coming toward her now.

As the Dark Guardian emerged from the forest, she caught a glimpse of his wings. She had to admit, that was kind of a thrill. Not many got a chance to see their wings. For one thing, much of their wetwork was done at the dead of night, and the wings were black. Not glossy black like Cathair’s, but the deep ash of cemetery statuary at midnight on a moonless night, where the shadows seemed to collect in the hollows, offering a mere glimpse of the eerie silhouette. She noted the texture was more bat than bird. Sinister looking. In fact, the ragged edges made her think of the black sails on a pirate ship, loaded with cold-eyed criminals armed with wicked daggers to slit their victims’ throats.

The fact the wings were out suggested he’d had to exert himself to stay in the race. The incubus cowering behind her had some game. Didn’t mean he was clever. Incurring the wrath of a Dark Guardian was a low check on the IQ scale.

As the Guardian strode toward her, the wings tucked in and vanished, leaving her looking at something altogether different. She told herself she wasn’t impressed. As the madam of a bordello, she was well aware a man’s outer beauty had nothing to do with whatever lay inside his soul. Appearances offered clues only to a man’s bankroll. A normal man, that is. What she was seeing was pure illusion, unless they had a fabulous gentlemen’s store in the Underworld.

His clothes were custom tailored. Black slacks, white shirt, black suit coat. What every discerning, fashion-conscious man wore to a hard chase through a Southern swamp. Not a speck of mud or a drop of sweat evident. Not even a spiderweb caught in his dark hair, which was cut short but had an array of strands across a broad forehead, teasing a woman’s fingers to touch it.

As he shifted in and out of the moonlight, his brown eyes became black, then brown again. His cruel face was precisely chiseled, as beautiful as Creation could make it. Cruel things were always beautiful. That was the way it worked; otherwise he couldn’t get close enough to be cruel.

He could break anything he wanted, destroy anything he desired. Destruction was not new to him. Actually, it was no more than breathing. She knew it, because she knew him, indirectly. By reputation versus face-to-face meeting.

Mikhael Roman, Dark Guardian of the Underworld, and the hugely inadvisable former hookup of her good friend Ruby. Ruby was keeping better company these days, with the wizard and Light Guardian Derek Stormwind, the polar white to this guy’s dark. Raina would never admit that was a good change, because there was no sense in letting Derek know she liked him. Reciprocal affection would be distasteful to them both. A shared love of Ruby was enough, thank you.

A Dark Guardian was essentially a cop, just like Derek, and Raina had never had a good relationship with authority. Neither Heaven nor the Underworld favored her decision to open a bordello with creatures who sucked life out of mortals through sexual touch. Hers didn’t do that, thanks to her special abilities, but it didn’t mean anyone approved. If she ever relaxed her enchantments and her incubi and succubi unleashed the fatal side of their nature, Derek would be the first on her doorstep to take her down. It was his job, nothing personal. She understood it, the way he understood she had to dislike him on principle.

She didn’t really give a rat’s ass what any of them thought, but she had learned to be diplomatic enough about her disdain to be left alone. Unfortunately, standing between a Dark Guardian and his prey was likely to destroy that already thin civilized facade.

Ruby had described Mikhael as “distracting,” in a bad boy way. Actually, her exact quote was: “He’s the bad boy of all bad boys. Rhett Butler lumped in with Sawyer from Lost, Alex from Grey’s Anatomy—first and second season, Mickey Rourke from 9 ½ Weeks, and Nicolas Cage from Valley Girl”—the best part of that ’80s movie, they both agreed. “Oh, and Antonio Banderas doing the tango in Take the Lead. That sexy part where you see the cross tattooed on his arm, a weird mix of the sacred and profane.”

As she watched him approach, Raina agreed, enough that she wondered if Mikhael also had some incubus blood. Though he was built much bigger than most incubus males, the sinuous muscle and broad shoulders, as well as the way he moved, the intensity of his eyes, flex of his hands, were all designed to make a woman think of sex. When he finished his stroll across her lawn, he might try to dismember the incubus behind her or do something equally nefarious to her, yet all she could think about were tangled sheets, those muscles slick under her palms, his body moving upon her.

Ruby had been pretty obsessed with him for a while, and she could see why.

She wouldn’t fall under the same spell as Ruby, though, because sex didn’t matter. It could be strong, passionate, overwhelming, but in the end, it was a moment balanced against the whole-rest-of-your-life kind of shit. So she set it aside and focused on what mattered—whether she was going to have to kick his ass. On her home turf, she was unbeatable. Most of the time.

“Dark Guardian.” She nodded. “Fancy seeing you all the way out here on a Sunday night. We’re closed. If you come back tomorrow night, perhaps we can meet your needs.”

Mikhael glanced at the incubus cowering behind her. “He took something of Lucifer’s. Lucifer wants it back.”

You dumb bastard. Raina looked down at the creature, who was staring at Mikhael as if he held a death notice in hand. Except for his drop-dead sex appeal, Mikhael did look as emotionally invested as a bored collection agent who regularly de-limbed individuals.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We didn’t get around to names. You are?”

Shifting his terrified gaze up to her, the incubus blinked in surprise, probably at her pleasant tone. “R-Reginald.”

“A fake name will do right now.” She nodded. Spoke succinctly and slow. “Reginald, you’ve taken one of Lucifer’s toys. They’re very possessive of their toys in the Underworld. If you have his toy, you need to give it back, because it’s not nice to take other people’s toys. Do you have the toy?”

“N-No, I don’t have it.”

“I see.” She looked at Mikhael. “Seems we have a conundrum. He has sanctuary here. Until I can get to the bottom of this, maybe you can just go away. Give me your cell number and I’ll text you.”

Mikhael pivoted, made a gesture. That minuscule movement had the incubus whimpering, quailing into a smaller ball behind her. However, Mikhael’s head tilt said he wanted her to step toward him for a semiprivate word. There was command in that motion, which annoyed her, more because something in her responded to it than the fact he did it. She drew closer with an arched brow that said she recognized the command and was unimpressed by it. Her protections on the incubus remained firmly in place.

Because of her shorter stature, close proximity required that she tilt her head to stare into his face, which was an advantage she wouldn’t give him. Instead she looked past his shoulder, staring at the woods, waiting for what he had to say. He bent his head, the heat of his breath stirring against her ear.

“I will incinerate him where he lies, witch. I will also do the same to you, your house and everyone in it, before you have the chance to cast your next spell. Is he worth that to you?”

His low tone wasn’t for the incubus’s benefit, she was sure. His concentrated intensity was enough to command attention without him ever having to raise his voice. Ruby had said he had a prominent Russian accent. It wasn’t that pronounced now, suggesting it had been exaggerated for the role he’d played with her, a gunrunner, but it wasn’t false. It was still there, a faint hint that gave his speech a rhythmic cadence intriguing in the deep timbre. She shifted her gaze up to his, locked. “You can huff and puff all you want, big bad wolf. This house isn’t blowing down.”