In the Company of Witches (Arcane Shot #2)

“Isaac,” the incubus spat sullenly. “You could have burned off my fingers.”

“It could have been your testicles, so count your blessings. Once you can use your fingers to count again. Isaac,” she mused, lacing her fingers and laying her head along the couch back. “It means he laughs in Hebrew. Not doing much laughing right now, are you, Isaac?”

“You’re just like all of them.”

Frost flickered across her gaze, though she didn’t move out of that relaxed pose. “No, I’m not. What do you think would have happened if you’d succeeded in your little mind game there?” She tilted her head toward Mikhael without looking at him. “He isn’t susceptible to our ways. Plus he has utterly no interest in males. Easy as breathing, he’d empty your brain for what he wants, dispose of your body and then stop at McDonald’s for a late-night dollar coffee. He wouldn’t waste another thought on you. I’m the only friend you’ve got. Don’t pull that crap again.”

Isaac’s lip curled, showing fangs, but like the hiss, it was fear, not aggression. There was uncertainty in the sea green gaze. He wasn’t sure how to deal with her, Mikhael realized. The creature was used to victims or predators, and everything in his arsenal was geared toward the two castes.

Raina noted the shift as well. In a move Mikhael didn’t expect, she unlaced her fingers and reached out, closing her hand over Isaac’s. There was true compassion in her gaze, though it didn’t dilute the no-nonsense firmness of her chin.

“I know you’re not used to trusting anyone,” she said. “So I’m not going to tell you to trust me. I know you’re not blameless, because your guilt is vibrating off you. But telling your side of the story may improve your situation.”

He swallowed, looked toward Mikhael, but she touched his cheek, this time gently. “Just to me,” she reminded.

“All right, I stole it.” A frustrated expression crossed his face. “I knew how to get in. One of the Underworld gatekeepers, Tara; she likes our kind, and it’s okay to be with her. Could feed off her and it didn’t hurt her; that was nice. Gets old, killing folks.”

Isaac twitched a shoulder, stared at the pattern of the couch, his chin tightening. “They found out about me seeing her, said I had to get past her, get in and take it. Said I could wear her out, make her sleep, so I did. Said if I didn’t, they’d come after me. So I took it, gave it to them.”

“Who is they?”

His eyelids snapped up like popped shades. “Can’t tell you that. If I even speak their names, they’ll know. They’ll put a curse on me. Or vanquish me, and I’ll die.” Saliva gathered at the corners of his exposed fangs, reflecting undiluted fear.

While Mikhael considered the sex demons a Fae-demon hybrid, no one really knew which species held sway. They had elements of both, demonstrated by Isaac’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde antics. The Fae considered them a distasteful lower caste, if they accepted them as part of their kind at all, whereas the demon world saw them as weaker beings to use and manipulate, when they could get their hands on them. Their ultimate strength was their ability to kill with seduction, coupled with their elusiveness, their ability to escape any situation with that disorienting magic of theirs. Very few creatures were immune to it, even Fae and demonkind. It made them excellent assassins…and thieves.

They had indeterminate life spans and, like the Fae or demonkind, it was hard to pinpoint their exact age except as a measure of their power and experience in using it. However, for all his come-hither routine, it was now clear Isaac was barely out of his teens.

Raina laid a hand on his shoulder then, rubbing. Mikhael felt that same power arc from her, only more measured, controlled. She was using it to soothe him. A very experienced succubus could tone her power down, use seduction as a calming effect. It worked on almost any species, including her own. As a result, Isaac’s hand turned, his fingers wrapping around her forearm. He moved closer to rub his cheek against her shoulder. Not really sexual, however. It reminded Mikhael of a mother lion and a cub, because he didn’t sense that Raina was getting any carnal pleasure from it, or that Isaac was trying to push such an agenda now.

It still bugged him. The male had taken something from the Underworld. He was bad news, tainted and corrupted. Raina walked a lot of fine edges, but he saw neither of those things in her makeup. He therefore wasn’t thrilled to see it rubbing up against her. But he held himself back, because he’d given his word to let her take the lead. For now.

“All right,” she said, stroking Isaac’s hair. She flicked a piece of swamp mud off his shoulder, evaporated it with a quick flutter of fingers before it could hit her floor. “Sit back now. We’re going to play twenty questions, narrow things down by the process of elimination. No names. You’re using they to describe one being, to avoid giving me the gender. Male or female?”

He looked startled that she’d figured that out, but he gave her a grudging nod, a bare whisper. “The scarier one.”

“Female, then.” She waited for the jerk of his head, confirming it. “Does she have what you stole?”

“I think so. I left it somewhere for her, and when I went back to get it, it was gone. That’s where he picked up my trail.” He angled his chin at Mikhael. “She was supposed to pay me, and she didn’t.”

“What was she paying you?”

“Concentrated soul energy. A year’s supply of it. She had a way of bottling it.”

“And those she took it from?”

He didn’t answer, but she stared him down until he looked away. “Humans get their meat in pretty packages in the store. Don’t know why we can’t, either, if there’s a way to let someone else do the hunting and killing.”

She closed her eyes. Mikhael wasn’t sure why she had that white look around her mouth, but he was sure it wasn’t a good thing. “So when will they come looking for you?” she asked at last, opening her eyes.

“I’ll be looking for them. They owe me.”

That hard note entered her voice again. “Don’t bullshit me, Isaac. You’ll keep running, because you know you’re a loose end. Give us the name.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to be vanquished where I sit.”

“They can follow your trail to my property, but they can’t penetrate my wards to do a remote kill.”

“You don’t know that.” The scavenger came out in his voice, rough-edged and raw, his eyes getting that white, rolling look again, a calf going up the chute for slaughter. “I ain’t never going to get away from her. Not never.”

“Easy.” She cuddled him close once more. As she eased his head to a resting spot on her breast, she wound her arms around his narrow back to rub. “Easy, now, child. You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you? Always running, never trusting, always hungry. You won’t be hungry here. I promise you that. You won’t have to kill. Maybe once you figure that out, you’ll tell me the whole truth.”

Tipping up his chin, she met his eyes, letting him see that implacable firmness. “If you want any chance at all, it will be from doing that. But tonight, a bath, some nourishment, and a chance to feel safe.”

She shifted her gaze then, met Mikhael’s. Her black slip of a brow was lifted in question, waiting for his confirmation. Hers wasn’t his preferred method, but Isaac’s fear and desperation were real. Even if Mikhael plundered his mind, the information could fragment under the pressure of the incubus’s terror. If pieces were all he could get, fine, but a few hours and giving the baby a nap and a bottle might produce more, so he could allow that. There was some urgency involved in what was taken, but as he’d told Raina, whoever took it wasn’t going to be using it immediately, unless they were a fool willing to make his job much easier. The Underworld was on full-scale alert, tuned to any sign of it.

So he gave her the answer she wanted. He lifted a shoulder with casual indifference. He could always yank Isaac’s ass out of a comfy bed and go back to Plan A. In the meantime, he could hang around, pursue other puzzles. Far more pleasurable ones.

She pushed Isaac back into his own space, not unkindly, and picked up a bell. When a quiet domestic in dark dress and apron appeared, Mikhael knew right off she was a succubus, but in a deliberately understated way, unless one looked closely and saw that mesmerizing tinge of hunger in the eyes, as well as in the sharp teeth the young female hadn’t quite learned to hide.

When she saw Mikhael, she underscored her youth by blanching. Raina cleared her throat. “It’s okay, Gina. Yes, he’s a Dark Guardian, but he means no harm to you.”

When Raina’s gaze returned to Isaac, it held the warning that the same reassurance didn’t necessarily apply to him. “You’ll share a room with two of the incubi who work here, Li and Saul. You will behave. Do you understand?” Catching his chin, she dug her nails in enough to make his eyes swivel toward her warily. “You try anything, you won’t have to worry about Mikhael. I will gut you like a farm pig. You have my protection, but so do they, and their tenure trumps yours, a hundred times over. Go to bed. That’s all you do tonight. Tomorrow we’ll talk some more.”

Mikhael watched, fascinated, as Isaac rose obediently to his feet. He took a couple steps, then turned, studied her as if she were the most unexpected thing he’d ever seen. Kneeling, he bent and kissed the charred hem of Raina’s skirt, keeping his head down until she touched it in obvious benediction.

“Don’t mess this up,” she said. “You’ve gotten the luckiest break of your life, even if you don’t realize it yet.”

The male turned to go but was brought up short as Mikhael shifted. “Hold on a moment.”

In a blink, Isaac looked ready to bolt, trampling Gina in the process, but Raina caught his hand. “He gave his word. No harm to you within my home.”

Not entirely true, but they were surrounded by swampland. It would be a very short trip to drag Isaac out into it for a more agonizing interrogation method. He sure as hell wouldn’t be stroking the incubus’s hair or cuddling him against ample breasts. The young man knew it, showed it in his death grip on Raina’s hand. Yeah, it was true fear, but calculation as well, playing on her maternal instincts. Except Mikhael could see Raina’s maternal instincts were honed with razor-sharp intuition. She managed a houseful of sex demons, after all. That required a pretty iron hand. This kid would need to be set back on his heels a hundred times before he figured that out.