“For your information, I didn’t know she was fae when I was, er, drinking from her teacup. And now she’s possessing women I’m with and saying that every time I have sex I’ll trigger some kind of curse that will make me her slave.”
The demon inhaled through his teeth.
“I need a way to break her curse.”
Ryker took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “The only way to break the curse of a dragon is to remove her heart.”
“As much as I’d like to do that, first I’d have to find her, and then I’d have to have a plan for removing said heart. That might take a while. In the meantime, you must have a talisman or an enchanted gem that will disconnect her from my… business?”
The laugh Ryker let out was gritty as though his throat was lined with hot coals. “I am not a doctor or a witch… or a witch doctor, for that matter.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m a demon, an incubus to be exact. I don’t know for sure the nature of this dragon’s curse. Only another fae would know for sure. But the fact that she possessed a woman you were with and didn’t simply pop into your bedroom does tell us something.”
“Like what?”
“Like there’s probably a reason she can’t come to you physically,” he said. “She’s cursed you to come to her because she can’t come to you. That’s likely why she used your vice.” Although Ryker used a matter-of-fact tone when he said the word “vice,” Jason scowled. “You didn’t think I was aware of your vice? I feed off sexual energy, Jason. I smelled it on you the moment we met. Your reputation filled in the gaps. My presumption is, when you had sex with the dragon fae, she cursed your vice.”
“Just my vice?”
Ryker pointed at Jason’s cell phone poking from his suit pocket. “From what I’ve been told, a dragon’s curse can act like a virus someone e-mailed to you. Every time you click on the link it runs a program that accomplishes something nefarious in your device. Magic can attach to things, be introduced to a host in various ways. You are both man and beast but your vice is the lowest common denominator between the two. The dragon fae left you a gift where it counts. Every time you get busy, she gets busy. A curse like that could be used to track your whereabouts, visit you through the body of your partner, influence your mind, even mess with your chemistry. All from the comfort of whatever hole she’s hiding in.”
“Mess with my chemistry?”
“Have you noticed your vice growing stronger? Harder to manage? You’ve got a monkey on your back for sex, my friend, and I’m willing to bet that monkey is about to get much heavier.”
“So she makes my vice worse but every time I indulge it, the curse brings me closer to being her robot.”
“Exactly.”
“Fucking fantastic.” Jason took a deep breath. “You need to help me. You have magical objects from every corner of the earth in here. There must be something that can extract a dragon fae curse.”
He rubbed the smooth skin of his chin. There was a rumor that incubus demons were completely hairless aside from their eyebrows and the tops of their heads. Jason tried not to think too much about it or about how the man survived as an incubus.
“There is something…” Ryker said, eyes darting around the shop.
“Please.”
“I have procured a demonic object with promising capabilities, but there is no record of a werewolf ever using it. Your kind is more human than my kind. There could be side effects.”
“Tell me more.”
Ryker coupled his hands behind his back and made his way through the stacks toward the office door behind the counter. He fished something out of a case on the desk.
“Once there was a demon who fell in love with a human. She wanted exclusivity. Silly. My kind is incapable of monogamy. But the desperate demon commissioned this from a witch.” He held out a box with a carving of a serpent eating its own tail on the lid.
Jason flipped the box open, revealing a shiny platinum snake, body straight as a pin. “What does it do?”
“It mutates sexual desire into another form. For this male, sex became hunger. It worked for a while. He took sexual nourishment only from his mate and filled his lust for others with food.”
Jason reached for the box. “So then why is it here and not on some incubus living happily ever after?”
“The female left him. The demon, in his grief, refused to take off the ring. He ate himself to death. At least that’s the rumor. I can’t be responsible for verifying the stories of every treasure in this place.”
“But if I wear this, I can avoid having sex. And if I avoid having sex, I avoid Nickelova.”
“Nickelova! Youarein deep. I was not aware it was the princess of the Siberian dragon fae who was gracing us with her presence.”
Jason sighed. “How much for the ring?”
“You’d do better to visit a witch familiar with your kind. This might not be safe for you.”
