“Lex…” Murphy’s warning tone set me on edge. I didnotwork for him. And the truth was that I didn’t work for Devich either. I was self-employed—my own goddamn boss.
“What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Lori asked him.
“He’s looking for the box he did a piss-poor job of stealing,” I said.
“Youhijacked Devich’s plane?” Lori’s sultry voice edged higher on the last syllable. “I’m impressed. And he gonna breatheflameswhen I tell him.”
“What’s the bounty?”Murphy asked.
“Hundred grand for her corpse. Quarter mil for you, alive.”
“Why is he worth more?” I snapped, absurdly irritated. They both looked at me like I’d lost my mind. As if it shouldn’t matter that Murphy was worth more than twice as much alive as I was dead. But itmattered.
Finally, Lori shrugged. “Devich needs him.”
“For what?”
“Cale has a rather rare set of skills. Don’t you, sugar?” the succubus purred, subtly rearranging herself so that she looked more like a voluntary vixen than a prisoner held at gunpoint.
Damned sex parasites. Even those who carried weapons would resort to seduction when they were cornered. Fortunately, Murphy didn’t look like he could be seduced. Not with his mouth set in that hard line, his free hand clenched into a fist.
“Yes, he’s much more than a scrumptious piece of eye candy, though he certainly is that.” She licked her lips slowly, moistening a pouty smile. “Cale is as talented as he is tasty.”
“Lex, don’t listen to her.” Murphy’s calm, reasonable tone stood at odds with the tension obvious in his posture, even draped in deep shadows.
“You think I’m an idiot?” I’d have rolled my eyes if I were willing to take them from the succubus. I didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t afraid of my gun.
“No, I mean literally don’t listen to her voice.” Murphy stepped closer, facing us both. “Block it out completely. She’s a suc—”
“I know what the fuck she is.” I shook my head, trying to form a coherent thought from the jumble of disconnected phrases suddenly tumbling around in my mind. I’d thought ignorance was putting him at risk, but if he knew she was a succubus…
“She’s feeding from you,” I said. “If you know each other as well as it sounds like you do, this likely isn’t the first time. She’s probably been sucking you dry for years, like her own private buffet. It’s a wonder you’ve survived.”
“She’s never fed from me, Lex.” The amusement in Murphy’s voice made me chance a glance in his direction, but I could only make out his outline behind the flashlight he held. “She couldn’t have, even if I’d been willing. It was just plain, old-fashioned sex.”
Lori tried to object to the ho-hum description of her sexual prowess, but I cut her off, aiming my next words at Murphy. “I don’t give a damn who you’ve slept with, and I certainly don’t want to hear about your weird-ass, parasite fetish. But you’re seriously deluding yourself if you think it was just sex. Succubae don’t do ‘just sex.’ They cultivate your lust, then gorge themselves on it. A guy with a hard-on is like a full course meal for your sweetie here.”
“You’ve done some research. How flattering!” Lori cried, perky and delighted, despite my gun trained on her head. “But Cale’s right; I can’t feed from him. I can only feed from humans and a few humanoid subspecies.” Likely including goblins and gremlins, among others. “And while Cale has many enchanting…features, humanity is not among them.”
Murphy made an angry sound in the back of his throat, and I turned to him as lightening flashed outside the plane. His eyes blazed in rage, and his hair looked oddly thick, as if static electricity were pulling it straight up from his scalp.
As I watched, a second bolt of lightning zigged across the sky, brightening the entire cargo hold through a jagged hole ripped in the ceiling directly over Lori’s head.
The succubus glanced at Murphy, eyes bright with glee. “See, there he goes!” Her smile broadened in the sudden flash, even as near-darkness descended again. “He’s giving us a show. And that’s only a glimpse of what happens when he really gets worked up. You should see what he can do with a hot-tub—”
“Lorelei!” Fury sharpened Murphy’s voice to a piercing edge. Rain burst from the sky in a sudden deluge following a third strike of lightning, and water poured into the plane from the hole overhead. The succubus was drenched instantly. The floor in front of me flooded in seconds, little rivers flowing along the recessed tracks. The metal surface looked dangerously slick.
Lorelei shoved wet hair back from her face. Her smile widened. “What, you haven’t told her?” she taunted, hair clinging to the sides of her heart-shaped face. Even wet and probably freezing, she looked more like a sex kitten than a drowned rat. Which was just plain unfair. “I assumed you two knew each other pretty well, based on the level of mutual lust floating around in here. It’s like breathing through cotton candy. Or swimming in chocolate.”
Mutuallust? Was she lying to distract me? Or worse: using the truth as a weapon?Hmmm.
“Admittedly, this place tastes fantastic, with you pumping hormones into the air, but the rain’s a bit over the top, don’t you think, Cale?” Lori shifted her focus back to me, still infuriatingly unbothered by my pistol. “But then, moisture isn’t usually a problem with him around, is it?”
Umm…Come to think of it, itwasraining when I met Murphy, in Memphis…
Son of a bitch!I completely forgot about the pain in my arm as understanding came crashing down on me, heavy as Devich’s stone box and frigid as my cold-numb fingers. He was a sprite. Cale Murphy was a fucking water nymph.
SEVENTEEN
