The truth. I was a big fan of the truth. “Do you?” I asked Murphy. But my words came out soft and slightly slurred, like Lacey sounded after one too many shots at the Djinn Fizz. Was I drunk? OnMurphy?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I needed him. That was the important thing. I shuffled forward a little more, because I couldn’t quite summon the energy to lunge after him. Blood loss was taking its toll, but touching Murphy would make it all better. Our union would make everything alright.
The flashlight slipped from my numb right hand and splashed into the water. Murphy’s form was now only outlined behind the glare of his own light. Still, he didn’t speak.
“Answer her, Cale,” Lorelei said, closer now. “Do you want her?” Her voice dipped lower, not in pitch, but in position. She was kneeling. Or bending down. I started to turn and look, but her next words stopped me cold, desperate to know whether or not she was telling the truth. “I can feel it. I can feel how much you want her, so let her hear it.”
Yeah. Let me hear it. “Don’t you want me?” I asked, trying valiantly to quash the Human League song rising from the depths of my memory to taunt me at such an inappropriate moment.
Murphy closed his eyes, as if gathering his thoughts. Or his strength. “Of course I do. Very badly. But this is not the time. You’d hate me tomorrow when you realize it washerdecision, not yours. It’s not worth that, Lex. I won’t do it like this. She’s fattening you up like Hansel and Gretel, and already nibbling on the sly. Don’t let her do this to you, Alexandra.”
“I’m not into girls. She can’t be feeding from me.” Yet I realized even as I spoke that something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I was injured and bleeding. I’d lost feeling in one arm. I’d dropped my gun. I’d turned my back on the woman who shot me. Yet all I could think about was Murphy. Touching him. Him touching me. My nipples hardened just from the thought. Private parts of me throbbed with every word he spoke. I could still feel his skin beneath my fingers, though they’d barely brushed his chin.
I was high on Cale Murphy. Completely addicted to a drug I’d never even tried. Lorelei was using my own body against me. Somehow, she was intensifying and feeding from my lust for Murphy, and she would drain my energy until I collapsed. Until I died. And the truly frightening part was that understanding what was happening to me didn’t change anything. It didn’t give me the strength—or the desire—to stop her.
Even knowing that it would kill me, I just wanted Murphy on top of me. Or beneath me. Either. Or both.
On my left, more water sloshed. From the corner of my eye, I saw the succubus bent over, looking for something in the water.
“Shit!” Murphy shouted, his voice sharp enough to cut through the cloud of need obscuring my thoughts. “Lex, shoot her!”
Yes! I should shoot her!But I’d lost my gun, andshewas about to find it. If Lorelei found my pistol, it would all be over.
Maybe you should just let her shoot you,I thought, glancing from the succubus scrambling in the water to Murphy, standing straight and strong, then back again, as the chaos seemed to close in around me. The pounding rain, the howling wind, and the roaring thunder faded into the background again. Suddenly I was alone with my thoughts. With the crazy idea that it could all be over right then, if I wanted it to.After all, death is the one guaranteed way to find the Gatekeeper.
“Lex!” Murphy was suddenly in my face, shattering my thoughts, along with the eerie calm that had settled around me. Tropical heat rippled across my body. I felt my skin flush. Waves of need washed over me, nearly knocking me to my knees in the freezing water.
Any other time, I might have died from embarrassment over such an intimately physical reaction to a man I barely knew. But this time I didn’t care. There would be time for humiliation later, after he’d eased the vicious ache deep inside me. After my hijacked brain had returned from an overdue vacation. After—
“Wake up and fucking shoo—” Murphy shouted, almost directly into my ear.
I cut him off with a kiss. I couldn’t help it. Speech was a waste of precious time and energy. So I kissed him.
The truly amazing thing is that he kissed me back. Hard. Deeply, as if now that I’d started it, he was bloody well going to finish it the right way, timing be damned.
I barely breathed. I think my heart actually stopped beating, yet I felt my pulse in my throat, in my lips, throbbing along with the ache in my breasts.
More water sloshed behind me, but I barely noticed. My left hand found the back of Murphy’s head, holding him to me. He didn’t fight. He pressed himself against me. His hands ran up my waist. His palms brushed the sides of my breasts briefly, and I moaned, in both pleasure and frustration.
His fingers found my arms, trailing up the damp leather of my coat. His hands wrapped around my biceps. His tongue thrust into my mouth. I opened wider, to let him in—then screamed into his mouth as scorching pain shot through my right arm.
I pulled away, but he wouldn’t let me go far. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against my cheek, an exquisite, intimate betrayal. Then something squeezed my right arm, and I screamed again. The son of a bitch was digging into the bullet wound with his fingers.
Furious, I shoved him away with my good arm, then followed up with an immediate left hook. My fist connected with his stubbly jaw. Murphy stumbled backward—smiling. Grinning like a goddamn fool.
“Welcome back,” he said, rubbing red blotch on his right cheek. “Now shoot the bitch so we can get out of here.”
What?Ohhhh. He’d used pain to clear my head and return my free will. I’d have to remember to thank him. In kind.
I spun around, water sloshing against my boots. My left hand went behind my coat, drawing the gun I’d forgotten I even had. Murphy’s gun. A humble Glock nine mil, but it would do.
No sooner had my eyes settled on the target—Lorelei, hunched over, still feeling around in the water for my pistol—than she stood, aiming my own gun at me.
“It won’t work wet,” I said, eyeing my soaked Ruger. I was lying, of course, but she might not know that.
“Let’s find out.” Lorelei squeezed the trigger, and I dropped to one knee. The bullet whizzed over my head and thunked into something behind me. I pulled Murphy’s gun up, aiming even as I fired.
A small hole appeared in the center of Lorelei’s chest. Her eyes widened as she stumbled backward into the wall, blood welling from the hole in her sternum. She blinked at me, and my gun fell from her hand. She slid down the wall into the water, slouched into a sitting position. One small, delicate-looking hand covered the wound. Blood dribbled between her fingers.
