“I want to visit your dreams.” The demon gazed at Zack with half-closed eyes. “You are all kinds of my favorite things.”
“This is a bad deal,” Takashi said and began to offer his hand out to Zack.
Zack held up a hand to stop Takashi from reaching for him. “That’s too open-ended. How about you can visit while you’re trapped in this cell?”
“How about while I’m in this cell and a year to the night after I’m out?” the demon replied.
“And what I want is information. You answer anything I ask, and you reveal none of my conversations to Anton, Seamus, or anyone working for them,” Zack replied. “This visit counts as one of those conversations, so you don’t mention that we came down here. And that year is an Earthen calendar year. No bullshit on using some other realm or another planet’s cycle.”
The demon laughed and spun a quick circle. “Shrewd! Demanding! I love it! You are fucking hot, did you know that? Unf, tell me to bend over already, daddy.”
“Don’t call me that,” Zack said.
“Ooo, got enough daddy issues going on already? Okay,” the demon purred. He came up to the bars and wiggled excitedly,his tail swaying. “Deal suits me fine. Kiss makes it real!” He puckered up, carefully sliding his face as far forward through the bars as he could.
“You don’t have to do this,” Takashi said.
Zack glanced over his shoulder to him. “You said I’m capable of making tough calls. This is one of them. Could be good to have a succubus on our side.”
Just as Zack started to slide forward to kiss the demon, Takashi caught his arm and tugged him back. “Letting him into your dreams is a powerful thing, Zack. This creature relishes in torture.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t care where our assets come from,” Zack whispered fiercely. He yanked his arm free of Takashi and pressed his lips to the demon’s.
A cool jolt went through his lips down to his toes. When he backed away from the demon, the tingle remained until it dulled into a buzz throughout him.
“To keep our deal, I need you to invite me into your dreams, Zackery,” the demon said smoothly. “Call me Phyrull.”
“You’re welcome in my dreams, Phyrull,” Zack said. The words had a deep echo in him, and he could feel a hook in his heart tugging him toward the demon. It wasn’t as strong as the magnetic draw pulling him toward Seamus or his dagger but present within him.Probably what Takashi was worried about.
“Ah,” Phyrull sighed. He put his fingertips against his bottom lip and twirled until he rested his backside against a wall in his cell. “Fucking hell, I think you’re my new favorite drug.”
That sentiment unnerved Zack in a way that he did his best to suppress. His previous research into demons had been on the basics—different ways to identify them and rituals to exorcise them—and there hadn’t been much on succubae in the family’s lore. At least there was a massive occult library upstairs that might have more answers for him.
“Deal was for answers,” Zack said sternly. “What is Anton’s purpose for this room?”
The fishhook feeling in his heart wriggled as he made his demand.
Phyrull trembled, a brief, slight movement that would have slipped the notice of Zack’s eyes when he was mortal. His voice came out like silk. “He continues his experiments into true immortality, your excellency.”
“He’s a vampire. Why is he exploring that?” Zack demanded.
A shiver again. Phyrull gasped softly. He turned his head to look at Zack, his black hair falling over one eye.
Imagining Phyrull on his knees and opening his pretty mouth to suck Zack’s cock wasn’t hard. And there were a million other things that Phyrull could do on his knees. He didn’t even need to suck on Zack. If he just opened his mouth while Zack jerked off, Zack could shoot his load and decorate Phyrull’s forked tongue …
“I invited you into my dreams, not my waking thoughts,” Zack growled.
“Forgive the impertinence, your excellency. I couldn’t resist,” Phyrull murmured. His words slurred together.
“Answer my question.”
“Even the undead can be forced to leave this world,” Phyrull said. “You should know that with your knowledge, your excellency.”
True immortality’s got to be impossible, right?Zack backed away from the cell. Legend said there were mages who had figured out a magical way to expand their lifespans, but the ones that could pull off that sort of spell were extremely rare. Zack’s family didn’t know of any, and the Hunters’ Information Network had only speculated. Vampires were as close as a mortal being could get to living forever.
But of course, Phyrull was right. Vampires were still extremely killable. True immortality for a vampire would have to come with invincibility.
His magnetic connection to Seamus was strengthening bit by bit. “Shit, Seamus is on his way home.”
