Bound By Fate: A Novel of the Strong (6 page)

She shuddered in the heat.

Poor Liv… What the hell did he want with her? Surely he hadn’t meant what had so easily sprung to her, admittedly, totally-in-the-gutter mind.
 

Surely not, Mandy reasoned.

He wouldn’t dare.

A big body dropped in the chair beside her. Not in the mood to deal with any kind of bullshit, Mandy had half a spell conjured up as she turned to…

Shit. The daemon.
 

The yummy blonde one, not the psycho dark one.
 

But maybe this one was psycho, too.
 

Who the hell could tell with daemons?

She dropped her hand.

“What are you doing here?” Mandy asked, barely swallowing down the squeak in her throat. “Are you taking a break from your booming business, you know, harassing innocent girls?”

“Innocent girls?”
 

Mandy so wanted to smack that smirk off his ridiculously dreamy face. Instead, she sucked back a swallow of beer. “You know what I mean, jerk,” she said. “And no one said you could sit there.”
 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He glanced around the near-empty bar. “Is this seat taken?”

Save PJ and a couple of werewolves off playing pool, the joint was empty.
 

“Ass.”
 

He ignored her.
 

“Hey PJ,” he called, “can I get a whiskey neat?”

“Sure thing, Merus-man.”

“Is that your name?” she asked. “Merus-man?”
 

“Just Merus.”

“Just Merus? Just Merus what? Surely you’ve got yourself a special daemon name.” Mandy rolled her eyes. “All of you do.”

“I do.” He said with a nod.

“So what is it?”

He took a sip of whiskey.

“It’s Merus.” He smacked his lips. “The Lesser.”

She couldn’t help herself; she snorted beer right up her nose. Swiping up a napkin, Mandy pressed it to her mouth, trying not to choke on booze and laughter. “The Lesser?” she asked when she managed to recover. “Is there something you need to tell me?” Her eyes dropped to his lap. Raising them back up, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t happen to drive, say, a monster truck, do you?”

“Well, I’ve never heard it called a
monster truck
.” He leaned in close, his tone matching hers.

She resisted the urge to fan herself, his all-consuming proximity a near-narcotic rush to her senses. He smelled of sunshine, whiskey, and trouble.
 

Three of her most favorite things.

But he certainly didn’t need to know any of that.

“When you think about it, though,” she said instead, “it’s not much to live up to. So you’ve got that going for you.” His robin’s egg blue eyes were locked on her mouth as she licked beer foam off her lips. “With your charm, I suppose it’s good to set expectations low… right up front.”
 

*****

She amused him greatly, this witch, all mouthy and slightly drunk, sitting in a barely-there red bikini in the middle of nowhere. A flowery wrap tied haphazardly at her hip did nothing to hide her perfectly toned and shapely legs.

Not that he was complaining.

Merus pushed a piece of paper across the bar.
 

“Here.”

“What’s this? Your number?” She scrunched her forehead. “That’s pretty presumptuous of you, considering I hate you.”

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud.
 

“It’s your friend’s new number,” he said.

“Whose?” She snatched it up. “Liv’s?”

“Who else’s?”

“Why are you giving me this?” she asked.

“I figured you’d want to talk with her.” There was no way in Hell he’d admit that hand-delivering the number was also the best excuse he could come up with to see his witch again.
 

His witch?

“She’s okay from pulsing?”

“She’s fine,” Merus lied. Reaching out, he attempted to twine a fiery red lock of hair around a forefinger.
 

She swatted his hand away.

“You get good cell phone coverage in Daemonland?”

“Indeed, we do,” he answered. “Our ‘el is not completely sealed. Though you are quite aware of that, aren’t you?”
 

“It’s a leaky sieve.” She shrugged and then immediately changed gears. “So, is your dick of a boss going to give my friend back anytime soon? Or, am I going to have to storm the castle?”

“Dammit, Mandy. I told you… no storming the castle.” Merus pointed a finger in her face. She snapped at it with her teeth. Exasperated yet still amused, he reached for his glass and raised it to his lips. He pulled it away to say, “Let’s just give them some time together to, you know, work some things out, okay?”

“Let’s? As in ‘let us’?” she asked. “As in somehow you and I should unite together in agreement here?” She tossed a heavy lock of hair behind a freckled shoulder. “I don’t think so, daemon. And, what do you mean ‘let them work some things out’? What things?”

He looked into her gold cat eyes, trying to decide if he could trust her enough to share even the smallest shred of the truth.
 

That would be a big fat no.

“They need each other,” he answered instead.

“Cryptic much?”

“Look, I don’t know how much you know about our history…”

“Whose history?” she interrupted hotly to say. “The Vimora’s? I know enough to know you miscreant daemons hunted down and killed every single faine you could get your hands on. And now your land is an absolute, miserable shit hole.”

“Some part-faine survived,” he tried to explain. “And, I wouldn’t call it a…”

“Oh, it’s a shit hole,” Mandy retorted with an emphatic nod. “And, your little ‘predicament’ is self-inflicted, is it not?” When Merus didn’t answer, she continued with just a note of bitterness edging her voice, “Why should my friend even consider helping your daemon out?”

Merus was silent for a long while.

“Has she ever mentioned a prophecy?” he finally asked.

“Prophecy?” Merus watched as she ran a red-tipped finger down the sweat of her mug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said at last with a slight shrug.
 

Merus tongued his cheek.

Pretty little liar.
 

Before he could pry any information from her, Mandy twisted in her chair. Looking down, Merus eyed the hand she had placed on his shoulder. He could feel the heat of her magic in her touch.
 

“Look, just-Merus-man,” she said. Though her choice of words may have been jokey, her tone was dead serious. “Prophecy or no, Liv has no experience dealing with a male like that. Or any male for that matter. If that daemon messes with her feelings… or hurts her in anyway… I will kill him.”

He couldn’t help himself.
 

He grinned.
 

“There’s no need for empty threats, female,” he taunted, her spunkiness flat-out turning him on.

“God, I hate you.” She tried to pull away.

Before she could bolt, Merus spun her around and dragged her, stool and all, between his open legs.

“You can say you hate me all you want,” he crooned when he had her pinned right where he wanted, her soft, tanned body radiating sunshine and sex. Remembering their time in Vegas, he traced a lazy finger across the swells of her breasts, his eyes locked to the tiny red triangles that cupped the globes of her chest. “But your sweet little nipples are certainly eager to please.”
 

Goosebumps erupted across her skin, her mouth parting slightly as her eyelids slid closed.

Drawing back, he whispered a command.
 

“Look at me.”

As if in a daze, Mandy opened her eyes.

He bit back a groan at the sight of her pupils dilated wide with the need to please him.

“This, Mandy…” Trailing his fingertips slowly along her jawline, down her neck, he continued his tortuous whispers. His eyes followed his fingers as they explored the blushing evidence of her arousal. “This is mesmerizing.”

She moaned.

Leaning forward, he breathed hot against her cheek, “It makes me eager to see what other secrets your body will yield to me.”
 

She started to pant.

He pulled away.

Picking up a pen from the bar, Merus took back the paper he had given her earlier. He flipped it over and scribbled something on the back. He tossed it down, all business.

“Thursday night at midnight Vegas time, you will meet me at that address on the Evential ‘el.”

Spell broken, Mandy leaned away. Her voice rose an octave in flustered irritation. “I’m not meeting you anywhere.”

The hell she wasn’t.
 

Reaching out, Merus fisted her hair behind her ear and tugged her head back, not quite hard enough to elicit pain, but not all that gently either. He watched with lustful satisfaction as the witch arched into the ache, her blatant physical response affecting him more than he could ever remember.

“You will yield to me, witch,” he said, his voice dropping to a raspy whisper. “And you will like it.”
 

Pushing roughly away, Merus left her, stunned and wanting, sitting on her barstool.
 

In the faint light of his bedroom, Toran’s mind struggled to comprehend the wondrous transformation happening right before his eyes, the faine blossoming to life beneath his touch.

I did this?

Helpless to resist, Toran reached out again to run a fascinated fingertip across her delicate collarbone. At his soft touch, the faine’s lips parted, a puff of breath escaping her lips.
 

At the sound, he groaned, totally unrepentant, all cares falling away.

Arousal burned hard and low in his gut.

Just as his hungry hand landed heavy at her hip, a rap at the door jolted him out of his reverie.

Toran leapt to his feet. Drawing his blade, he stormed across the room.

He threw the door open to find his uncle, his form still hazy from having just pulsed into the castle.

“What the fuck, Arman?”
 

“Please forgive me for the intrusion, son,” the old daemon answered, his once-handsome features melting into a familiar, wrinkly smile. Though it was commonly thought daemons were immortal, ageless creatures, this was simply not the case. Unless they met a violent end, they could live for aeons, aging excruciatingly slowly until they reached a sort of tipping point.

At well over a thousand years old, Toran’s closest living relative––his father’s own brother––had long ago reached that point in his near-immortal life where his looks had begun racing towards decrepitude.
 

“What are you doing here?”

“I just could not seem to help myself.” Ignoring Toran's agitation, and his blade, Arman craned his neck. He smiled with satisfaction when he succeeded at getting a good look into the bedroom.
 

“So, this is your faine,” he said.
 

Toran did not like the way the old man was eying his prize. He shut the door in his uncle’s face. With quick strides, he crossed the room and tossed his knife onto the nightstand. Reaching down, he yanked the sheet up the faine’s body all the way to her chin.

Satisfied she was concealed away from prying eyes, he retraced his steps and joined Arman outside the room. Bidding his venna, Toran stoked the fire in the room behind him. When his uncle had arrived, a decided chill had descended upon the entire castle.

He took care to block the doorway with his body.
 

His uncle’s brows rose in question but dropped almost immediately. The old man stepped away with an indifferent shrug.

“What brings you here outside my private bedchamber?” Toran asked, not bothering to hide his anger. Law held that no daemon was permitted to pulse into the royal living rooms.

Yet here his uncle stood.

Such impertinence.
 

“What do you want, Arman?”
 

“I wanted to share in this kingdom’s good fortune.”

At his uncle’s words, Toran found himself unable to completely damn the old daemon for his lawless temerity. It was easy to chalk his presence off to wanting to catch a glimpse of the faine, a creature lost to their plane for centuries.

He would have wanted the same.

“I see she still sleeps. Have you done your duty?”

Toran knew what his uncle was asking.
 

“I have,” he answered.
 

He had touched her.

“This is good news. She will awaken soon. I am sure of it, and all will at last be well.” Arman smiled. “With this faine, your…
impotence
… can finally be cured.”

Toran’s venna drummed against the walls.
 

“Guard your tongue, uncle.” Stepping into the outer room, Toran slammed the door shut behind him. In her seemingly unconscious state, Toran wasn’t sure how cognizant the faine was of her surroundings. He certainly didn’t want her to hear any part of this conversation.
 

“Of course, son, apologies again,” Arman replied pleasantly. “I’ll leave you to get back to business. But first,” he added, “I thought it important that I come and tell you personally that all has been arranged.”

“What has been arranged, Arman?” Toran fought to give the old man his full attention. As much as he was loath––and embarrassed––to admit it, he was near desperate to get back to his faine.

“Your marriage, of course,” Arman answered.

“What the hell?”
 

Was that panic in his voice?

Arman nodded with energetic enthusiasm. “Yes, when I heard the faine had been found, I took the liberty of putting things in motion.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him that his uncle would have stepped in to help; over the centuries, Arman had always been eager to forward Toran’s best interests. Besides, Toran himself hadn’t spoken to his fiancée, or her father, in years.
 

His uncle’s thoughtful intervention was good news.