Drained: The Lucid (29 page)

At the thought, Riley looked down at her watch. The bottled energy allowed her to extend her time, but if she wanted to maintain her high numbers and stay off of Hyrum’s radar, she would need to pick up the slack elsewhere. It meant more time in the realm and less time that was her own. With a wistful look, she manipulated her watch and flashed out of the realm and back into her home.

Riley turned over in bed to look at the cell phone on her side table. It was still early. She might actually make it to brunch on time again. She stared up at the white ceiling and a smile came to her lips.  

She hopped out of bed, determined to be the first person at their table that morning. Her knees buckled and pain shot up her limbs when the bottoms of her feet flattened against the shattered remnants of the glass bottle she had set aside in the realm. She fell back onto her bed, sucking in sharp breaths to keep from yelling out. Her bedroom floor was now covered in a layer of broken glass. She carefully began the task of picking the embedded shards out of the sole of her foot.

She groaned as the stinging pain continued to throb. “Still worth it,” she murmured with a grimace.

• • •

Riley ran her fingers through silks and lace. The high-end intimates store was on her short list of places she regularly frequented. Besides rent, she probably spent more of the company’s money on lingerie than any other expense. She was looking for something new, something special.
Not that I’m looking for something Morgan might like
she told herself. She just hadn’t gone shopping in a while and wanted to pick up a few things to freshen up her work wardrobe. While she had the ability to change her superficial appearance in the realm, it was far more energy efficient to go into a dream already styled to a mark’s specifications. And on some level, buried in the corner of her soul, she did enjoy shopping.

She looked away from the intimate garments when she heard someone clear her throat.

“Amber?”

The waitress stood before her, dressed for another day at work at the café. Riley hadn’t seen her at the restaurant since the morning she had sent over nearly everything on the menu. She normally worked the morning shift, but Riley suspected she had switched with a co-worker to avoid running into Riley or her friends.

“I swear I’m not following you. I was passing by on my way to work, and I thought I saw you through the window. I actually thought I was seeing things because I didn’t think I’d find you in this kind of shop,” Amber nervously rambled. “I’ve always thought of you as a Victoria’s Secret kind of girl.” She chewed on her lower lip, and Riley fought with herself to not find it adorable.

“So.” Amber took a much needed breath. “How have you been?”

“Why? Writing a story?” Riley stated icily. She shoved a few hangers along the circular rack.

“Okay, I deserved that,” Amber admitted sullenly. She pulled a flimsy excuse for an undergarment out of the rack Riley was inspecting. She held the sheer garment in front of her body. “What um … are you seeing someone new?” Her voice was strained as if she hated asking the question but feared the answer even more.

“No.” It was technically the truth. Riley wouldn’t need to switch up her marks for another month or so. She turned her attention back to the rack of lingerie, determined not to let her ex-girlfriend distract her from her task. “Not that it’s any of your business anymore.”

“I know it’s not,” Amber openly lamented. “I just … you’re in this store. So I thought that maybe you were buying something, for yourself or maybe for someone else.”

Riley released a disgruntled sigh. She hated confrontations. “Is there a point to this conversation, Amber?”

“Haven’t I done enough penance?” Amber’s voice rose, along with her frustration. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake before?”

Riley looked around the shop, thankful that they were nearly alone. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in the first place, let alone in front of complete strangers. She valued privacy and discretion, and Amber appeared determined to destroy them both.

“We all make mistakes, Am,” Riley said, using a tone far quieter than Amber’s own. “But yours was more than a mistake. It was a betrayal. I don’t know where the lies end and the truth begins.”

“Now,” Amber said determinedly. “The truth begins right now.” Her eyes flicked to the corners of the store as if just then realizing this conversation was happening in public. “I’ve cut off all communication with them. They want nothing to do with me now.”

“Oh, so now that the well has dried up, you want me back?” Riley growled, unable to contain her bitterness.

“I never wanted you to go in the first place. I’m just asking for another chance.”

“I don’t know if I can trust you again,” Riley said, shaking her head.

Amber reached for Riley and grabbed her hand. “It wouldn’t have to be right away. I know it’ll take time to repair what I broke. Say you’ll think about it?” She leaned forward and pressed her lips against the corner of Riley’s mouth. She looked embarrassed by her own forwardness and ducked her head. “I hope I’ll be seeing you.”

Amber rushed out the store as quickly as she had appeared. Through the storefront window Riley watched the redhead scamper away until she disappeared amongst the rush-hour crowds.

• • •

Riley arrived earlier to her meeting with Wyatt than their agreed-upon time. The small corner coffee shop was a few short blocks from her apartment, and it served a few select coffee blends that satisfied the succubus’s taste. She pulled open the grimy metal door and entered the small building. It was unfortunate that the shop could only fit about a handful of customers comfortably. The place wasn’t much larger than a front counter and a few circular tables that sat no more than three. If it had been bigger, Riley would have placed her vote to switch the group’s favorite dining location, especially now that she and Amber were no longer dating. It was an understatement to say that brunches of late had become awkward.

Even though she had arrived early, Wyatt was already waiting for her at a table against the sidewall.

“I hope you don’t mind I already got my drink.” He gave a tight-lipped smile and raised his coffee cup.

“Not at all.”

Riley took a seat on the opposite side of the table.

“You’re not getting anything?” Wyatt asked.

Riley flicked her eyes to the front of the shop. Three customers stood in line waiting to place their orders. “I’ll wait until the line is gone.”

He nodded at her reasoning. “So, what’s on your mind?”

Riley admired the custos’s straightforwardness. Having to extend small talk before digging into the reason she’d asked for the face-to-face meeting would have been pointless. “I want to know more about what you were saying from before,” she admitted. “I guess I’m now realizing that I understand very little about your people.”

“And the sudden interest in this is?” Wyatt brought the steaming coffee to his lips for a sip. “Jesus, that’s good.”

Riley laughed at his admission over the coffee. “Let’s say my naivety doesn’t sit well with me anymore. I feel like I’ve been shielded from what I am for a few decades too long.” She toyed with the metal strap on her wrist. “The Liam situation was a reminder that our lives are every bit as vulnerable as anyone else’s. Being left in the dark isn’t a smart thing to do.”

He nodded with pursed lips. “Well, I don’t have much to tell you that’s too interesting. I think the Custodes are a rather transparent bunch.”

“You mentioned at Thanksgiving dinner that something about the group’s finances was off?” Riley reminded.

“Ah, yes.” Wyatt’s brow lifted. “I stumbled on some numbers that don’t add up.” He fiddled with the insulated cardboard strip around his coffee cup. “Everything suggests that someone from our local chapter has been funneling money out of the general fund into an unknown account. They’ve been taking small amounts from the global chapters, five- or ten-dollar transactions every few days, over the past few years.”

“How much could that honestly add up to?” To Riley the news sounded more like someone was misusing the funds to buy overpriced lattes, not a full-blown scandal.

“On a conservative estimate, it’s a few million dollars.”

Riley’s eyes widened at the number, and she was glad she didn’t have a drink yet because she probably would have sprayed it all over Wyatt’s carefully pressed dress shirt. “How the heck do the Custodes have that kind of money?”

“We all have day jobs, and members donate a portion of their salary to the cause.” Wyatt took another sip of his drink. “It’s kind of like union dues.”

“I know about that.” Riley strained to keep her voice low. “But why do you need all that money?”

“We’re a sizable faction.” Wyatt shrugged. “And it takes a lot of money for rent and supplies. We also donate to charitable causes.”

“Sizeable seems to be an understatement. If a couple million dollars went unnoticed, your financial books have to be comparable to Trusics’s earnings,” she thought out loud. Riley knew Wyatt was probably breaking some Custodes code of ethics by merely sitting with her, but she couldn’t imagine how much of a violation it was to be revealing their secrets to a cubare.

Wyatt hummed and tilted the cardboard cup for the last few drops. “I’m going to get myself another drink.”

Riley watched after the custos as he joined the line of jittery coffee fiends. In his absence, she turned her attention to her phone and checked through her e-mails. The usual wave of messages flooded her inbox: sites she subscribed to, clothing sales, and spam that she could never seem to filter out. As she deleted the crop of messages, an incoming text caught her attention. It was from Amber.
Hi. It was good seeing you the other day.
Riley frowned down at her phone before deleting the text.

When Wyatt returned to their cramped table, he brought with him an extra drink and slid it to Riley.

She smiled in thanks before she pulled the cup closer and removed the lid to let the steam escape. “Have you figured out any leads as to where that money is going?”

He shook his head. “It’s frustrating, especially since my division is in charge of fund allocations.”

Riley mulled over his words. No matter which side an individual was on, cubare or human, trouble and secrets could never be avoided. “Makes you look bad, huh?”

“Very.” Wyatt glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, but I have to cut this short. I have a meeting to go to and whatever’s left of my day will be spent going over these financial records.”

“It’s not a problem. Thanks for meeting with me.”

Wyatt stood from the table and began to collect his things.

“Before you go, can you answer one last thing?”

“Perhaps.”

“Aside from your day job as Tax Accountant Man, what do you do as a custos member?” Riley asked.

“Well, excubitors like myself mainly keep the network connected, protect sacred sources, watch for leads on cubare-related news, and we make sure that everyone is taken care of. We wouldn’t want starved members now would we?” He huffed out a breath. “Now that I say it out loud, my life isn’t as exciting as I thought it was.” He shook his head and chuckled good-naturedly.

“What about the venators?” Riley pressed.

Wyatt seemed to hesitate at the question. “Venators are a little more … proactive in their approach.”

“You mean in the way they stalk and harass cubare?” Riley shot back without venom.

“It’s a necessary evil at times.” He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze. “You know that some cubare live by a code of ethics that isn’t so noble, Riley. Some must be—”

“I know.” Riley cut him off. “I know the balance to our two worlds. No need to further explain yourself.” She nodded her head towards the door. “Go on or you’ll be late. And thanks for the drink.”

Wyatt parted with a wave and exited out the front door. Left by herself, Riley relaxed back into her chair and briefly closed her eyes. She had genuinely hoped that a custos had been behind the attack on Liam. Unless the Clay & Dunbar playboy had been hunted by a mob of elusive humans, she doubted that any cubare would fall by the hands of a regular person. Survival instincts would come into play and they would drain a human to death if need be. She snapped her eyes back open to stare at the top of her coffee and frowned. The only viable suspects were her own kind.

Riley opened a cabinet by the refrigerator. Finding it empty, she inspected the contents of the others. The cupboards were bare, save a tin container that held individually-wrapped tea bags and two tea cups that were missing their saucers.

“Why the tea, but nothing else?” Riley asked, closing the cabinet again. Eating and drinking were unnecessary in the dream realm. It simply existed as a familiar routine, or as a prop for sex.

“I have no idea.” Morgan sat at the kitchen table. Sunbeams streamed in through the open kitchen windows and a warm breeze ruffled the curtains over the sink. “It’s always been in there.”

Riley sat down at the table across from Morgan and rubbed her hands together. “Well, Miss Lucid Dreamer, how would you like a lesson?”

Morgan arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Is this the part where we switch roles and you become the professor and I, the student, and you try to seduce me?”

“Give me a little credit.” Riley shook her head. “I know that wouldn’t work on you.” She paused, and her features hardened. “Right?”

Morgan laughed and grabbed Riley’s arm across the table to give it an affectionate squeeze. Riley couldn’t dismiss the warmth that spread in her limbs from the simple, congenial touch.

“So what do you want to teach me?” Morgan let go of Riley, but the succubus could still feel the pressure of her fingertips on her forearm.

“Controlling your environment in the realm.” She gestured their surroundings. “I can control every aspect of your dream, but it would come at a high cost. The more control, the more my energy level depletes. So, my kind defaults to the dreamer to create the environment. Your subconscious control over the environment is key.”

“Why is this place my default?”