In the Company of Witches (12 page)

Her incubi were also fed by the men who weren’t openly gay because they hadn’t admitted it to themselves, or to the straight friends with whom they came. However, even when the client had a female on his lap, she would note the man’s eyes tracking Li’s supple form or marking the flex of Saul’s powerful physique. When that man went up to his assigned room, she would slip in and ask if he would prefer a male. Inevitably, the truth of his own desires, encouraged by the euphoric vibes of the sex demon energy, would prevail. Her discreet handling of the situation meant he’d come back, again and again.

As she hit those points, Mikhael listened attentively. So much so, she was tempted to discuss more, because she enjoyed her business. However, she noticed most plates were clean at this point.

“Ellen, Aiden, get the table cleared. All of you, go enjoy your day. Doors open at four, so don’t wander too far. Isaac, stay here for a moment. Isabella, Luke, you can wait for him in the parlor.”

During the meal, while he couldn’t hear the discussion she was having with Mikhael, Isaac had studied every shift, every word spoken by the others. He’d made few comments, mostly cautious responses to direct questions. While he’d relaxed a little, as the others left the dining area, he looked pale and tense once again.

Stretching out his powerful frame, Mikhael reached a long arm down the table to snag the comic strips. He put it on the table, studying the
Peanuts
column. The innocuous pose didn’t seem to soothe Isaac in the slightest, and Raina didn’t blame him. It was like watching a dragon work a crossword puzzle while picking his teeth with the finger bone of his latest virgin victim.

“I expect you have nothing to add to what you told me last night?” she asked the incubus.

His gaze shifted between them. Mikhael didn’t look up. He wasn’t expecting anything and, in truth, neither was she. She suppressed a sigh as Isaac shook his head.

“I want you to take time today to learn about how we live here. While you’re doing that, think very carefully about whether there are things you should have told me that you haven’t. I know you have lived by deception, but in this place, honesty is your best chance of survival.”

His jaw flexed. He really was a pretty young man. The shower and sleep had brought it out further. Flaxen hair to his shoulders, sea green eyes, straight nose and sensitive mouth. There were no ugly sex demons, but his androgynous look would appeal to her clients, if he chose to join her staff.

Considering the profit possibilities on a parallel track with her concern for his well-being didn’t bother her, because she knew which one took precedence. Of course, Ramona, her closest friend other than Ruby, had once dubbed her Fagin. Though she preferred Ron Moody’s movie depiction of the savvy businessman, Raina didn’t dislike the nickname. After all, he had taught the boys marketable skills and gleaned a profit in an environment of thieves and murderers.

“Unless you have questions for me, you can go to Isabella and Luke now. I’ll be around today if you wish to speak with me.”

With a short, furtive nod, he slunk toward the door, looking like a cunning, abused animal.

“Isaac?” When he halted, she met his uncertain, resentful expression with a steady one of her own. “Every succubus and incubus who crossed this threshold has been told the same thing by me. Self-worth is a gift you give to yourself. No one else can offer it. If you hold yourself cheaply, you’ll be treated cheaply. Doesn’t matter if that’s fair or not. It’s not up to the world to rescue you from your poor opinion of yourself. If that poor opinion is deserved, fix it. Each demon here has discovered something in themselves they didn’t expect to have. As a result, they’ve found what they never believed they could. A home. Contentment, brief spots of happiness. A family.”

Isaac eyed her suspiciously. “Everything comes with a price.”

“Yes, it does. You have to earn that kind of place. I’m not talking about working as one of the companions here. That’s your choice. I would make sure you had food regardless, and we’d find other ways for you to earn your keep. An old house always needs hands to keep it up. You earn your spot by pulling your weight honestly, and by not being a scavenger who takes lives indiscriminately. You prove you can be worthy of the trust and friendship of others. It doesn’t happen overnight. No one here managed that, and no one would expect it of you. You’d make mistakes; you’d have setbacks. But if it’s something you want, you’ll find those here willing to help you, to forgive the mistakes and setbacks. Think on that today as well.”

He nodded, then slipped out. Mikhael examined the
Scooby-Doo
comic strip. “I will bet you the last croissant that, out of all those well-meaning words, all he heard was,
Blah-blah-blah-blah,
you’ll get food
, blah-blah-blah.
”

Picking up the last croissant, Raina took a decisive bite. “I’m
so
turned on by your I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-anyone attitude and wiseass cracks about
Desperate Housewives
. Was it a gradual process, Mikhael, or have you always been a coldhearted bastard?”

As his head rose, the eyes that locked on hers turned cool. She wasn’t going to back down from him, though. Not now, not ever. She’d done enough running in her life. Sweet Dreams was her line in the sand. She’d never retreat from that line, even if her ashes were left smoking upon it.

“You’ve got the sharp-tongued bitch act down,” he said quietly. “Yet the facade is thin, isn’t it? You’re vulnerable, Raina. Almost fragile. You showed me that last night, when you were pleading for release, when you let your fear show.”

He pushed the paper aside. “I’m charged to run down your kind when they step out of bounds, beyond what even the Underworld can tolerate. To hunt them effectively, I have to know their stories, inside and out. When I corner them, when I execute them”—his gaze pinned her, and she saw Death there—“those stories come to the surface, much like that tapestry your deadly energy puts forth. In their dying moments, that story is stamped on them. They become a book I have to burn, the story lost forever to anyone but me, because when they reach that point, they have no one.

“You were wise to counsel Isaac the way you did, because it’s family that saves a soul. If he turns his back on it too often, he’ll be another book on the pyre. My job isn’t pity. It’s justice, and justice is about balance.”

Mikhael stood then, picked up the other half of the croissant she’d left on her plate. “Things don’t change. The reasons, the causes, the consequences. The whole world is a cycle and a circle. The songs may romanticize that, but for someone who lives as long as I have, and sees the things I do, it sucks.”

Despite the contemporary choice of verb, his age showed in his eyes then, an ancient coldness. It swept the whole room, shivering over her skin, making her raise a protection on herself in instinctive defense. Staring at Mikhael, she remembered that Derek was more than twelve hundred years old. Even knowing the commitment to Lucifer was all eternity, she hadn’t considered that this Dark Guardian could be even older. Which meant he was considerably older than her.

He’d taken a cruel shot at what they’d shared last night, putting a taint on it. But she didn’t turn off her radar just because she was knocked back on her heels. She wasn’t going to let herself be thrown by his age. She’d also held him in her arms last night, felt things from him, things that connected to this moment. If she was as sure of his facade as he thought he was of hers, she’d say she’d bruised his feelings.

Mikhael Roman had a bone-deep moral code. It might be a code sworn in the dark, against blood and muck, rather than in the light, striking a suit of shining armor, but he was deadly serious about it.

She was used to being able to read men to the bone. While she couldn’t yet read Mikhael to that depth, his perspective on this one issue was brutally clear, as his next words proved.

“You’ve made some sweeping assumptions about me. Let me make some about you. You’re absurdly tolerant toward anything resembling an underdog, even if their own choices landed them in that position. You are closed-minded and intolerant toward those you perceive to be in a position of strength and authority. You risk those you love to help a creature too far gone to be saved, because you choose the ignorant comfort of self-righteousness over full knowledge, which would inform you the world is not us and them. It’s just the world, each one of us utterly alone in it.”

Okay, she’d been wrong. He did have the ability to trash her radar, under a hailstorm of words that cut. Her fingers were white, pressed into the chair arm, and she expected her face was the same color when his gaze stilled on it. He bit off whatever else he was going to say and stepped back.

“There’s a reason I prefer my own company,” he said stiffly. “My apologies. I’ll leave you to your breakfast.”

M
IKHAEL DIDN’T GO AS FAR AS HE INTENDED
. W
HEN HE
went off the side porch, he was heading for the woods, wanting the tranquil darkness of the forest and swamp. Instead, he found himself in her gardens, a tangle of azaleas mixed with flowering vines woven into strategically placed trellises and latticework. Benches and statuary enhanced the design. It encouraged a meandering walk among the beauty of nature, with secluded places for trysts and quiet reflection.

He’d probably end up in the swamp anyway, but he took one of those secluded spots, a large bench next to a small fountain and man-made pond, complete with lily pads and a grinning stone frog. Next to the frog was a sculpture of a kneeling fairy, a thin woman with long hair, her delicate hand on the frog’s head as she trailed the other fingers in the water, her expression pensive, the tilt of her body attractive, achingly so. The best of nature and beauty together. It reminded him of her.

Fuck, he’d let her get under his skin. That shot at her fragility last night had been unforgivable, particularly when she was still so uncertain about trusting his mastery over her. He’d been too deep inside her last night. She responded to him in a way she hadn’t responded to anyone, and he wanted more of that unique gift. He’d just scratched the surface of her response.

There was a vulnerability to a craving like this. His anger didn’t get provoked from snide comments and well-orchestrated contempt. But she’d impressed him with what she’d built, and she was endangering it with her stubborn need to save every sex demon that stumbled out of her swamp. She was endangering herself. That mattered to him. Maybe that in itself was unusual, but not as much as the fact that what she thought of
him
mattered.

It was the most absurd feeling he’d had in quite a while. Maybe he needed reconditioning from the Underworld. An oil change or something.

She was clever with words, but a snake-oil salesman or politician had that. She backed her words with herself, with action. He’d walked her property this morning. Her power signature was like her: a bold pen stroke, unflinching, a warning not to mess with what was hers. But the Craft of it was remarkably complex, delicate and exponentially strong, like a spiderweb. She wasn’t about brute power; she studied, she learned, she adapted, to the point there were minor modifications of the protection on different terrains, new compilations of spellwork he hadn’t seen used before.

In short, she was a damn good witch. Last night, she’d stood toe-to-toe with him on a battlefield and hadn’t flinched. In fact, he’d pissed her off, sparking those tempting green-gold eyes to full-out flame. Her courage had faltered, not because of his attack upon her as a Dark Guardian, but later, in the face of his desire to dominate her as a lover, something she craved but feared, because of the shadows in her soul.

She obviously had a history similar to those she protected. Someone had hurt her, used her, inflicted pain on her. As he’d made clear, he knew every story of brutality and cruelty there was. It was good that there was always somewhere in the world that needed rain, because the Goddess wept daily at what Her creations did to one another. The shape and color might be different, but it was the same substance. The devil was in those details.

For the first time in a while, he wanted to know the shape and color of that devil, and not because it was an assignment to do so. He told himself it was because he liked a challenge, and her emotional shields were a challenge. Like her perimeter, it would take both a delicate and powerful touch to get through them. That wasn’t going to happen unless he could get to the bottom of her soul. But he had an unsettling sense that to learn the shape of her soul, he might have to let her see his. Or that hers might change the shape of his.

He knew the moment she entered the garden. Of course. She didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. It was a wonder she was still alive, but of course, in his world, she was quite young, midthirties. He didn’t like the idea of that, her physical fragility, the fact she could be extinguished far more easily than he could. Then he remembered her defense of her home, both with her sharp tongue and her spellwork. He was being typically male. With the clever tongue alone, she could slice most enemies to ribbons.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with grace. And sincerity.

It was the last thing he expected her to say. Turning toward her, he found her face pale but serious. “You’re right. I made you into a symbol of all the things that have harmed my kind, and bludgeoned you with it, rather than seeing you as you are.”

“And what am I?”

As she cocked her head, his eyes followed the fall of her hair along her shoulder. The sweet line of collarbone. “I don’t know if I like you or hate you. I don’t know enough about you to be sure, so any feeling I have about you is transient.”

“Fair enough.” He wanted to touch her. He didn’t usually deny himself such compulsions, but things felt a little…delicate between them. Sitting down on the bench, he stretched out his legs. Glanced at the spot next to him, an invitation.

With a smile that was tired, not practiced, which made it more appealing, she came to him. Looking pointedly at the small space left on the bench due to his much larger frame, she moved between his feet and sat down on his thigh, her fingers settling on his shoulder to hold herself there.