She waited a heartbeat. Then two. He purposely didn’t answer her, but she saw the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He was at war with his own feelings, instinct raging against training and no clear victor in sight. Lilly understood the battle only too well. A similar one raged within her as well. As a Darkin she should be fulfilling her duty, getting the Book and taking his soul. But this wasn’t just any man. This was Colt. And every minute she spent with him only intensified her unrealistic dreams of becoming human once more and inspired fantasies of what it could be like to actually have him as all her own.
He moved in closer, putting her on intimate terms with the firm wall of his chest. Her breasts tightened, aching as they rasped against him.
“What exactly did Rathe want with you? Surely it wasn’t just to give a report.” His tone grew husky as his gaze lingered on her mouth.
She turned away, unable to bear the intensity of his stare any longer and the way it wormed down into her deepest fantasies about him. He leaned in closer, the tip of his nose skimming against her cheek and down along the length of her neck and back up again, making shivers follow in its wake. His lips brushed against her temple, his warm breath filling her ear. “Tell me, Lilly,” he whispered.
His lips, warm and solid, replaced the skimming touch. A full body shiver started at the edge of her jaw and shimmied all the way down to her toes.
She turned and gasped. Big mistake. His sinfully sculpted mouth captured hers, sucking her bottom lip, his clever tongue lightly brushing against hers, the slow slide teasing and seductive. Everything in Lilly responded with heat, melting from the inside out.
The scent of leather, male, and desert wind washed over her as his mouth pressed more firmly to hers, branding her with his touch. His hand slid from the wall to cup around her rib cage, pulling her firmly against him with his palm while his thumb traced along the upper edge of her corset until it found the juncture where it disappeared beneath her breast.
With slow, deliberate strokes, his thumb caressed the outer curve toward the tip of her breast, making it peak and tighten and rasp against the dark green satin of her gown. Lilly couldn’t stop herself from arching into his touch. It just felt so damn good to let herself go, and he knew exactly how to make her respond. But more than that, he touched her heart at the same time. Heaven help her, she was falling in love with him.
He broke their kiss, dragging in a ragged breath. “You certainly know how to tempt a man, I’ll give you that.” The low, rough words vibrated through his chest, making everything in her twist up even more, begging for that one touch that could release it all.
It took everything she had to be honest with him. “I’d be the best you’ve ever had, but that wouldn’t satisfy you.” She knew what he didn’t—this was no longer just physical attraction arcing between them, but something far more rare, far more lethal.
He ground the ridge of his erection against her. “I think I’d be willing to give it a try.”
Lilly groaned. “I think the price would be higher than you’re willing to pay.”
“You’re a demon. Don’t you like taking souls?” he teased.
She looked to the right, not wanting to face him or the truth. Up until now soul stealing had been gratifying. But he was different. He was an honorable man, the first to treat her with some dignity and respect in her entire life. The first to make her desire him more intensely than any man she’d ever met. The first to make her believe that escaping her damnation and having a normal life with a man who would treat her as an equal was a possibility. The first to consider what it might be like to love a man without reservation and have him return that affection.
“If I took your soul, I’d damn us both. As good as we’d be together, there’s too much at stake to risk it.”
Like my heart.
Colt blew out a ragged warm breath against her neck, the sound of a man on the edge of his control. “Risk or not, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop thinking about what it could be like between us.” He pulled back, and the instant change in temperature from his heat against her made the aching cold spear all the way through her to her heart.
She was never going to be able to be with Colt Jackson. Not while she was still a demon and he a Hunter. And certainly not as the one woman who mattered to him most.
When her thoughts had turned in that direction, she wasn’t exactly certain. She only knew that in addition to reuniting with her little sister, despite her advanced age, she now yearned for something to fill the growing Colt Jackon–shaped hollow in her heart. Lilly gave a resigned sigh past lips that were still tingling from his kiss. “So now that Marley’s decoded your message, where are we going?”
He pulled his hat down low and started walking to his mechanical horse. “To see my other brother in Tombstone. Marley’s machine decoded it from Navaho, but it’s a riddle only Remington would likely understand. He and Pa both had that way about them. We’ll ride Tempus into town and catch the train there. It’ll be faster.”
He held out his hand to help her up, and with reluctance, Lilly stepped forward and took it, wishing it were so much more and knowing it never would be.
Chapter 14
Tombstone. Had a real cheerful ring to the name, Colt thought sourly as he and Lilly, dusty and tired, rode into town on the Ohnesorgen Stage from Benson. That was as far as the Southwestern Pacific Railroad went for Tombstone. It had been sit on the dusty stage, rent a horse, or walk, since he’d had to leave Tempus back in Bodie. Time was of the essence and the train was faster than Tempus, but he’d paid for the convenience in different ways.
First he’d had to sit, pinned against her, in the narrow wooden train seat, her soft shoulder rubbing against his arm, with an entirely far too distracting view of the shadowed valley between her plump breasts. Even on the stagecoach, his nose filled with dust and the odor of horse sweat, he could detect the alluring floral-and-spice scent that seemed to cloak her skin. Both made him hard as a board and distinctly uncomfortable, requiring that he place his hat on his lap a good portion of the time.
Despite the jostling and bump of the stagecoach, where they’d been crammed shoulder to shoulder, three per seat facing one another, Lilly seemed to fare just fine. She looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy in her green taffeta gown accented with the copper and gold brocade corset that practically put a display shelf underneath the low-cut neckline of her gown. Colt had wanted to punch the man who’d deliberately sat on the opposite side of Lilly and was even now enjoying the display. Just remembering it made him agitated. He huffed. Succubus. Attracting male attention came as naturally to her as breathing. Didn’t mean it didn’t rile him up any less. Just the thought of another man’s gaze or hands on her made him feel the need to hit something. Hard.
Colt pulled his hat down low against the glare of the afternoon sun as they stepped out of the hot, stuffy confines of the coach and into the fresh dry air scented with sagebrush and new wood. He offered Lilly a hand down from the coach, not trusting any other man to understand the difference between a succubus’s natural powers and their own actual attraction. Once she withdrew her hand from his, she propped open a parasol, a black fringed little thing, which she seemed to have materialized upon exiting the coach without attracting undue attention.
“The sooner we get there, the better,” Colt muttered. “Shall we?” He offered her his arm and they took a stroll from the stage stop at the far end of the town’s main thoroughfare toward his brother’s offices. Colt immediately began to understand the appeal of Tombstone for his brother. It was booming. Hell, half the buildings were new since the last time he’d been here.
On one half of Allen Street were the respectable businesses. The other half harbored saloons, game halls, and bath houses that doubled as brothels, where discordant, badly played piano music and the loud boisterous noise of the gamers carried out into the street. But that was exactly how his middle brother Remington liked to play things. He straddled the line between Hunter and normal solid citizen, between big brother and little brother, between straight shooter and maverick.
Colt kept them to the respectable side of the street, if for no other reason than he didn’t need to fight off a half-dozen men overcome by supernatural urges to meet a succubus they thought they could buy for a dollar. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden plank walkway beneath their feet.
About halfway down Allen Street was Remington’s building. Everything about the two-story building looked predictable and utterly normal: the brown-painted boards offset with white trim, the symmetrical four-pane windows on either side of the double doors. Only the fancy cut glass in the doors gave a hint of something different. Beneath the first-floor wooden awning that covered the plank sidewalk swung a sign on a black wrought-iron hanger. The elegant black lettering, outlined in gold paint, read BARTEL & JACKSON,
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
.
“He’s up on the second floor.”
Lilly grasped his arm, stopping him, her brow pinched with concern. “I’ve got a funny feeling about this.”
He bet. Colt grinned. “Afraid of being with two Hunters in the same room, are you?”
Lilly cocked her head to one side and wrinkled her pert little nose, her eyes narrowing. “No. He’s got something supernatural up there with him. I can smell it.”
Colt tensed and sniffed the air. Lilly was right. He detected a faint whiff of sulfur, but it was overlaid by the heavier smell of black tea and vanilla. His stomach dropped in a swift dip and an itching started up in his gun hand. It’d be okay, but it wouldn’t be pretty. He’d only come across one supernatural being that smelled like that. China McGee. “It’ll be all right. Remy’s got it under control. I think I have an idea who’s up there with him.”
Lilly raised a silky brow, her vivid green eyes sparkling with awareness. “Another supernatural that doesn’t concern you? Interesting.”
“Interesting ain’t the word for it,” he grumbled. “Trouble is more like it.”
He opened the door for her. “He must be doing better at law than I thought. These are new.” The cut leaded glass sent a splash of sparkles over the walls of the wide central staircase as they headed to his middle brother’s offices on the second floor. Colt ran his finger over the smooth wall. “See they repaired the plaster too.”
“Some redecorating you brothers did together?”
Colt grunted. “Small misunderstanding. Few gunshots. Nothing major.” Of course it had been about China, and the fact that she was here now didn’t bode well. He was already agitated enough thinking about how Remy might react both to the truth hidden in the pages of Ma’s diary and to Lilly. He would either be outright hostile like Winn or attracted to her like him. Either choice wasn’t putting Colt in a good mood.
Lilly stood just behind him as he opened the door with BARTEL & JACKSON painted on the glass. Lined with oak filing cabinets and bookcases crammed with volume after volume of leather-bound books, his brother’s office smelled of lemon and beeswax wood polish, leather, paper, and the faint, sour, chalky scent of india ink. Colt reconsidered giving Ma’s diary to Remington, especially given he didn’t trust the current company.
Tilted back in the secretary’s chair at an oak desk in the center of the room sat a buxom blonde. Dressed in a pale brown, fringed leather jacket, a faded blue button-down chambray shirt that stretched tight across her chest, and skintight brown leather buckskin pants, she had her dirty cowboy boots propped up on the desktop.
Whoever the woman was, she clearly had no respect for other people’s possessions, Lilly thought.
“Hello, Colt. It’s been a while.” The way she purred the words made every hair on Lilly’s body stand up in agitation.
Colt grunted with a curt nod, but Lilly noted his gaze didn’t linger long and instead darted to the open doorway behind the desk. Through it stepped a man almost the mirror image of Colt, all except for the deep cleft in his chin, the shorter haircut, and the well-tailored gentleman’s coat over a crisp white shirt with a red paisley vest. A small black ribbon was tied at his neck and matched his fancy black pin-striped pants.
“Did I just hear you say—” His blue eyes widened along with his mouth into a giant heart-stopping smile. “Hey, little brother!” He rushed forward and swung his arms around Colt in a bear hug that knocked a huff out of Colt. “Good to see you. Especially all in one piece.”
Lilly tried to stifle her grin. She had a hard time thinking of Colt as needing to be protected by anyone.
Colt pulled out of his brother’s arms. “Good to see you too, Remy.” His gaze shifted over to the woman at the desk. “See you’ve got China working with you.” Lilly noticed how his shoulders stiffened and how he deliberately avoided eye contact with the woman as if she made him distinctly uncomfortable. Considering how her gaze seemed to track his every move, as if he were a rodent to be toyed with, his attitude was understandable. Lilly didn’t like the sneaky little smile playing on the other woman’s mouth or the way she kept glancing from one brother to the other as if waiting for fisticuffs to start.
“Yep. Got her out of the Bisbee jail, no thanks to you.” Remington nudged his brother with his elbow, but his face went soft and his blue eyes out of focus as his gaze settled on Lilly, warming her to her toes. “And who is this charming young lady? Certainly you’ll introduce us.”
Colt glanced back over his shoulder, his brows knitting together slightly in the center and his jaw flexing as if he’d rather do anything but that. “This is Miss Lilly Arliss. Lilly, my brother Remington and Miss China McGee. Lilly’s helping me find Pa’s part of the Book.”
Remington pushed past his brother, purposely knocking him aside with his shoulder. He bowed slightly from the waist, never taking his eyes off hers, and lightly grasped her hand in his smooth one, brushing a warm kiss over her knuckles. “A
pleasure
to meet you, Miss Arliss.” He continued to hold her hand a moment longer than propriety demanded. The air crackled with challenge between the Jackson boys.
Lilly felt her cheeks warm with a blush. There was no doubt that the brothers owned charm in spades. Colt quickly wedged himself between them, breaking Remington’s hold on her hand.
“I didn’t haul us all over God’s creation to watch you kissing hands and sweet-talking ladies. Pa didn’t leave pages. He left a
riddle
. The kind of thing you’re so good at. Need you to solve it so I can go find what we’re looking for and not waste any more time.”
Remington turned toward his brother. “You didn’t find his piece of the Book?”
Colt shook his head slowly, his jaw tight. “Nothing in the damn box but a scrap of paper with a riddle written in Navaho.”
“You don’t speak Navaho, let alone read it. For that matter, neither do I.”
“Yeah. But Balmora apparently does.”
“Balmora? You mean Marley’s analytical decoder machine? You saw it?”
Colt’s lips twitched. Lilly lifted her fingers to her own mouth, which tingled at the thought of how warm and firm his sculpted mouth had been when he’d kissed her. “I think he’s going to have a hard time letting her go to the Queen, when the time comes.”
“Her?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, can you make heads or tails of what Pa meant?”
Colt fished the page Balmora had spat out from his pocket and unfolded it, handing it to his brother.
Remington scanned the page, his lips moving as he read to himself. Remington had an equally appealing mouth, she thought. But he wasn’t Colt. Colt somehow seemed darker, more powerful in an elemental way, than his more refined brother. She didn’t know if it was the way his dark hair curled over his collar and ragged bits of it shaded his eyes or simply the powerful build of his shoulders.
Remington brushed his fingers back through his short dark hair. “Well, the first part is pretty straightforward. We’re going to need the whole damn Book of Legend to close the Gates of Nyx.”
“I figured out that part myself, thanks,” Colt said sarcastically. Lilly stepped lightly around the office, running her fingers over the fine leather volumes in Remington’s library, as the brothers leaned over the desk deciphering the riddle.
She cast a cautious glance beneath her lashes at the other supernatural in the room. She was surprised the Jackson brothers were so openly discussing matters in front of her, but perhaps the shifter already knew more about their search than she did.
China shared the same wildness about her that Colt possessed. Perhaps it was the predatory nature in both shifter and Hunter. Her long, honey-colored hair lay in careless abandon over her shoulders and halfway down her back and she was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, feet braced wide apart like a man’s. Her keen gray eyes darted from one Jackson brother to the other in front of her, as if they were tea cakes and she was deciding which she’d like to eat first.
The skin on Lilly’s face tightened with heat and anger.
I think not.
For a moment she contemplated turning on her full charms as a succubus just to prove to the shifter that she could draw Colt’s attention back to her with next to no effort. China’s silver gaze locked onto hers as if she’d heard Lilly’s thought. Lilly sucked in a quick breath, then lifted her chin and avoided her direct stare as she continued to inspect the books.
“At the height of the mountains, where legends are born and reborn from the ashes ... Phoenix birds are reborn out of ashes,” Remington murmured. “Legends—another word for myths and superstitions. It could be the Superstition Mountains outside of Phoenix.”
“What about the eye part?” Colt pressed his fisted hand to the top of the desk. His shoulders and arms were so tense Lilly could see the ripple of muscle as he moved.
“Alone it doesn’t make any sense, but see where it says sew and tapestry in the rest of the line?”
“Yeah?”
“Ever heard of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine story going around?”
Colt snorted. “Who hasn’t?”
Lilly glanced back at the men and saw that China had moved. She was out of the chair and standing awfully close to Colt, her hand resting on Remington’s shoulder. She seemed to sense Lilly’s stare and locked gazes with her, her lips turning into a self-assured smirk as she gave her a silent message through her eyes.
Mine. Back off.