I wasn’t sure where this was going and, nervous, I got up to open a new box. “I suppose. As long as no one outright kills me by surprise. Jenks talks a good game about me, but I’m as vulnerable as anyone else.” I hesitated, suspicion rising heavy and thick. “And if you make one move I don’t like, I bind you with a curse and you’re drooling on the floor.”
Pike smiled at that, but it looked real, setting me on edge. “Not me.” He settled back into the fainting couch with that book. “At least not until Constance starts wondering why I haven’t called. I can see the assassins from here.” His head shook in rue. “I don’t know why you don’t leave Cincinnati to her. I’ll admit, after seeing you in action, you have more multispecies influence than I thought, but that still leaves the I.S. You can’t police an entire city of Inderlanders without them.”
I shrugged, feeling as if we were back on familiar ground. “So I should be the demon and scare everyone into behaving?” I said as I pushed past an old hairbrush, unmatched socks, and stuffed toys won at Six Flags. Why do I even have these?
Pike laughed, irritating me. “You don’t have it in you. Vampires are swayed into obedience by fear. Nothing more.”
“Mmmm,” I said, wondering if he had forgotten me threatening to chop him up and send him to Constance. But his opinion of me stung, and I couldn’t help myself from trying to hurt him back. “Too bad you’re too afraid of your brothers to stand up to them.”
“I am not afraid of my brothers.”
I turned, surprised to see his attention was on that slim volume he’d found in my things. “Then I’m sorry you’re afraid of whoever those two vampire-looking snots in suits were who sat with you outside of Dalliance and messed with your hair.” His eyes flicked to mine, and I knew I’d been right that they had been his brothers. “That’s what demons do,” I added as I stood in the center of the room and looked up at Bis’s shelf. My pinky ring would make a fabulous non-DNA focusing object. It was in my jewelry box, which was currently up with Bis. Jenks had asked me to put it up there, and I occasionally heard the little tinkling of music from the windup dancer play sadly. “They dip into your brain and pull out what scares you.” I chuckled, remembering the dog-headed god Al turned into to frighten Piscary. But I quickly sobered. At least Al wasn’t turning into me anymore.
“Okay, you got me,” Pike said as I pulled a closed box to the center of the room to stand on. “When I was seven, my mother made the mistake of presenting me to the family master, claiming I had lineage through his sister and grandfather to take his place when he died his second death. She only meant it to solidify her standing in his camarilla, but he took it as a threat and promised his holdings to whatever sibling killed me twice.”
“Sorry.” Which explained everything from the fight on Twin Lakes Bridge to the assassins on the boat to him needing Constance to survive. He was a prince with a price on his head, seeking refuge at a rival queen’s domain—if you liked that kind of thing.
“So yes, I’ve been the object of my brothers’ warped affections for a long time,” he admitted. “And you are afraid of a glowing woman with lightning shooting from her hair.”
“What?” I asked, then remembered. “Oh. Sure.” I blew a strand of hair from my eyes as I frowned up at the shelf. “That was the Goddess. If you’re not afraid of her, you’re stupid.”
“And being in a cage,” he added, voice low.
“Of a cage?” I echoed, shoulders slumping as I remembered freaking out at Alcatraz. “No. The cage door always opens. But of being helpless? Sure. Of having my skills taken from me, my ability to protect myself and those I love? Of what makes me, me? Damn straight.”
I hesitated, gaze dropping to Pike. He was taller than me, and if he’d get the jewelry box down, I wouldn’t have to stretch suggestively before him. “Would you do me a favor?” I said, and he arched his eyebrows. “Would you get me my jewelry box? It’s on that shelf.”
“With your gargoyle?” Pike slowly stood, looking tall as he got on the box. “Sure.”
My hand reached for it when he dragged it from the shelf. “Thanks.” I waited, hand outstretched until he set it into my grip. “I’m going to use my old pinky ring as a focusing object,” I said as I opened it up. The tinkling music played, and I swear Bis’s tail twitched. My ring was right where I’d left it, but my face flamed when I saw my caps, the ones Kisten had given me for my birthday to put over my teeth to extend my canines to match his, a harmless, creative way to liven our bedroom play. I hadn’t been able to throw them away, and grief rose up at the sight of them in their little vial, my sadness unwanted and unhelped.
“Rachel Morgan,” Pike drawled, still above me. “Are those caps in your treasure box?”
I snapped the jewelry box closed and the tinkling music cut off. “Absolutely not,” I lied. “I’ve got everything I need. Thanks.”
But his motions were slow in thought as he got off the box, his eyes following me as I set the jewelry box on the dresser. “You used to have everything you needed,” he said, and I shuddered at his low voice, so much like Kisten’s. He wasn’t talking about the curse. “But you don’t anymore. Not for a long time.”
I turned, taken aback at his pupil-wide stare and carefully unmoving stance. My skin was tingling again from the vamp pheromones. There were windows everywhere, but it wasn’t enough to dilute the need and desire he had filled the air with.
“You miss him?” Pike said from across the room, and it was as if he was whispering in my ear. “It was him, wasn’t it? Rumor has it that Ivy only broke your skin once.”
I flushed, and Pike’s lips curved up into a smile. A slip of fang showed, and I trembled.
“Where?” Pike said, taking a soundless, graceful step closer, and I backed up until I found the dresser. “Your skin is perfect.”
My breath caught when he moved forward, and my eyes closed in a long blink. Sensation blossomed as a light finger shifted my chin, then touched my neck.
I gasped, eyes flashing open as I smacked his touch away. “No touching,” I said, and he smiled, hand raised in apology.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but that was not what his eyes were saying. “I overstepped.”
He leaned closer, and I held my breath, enjoying the tingling fire racing down my side. Oh, God. It had been so long.
“No touching,” Pike echoed, and I didn’t move. He said he wouldn’t touch, and though I didn’t trust him, I trusted the vampires’ blood-play code—God knew why. I was stupid. No, I am in control, I mused, a light finger of thought resting in the nearby ley line. I was faster than a vampire’s teeth.