Banshee Seduction (Montgomery's Sin Book 1) (28 page)

It wasn’t his fault. It was her own for getting ahead of herself—and evidently him.

“Poor Ginny.”

“Poor naïve Ginny.”

“Poor innocent Ginny.”

Mild queasiness churned her stomach. She hushed the voices and concentrated on the image of his bedroom as it flashed onto the screen. Deep, opulent purples and blues interspersed with golden tones daubed his room and splashed across his bed in lush, rich fabrics. A room in complete contrast to the simplicity of hers. Despite the arrival of the new bed, her room was innocently feminine and…naïve.

Ginny picked up her wine and took a long slug of it. It hit the back of her throat, almost choking her. Tears filled her eyes, and she rapidly placed it back on the table. She took in deep gulps of air and snorted while she wiped away the tears, all the time watching the television.

His place looked as though it had been lovingly decorated with a very sophisticated, feminine hand.

What a fool she was. She cast a critical glance around her pitifully small room, shame twisting in her stomach to make it clench in embarrassment.

Sympathetic sobs whispered through her mind again.

How could she expect to be a part of his life? It wasn’t his fault. He’d never intimated that they were exclusive. She’d just assumed.

She turned back to the screen in time to see a picture of his living room. Nothing to compare to hers. Vast buttermilk leather sofas lined three sides of the resplendent room, larger than her entire apartment. Jade and royal blue cushions and throws were strategically placed with feminine precision.

Ginny’s stomach revolted. Her eyes scanned the sumptuous rug in wild rich tones that adorned the massive space in the middle of the room. The voices in her head escalated. The camera panned around to show the wall opposite where an enormous television screen hung as large as a cinema.

She covered her face with her hands and peeped through her fingers at her own small TV screen. Foolish. She’d been so damned foolish. The sympathy of a hundred voices surged, increasing her anxiety.

The camera panned back to Matt. His face looked as stiff as hers felt. Tears pricked behind her eyelids as the journalist’s nasal whine continued.

“So, Dane. We were kindly given permission to look at your trophy room. You have some real interesting stuff in there.”

The cool flick of Matt’s eyebrow gave little away before the scene changed to a smaller wood-lined room. It was filled with deep cabinets containing bright, shiny silver, glass, and gold trophies that gleamed and shimmered in the glare of the bright camera lights. Shards of white light bounced off every reflective surface, creating miniature rainbows.

The sly voice of the journalist continued, inviting Matt to discuss some of the historical trophies the cabinets contained from older, retired players, while the eye of the camera hovered over them. Matt’s stiff, cool voice was matter-of-fact as he described each one and how he had come to obtain them.

How silly she was. He was a player. She’d never taken any interest in fame and fortune before. Why would she? She’d come to the Earth realm for anonymity, whereas he courted attention.

The reporter ran through some of Matt’s latest acquisitions, his own trophies. The nasal tones dragged on as the man highlighted each one.

“Now.” His falsetto chuckle grated through the microphone. “This is an interesting one.” The lens zoomed in to frame a tiny shoe. Ginny’s breath lodged in her throat, and the voices quietened. Crystal fire glittered to cast a myriad of rainbow colors in dazzling sparkles across the walls as light refracted from the shoe she’d left in his hand the night she’d first met him. She assumed she’d incinerated it. But there it was, in his trophy cabinet. On display for the world to see.

The shot zoomed back to Matt’s face, still but for the hard flint in his jade eyes. His long black lashes swooped down as he took a slow blink. His straight lips tightened into a white line.

“Dane. What does this beautiful, elegant shoe mean to you?” The reporter’s barely concealed slimy glee ran over her nerves as she waited.

“Nothing.”

Her heart sank.

“Nothing?”

Matt placed both hands palm down on the table and leaned back. “No. Nothing.”

The reporter’s sly gurgle of triumph vibrated from the TV. “Are you trying to tell us this fine trophy—evidence of your conquest over this beautiful young woman—means nothing?”

The screen filled with a photograph of herself. Glasses on, hair swept back into a neat bun, her smart gray librarian uniform neatly pressed with not a single crease. Her wide eyes goggled out at herself from behind her thick lenses.

Ginny’s heart trembled, filled with fear and anticipation and a pitiful hopelessness. Mewling whimpers commiserated, while a ball of nausea heated in her stomach, expanding to tighten her throat.

The image of Matt flashed onto screen in time to catch his light, careless shrug as he leaned back to make himself more comfortable and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

Ginny’s trembling heart shriveled.

He sniffed, glanced down at his hands and then straight back at the camera as though he spoke directly to her.

“Yes. It means nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

What could she expect? They came from two completely different worlds. How was he to know once she committed herself, it was for all eternity? He wouldn’t realize that if he rejected her, then she would be expelled from that realm to return to her origins.

The furor in the press conference filled her head to overflowing, but not enough to block out the sympathetic lament of banshee voices.

The journalist removed his glasses to wipe them on a white tissue. As he raised his head, a glimmer of red triumph flickered through his eyes. Her soul quavered in response.

He replaced the glasses on his face and turned his attention back to Matt. “In that case, I’m sure you’ll be delighted to learn your fiancée, Emma Charles, has returned from her sabbatical and is here tonight as a special surprise.”

The fixed smile on Matt’s face widened as he came to his feet at the same time as a tall, elegant woman strode with purpose into the press room. The crowd parted. Her hair glistened blue-black in the bright lights; her amber eyes glowed as she held out her hands in greeting to Matt.

Click!

It wasn’t something Ginny needed to see. The dull ache in her breast expanded; her eyes blurred while she stared at the blank TV screen, the remote still clutched in her numb fingers.

Her decision had been made.

A teardrop trembled on her eyelashes before it fell at precisely the moment Ginny’s body erupted into a volcano of self-combustion and shot her soul straight into the fires of eternity from where she had originated.

•
●•

Matt came slowly to his feet, narrowed his eyes at the witch in front of him, and gave her a sharp, feral grin. “Not in this lifetime—or any other.”

He pushed his way to the exit and slammed the door on the stunned silence behind him.

He needed to get to Ginny and explain.

“Matt.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, Matt—wait.”

He whirled on his best friend, ready to rip his head off and eat it if he had to. He grabbed the front of his shirt to growl in his face. “Fuck off, Daniel, or so help me, I’ll…”

“You can try,” The slighter man stared hard into his face, unmoved by his fury. “But it won’t get you there any quicker. I have a car.”

“I don’t need you.”

“Yep, you do.”

“I’ll fly.”

“That’s precisely what the little demon wants you to do. He’s provoked you so you’ll shift, and he’ll get the photographs he’s been after all the time.”

Frustrated, Matt scrubbed his hands through his hair and sighed. “I didn’t want him to tell the world about her.” He blew out double flames from his nostrils and ignored Daniel’s quick, furtive look around. He didn’t care. “She’s too goddamned shy—she wouldn’t want the attention.” He strode off down the hallway. “But if she saw that piece of shit, she’s going to think I don’t care. I need to get to her before she jumps to any conclusions.” He slammed through the fire exit. Daniel, close on his tail, shoved him into the waiting limo with its blacked-out windows.

“Well, she has all the attention now. She’s going to have to lie low for a while. So are you. Lucky bastard. At least it’s the end of the season.”

The black limo glided smoothly through the traffic, far too slow for Matt’s liking.

“You do know you’re going to have to grovel, don’t you?”

“I’d crawl through the fires of hell on my belly to get to her.”

“Don’t wish that upon yourself, my friend. You have no idea what it entails.”

Matt shot Daniel a confused look. Sometimes the guy said the strangest things.

He heaved a sigh as the limo stopped at yet another set of traffic lights. Tempted to leap out of the vehicle, he tapped his fingers impatiently on the armrest, as Daniel settled back in his seat and stared out of the window in deep contemplation. “This is providing she even lets you into her apartment, of course.”

Matt gave a wide, superior grin; his nail extended out of his forefinger, and he pointed it at Daniel. “I have a secret weapon. It was pretty successful last time.”

“Uh-huh.” Daniel stared at his finger, unimpressed. “You may need a little more than that this time.”

Matt flung himself back in the leather seat and stared at the sun as it lowered beneath the horizon. Thick black clouds rolled in to obscure the light and douse the promise of another sunrise as darkness came in heavy and quick.

Pitch black greeted him as he slipped, silent and naked, through the balcony door. He’d had no alternative but to fly up to her balcony. She certainly hadn’t answered her intercom. If she was really pissed at him, and he suspected she was, he was going to suffer with not even clothes to protect him from the fire of her fury. He was pretty sure he could get around her, but she was, after all, half banshee, so there could be plenty of screaming.

He couldn’t stop the quick grin. She screamed real nice.

The smile dropped from his face the moment he opened her balcony door.

Thick, wallowing darkness surrounded him as he stepped into her living room, not even a ray from the moon to light his way. Normally sweet and homely, the density of the night and total silence hung uncomfortable and eerie. Shit, he was in trouble. Even his dragon struggled to see with not a single light refraction from any source. Nothing.

One more step and his knee connected with the settee. His feet crunched through masses of tiny sharp splinters, nicking his flesh and piercing his skin.

He breathed in and tasted the scent of her on the back of his tongue as a deep sadness filled his lungs. He’d hurt her more than he imagined he could. He knew it, felt it in his soul as it cried out for him to make it better. He took another cautious step forward. Pain pricked hard through the soles of his feet, but there was something he needed to know. One tiny glint sparkled on the tabletop as though it had its own light source. Matt reached out to press his finger into it. Wet coated his fingertip. His heart seared with hollow pain as he raised his hand to his lips and tasted Ginny’s solitary tear. He dabbled it against the roof of his mouth. His knees almost buckled as her pain radiated through him.

What had he done? He was her soul mate, and he’d just sampled the taste of her utter devastation. Sick to his stomach, he endured the pain in his feet while he tried to muster his brain into some semblance of thought. He padded through the room, each step a fiery torture, but the burn in his heart blazed higher.

The distinct aroma of brimstone layered the jet-black denseness. Confusion had him pausing at the door to her bedroom. Brimstone. Hell, it must be bad. She’d told him she couldn’t incinerate in that building. He peered into the blackness. Even the bright, cheerful yellow, green, and pink duvet cover couldn’t be distinguished in the dark.

His heart gave a painful jerk as his sensitive hearing picked up the subtle sound of her movement, sliding against the bed linen.

Thank God. He sighed with relief. She was there. He still had a chance. He wiped his feet on the carpet, reluctant to search for the light switch and disturb her. If only he could hold her in his arms, he knew he could make it better.

He slid between the cool cotton sheets, stretched his hand out, and encountered…more cotton. Yep, she was pissed off. He smoothed his hand over the thick pajamas.

“Hey, honey.” He wriggled closer, stroked his hand over the curve of her hip, and realized she had her back to him. Yep, it was going to be a long haul. “You awake?”

“Hmmm.”

To his utter relief, she rolled toward him and filled him with a desperate hope that it wasn’t going to be as bad as he thought. Perhaps she’d gotten over her snit already. A banshee snit had to be a dangerous thing.

Her hot body shuffled closer, and a waft of mothball scent caught him unaware. Jeez, she’d had those pajamas in the cupboard way too long. The best favor he could do her was to strip them off her as soon as possible.

With a bold move, he pushed his hand under the top and slipped it up to find her breast. He encountered it far quicker than expected, and absolute horror shot through his system as he wrapped his palm around an empty, flaccid sack of loose, wrinkled flesh, near where her waistline should be.

“Waaaaggghhhh!”

He tried to fling himself away, but the thing launched itself at him in the dark and clutched at his chest as he flipped over the edge of the bed in his panic and blindness. He hit the floor with a resounding, “Ooooffff.”

The screeching of a thousand banshees filled his head, making his brain want to burst from its casing. The thing on top of him clutched with sharpened nails as it dug deep into his flesh and seared him with burning talons. Bright red eyes blazed at him from above, and lurid green glowing hair floated straight up in great swathes of knotted tresses.

With a strength born of terror, he flung the thing off him and clapped his hands over his ears to stop his brain bleeding out of them as the pitch went up an octave.