Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (35 page)

Diversionary tactics were required. He knit his eyebrows together and pinned her with a scowl. “Did you try to fuck that male too?”

Elissa tensed, flew from the armchair and slapped him hard across his left cheek, snapping his head to his right. The scent of fresh blood cut through the herbs and spices in the air. She had reopened the wound.

“No!” She huffed and looked as though she was considering hitting him again. If she tried it, he was going to hit her back. He was all for equal rights. “And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t be asking you for help.”

Payne rubbed his stinging cheek. “Why not?”

She grabbed his arm, sending another hot bolt of lust through him, and twisted it. She pointed near his wrist.

“Because he’s your grandfather.”

Payne tugged his arm free of her grip and turned it so he could see the markings on his skin. She prodded several symbols in a row. That was his grandfather’s name? Were his fae markings a record of his bloodline?

That made him hate them all the more.

He stared at the swirling glyphs, a low growl rumbling through him, anger that poured into his veins like acid and ate away at the restraints tethering his temper and his pain. His grandfather. His pulse accelerated, heart thumping hard against his breastbone, driving that scalding acid through his body, cranking up his anger to new, dangerous heights. Grandfather. He wanted to scratch those markings off his arm, loathed them with all of his being. He didn’t want to know that somewhere out there was the bastard who had sired his mother, who in turn had spawned him. An abomination.

Devil, he wanted that man to pay for his sins. He wanted to erase his grandfather’s name from his lineage and then erase him from existence.

Elissa released an exasperated huff. “You really don’t know anything about your kind, do you?”

He growled at her. “My kind are vampires.”

Her eyes shot wide. “What on mother earth did you just say?”

Payne towered over her and growled down at her again, his lips peeling back to reveal his fangs. “I’m a vampire.”

She stared at his mouth, eyes enormous and pulse off the scale. “What you are is all shades of messed up.”

He shoved her away from him. She tripped on a stack of books and landed in the pile behind them, her right arm catching on the armchair and her legs splayed. Payne tried not to think about her naked and like that, spread for his pleasure, the chestnut curls at the apex of her thighs glistening with arousal. Tried and failed. It had clearly been too long since he’d had sex. A good century at least. Damn. He was a ticking time-bomb of lust. He had heard tales of incubi who had gone insane from lack of sexual gratification. Payne looked down at his right hand. It was probably the only thing keeping him sane, but the pleasure he took from masturbation didn’t come close to the satisfaction he gained from intercourse.

Intercourse with this witch was officially off the menu though.

“You need to work on that temper.” She winced and pulled herself back onto her feet. “You need my help if you want to get that ring. Remember that.”

“Just tell me where he is and I’ll find him without you.” He wasn’t in the mood for this. She had crossed the line and he wanted to get the hell away from her. He should’ve known better. A pretty thing like her would want nothing to do with a monster like him.

“You won’t be able to find him without my help.”

“Draw me a map.” He was not going to change his mind about this, no matter what she did. “I’ll get the ring and whatever piece of junk you want me to bring back for you.”

She folded her arms across her chest, squashing her breasts into cleavage that made his heart thump against his ribs for a completely different reason. Her lips compressed into a mulish line, her eyebrows drawing tight.

“If you want to get that ring, you will need to learn about your incubus side. I need what that bastard took from me... I can help you with your incubus side.” Those words chilled him.

“Why do I need to?” He didn’t want to learn about his incubus side. He already knew enough. It was a curse.

She stacked the books back into messy piles. “Incubi don’t live in places that are easy to find. They live in places only accessible by incubi. You’ll need to teleport me there and you’ll need to do something else too.”

“What?” Payne didn’t like the sound of this. His day had looked good but it was rapidly going downhill and he had a feeling it was about to get much worse.

“You need to pretend I’m your mate.”

Payne stared at her, his mouth dry and heart frozen in his chest.

She couldn’t know that she was potentially just that to him.

The wicked gleam in her eyes and the sensual tilt of her glossy lips warned that she wanted more than make believe from him. He could see what she desired and he couldn’t give it to her. He wouldn’t let his darker nature out to play and he certainly wasn’t about to masquerade as her lover or enter a den and face his grandfather. He wanted nothing to do with his incubus nature. He wished it didn’t exist.

He couldn’t do this.

He turned to leave.

Elissa was there before him, her hands braced against the doorframe, blocking his exit. There was a decidedly different look on her face now. She had gone from stubborn, determined and wicked, to scared, desperate and weak. What was it that she wanted him to retrieve for her? Whatever it was, it looked as though it meant the world to her.

“This is the only way of fixing your friend’s problem and you’re my only hope of getting back what he took from me. Please, Payne.”

Payne swallowed again, his throat as rough and dry as sandpaper. He closed his eyes and hung his head, waging a war against his better judgement. He had promised to find a way of freeing Chica and he had found one. He couldn’t give up now when he was so close. But could he do as she was asking?

Could he put aside his hatred of his incubus side and learn to embrace it?

Payne clenched his fists and knew the answer to that question in his heart.

The things he did for his friends.

Elissa had firmly crossed a line and she had a feeling where. She had known from the moment she had set eyes on Payne in the street that he was more than what she could see on the surface. She hadn’t expected him to be part vampire though.

Or should that be part incubus?

She should have schooled her features when he had revealed that little titbit about himself, not pointed out that he was a half-breed with some serious issues.

Payne stood before her, his head hung and eyes closed, the soft sandy spikes of his hair catching the firelight and shining. His powerful body was taut beneath his clothes, as tight as a bowstring, his fists clenched at his sides. She could see his struggle written in every toned facet of his physique. He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Their deep grey depths sparkled with flecks of blue and gold, a sign of his incubus nature.

Elissa couldn’t imagine what sort of mental number having a dominant vampire side and recessive incubus one did on him. Incubi were in no way submissive creatures. It probably pushed for control all the time, barely held at bay by his stronger vampire instincts. She hadn’t been lying when she had said he was all shades of messed up, but she had only meant this war between his dual natures. The way he had reacted said that he had taken it to mean something far deeper than that.

What reason did he have to feel majorly screwed in the head? It had to be more than just the twin species in his genes.

The struggle shone in his beautiful eyes, as clear as day to her. He wasn’t bothering to mask his feelings as he waged a silent war in search of an answer to her proposition. The flecks of gold and blue brightened, marking his apprehension but also his desire. He wanted her. She shivered at the knowledge, feeling empowered that such a beautiful man would desire her. She had offered herself to him, wanted him too, but he had denied her.

She had never seen a male so fiercely deny his desires.

She had definitely never seen an incubus refuse an advance from a female.

Normally, they were quick to take what they were offered. She had heard tales about the sexual prowess of incubi from some of the female fae who visited her spell store near the square, every one of them wicked and filling her head with forbidden desire.

She had even met a few incubi, selling them vials of potions designed to remove inhibitions and unleash desires. Ever since the incubi had taken a vow to feed only from willing females, swearing they would never use their abilities to take an unwilling woman and make her sleep with them, she had been busy concocting and selling liquids that would help them bend their own rules.

Payne was nothing like the incubi she had met, and something within her said that it was more than just his dual natures at work.

He gazed off to her left and Elissa took the opportunity to close the purple wooden door, shutting out the noise from the street. She used her magic to lock it. Not that it would stop him from leaving. He could easily teleport away. She did it to drive her point home. She didn’t want him to leave. They needed each other.

She ran her gaze over him, starting at his black boots and dark blue jeans, and then drifting upwards to his hands. Strong hands. Long fingers. Made for squeezing, palming, stroking and caressing. She blushed and averted her gaze. It lingered on his bare right forearm and the scars that littered his skin. He must have badly injured himself at some point in his life or perhaps his not quite one hundred percent vampire genes meant that he didn’t possess the same level of healing that pure vampires had.

Her eyes roamed up his torso. His dark grey shirt fitted snugly to his lithe body, revealing just enough about his physique to arouse her curiosity. The top few buttons were undone, giving a hint of muscled chest and sexy collarbones. No bite marks on his throat. Not into that sort of thing? Maybe he didn’t take vampire lovers.

She reached his face and slowed her visual exploration of the six-feet-plus of sex god in front of her. Every feature was sinful, from his profanely sensual lips, with slightly fuller bottom one, to the strong cut of his jaw, to his straight nose and fine eyebrows that flared above his striking grey eyes. They shifted back to her and her breath hitched in her chest. The dark edge to his eyes sent a thrill through her. Mother earth, he was gorgeous.

Forbidden.

She knew the rules. Incubi were demons. Demons were a big no-no for a witch.

She wouldn’t break the rules with him. Cross her heart. She just wanted to peel away the layers of this enigmatic male and learn about him. All witches were naturally curious, but Elissa was honest enough with herself to admit that what she felt for Payne went beyond natural.

It was dangerous.

Part of her said that she should help him because he had helped her by saving her from those Rozengard coven brutes. The rest of her said to bargain with him and try to get a taste of him. She wanted to know if the reality would live up to the fantasies she had about being with one of his kind. It was a risk though. A huge one. Incubi were volatile and aggressive. She might end up in over her head and she knew what awaited her if that happened.

Her heart piped up and said to ask only for his assistance. He was her key to getting Luca back. She had sworn to her sister to protect the boy and that bastard had taken him from this very home three weeks ago. She had cried for hours before finding the resolve to get him back somehow.

Elissa had scoured every book in her sister’s home but none of them had provided her with a means of finding where Arnaud had taken the boy.

She had been out looking for new books to buy when she had run into the men from Rozengard. They had asked whether she whored herself for demons too, calling her spiteful names and pushing her to get a reaction out of her. She had honestly thought that her life had been about to end in some dank street and that Luca would be lost forever.

And then Payne had come blazing into her life.

When he had caught her wrist to stop her from whipping him, she had seen the markings on his forearm. His lineage. Arnaud had been the second name in. Fate had given her a chance to reach Luca and save him. She needed Payne to help her.

Payne growled. “I’m not interested in playing.”

No. He had to help her. She took a step towards him and hesitated when his eyes narrowed on her, bleeding red around the edges of his irises. Volatile and aggressive. She didn’t need to provoke him. He had already proven he had a nasty temper.

“Please.” If she told him what she wanted to take back from his grandfather, would he help her? Elissa realised that it would only make him more unlikely to lend a hand. He clearly despised his incubus side. He wouldn’t want to help another one, not even an innocent child.

He squared up to her and she didn’t like the way he towered over her in an obvious attempt to intimidate her. It worked. She wanted to shrink away or at least drop her gaze. It was a struggle to keep her eyes locked on his.

“Tell me what I need to do to know where the incubi den is and I will go alone.”

Elissa shook her head. His eyes blazed red. She wasn’t going to let him threaten her.

She breezed past him and he huffed. She could feel his gaze tracking her. Her body burned wherever it touched her and she wanted to smile when it slid slowly down her back and settled on her bottom. He so wanted her.

“Tell me, Witch,” he barked and Elissa ignored him, going about her business.

She stacked more of the books, taking her time to neaten the piles, aligning the sides of each tome. When she was done with that task, she went to the desk and sorted through the loose sheets of parchment, arranging her new spells into alphabetical order. She wished she had something to knock a vampire-incubus on his backside, but she made her living by mixing politer and more useful potions and so had Verity.

He growled again, this one born of frustration, and Elissa realised that he didn’t like it when she acted as though he wasn’t a threat to her. It annoyed him. She tested her theory by neatening the glass beakers on the shelves above the desk, ordering them by size from big to small.