House of Dark Delights (2 page)

He grew hard, imagining Heather thrashing beneath him as he pumped a torrent of seed deep inside her. Lili had his heart, but he could never possess her, not with his body.

“Do you know him, this Inigo?” Larsson asked Lili. “
Did
you, I mean, before you came to this place?” As far as the chateau's houseguests were concerned, Elic, Lili, Inigo, and the reclusive Darius were just invited visitors, like them.

Lili shook her head as she accepted a glass of red wine from Jolie.

“You?” he asked Elic.

“No.” It was the truth. Elic had known no other follets, as their host called them, before coming to Grotte Cachée.

“Does our host know him?” Larsson asked.

“Seigneur des Ombres has known Inigo his whole life,” Elic told Larsson.

“His whole life?” Larsson said. “I was thinking
le seigneur
was elderly. No?”

“He's thirty-six,” Elic said, “but an old soul.” A very lonely old soul, his isolation being not so much by choice as by duty. The sense of responsibility that kept him here at his ancestral home, providing for Elic and his kind, made it difficult to establish relationships.

Stretching his arms out on the edge of the pool, Larsson said, with a measure of authority, “He's gay, this Inigo.”

“What makes you say that?” Elic asked.

“You know. Always the girly chatter,” Larsson said, miming a flapping mouth with one hand. “And the earring on the left, it means he likes to take it in the ass, no?”

“I don't know,” Heather said, murmuring her thanks as she took a bottle of Vichy from Jolie. “He seems quite taken with those Australian girls.”

Larsson dismissed that observation with a flick of his hand. Without so much as a glance in his fiancée's direction—for he appeared to have forgotten his “beloved Heather” the moment Lili entered the dining room last night—he said, “The gays, they love girls like that. It's what they all want to be, a silly little
fladermuss
with big balloon tits.” He cupped his hands in illustration.

Heather said, “Viktor, how would Lars feel if he heard you—”

“Why would you bring him up?” Larsson snapped.

“Because you love him, you told me so, and you said you were going to try to learn to accept—”

“
You
need to learn when to shut your big mouth.”

An uneasy silence fell over the group. The blood rose in Heather's cheeks. Jolie emptied Inigo's ashtray and left.

Larsson took a swig of his papaya juice and said, to the group as a whole, “My brother, he's a little confused right now. He'll come around.”

Heather sighed.

“Real men,” Larsson continued, “normal men, they like a woman who is…how do you say it? Elegant. Serene. Smooth skin—golden, not too pale—with shapely legs and a very tiny waist. A good handful on top, soft but firm, like crème brûlée. And long hair, very long, like a sheet of satin.” That this was a spot-on description of Lili did not escape the notice of Heather, who looked away, her jaw set.

Lili met Larsson's gaze over the rim of her wineglass before casting her eyes down in a coy gesture as old as humankind. It shouldn't have infuriated Elic, but it did.

“Me, I have no quarrel with the gays,” Larsson said. “They stay in their place, I stay in mine,
ja
? Everybody gets along fine.”

“How tolerant of you,” Elic deadpanned.

Larsson didn't seem to register the sarcasm, but Heather captured Elic's gaze and held it for a good long moment. Finally, she said, with an engaging little smile, “You have the loveliest accent, Elic—mostly French, but with hints of something vaguely Germanic.”

“I was born elsewhere.” Elic knew what she was doing: giving Larsson a taste of his own medicine. Good for her. “You must work out, Heather. You look exceptionally fit.”

“Thank you.” The smile intensified. “I'm on the women's crew team at Johns Hopkins.”

Larsson got a flinty look in his eye, a thrust to his jaw. He didn't like his fiancée paying attention to another guy. Never mind how he'd just snapped at her, or the way he and Lili had been sniffing around each other for the past twenty-four hours. For some reason, this particular
gabru
incited more than the usual ache of desire in her. Perhaps it was his cornsilk hair; she'd always been partial to men who were as fair as she was dark. Or perhaps it was something more obscure. Fleshly passion was complicated; Elic knew that better than most. He didn't like it, but he couldn't blame her for her primal drives any more than he could blame himself for his own.

Lili was adept at revealing only as much as she cared to—but Elic, who knew her better than anyone, saw it all, felt it all, loathed it all…the spots of color staining those majestic cheekbones, the dilation of her pupils, turning her eyes to onyx, and most tellingly, a quiver of desire that sizzled through the water like an electric current.

The water bubbling from the grotto's spring was exceptionally sensitive, an uncanny conductor of moods and sensations, especially those of a carnal nature. Even humans could detect the sensual undercurrents coursing through the pool. The more responsive among them could even sense the erotic hum that tended to linger there long after its occupants had left. Simply lowering oneself into the water when it was laden with such a charge could incite a breathtaking surge of lust, although humans were generally unaware of its true source.

No, he couldn't blame Lili. Nor should he really blame Larsson. Yes, it was cold, the way he'd turned his back on Heather, but Ilutu-Lili, when she set her gaze upon a man, was damnably hard to resist. Nevertheless, every time Larsson looked at her that way, every time his lust crackled through the water, Elic wanted to drive his fist into the bastard's face. Instead, he smiled and chatted and bided his time.

Having walked this earth for nearly three thousand years, Elic had learned to disregard the urge to teach lessons and settle scores…until exactly the right time.

                  

It's time,
Elic thought as he stood in the Chambre de Mille Fleurs, contemplating the rise and fall of Viktor Larsson's chest in the moonlight. The shape of the sleeping man's penis, draped softly over his right thigh, was just visible through the rumpled white sheet.

You can't have this one, Lili.

This one is mine.

Is she still watching?
Elic wondered as he set his silent feet upon the floor and uncoiled to his full height.
Can she see me through the window?
Lili's vision was preternaturally keen, as keen as a hawk's, and then some. He whipped off the cap and shook out his hair, which fell halfway down his back.
“Narru dishpu,”
she called it.
A river of honey.
His skin she likened to sweet cream, his eyes to seawater.

Normally he would close the window and draw the curtain even on a sweltering night like this, for there was inevitably a certain amount of noise once things were underway. But tonight he felt the need to disturb—to disturb Lili in particular, to let her hear this
gabru
with whom she was so captivated groan and beg and perhaps even, if Elic was skillful enough, scream. Viktor Larsson wouldn't seem so strong and mighty then. He'd have been vanquished, possessed, used. What was that Americanism Inigo was so taken with? Ah, yes.

He'll be my bitch.

And Lili will know it.

Elic shucked off his T-shirt and jeans, drew a deep, cleansing breath, and cleared his thoughts to prepare himself. So as to avoid injury during the transmutation, he lowered himself to the floor, carpeted in a centuries-old Oriental rug, and knelt on his haunches, naked and ready. Closing his eyes, he whispered the words he'd learned as a boy, the rhythmic, age-old incantation that brought about The Change.

It began as always, with a slow roiling from within, then the trembling and nausea and terrible sense of wrongness. And the pain. There was always pain, but somehow that was easier to deal with than The Change Sickness, as he thought of it.

Elic hunched forward, his fingers digging into his knees, eyes squeezed tight, lungs pumping, as the worst of it peaked and then faded. The only lingering discomfort was the sense of being starved for air as his bones compressed and his muscles softened. The narrowing of his ribs always incited a sense of panicked asphyxiation, but within a minute or so his breathing steadied; his pulse slowed.

Then came the part that he always found both unnerving and thrilling, even after all these years: the tightening and pulling inward of his loins, as of a dark, secret furrow being ploughed into damp earth. His cock, throbbing from the excitement of The Change, contracted into a tight, pulsing little knot; his nipples itched as the flesh there swelled into buds, then breasts, heavy and soft.

Where there had been Elic, there was now a new incarnation, identical to the former in certain respects—same hair, same eyes—yet with a body whose form and chemistry were fundamentally different. He was
She
now, the female Elic might have been but for a fluke of nature at the moment of conception. Elic was not so much replaced during these occasional metamorphoses, as subsumed, incorporated into a being whose feelings and desires were purely female, but whose thoughts and memories—whose
self
—were still very much Elic.

Sitting back on her heels, she stretched her back and rotated her shoulders to the accompaniment of muted pops and cracks. She massaged her hands, flexed the delicate little fingers, and brought them to her breasts, which she lifted and squeezed. The part of her that was still Elic, still
He,
marveled, as always, at the softness of them, their weight and resilience. She pinched the rubbery little nipples, feeling a sting of arousal all the way down to her clit.

And then she turned her attention to the man in the bed across the room.

Viktor Larsson hadn't moved this whole time. The big Swede still lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs outstretched, like a Viking washed up on the shore. Shafts of moonlight illumined the hard musculature of his chest, the broad shoulders and striking face. He was magnificent—powerful, yet with an innate athletic grace even in sleep. Elic's female persona, the succubus, understood Lili's captivation with Larsson in a way that Elic himself could never hope to, especially given that Lili's high-test hormones made her that much more susceptible to the allure of a man who was, despite his flaws, utterly breathtaking.

Rising carefully to her feet, she shook out her legs and arms. She was tall for a woman, almost six feet, but that was still half a foot shorter than Elic. The difference in height conspired with the smaller, peculiarly balanced body to produce a slight disorientation for the first few minutes after The Change. When she felt as if she could walk without falling over, she took two guarded steps toward the bed, only to recoil with a gasp of pain as something sharp stabbed the sole of her right foot. Larsson turned his head, let out a grunty little breath, and stilled. Bending down, she lifted the offending object: Heather's engagement ring.

Mega-carat diamonds didn't end up on the floor unless they were thrown. It would appear that Heather was rethinking her future as Mrs. “Real Man” Larsson.

She slipped the ring onto her right hand and held it up; it flashed like lightning in the moonlight. Crawling up onto the bed with catlike stealth, she knelt next to Larsson and stroked her fingertips ever so lightly over the bulge between his splayed legs. Even through the sheet, and even in its flaccid state, his cock felt so warm, so vital. She stroked it again, and again, very slowly, a featherlight caress, until it began to thicken and stir.

Twisting the ring so that the diamond faced inward, she let the big stone graze him up and down along his member until it shifted like a live thing, rising hard and long against his belly. He made a little growly sound as she lowered the sheet and trailed her fingertips along the shiny-smooth organ. It radiated heat, twitching as she caressed it.

She took her time, stroking him lightly so as not to rouse him too soon from his slumber. The more sexually excited he was when he awoke, the more malleable he would be. And, too, it was critical that he be right at the edge when she took him; the more violent his orgasm, the more profuse the ejaculate—and that, after all, was her ultimate purpose in being here.

But not her only purpose, she thought as she slid her middle finger into the slick, hot cleft of her sex; there was her pleasure, too. The outer lips had already swelled and parted, exposing the little bud between them, which she circled with a gentle, fluttery touch until she was breathless and wet and ready. Larsson was ready, too, judging from the way his hips tensed and released with every brush of her fingertips.

She straddled his chest, leaned over, and said, “Viktor. Wake up,
chéri.
” Her English bore vague northern European inflections, like Elic's, and her voice had the same husky quality as his, though of course it wasn't as deep. When necessary for purposes of discretion, she could keep a
gabru
asleep, or half-asleep, while she tapped his seed, but the quantity nearly always suffered. More often, she would rouse him, but with just a touch on the forehead, convince him it was all a dream. Rarely did she take the risk, as she was doing now, of letting him remember it all the next day.

“Vem är det?”
Larsson mumbled groggily as he rubbed his eyes. “Heather?”

“Not tonight.” Reaching behind her, she closed her hand around his cock and stroked it firmly from root to tip. “Tonight you're mine.”

He moaned, thrusting twice into her fist before he gathered his wits enough to say, “Wait…what…who the hell…?”

“I don't look familiar?” she asked.

He studied her with a bewildered scowl, his eyes luminous in the shaft of moonlight drifting over his face. God, he was beautiful.