Rise of the Lost Prince (7 page)

The demoness stepped forward. One
step. Two. Circled Grapple, slow and saucily. Grabbed a hand full of his hair
and pulled. Grapple hissed. She yanked at his hair until his head went back and
his throat was exposed, tracing the tip of a claw along his jaw.

“Do you desire me?” she asked.

“You know I do.”

She lashed the belt around his
father’s neck—leashing him.

Ariette walked to his kneeling
father’s side, tugged, walking him on his knees, then stopped. Never letting
loose of the belt around his neck, she positioned herself in front of him,
lifted one foot up, and pressed the pointed toe of her purple spiked-heel shoe
to Grapple’s lips.

“Pay proper homage to me.”

He kissed the tip.

“More.”

He grabbed her ankle with his
good hand, fingers wrapping around the joint, mouth working the top of her
foot. She laughed, yanking her leg free of him, before placing the sole to his
chest. She pressed. Raked the spiked heel down the front of his shirt, popping
buttons free as she went. Moved the material aside using the tip of her pointed
shoe. Applied pressure to his stomach with that sharp-looking heel once his
flesh was bared. Slashed. Grapple jerked, stomach muscles jumping, but he
remained silent. Blood trickled over the ridges, into his navel, pooling there
before dripping onto the ground.

Kros held in his groan as Ariette
flipped her robe aside, placed the foot his father had kissed onto the seat of
the throne, exposed herself fully, and pulled on the leash until she brought
the despicable bastard’s nose to the glistening pink flesh of her sex.

“Now,” she said. “You shall begin
your payment.” Grapple burrowed his face between her legs, lapping at her. Kros
stroked himself. She tugged at the leash. He gained a sick pleasure hearing
Grapple grunt a breathy sound. “Finger me.” When Grapple inserted a finger into
her, the demoness moaned. He worked her, in and out, while Kros fisted his
cock, imagining the slick warmth of her cunt gripping him. “More,” she
demanded. His father met her terms. Two fingers plunged into her. She
shuddered. “Harder.” Three fingers shoved deep as Grapple licked her clit had
Ariette making a low growling noise in her throat.

“You will make me come one time
for every darkling you lost this night,” she said, head falling back, the hand
not yanking the leash around his father’s neck, cupping a breast.

Biting his lip until he tasted
his own blood, Kros spilled himself inside his palm, feeling somewhat
vindicated for the asshole’s harshness and earlier cruelty, figuring Grapple
was indeed in for a long night of groveling with the tip of his tongue.

Chapter Six

Wyndi stepped out of the shower
enclosure into a heavily steamed bathroom to find her dirty pant suit gone. In
its place, displayed neatly on the counter next to a fluffy towel, a black
T-shirt and some sweatpants had been placed alongside her white lacy bra and
panties. On top of the shirt was a brand new toothbrush. She smiled at the
thoughtfulness. It had to have been Petúr who left her the stuff. This was his
bathroom.

Her attention darted back to her
undergarments. Heat infused her cheeks. Petúr had to have seen the underwear
she’d had on. The heat deepened when she gazed over her shoulder to study the
half opaque glass door. Had he seen her inside the shower?

Pushing the thought aside, she
dried off and quickly dressed. She’d never keep the sweatpants on. They were
far too big, so she folded them and placed them back on the countertop.
Besides, the shirt was huge and hung to her knees like a nightgown, so she was
covered.

After vigorously brushing her
teeth and tongue, rinsing, and doing the whole brushing routine over again, she
opened the bathroom door. Steam trickled past her as she walked into the
cavernous bedroom. In the middle sat a huge four poster bed. Instead of night
stands, ruby candelabra were positioned on each side. Overhead, black crystal
chandeliers dangled. On the walls, tapestries hung over the black and ruby
wallpaper. If she had to give the design of this room a title it would be
gothic-chic.

To her right, a panel in the wall
opened. For an instant fear struck, only to settle when Petúr walked in,
looking, well, darkly beautiful.

“Hi,” he said, as his gaze slowly
moved up and down her body. Once again, heat overtook her cheeks.

“You have a secret panel.” It
wasn’t a question.

“Short cut to the command
center,” he offered.

“Oh.” She glanced down at her
pink painted toenails before glancing back up. “Thank you for the clean clothes
and the toothbrush. The sweatpants were way too big and wouldn’t stay on my
hips.”

“You’re welcome.”

Silence. He was watching her. She
needed to say something. Anything.

“How did you guys turn this
haunted castle attraction into a real place to live, and without people
knowing? For that matter, how do you have water and power?”

Petúr chuckled, walking over to
the black velvet chaise longue. “The twins are tech geniuses. They can create
things that would blow your mind.”

She nodded. “Like the nanos to
heal the body.”

“Yeah. Like the nanos.”

Wyndi sat beside him, bending her
legs up, and tugging the shirt down to cover her knees before wrapping her arms
around them. “So, Dash said the twins are responsible for making the hologram.”

“Yep.” He paused, and she
wondered if he was afraid to tell her too much.

“It’s okay. If you don’t want to
tell me about all of this,” she waved her hand to encompass the room, “I won’t
push. And you don’t need to sic Vibe on me again either.”

One of his golden-brown brows
arched high. “You know about Vibe?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“And they would be?”

“I’m pretty sure he did something
to my thoughts, but I promise I won’t let anyone know about this place, or what
I’ve seen.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Besides, if I told anyone about the
things I’ve seen tonight, they would lock me up in the nut house and throw away
the key.”

There was another long pause.

“It’s a hologram, yes,” he said.
And the fact he trusted her enough to answer, thrilled her. “But it’s also like
a force field dome. No matter what angle you may see this place from, even from
the sky, it appears to be a rundown haunted attraction matching the rest of the
ruins of Neverland.” He smiled, and the beat of her heart sped up at seeing
such a miraculous event. His smile transformed his fallen angel’s face into
brilliance, as if he were the rising sun. “Tera and Byte can hack into any
computer, cutting through security and firewalls with ease, and do this with
the power of their minds.”

Wyndi gaped. “Get out.”

“They can.”

“And Dash can poof.”

“Teleport,” he corrected. “He
might not appreciate the term ‘poof.’”

“Ah,” she said, the corners of
her mouth twitching. “No poofing. Got it. Teleporting then.”

Petúr nodded.

“Vapor. Well, he can turn into
vapor. Firefox is some sort of flame thrower. And you? What can you do?”

He tilted his head, his long hair
swishing over one eye. “As to how we have this place,” he said, not answering
her latest question, but obviously going back to one of her original queries.
“The twins play the stock market, and they do it well. The money they make,
along with selling some of their tech devices on the black market to soldiers
of fortune, keep us afloat, and helped us modify this place.”

Interesting to be sure, and part
of her wanted to blurt out more questions, nonetheless she held her tongue.
“Okay.”

“As to water, Tera came up with
some fancy water filtration system, so the water comes from the sea. The power
source is solar. And, of course, the hologram keeps up the ruin façade like I
said, but it also encases the sound and any light generated within the dome
shield so no one suspects we are here. Electronic smoke and mirrors I guess you
could say.”

“Wow.” She tucked a piece of wet
hair behind her ear. “Why here? Why live in Neverland?”

He shrugged. “We’ve always been
different. Never fully fit into your world.” Those words, along with the
forlorn sound of his voice, broke her heart. “This place is isolated, yet close
enough to civilization to allow us to do what we do best.”

“Fight those darklings, you
mean.”

“Yep.”

“I have more questions,” Wyndi
said.

His low chuckle was fantastic.
“I’m sure you do.”

“But.” She stood up from the
chaise. “They’re going to have to wait. I can’t leave Bell alone. I’ve already
been gone far too long.”

“All right,” he said, standing.
“I’ll go with you.”

She placed her hand on his
forearm, feeling his warmth seep into her palm, and immediately pulled back.
Petúr’s stare penetrated her and set the fine hairs on the back of her neck to
stand on end, but not from fear. From total awareness of him. When he looked at
her, every part of her body tingled and came to life.

“Uh, rain check,” she said.

“Huh?”

“We’ll finish our Q&A session
another time.”

There was that smile again. Had
someone released a bazillion butterflies in her stomach?

“Sure,” he said. “Another time.”

****

Bell awoke with a gasp. She sat
up and glanced around. She was in a strange room, dimly lit with candles.
Gah.
Who picked such morose black
wallpaper? There were no windows to tell her if it were night or day, one wall
had been completely covered with an assortment of kickass weapons, and
Wyndi
….

Hang on. She returned her
attention to the corner. Stared. Blinked.
Rubbed her eyes.
Yep. Wyndi was balled up, wearing a really baggy shirt, bare legs tucked toward
her chest, sleeping in a leather wingback chair not too far from the bed Bell
was in.

Bed
clacked
around in her addled thoughts. She glanced down, saw she was nude, and tugged
the…. Seriously? She was in a bed with
Pirates
of the Caribbean
sheets? Oh, well. She tugged the sheet up.

Dang
it.
Her shoulder was really stiff and sore—hit by a Mack truck kind of sore. She
rotated the joint. Grimaced. The memories of the night came flooding back. She
looked at the gauze bandages wrapped around her.
That rat bastard.
Rage filled her. Grapple the Dark had shot her
with some kind of barbed hook.

Her head lifted when Petúr came
walking in, once again dressed in black. Black leather button fly pants cupped
him in a way she really shouldn’t notice. A black Godsmack T-shirt imprinted
with a burning skull clung to his muscled chest and arms. And those big booted
feet. Fairy godmother help her. Her prince was without doubt a mouthwatering
specimen of the male form.

Quickly, he glanced over toward
Wyndi, then back at Bell. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said in a whisper,
sitting down on her side of the bed. “Everyone’s been worried.”

Bell frowned and whispered back,
“Worried about me?”

“You were wounded badly, Bell.
You passed out cold on the way here. Lost a lot of blood.”

“Where is here, exactly?”

She clutched the
sheet to her chest.
                                                                                       

“Neverland.”

Her eyebrows flew up into her
hair line. “Neverland? Really?”

He nodded.

Wyndi stirred. Both of them
turned toward her. Her head lolled to one side, hair sliding over her face, but
she never woke.

“She refused to leave you,” Petúr
said, softly. “After a couple of hours of watching you sleep, I finally talked
her into taking a shower and changing into one of my clean shirts, but as soon
as she finished her shower, she came right back and sat in that chair.”

Bell smiled. “She did?”

“Yep.”

“Grapple and those shadow asshats
are after her for some reason.”

Petúr’s brow creased and his
golden eyes flickered anger. “I know. We saved her from one of Grapple’s
offspring before you saw us enter the bar.”

“Offspring?” Bell asked,
confused.

“Yes.”

“Those deformed shadows you fought
are his children?”

“Hybrid children born of a demon
by his blood and dark magic.”

Bell sucked in a breath. “Long
ago, I’d heard of his dabblings with dark magic and a demon of nightmare and
shadows named Ariette. I knew of his banishment from our homeland, although I
never thought….” She worked her bottom lip over with her teeth. “Well, I don’t
know what I thought, to be honest.”

 
Petúr’s face went stone serious. “What you
said to Grapple tonight.” He paused as if to gather his thoughts. “About me and
my mother. Was what you said true?”