Steal the Day (22 page)

“The fact that I was mortal was a flaw they would not accept in a priest,” Dev explained quietly. “So my mother decided that I should attempt to pass my grandfather’s genes on to a more suitable candidate. I was barely twenty-one when she decided it was time for me to procreate. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t have a problem with the sex. It wasn’t like I hadn’t screwed every pretty Fae girl in the mound. I was a priest. It was a part of my training. My brother and I were a little wild to say the least. We left the
sithein
once and ended up in a Tijuana prison. God, I miss Declan sometimes.”

“Skip the good time.” I didn’t need to hear that story. “I take it she had someone in mind.”

“She believed that if I mated with a full-blooded Fae of excellent bloodline, that I had a good chance of producing another full-blooded Fae. I didn’t like being told what to do, much less who to fuck. Gilliana was a horrible woman. When it was proven I was mortal, she advised my mother to leave me outside the mound to die.”

“Why would your mom want you to sleep with her?”

“Because she was fertile and of a royal line. I refused. I told her I would rather leave the mound and make my way in the human world. My father had left years before when he realized his use was done. He tried to take me with him, but my mother forbade it. I thought I could go to my father. The night before I was to leave, my mother used some very powerful magic on me.”

“She forced you?” No wonder he’d had a bad reaction to Felicity’s magic. It brought back his mother’s betrayal. It also explained why he preferred me submissive during sex. Dev liked to take control. He seemed to need it. He tried to hide his darker impulses in the form of play, but I’d seen his face when he’d tied me up and dominated me. He craved it.

“The worst part is I remember everything,” Dev explained in a far-off voice. “I tried to make myself stop, but I couldn’t. The next day I left without a word to my mother.”

“Did you find your father?” I didn’t ask for further details. He didn’t need to think about the fact his mother had facilitated his rape, because that was what she’d done. There had been no violence involved, but he’d been unwilling and that was rape in my book.

Dev moved on. “Time moves differently in the
sithein
. It’s like that on other planes as well. It can be unpredictable. My father was very old when I found him. I was twenty-one, but he’d aged fifty years. I spent six months with him, caring for him until he died. He hadn’t had any other children, so he left me his fortune and I started Ether.”

“Fortune?”

Dev grinned. “You can’t think I make that much money off the clubs, Zoey. Turns out I’m quite good with investments. My father left me fifty million and a multi-national company. I hired a CEO and now I just cash the checks.”

I shook my head. “And yet you spend your time chasing chump change with me?”

“I don’t do it for the money, lover. I do it all for the nookie.”

“Be serious.”

He leaned over, and his lips brushed my forehead. “I have never wanted a woman the way I want you, Zoey. I knew it on our first date. I knew it the first time I saw you. Why do you think I made such an idiot of myself the first time I met you? You make me feel alive. I can’t believe you’ve spent our time together thinking I was only interested in sex with you. How hard up do you think I am? Sex with you meant having every vampire in the world wanting to kill me.”

“I rather thought that was part of the allure,” I muttered.

Dev chuckled, a self-deprecating little laugh. “Well, at least you know me. I might get off on the danger a little, but I assure you, knowing that you’ll eventually leave me for your husband doesn’t do anything for me. Since we’re mentioning your spouse amid my confessions, let me warn you. If Gilliana did bear a child from that night, my mother would likely declare us to be married. My absence at the ceremony wouldn’t mean a thing. The queen wouldn’t want her new Green Man to be illegitimate. I should have told you, but we had enough roadblocks. Besides, it’s not like she’s going to show up and demand her wifely rights. The woman hates me. She has everything of me she will ever get. Everything else I have is yours.”

“Do you wonder?” I asked because I sure did.

“If she got pregnant and the baby was like me, my brother would have done his duty,” Dev said solemnly. “My brother cut off ties with me when I left, but not before making a promise. If Gilliana’s child was a Halfling, he was to smuggle the baby out. If the child was a full Fae, then it doesn’t need anything from me.”

I could have argued mightily with him, but it wouldn’t do any good. Dev was probably right. The Fae world was harsh, and the child would have been raised to despise weakness. I promised myself if I ever met Dev’s mother, she would get the same treatment as Neil’s dad. My father might not have been the most conventional father, but he’d always loved and protected me. I’d been lucky to have him. A thought occurred to me.

“If we survive this, Albert and I are having a major discussion about your wife.” I was greatly looking forward to the conversation. The half demon had spent much of the last seven months scowling at me disapprovingly for tempting his master into adultery. It would be nice to see those judgmental eyes turn to Dev.

“I might not be married,” Dev pointed out.

“That probably won’t come up in the discussion,” I admitted.

“You’re such a bitch.” His eyes became very serious. “I love you, Zoey. I’ve never said those words before this moment. I love you, and if you leave me for that blood sucker, I’ll lose the best part of me. I promise you, if by some miracle we survive this, I’ll be a better boyfriend. Up to this point, I’ve concentrated on the lover part because it was easy for me and I really like that part. But I can do the other part, too.”

“I love you, Devinshea.” The truth settled around my heart. Daniel might be my first love, but Dev held a chunk of my soul in his hands. Daniel protected me, but Dev let me fly.

The door above us opened, and the Renfros walked down the stairs. Mary Jo was dressed to impress in black robes and a really well-done bouffant. Even Mr. Renfro had dressed for the occasion.

I covered my complete terror with sarcasm. Maybe if I was really bratty, no one would notice the pounding of my heart. “What’s up? Is this not a family affair? Where are the rug rats?”

Mary Jo smiled, showing her even white teeth. “Like I told you, you slut, they’re with their father. In Hell.”

John Renfro pulled me to my feet while three other coven members undid Dev’s cuffs. He struggled, but they were too much and had his hands back in the cuffs before he could fight his way out. He looked at me as they began to drag him up the stairs. “Stay alive, Zoey. Daniel will find a way. Just stay alive, do you hear me? I love you, Zoey.”

I let my body go limp because I would be damned if I walked to my own execution.

Chapter Fourteen

I forced the fuckers to drag me all the way out of the barn and to the clearing they had designated for the ceremony. Night had fallen, and the forest around us looked foreboding and ominous, shadows clinging everywhere. The full moon had passed the night before, so the werepigs wouldn’t be running. They would be meeting with Daniel. It could be hours before he thought to come to my window and find out how my day had gone.

I’d rather thought the coven would wait until midnight or three a.m., the preferred times for calling a demon. I started to panic. Daniel would wait, thinking Dev and I were on some errand. The upshot being that Dev and I would be cooling corpses by the time Danny thought to look for us.

They dragged me out into the open field. Orange light sparked off several torches held by coven members. Two altars dominated the field, one for me and one for Dev. As they pulled my limp body along, they were already chaining him to the first one. Two of the black-robed members fought to hold Dev down, and then two more came over to help. As he struggled, one of the coven members shoved a needle into his arm. Fear sparked through me. What the hell had they just given him?

“Stay still or you’ll get the same and I know our demon lord would rather have a screaming victim than one who just laughs when he eats them,” the man dragging me along said.

I relaxed a little because they wanted us alive. Whatever they had given Dev shouldn’t kill him.

After a moment, Dev went limp, and I vowed I wouldn’t struggle because I needed every faculty if there was any way to get us out of this. If this coven was for real, there would be a demon coming. Demons liked to make deals. I had a couple of things to offer. I would invoke Daniel’s name. I would bring up Marcus Vorenus. Hell, I’d call the fucking Council in if it meant that Dev was alive at the end of the night. It wouldn’t be the first deal I made with a demon. I seriously doubted it would be the last.

The altars were circular and man-sized, or regular man-sized. Dev kind of hung off it. The good news was I would fit just fine. They shoved me down on the pentagram. It was upside down and perverted, just the way black magicians like them. The pentagram is a sacred symbol to witches. In the white witch world, it’s a symbol of man in spiritual harmony with the natural world around him. The inverted pentagram says screw the natural world, I’d like demons to come and fuck everything up.

I was placed on the pentagram, my arms and legs reaching out from my torso. I was passive, allowing the witches to do their work. I needed to keep the one with the needle at bay. They did their job, making sure I couldn’t move, and then they stepped back.

“Zoey,” Dev yelled, his head coming off the altar, trying to find me.

“Yes, baby.” I could see him if I really stretched. He was smiling, his eyes a little bit glassy.

His laughter filled my world. “I’m really high, sweetie. That’s some good shit they have. You should try it.”

He would have been a blast in Vegas if we’d made it there. Mary Jo came into view, her pinched face looming over me. “You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to force an angel to fall.”

“That’s rich, lady, considering you’re about to sacrifice him to a demon.”

That brown bouffant shook. “Do you think crops just grow themselves? I don’t particularly like having to do this, but if the okra doesn’t come in, what is our community going to do? The demon is just going to eat the angel. I’m sure he’ll float back up to Heaven. If you had your way, he would fall.”

“This isn’t going to go the way you want it to. I’m not who you think I am, and trust me, there isn’t a demon around who wants to mess with me.” I didn’t mention that it was my husband they didn’t want to mess with. It tends to take a little of the “badass factor” out of the speech. “Whatever demon you’re about to call, once I tell him my name, he’ll kill you.”

I hoped that was true. Demon kind wasn’t allowed to write contracts with anyone considered the property of Vampire. It really only made sense that they weren’t allowed to eat us either. I thought I was fairly safe, but I had some fast talking to do if I wanted to save my supremely stoned lover. He was giggling as a couple of coven members made sure the symbols on his chest were properly drawn.

“Stop it. That tickles,” he said.

“You aren’t an angel.” Mary Jo stared at me like I was a piece of trash.

“Neither is he,” I told her. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten in the middle of.”

Mary Jo laughed. “The truth is I’m saving him. He was going to fall if he stayed around your kind. This way his soul will go to Heaven, and my master will be happy. Your soul, if you even have one, will go with my master.”

I lifted my head as far as it would go. “I’m a companion. Do you understand what that means?”

Mary Jo’s eyes widened. “A companion? Like a vampire’s companion?”

It wasn’t shocking she was surprised. She could be surrounded by witches and demons and werepigs and it would never have occurred to her that I could be a companion. We’re extremely rare, and as such, very few companions live outside of vampire society.

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re lying.”

“Then why were there vampires in your woods last night?”

“It’s a coincidence.” But she looked around as if wondering what was hidden beyond the light of the torches.

I made one last try at reason. “Do you understand the nature of a vampire, you crazy witch? Do you think you can take me from him and he’ll let that pass? Do you have any idea what he’ll do to you?”

She stared down at me, her face lit with pride. “I am protected. I have given four innocent souls to the lord Nemcox. He won’t let some nightcrawler harm me. I’m important.”

I laid my head back down because there was no point in talking to the clinically insane. “Then bring him on because I bet he’s more rational than you are.”

The witches gathered in their circle, and after settling some coven business like nailing down the date for the next potluck, they finally got around to the business of chanting. Chanting is very important to witches. They take it seriously. They also take their damn time doing it.

“Zoey.” Dev called to me as I was trying to see if I could tell anything from the Latin they were chanting. “Zoey, I had a thought. I’ve never done it on a black altar right before a coven calls a demon. We could check it off.”