Sweet Temptation (3 page)

I choose to ignore this. “Mates threw me a party last night since we had a gig tonight,” I lie.

Marissa stands and saunters toward me on high heels. She's in her late thirties. She's pale as porcelain. Avoiding the sun has been good for her skin. If she weren't so evil I'd think she was hot.

She comes too close and looks up at me with a pout. I
know what she wants. She fancies a kiss, which I never voluntarily give to her. I lean down to quickly peck her cheek, but she grabs the back of my neck with viper claws and takes my mouth with a satisfied sound. No tongue, thank God, but she takes my bottom lip between hers and suckles it. I'm certain her lipstick is all over me now.

Father chuckles at the ridiculous display, as if Marissa is an auntie pinching my cheeks, not molesting my mouth.

“Madame has a job for you, son,” he says from his lounging position.

This causes Marissa to release my lip and turn for her purse. I take the opportunity to wipe my lips with the back of my hand and school my face to hide the revulsion I feel.

“I've a new niece coming from Hungary in a couple months.” Marissa has taken a photo from her purse, and she crosses her arms while she explains the fate of a girl who was either stolen from or sold by her desperate family. “A valued client has requested a virgin, so she is to stay innocent.”

She hands me the picture and I blink several times, rocking back on my heels. The girl can't be older than eleven. She hasn't even begun developing. She's frail and tiny with stringy blond hair and big doe eyes. Father watches me with expectancy and Marissa clicks her long nails together, a familiar sound that follows me into nightmares.

For the first time ever my disgust overrides my fear.

“She's a bloody
child
,” I spout without thinking.

Father sits up, his forehead pinching at my minor outburst.

Marissa snatches the picture back, but her eyes are amused. “She is old enough.”

Father stands and walks over now, taking the picture. “She's not
that
young. And her age is not your concern.” I hear the edge of warning in his voice, a sound that feels like shards of ice. He'd kill me in a second. I have no doubt of that.

“We're not asking you to have sex with her,” Marissa croons. “We just don't want her too terrified when her new owner touches her. Some buyers like that, but not this one.”

Ugh! I don't want to touch her
at all
.

When it comes to girls my age and older women, I'm down for anything. But this is disgusting. Father deals with lust of all kinds—he's into the sickest shit out there—but I cannot, I
will not
, physically force myself to be attracted to a child.

“Looks like your boy's more plain vanilla than you thought,” Marissa mutters.

“He'll be fine when the girl arrives, luv,” Father assures her, eyeing me. “He'll do what needs to be done.”

Fuuuuck.
Will I? I think of the little girl's face again, and my stomach cramps.

No. I won't. This is not good. I've crossed a lot of lines in my life to make Father happy and prove my worth, but this is different.

Maybe the picture is old. I can only hope, because I don't want to find out what consequences he has in store if I lose my usefulness to the demonic cause. I should have known breaking hearts wouldn't be enough.

“Yes.” Devil woman runs her nails down my arm. “He always does what needs to be done.”

“My devil loves your angel, you can't take that away . . .

See if she'll take her halo off, if only for today.”

—“Devil's Love Song” by Tishamingo

I
am still pissed off when I get to the club. When we parted this evening, Father's face was tight as he reminded me it's now May and the child will be arriving soon. In the two months since I turned seventeen and showed defiance about the young girl, Father has been pushing me. Testing me. Nothing is good enough.

We stand backstage and Raj is adding more gel to his fauxhawk, staring in the mirror and pinching the tips of his hair. His eyes are bloodshot from the spliff he just smoked. “What's wrong with
you
?” he asks.

I shake my head and look away. I can't exactly tell him my father's a demon, that he expects me to do horrible things. No
humans know what I really am.

I'm still trying to scrub the image of the enslaved girl from my mind as we take the stage. It does me no good to think about her, or the hundreds of others like her who I've hurt already.

Don't feel.

Don't think.

Don't acknowledge it's real. Just go through the motions, like always.

I slide onto my stool and twirl the drumsticks, savoring the familiar feel of the cool, smooth wood between my fingers. Deep breaths. Time to clear my head in the only way I know how. Sitting behind the drums, I am myself. The real me. Even during sex I cannot completely let go—I am hyperaware. Music is the only way.

I look out at the packed house. Girls screaming, jumping up and down in front of the stage. Loads of skin on show.

This I can do.

Starting with feather taps and working my way across the set, I rip a line of beats to warm up. Immediately the energy in the room changes, heightens. Conversations hush and heads turn toward the stage, then voices buzz back to life louder than before. A wicked beat can change the entire atmosphere in a room. Michael, feeling it too, shoots me a grin before checking his cords and mic. I feel eyes on me, heating my blood. Yeah, a good beat is sexy. Makes people wanna move their bodies . . . their hips. . . .

Plain vanilla my arse.

Damn it. I have to stop thinking about that.

Michael throws his strap over a shoulder, electric guitar slung low. He picks off a few notes, eyeing Raj on bass until they both nod, satisfied with the sync.

When we're set, Michael motions the DJ, who tells the room to give it up for Lascivious. And they do. Nice and loud.

I purposely don't eye the energized crowd as Michael takes to the mic with the welcome. I have to focus. Can't be distracted by all the chicks and their curves.

Michael gives me the go with a flick of his chin and I raise the sticks above my head to count us in.

“One, two, three, four!”
Bam.

First song is high energy, throwing me into a chop out and ending with muscle burn. All the shit in my life disappears and there's only the creation of beats—beats that vibrate from soul to soul across the room, bringing flesh to life, every cell thumping in a rhythm they can barely contain. We're on fire.

I imagine joy is something akin to this. Just letting go.

My forehead is already damp by the end of the first song. I push my hair aside and get set for the second song, which begins slower.

When the room settles I start on the warm cymbal, a shushing buildup to a quiet beat. Michael always makes it to second base with the microphone when he sings this ballad bit. And then the real fun begins—dramatic silent pause and stillness, followed by a raw, all-out punishment of the drums, screamed lyrics, and a high-decibel refrain loud enough to rip the rafters from the roof.

This is The Zone. The place where I can truly breathe.

My body takes over, and hit after hit falls just right until the
crash
of the cymbals. I whirl the drumsticks over my head with a flourish, then tuck them under my arm.

Damn, what a rush. I feel good. Focused. Until my stupid hair catches in my eyes and I can't blink it away. I swat it aside. We have a minute before the next song while Michael bullshits with the fans a bit, keeping them worked up.

Two girls in front shout my name. Mother Nature has blessed them both with perfect tits, and they, in turn, bless us all by wearing tiny shirts. Such kindness deserves a grin. Maybe they'll make it backstage later. I shift on the stool as I imagine it.

Argh.
Stay focused.

The third song begins. Raj picks the tune on his bass line, and then I come in strong, willing myself to get lost in the intricate details. When it ends I quiet the tinging cymbals between my fingers. With a tilt of my head I flick the hair from my eyes and grab my water bottle from the floor.

I scan the crowd, attempting not to check out the gorgeous cleavage display for the time being, hoping to avoid the faces of a few girls who've been stalking me. But my scanning skids to a halt at the sight of a fresh-faced blonde staring right at me. She's a complete doll with a wild mane of long hair and a spicy red aura. But the bit I notice next sends an iced razor down my spine.

Bloody hell . . . is that a
badge
on her chest? I stare in disbelief at the small, round supernatural burst of light emanating from the core of her torso. It isn't black like most badges—it's a dark yellow swirled with white. I'm suddenly stiff and
on guard, imagining the knife in the ankle of my left boot. I search around the strange girl, looking for a possible guardian angel, but she has none.

Shit. A bloody fucking Neph is at my gig. Sent by my father, no doubt.

SHIT!

I try to swallow but can't, so I force down a few gulps of water. For half a moment I forget where the fuck I am. Then Michael is giving me the go for the next song. I drop the bottle to the floor and pull the sticks from under my arm.

I've lost all focus. I don't know how I stay on beat. I glance over to keep an eye on the Neph, but she's gone, pushing her way through the crowd. What is she up to? It takes every ounce of self-control not to abandon the band and follow her. She goes into the loo, but it's likely a ruse. I thought I knew every Neph close to my age, but I've never seen her. I'd remember that face. That hair.

I silently curse the song for being so long, but at least it's our last before the next band comes on. I shove my auditory senses over the massive crowd and straight into the girls' loo. I listen, trying to make sense of the silly conversation while thrashing out the backbone of the song.

“I heard that guy Kaidan has gonorrhea.”

I miss a beat and my bandmates shoot me questioning glares. I can't remember the last time I've dicked up a song, but I'm too concentrated on the bathroom drama.

Gonorrhea?

Clearly the Neph is trying to keep the other girls from coming backstage to meet me. Fewer obstacles in her way as
she attempts to find me and . . . do what? Kill me? Test me somehow for Father and the other Dukes?

And now what is she going on about? She's taking back what she'd said about me and apologizing? What the . . . ? This doesn't make a bit of sense.

Finally the blasted song is wrapping up and I can put an end to this rubbish.

The blond Neph heads back into the club just as we're rushed off the platform. I keep my hearing tight around the girl as I walk backstage. She meets up with some guy called Jay. Their conversation sounds ordinary. She's a good actress, but she can't fool me.

Anna. He calls her Anna.

Jay is taking “Anna” backstage. Perfect. I feel the weight of my knife in my boot as Michael, Raj, and Bennett high-five down the hall and bump shoulders next to me.

Time to play, little Neph.

Ah, cripe. Three local models are waiting for me backstage. I forgot I'd invited them. My mind is too preoccupied to fully appreciate the females encircling me as I sense the Anna girl walking in with two human boys.

The girl next to me lifts a cigarette. I have a matchbook out of my pocket and lit before she can reach for her lighter—a pub talent I'd perfected at age fourteen after seeing my father do it. But I can't pretend to be more interested in the girls—I'm too distracted by Anna as I watch her human boys leave her there, looking out of place and uncomfortable in her own skin. And her aura! Her emotions are on display all around her. Why the hell is she letting them show like that? Some sort of trick to
confuse me, no doubt. Can you trick your body into displaying false emotions?

The models chat me up and I reply absently, but I can't for the life of me take my eyes off Anna. And then she raises her eyes to mine, giving my pulse a punch.

Her aura goes berserk, and she drops her eyes abruptly, as if shy.
As if.
Does she think I'm a fool? She looks back up, and I swear she appears terrified, which irks the hell out of me. She thinks she can play me?
Balls to the wall
. Time for confrontation.

A slender hand grabs my arm and calls my name in a whine. I raise an index finger and excuse myself.

The Neph's eyes dart all around as I approach, which only makes me stare harder. What is the point of this frightened, innocent act? I don't know what she's playing at but she's about to lose.

Finally she holds my eyes, locked.

“Who are you?” I ask.

Her mouth pops open. “I'm . . . Anna?”

Trying to be cute, eh? Not buying it. But damn, she
is
cute. Fifteen. Maybe sixteen. Legs and arms are a bit too thin in the denim skirt and tank top, but she'll fill out as she gets older, no doubt. Her long, honeyed hair falls smoothly to her waist and her face has lovely symmetry. Brown eyes that tip slightly downward at the corners. Small nose. Rosebud lips. The wholesome, all-natural look is quite brilliant if she's trying to put me at ease, but I'm not buying it.

“Right. Anna. How very nice.” I lean closer. “But who
are
you?”

“I just came with my friend Jay?”

She begins to babble and fidget as I stare at her nervous aura and that amber-and-white-swirled badge at her lower chest. I've never seen a Duke with an amber badge, and white is unheard of—the light of angels. Anna crosses her arms where I'm staring and I look up.

Her lips are pursed like she's offended . . . and she has the loveliest beauty mark at the top edge of her lips. God, I want to touch it . . . to kiss her mouth and lick that dark freckle. Naturally, that thought leads to imagining her naked, silky hair falling all around her. She wouldn't be able to keep up the innocent act in bed with me. I'd have her true vixen side showing in no time.

Hey, arsehole, she's likely here to gather intel that could lead to your death
, I remind myself, clearing my head and shifting before my body has a chance to take over. I have a firm “no Neph” rule.

This girl is strange, no doubt, but I can't help getting closer. If she's pretending to be human, I want to see how far she'll take this impromptu act.

“Where's your angel?” I ask.

“If you mean Jay, he's over there talking to some man in a suit. But he's not my boyfriend or my angel or whatever.”

She seems genuinely flustered. If this is all a charade, why are her colors jumping around like that? Light gray, medium gray, fuzzy, sharp, and yeah boy . . . a nice swirl of red. She wants me, but I can tell she's not happy about it.

Completely baffling.

Why doesn't she just show her hand? Tell me what she
wants? Why play this game when she knows I can see she's a Neph? I've even seen her gazing at my badge. I step back as a thought occurs that freaks me the fuck out. What if she doesn't know what she is? What we are?

No.

That isn't possible. Perhaps back in the day when Dukes had countless offspring there could have been unaccounted-for Neph orphans. Everything is tightly regulated since the Great Purge a century ago, when the Dukes wiped every Neph from the face of the earth. Thousands of us were killed because our numbers overwhelmed our demon fathers. Apparently the Neph were growing out of control, not being careful with their powers, and even sliding under the radar when it came to working. Now there were only a hundred something Neph children, and the Dukes were careful not to overpopulate again.

Someone
has
to know about this girl. Perhaps she's been kept hidden from other Neph, to be used as a secret weapon against us—to confuse the hell out of us and then go for the kill.

I wonder how far she's willing to take this before she fesses up. I glance over at the humans she came with.

“Not your boyfriend, eh?” At this, she appears angry. “Are you certain he doesn't fancy you?”

I grin and she juts out her chin, standing a little taller, which isn't very tall at all.

“Yes, I am.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

She seems to ponder this question before spouting smartly,
“I just know, okay?” Her arms are still firmly crossed over her chest.