"Indigo didn't do that, okay? Some other a.s.shole did that. I'm over it. I was doing fine, thanks."

"Oh." Blaze bit the inside of his lip, flushing guiltily like a kid who knows he's done wrong. "Sorry. I thought-"

"So you should be. What's your problem with him anyway?"

"Don't care how hot he is. Bet he wanted something."

Warm embarra.s.sment splashed my cheeks. d.a.m.n it. I mean, I knew that now, but hearing Blaze say it squirmed sordid disappointment through my limbs. How were these things obvious to everyone but me? "Yeah, okay. You're right. Don't rub it in."

Blaze slipped both elbows onto my shoulders and heated himself a few degrees in sympathy, wrapping me in flickering warmth as he stroked my hair. "Hey. Don't be upset. Let's have a good time. Come dance with me."

I scowled. "No."

"Pretty sparkles say yes." That wheedling tone glossed his voice, and he slipped crafty fingers into his pocket and came up with a shiny gla.s.s vial. Emerald fairy sparkle glittered inside like a magic potion. He tilted it before my eyes with a tempting little smile, and the glimmering liquid swirled, mesmerizing, bubbles jumping in the strobe lights.

I eyed it suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Just a little bliss. I got it for you. Pleeease?" He flashed me his pretty black eyes under a rakish scarlet sweep of hair.

I sighed, a reluctant smile twisting my lips, and plucked the vial from his fingers. It was hard staying angry with Blaze when he turned on the charm. He meant well, bless him. Probably better nothing happened between me and Indigo anyway, no matter the tender under-skin he'd at last shown me. The two-faced b.a.s.t.a.r.d would only have hardened up afterwards and broken my heart.

For the so-called sensible one, I'd sure fallen for an untouchable metal prince. Stupid, faefoolish me.

I ripped the cork out and snorted. Sugary bliss burned a hole through my sinuses. Water misted my eyes, sun and gra.s.s and violets glaring like rainbows. My muscles flushed with warmth, and slow pleasure stroked my s.e.x, sly and breathless like a gentle b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. My wings swelled, quivering in violet delight. If I were a boy, I'd have a hard-on. My head swirled, candy tanging fresh in my mouth. I felt warm, safe, uncomplicated. Life was easy. Everyone was my friend. Nothing mattered. Not mirrors, not s.e.xy coldhearted blue fairies. Just this.

I smiled, lazy, and held the vial to Blaze's nose. "Love ya to bits, ya know that?"

He inhaled, sucking up the last green waft of sparkle, and his eyes shimmered wet, his pupils blossoming scarlet. He grinned with drunken cunning and tossed the vial aside to smash on the floor, flames ribboning from his fingers. "Likewise, sweetie. Come here and dance with me, and I'll keep all those h.o.r.n.y boy s.l.u.ts off you."

Colors a.s.saulted me from s.p.a.ce, swirling. My limbs quivered, blood flowing fresh, burning for contact and sensation. I slid my hands around his narrow-muscled ribs, tickling him with my claws, and his lit-phosphorous scent tasted like home and safety as well as like challenge. "Who'll keep you off me, then?"

"Guess you'll have to." He sniffed my hair, poking his nose in beside my ear, and his lips curved in a grin against my cheek. "You stink of copper. See if we can't sweat that off, huh?"

I giggled. Sweet, dirty Blaze. "Can I trust you?"

"Nope. You care?"

"Never." I rested my head on his shoulder, our bodies snug and warm together, his hot blood soothing my still-racing heart.

11.

In a mirrored corner, Ebony grins and stretches against warm gla.s.s, relishing the warm, clean desire flowering inside. Oh, now he understands Indigo's trouble-yes, he does. She's very tasty, this Icygirl. So fresh and clean and sweet like plums he could eat all day and not get sick. And the madness sn.i.g.g.e.ring in her veins calls to him like nothing else. She's seen the mirror. She'd know him. She'd understand.

But that was close. He giggles, hiding his face with cheeky hands. They nearly spotted him, Indigo and his succulent death wish girl. She caught him unawares, her pretty tears warming his heart. The bright candy taste of her confusion drenched him with impulsive desire, and he showed himself before it was time. Lucky the snarky faeboy had interrupted.

Lucky, and maddening. She's glorious, and Eb nearly stole her from Indigo in one sneaky little switch. Now he'll have to try again.

He straightens, stretching out the sweet cramp in his loins. Beyond time Indigo got laid. Eb hasn't time for such squalid things. He has a queen to worship. Queen Icygirl, mirror lady of chaos.

Beyond the comforting shadows, Ice and her friend walk away, and Ebony smiles and watches the muscles in her legs move, tight and tasty under the thin golden membrane of her skin. He can feel that movement on his palms, as if he's sliding them up over her thighs, pulling her down onto him to kiss and bite and love her despair away. . . .

Mmm. Naughty. No way to think about your queen.

But Indigo played his tricks on her, the svelte gold-brushed pretty, turning her on, making her breath shorten and her juicy nipples tighten and her body ache, and Ebony couldn't help but enjoy it. The berry scent of her s.e.x still tingles his nose.

And now this other thing, festering inside him like greasy black cancer, sucking away his life and his energy. She wants Indigo, though that blue metal freak swats her away like a mosquito, and the stumbling hot shimmer of emotion wasting between them boils Ebony's blood like a furnace. Jealousy, pure and savage, spoiling his fresh desire.

If she were his, Ebony would treat her like the queen she is. Hold her, keep her, kiss her softly, as Indigo never will. Beg to drink away her misery, open that salty conduit to heaven with his claw and let her sorrow bleed away. She deserves no less.

Ebony sc.r.a.pes back sparking hair, and it cuts his fingers, sharp like wire. Blood oozes. He licks dripping knuckles. Next time, he won't let Indigo misuse her so. He won't hide, not anymore.

Now, she's half-buried in the crowd, gold-dusted tendons curving in her naked limbs as she cuddles her handsome firefae boy. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s press into his chest, soft flesh swelling to escape her tight dress. Her friend sneaks his fingers into her fruity hair, and she smiles, sharp white teeth gleaming.

Ebony watches, discomfort sc.r.a.ping his nerves like a wire brush, that writhing envycancer growing inside him until his guts hurt. She's very pretty. His b.a.l.l.s still ache from the episode with Indigo, and watching her dance lithe and slow against hot flamefae flesh isn't helping. So fresh, so clean. Even Indigo said so.

Ebony licks salty lips, transfixed. Indigo wants to have her, taste her, love her, slide himself inside her and feel her soft wetness on his metalbright skin. It might be nice. Ebony wonders if she'd like that with him, and dryness tickles his throat until he coughs it away, flushing.

Indigo's always done those sordid, empty things for him. Eb finds no delight in them, not anymore.

But such thoughts about his queen are unworthy. Disgusting. He bangs his head back into the gla.s.s as punishment. Metal crunches, and gla.s.s shards spike his scalp, deliciously painful. But his greedy gaze slides back to her, and he stares intent as her luscious golden lips open for sly firefairy kisses.

Foul sweat crusts him, burning, and he wants to sc.r.a.pe it off with wild hands, wash himself all over until this horrid l.u.s.t is gone. They aren't clean, the things he'd like to do with her. They aren't nice. They don't mean anything. And he knows where they lead.

He'd like to take that dirty firefae and rip his pretty head from his neck, too. But Ice looks happy. Eb's got no cause.

A whiff of cold fairy blood brightens his nose like berries. It's her. Stolen. He rips his gaze away to follow her scent, glad to have something else to do. There it goes, a splash of her, staining some thin white vampire's breath. Some filthy tricksy animal that's tasted her, drunk from her, knows her touch and her smile and her damp golden flesh. It won't do. She shouldn't be treated like that. Her smell belongs to Ebony.

Rage fires his frustration, and he jerks himself upright to follow, muscles twitching hard.

Around the corner, where the strobes don't stab and the green neon fades in smoke-throttled distance, he slides eager fingers over the thieving vampire's shoulder, pulling him to a halt. "I like how you smell."

A lie. He stinks, this thoughtless murderer, stinks of meat and rude l.u.s.t, and the only nice thing about him is Ice's faint stolen flavor. Ebony savors his rage, swallows it, lets it spread until he's quivering with bright fury. He'll lick that berry delight off before he's done. He'll sc.r.a.pe it off with his nails if he has to, stick his tongue down the boy's dying throat and suck it out.

"Sure you do." The boy shrugs him off, coal-dyed hair falling, but his penciled blue eyes jerk a swift double take, and he hesitates, the hunger that whitens his thin cheeks no doubt weakening his resolve. "I mean, thanks. You, um, looking for someone?"

Ebony tightens his grip, cold vampire veins pulsing under his palm. Bones shift, only a suggestion of his strength. A promise. "I'd like to show you something."

Sapphire glints in a purple splash of eyebrow, and the boy's lip curves in a shadow of l.u.s.t. "Look, I don't normally do guys-"

"-but you'll make an exception for me." Ebony lets the vampire taste the iron-rich scents on his breath. "I'm . . . jaded, you see. Bored. Over it. Looking for something special. Something . . . delicious."

The boy's drugged eyes glaze. "Umm . . ."

Ebony wets his ear with a seductive sigh. "You can swallow. I won't struggle. Or I will. Whatever you want. I promise you'll like it."

The vampire licks ruby lips, fresh spit dripping on hungry teeth. "Okay. I'm in. Can we . . . umm . . . make it quick?"

"Oh, it won't take long." Ebony slides his palm over the boy's throat, testing the skin with brittle claws, and tugs the boy closer until those raw red lips quiver under his. "Do you know death, beautiful boy? Have you tasted it?"

"Oh, yeah. Tastes like h.e.l.l." Spit flecks dance in the vampire's snarl, strawberry-rich with Ice's blood.

Ebony attacks with an angry kiss, sucking that stolen bliss from cold, rotten lips. His pulse quickens at last on the sultry scent of surrender, and he grins. "Then come show me."

I don't have all night, Joey. Whatta ya got?" Delilah slouches her elbows back on the warm gla.s.s bar, whiskey and salty skin thick on her demon tongue. Lights glow around her in drifts of nightclub smoke, the damp air slicking pleasantly on the dark brown skin of her human form. The noise grates sweetly in her ears, a pleasant change from silence and black despair. don't have all night, Joey. Whatta ya got?" Delilah slouches her elbows back on the warm gla.s.s bar, whiskey and salty skin thick on her demon tongue. Lights glow around her in drifts of nightclub smoke, the damp air slicking pleasantly on the dark brown skin of her human form. The noise grates sweetly in her ears, a pleasant change from silence and black despair.

She shifts her shoulders, enjoying the tactile pleasure of her copper-mesh dress and the slide of wine-dark hair on her back. Too long she's been away, too long skulking in h.e.l.lblack holes with the worms, only emerging when the stink of the demon court's wrath ebbs. No longer. Kane is old and stale. She's young. Time for a change.

Beside her, Joey DiLuca swallows white aniseed liquor, glossy green eyes unblinking. The drink he offered her sits untouched beside him on the bar. His ravenous banshee would-be lover croons protectively at his side, her vicious blue hair slashing over the shoulder of his pewter-gray suit. Her perfume is pure rage, tainted with corruptible devotion. Joey, on the other hand, smells dry and dusty, of leather and an empty conscience.

Joey jerks his pale chin forward, snakelike under his gray fedora, and the black creature living inside him roils darkly under his skin. "That yellow one? She took your mirror. From Kane, no less. Must be quite a thief. Told you this wouldn't be easy."

Joey drags lightly on his cigarette, ash glowing, and as he releases the smoke, his white fingers relax on the filter and shiny black webs show, glinting wet.

Delilah's nipples tweak inside her meshed metal dress, and she scowls. DiLuca sc.u.m. The snake thing is a turn-on. But it's not enough.

She'd wanted Dante, their charmingly insane vampire prince, pretty and ruthless and mad like some ancient imperial despot. But he got himself murdered, and this Joey's a gutter-slinking gunrunner with no imagination. If he's the best the DiLuca clan can do, she's half a mind to leave them to b.l.o.o.d.y ruin at the hands of their Valenti enemies. But Valenti are Kane's, and any enemy of Kane's is an a.s.set to be used.

She follows his gaze, her shoulders slipping into a lying shrug. "Don't give a f.u.c.k. Okay? We've had this discussion."

Joey shrugs, too, unruffled. "Just thought you might need some help. Now you're on your own, so to speak."

"I don't need your help, little man." Irritation rains snowy ash from her hair. Kane is already weak. She tastes it on the strong summer air, that toxic tingle of freedom and opportunity that fires her black demon blood. She smells it in the sickly stench of honey that drifts like a foul oily coating on the fresh water of willing souls. The old enemy from the sky has returned. Kane is under attack. The demon court can go f.u.c.k themselves, with their rules and protocols and dusty lore that must be obeyed.

Joey leans back on the bar and shows his unnerving toothy smile. "You're not supposed to be here. Not in Kane's town without an invitation. You know that."

She stretches her arms to the light, laughter frothing in her chest as she spins in a joyful circle. "That just makes the air taste better. The demon court can suck my d.i.c.k. Whatta they done for me lately?"

"Besides throw you out on your a.s.s?" Joey tosses the empty filter away and lights another one, smoke puffing, a lock of soft blond hair slipping incongruous from beneath his hat.

Steam hisses from Delilah's teeth before she can stop it. "How'd you know that?"

Joey laughs, charming. "I know stuff about things, rosebud, and that includes you and your demon pals. Just because Kane acts like a spoiled brat with Asperger's doesn't make him stupid or slow. Don't underestimate him. Look where it got Dante."

Anger still boils brimstone-rich in her blood. "Dante was a f.u.c.king idiot," she snaps, enjoying the banshee's yowl of protest. "A walking vampire hard-on, all ego and no thought. Couldn't keep his d.i.c.k in his pants."

"I don't have that problem." Joey snakes out his free hand for her wrist, and suddenly his lips are inches from hers, his emerald eyes glinting with promise. "Tell me what you want. Anything. I'll get it for you."

Delilah inhales reptilian breath, the cold smell of scales and venom, and her skin shivers. Curiosity cools her fury, and she slides a freckled brown arm across his shoulder, pressing closer. "And in return you'd expect what?"

Joey shrugs faintly. "We can be good for each other. I have people, money, resources. If you've got ambitions in this town, you need me."

"I asked what's in it for you." She licks plump lips, tempting him. The banshee's neon hair quivers, a growl rumbling in her chest.

Joey grins, and stretches his neck to whisper, bones popping. His voice slithers in Delilah's ear, reptilian sibilants hissing. "I want Ange Valenti'sss head on a ssstick. And Sssonny. And Fabian, and LaFaro and their whole ssstinking crew." He withdraws, resting his hand lazily on her hip, smoke drifting from his cigarette. "I a.s.sume that's in the offing."

"Mmm. Now you're getting interesting." She slides long fingers into his lap and clicks her tongue in mock disappointment. "Why, Joseph, such feeble ambition. Your d.i.c.k's not even hard."

"That's because you're about as s.e.xy as a dogs.h.i.t sandwich. Don't doubt my ambition because you don't turn me on."

Delilah chuckles, challenge twinkling fresh in her jaded blood. One blink of spell-sparked lashes and he'd be drooling on his knees. Perhaps another time. She flicks a provocative glance to the snarling blue banshee and back again. "What, I'm too powerful for you? Not delicate and breakable enough?"

Joey's forked tongue flickers along his lips. "Something like that."

Delilah smiles and sways away from him. "I was wrong about you, Joey DiLuca. You're not quite the sniveling wormeater I had you pegged for. Perhaps we'll have a little game, see if we play nice together."

Joey crushes his cigarette out on the bar and rests his cane on his thigh to dust off his hands. "Whatever you say. What'll we play for?"

"Why, your famous mirror, of course." She reaches at last for the drink he bought her, and aniseed burns her tongue. "I chase it; you chase it. Whoever gets there first wins."

"And what do we win?"

"Well, that depends. If you win, you get me being nice to you for a while. If I win . . ." She swallows the rest, and stretches happily with a warm belly. "I get to eat your skin, of course."

"Done." Joey tilts his hat with the top of his cane, ironic.

Delilah crinkles her nose at him in a smile. "Oh, and it's not just the mirror. I want the metals.h.i.t sc.u.m who stole it, too. Sound fair?" She stalks away, the banshee's jealous screech ringing out behind her.

The crowd filters around her, unaware, and she inhales, pleasured. Her tall heels work her calf muscles pleasantly. She likes this place, this Unseelie Court, with its seductive sounds and heavy air, rich with the stink of mortality and soulfood. But it isn't the feast of souls or even Joey that lured her here from her plotting tonight. It's that blue metal s.h.i.tworm over by the gla.s.s, the one who stole her mirror.

Her glossy violet nails spring to ragged claws, and she swallows a greedy mouthful of flaming saliva. The mirror is incidental, though amusing. It's the feeling of being thieved, the creature's blind arrogance that fires her ire beyond reason. Mere slaughter is too painless for him, an eternity in h.e.l.l too quick. But the shame cracking his eyes in that elevator told her everything. He'll return the mirror to save his friends, and when he does, she'll savage their regard for him one agonizing fiber at a time and send them all screaming to h.e.l.l. When he gets there, they'll be waiting for him. That's what h.e.l.l is.

And then, she'll eat Joey's skin. Or not.

Speaking of which, there's Joey's golden thief, wrapped in skimpy silver cloth and cowardice. Delilah bristles, black charcoal shards springing from her hair. She doesn't care if the fairytart stole the mirror or not. She's Indigo's simpering sunflower girlfriend, bright and soft and vulnerable. Delilah stalked them together in the dark, smelled the raw attraction, the fear, the vivid ozone reaction of fresh l.u.s.t. Bait for a predator, tasty with childlike fae naivete.

Delilah licks plump lips and watches the golden one, wrapping herself like wet plastic on a candy firechild, dirty sparkle watering those mad fairy eyes.

He's fine, her fairy squeeze, his body knotted and succulent, flame dancing along shining crimson wings and flickering in fire-bright hair. Ripe for a rape and a fairyslashing, rip those arrogant wings off and watch his vanity bleed into the dust. Delilah can arrange that. But the air he exhales crawls with crafty deceit, and she hangs back at the bar, pleasured, to watch him weave his lies around her.

Now they're kissing, hesitant at first like guilty friends and then the full who-gives-a-f.u.c.k, tongues mixing and bodies yearning and his fingers wrapping in her sticky hair.

Delilah grins. Indigo's girl, sliding s.e.xgreedy hands over some other guy's a.s.s. Is he watching? She flickers out soft tentacles, searching the dark air swiftly for iron-laced sweat, but he's not there. Pity.

A rattling sniff beside her p.r.i.c.ks her attention. Blue airfae girl, white dress, flowing green hair tied up in a knot, lime tears shimmering on her cheeks. Pretty thing. Delilah inhales, and tangy jealousy tingles her nose like a sneeze. She follows the girl's gaze to the dance floor, and delight squirms under her skin at the potential for mayhem.

She leans forward, sc.r.a.ping brown elbows on the bright bar. "Is that yours?"

The blue girl wipes her nose, oddly inelegant compared with her figure. "Huh?"

"Kissing that skinny yellow girl. Is he your boyfriend?"

The fairy tries to smile, starting a fresh wash of tears. "Yeah. Just doesn't know it yet, I guess."