Jessa Slade: Vowed in Shadows

“Worst of all, a delight in confusing people,” she snapped.

He nodded. “Always that.”

She stalked around him in a tight circle, and he held himself still, though his skin prickled with awareness. She stopped in his peripheral vision to retrieve the snake from behind the chair and wrap it around her shoulders, letting the loops of its coils drape over her breasts. From the way she shifted from foot to foot, he knew she sensed the changes wrought in her. He’d succeeded in making her doubt her doubts.

When he didn’t turn to face her, she held her position, gaze intent on him. The sweep of her focus was like a breath on his skin and passed over him from wallet to hook and back to his face.

“Where is your reven ?” She stumbled over the word.

Still not looking at her, he reached over his shoulder to grab the back of his T-shirt and wrenched it over his head. Hadn’t he told himself that wasn’t a good idea? He left the T-shirt binding his biceps in front of his chest. Better the constriction than fumbling to get the hook through the armhole again.

She gasped and leaned forward. “Oh, my God. I can see through your skin.”

She reached out, hesitated a moment; then her fingers slid over his skin, cool and slow, from the knob at the back of his neck down his spine and around his ribs. “But it’s not muscle and bone in there. It’s . . .”

A tremor sprang up in the wake of her hand. “It’s nothing. The void. A glimpse into the demon realm.”

“It’s just a trick,” she said. Then her voice softened. “But it is kind of beautiful.”

He turned his head sharply to stare at her, but she was entranced by the black lines of the reven that spilled like wild swirls of india ink down his neck and over his shoulder, shot with threads of violet and the eerie translucence where his flesh thinned with demonic emanations. Other-realm energies glimmered in the mark, not evident to human vision without a lurking demon presence.

“Mine doesn’t do that,” she noted.

“It will when your demon is sufficiently aroused.”

She peered up at him. “And your demon is aroused.” Her touch skimmed lower, toward the waist of his jeans, and the glint in her eye wasn’t purple at all.

“It responds to any threat,” he said.

Her lips quirked. “How am I a threat?”

“You’re not. I am.”

“Ah. What are you fighting in yourself?”

“I’m not the one who strips myself bare for strangers.” His voice was harsh.

She withdrew her hand—but slowly, showing him she wasn’t fazed by his flare of temper. “You’ve been coming all week. Obviously, you wanted—still want—something from me. But why waste time on this elaborate setup? You could just pay me, you know.” Her fingers curled tight. “Unless you want something kinky. I don’t do kinky. And no sex. No more sex.”

“I’m not vice,” he said as he yanked the shirt over his head. He tucked the hem savagely into his jeans and almost groaned when his fingertips skimmed the upward-straining tip of his penis. Vice, indeed.

“Sure.” She didn’t sound convinced. “If you want me to do some private dance where you pretend I’m damned with a demon and you try to save me—”

“I can’t save you. I’m damned too, possessed just like you.”

“Right, whatever. Then we’ll save each other and—”

“No, we’ll fight together. That’s the only way we’ll be redeemed.”

She huffed out a sigh. “Okay, fine. It’s your scenario, your three hundreds bucks, so—”

He echoed the sigh. She’d stopped believing him and was falling into her old patterns. It was easy to do—in the beginning, at least. She needed more convincing than even her own body could give her, certainly more than his words offered. “You have to come with me.”

She hesitated. “I don’t do outcall.”

“Tack on a convenience charge.”

She scowled at him. “You make it sound so mercenary.”

He laughed.

Her scowl deepened. “I prefer the term ‘entrepreneur’ to ‘mercenary.’”

“If that helps you sleep at night.”

The way she bit her lip made him think it didn’t help at all. He wished he hadn’t teased her. What she did, what she was, had made her a fitting vessel for the demon. And her demon would give him what he needed to offset his lost arm, to let him slay a monster and patch the holes in his tattered soul. He wouldn’t presume to think he could do anything for her soul.

Which made him more of a mercenary than her greedy heart could ever imagine.

Nim dressed quicker than she’d ever undressed, ignored Amber’s rude questions, flipped off the deejay who wanted his tip for one measly song, and wondered what the hell she was doing as she stepped out of the club, into the sweltering darkness where the large, taciturn Captain Hook waited for her.

“If I can’t call you Captain, what’s your name?”

He began walking down the sidewalk as if he had no doubt she would follow, which she did, damn him, because she was curious and she’d already let him do . . . Well, he couldn’t do much more to her.

“Jonah.”

“Another whale name. That’s why you and Mobi get along so great.”

He turned his head to stare at her. “We do?”

“Usually when I wrap Mobi around somebody’s chair, he climbs up and starts getting personal. That’s because I don’t feed him before I dance, to keep him from puking onstage. It’s nice because he’s pretty good at keeping guys in the chair. But he left you alone.”

“I haven’t been so blessed in a long time.” Jonah paused. “If he really feels that way, let me take him.”

He reached for the rifle case. When Nim hesitated to release her grasp, Jonah lifted one eyebrow. “Despite my newly discovered affinity for your snake, you can be assured I won’t run off with him.”

After a moment, she passed the case and adjusted the strap of her camisole. “He’s heavy,” she warned.

“I think I can handle it.”

The edge to his tone stropped her temper. “I didn’t mean because of your arm. I meant because he’s heavy, even for me.”

“So you’re questioning my manliness, not my maiming.”

She held out her hand. “Give him back if you’re going to be like that.”

“I said I’ve got it.”

“See, you are stealing my snake. You have no idea how much trouble it was to steal him in the first place.”

The bitter set of his mouth eased. “Your lack of morals continues to astound me.”

“Now who’s being insulting? A chick at some ass pit where I danced a few years ago was using Mobi in her act. He was smaller then, and she was doing all these fast spins and tossing him around. He hated it, wouldn’t eat, thought she smelled like stale cat all the time.”

“Ah, Mobi thought she smelled like stale cat?”

“Maybe that was me. Anyway, I snagged him and we found another place to dance with better music.”

“At the Shimmy Shack?” His tone edged up in disbelief.

“God, no. It was way classier. But the GM wanted to charge me girl-on-girl tip-out rates for Mobi. Sick, huh?”

“Because Mobi’s a snake?”

“Because he’s a he .”

“Unconscionable.”

He was teasing her again. But she could deal with mockery. She just didn’t like that grim look, as if death would’ve been better than losing his hand. Struck a little too close to home. “I don’t mind the Shimmy Shack. Sometimes it’s nice having nothing tying you down.”

“No doubt that attitude made you very attractive to the demon.”

She pulled a face. “Are we talking about demons again?”

“My apologies. I won’t bore you with the details. For now.”