Poison Kissed (5 page)

Once a whore, always a whore.

I yanked my hand from his and scrambled away, my cheeks scorching like poison.

Deep in the shadowy mezzanine, where fairies tumble and bite and pleasure each other and vampires lick thick scarlet rivulets from bleeding skin, a willowy golden lady named Ivy tumbles a vial of sparkling green liquid over long-jointed fingers, a satisfied smile creeping over her long scarred face. She glides forward to the rail on ragged icewhite membranes, her wingjoints warm and alive with the pleasure of watching the snakeman squirm.

It’s him, no doubt about it. Joseph the fat black serpent, wriggling like a fish on the barbed hook of his own stubbornness.

Ivy laughs, and humid breeze flutters her long silver dress, teasing her smooth gold-dusted brown skin. The prickly blue banshee yearns for more than the slim regard he shows her. She’s pretty like a doll, smooth young cheeks and perfect red lips, and sour jealousy ripples Ivy’s skin. She can smell the girl’s desire, sliding like oil on the warm updrafts that tease her wings and stretch her silvermetal hair away from her face. And she longs to whisk the poor girl away from the evil snakything before it’s too late.

Ivy understands desire. She’s hidden in darkness for years, too ashamed of her scars to come out into the light, but her yearning never ceased in all that time. So many nights of sleepless tears, her mind screaming for help and her body afire. Her memory isn’t what it once was. Always struggling to remember what she’s lost, always an ache between her legs and a hollow, empty place in her heart.

But she remembers Joey.

Her blood bubbles with sick yellow malice, flushing her torn white wings golden. Oh, yes indeedy, she remembers that foul black serpent thing, all shinysmooth and prickly with razor fins and a sharp spiked tail.

Absently, Ivy’s fingers flutter to her ruined cheek, tracing the horrid lumpy ridges that make her so ugly, no one can ever bear to touch her. Glamour covers her well enough for humans, but everyone else can see how she really is, scarred and horrible and disgusting. Once, she was so pretty, they all worshipped her, especially . . . and here her treacherous memory fades again, lost, a fleeting glimpse of beautiful smooth hands adoring her body, lips so gentle and fresh on hers, a whisper of fragrant golden hair . . .

What? Yes, they all worshipped her. She’s sure of that. All except the nasty snake man, too evil even to offer her mercy. And now they all avert their eyes in disgust.

Hot tears spring to her eyes, and her heart hurts. She can still feel those venomstung claws gashing her face, the horrid acidhiss of his snakeforked tongue in her eyes. A cold and ruthless man, delighting in the vicious beast trapped inside him. Letting it rip from his pale human skin with a wet pleasured sigh, the slide of human into snakeflesh a bloody ecstasy.

He’s older now, colder, the reptile prince of a black-jeweled thieves’ court drunk on blood and hurt. But the serpent still rules him. She wonders how many more he’s tortured for his pleasure.

Ivy rakes furious claws across her scalp, drawing berry blood. The sting whets her desire sharp. He did this to her. And it’s time he suffered for it.

She flitters downstairs to the bar, where Joey glowers in solitude. A pretty, unsuspecting human girl sidles up to him with a smile and a few shy words, but he flashes her a smile in return, a thing of menace and pure threat, and the girl backs off faster than Joey can say,
Fuck off, sister, I swallow rats whole
.

Such an elegant façade, hiding a monster so foul. Ivy leans long dusky arms on the glowing white glass beside him, spinning her bright green vial in her palm. “Sparkle, honeychild?”

It isn’t good sparkle. It’s a vampire boy’s bitter hatred, stolen with a kiss while he slept, mixed with vengeance and sweet fairy psychosis. Ivy likes to make pretty cocktails. Should be fun on an unsuspecting victim.

Joey turns, irritation creasing fine brows, ready to give her the same treatment he gave the girl.

His fingers crackle into shiny black flippers, and his glass slips, shattering on the metal floor in a wash of ice and whiskey glitter.

Ivy giggles, malice roasting her heart. “Watch it, snakehead. Might show what you really are.”

Joey sucks his fins back in, but his serpentgreen eyes glimmer golden with threat. “I said I’d kill you if I saw you again. Consider this your one and only lucky break.”

Ivy cackles, delight crowing. “Kill a poor defenseless girl in a crowded nightclub? You won’t get away with it, not even an ego-mad lizard ganglord like you. Packed in like little silver fishies, we are. See if you can.”

His hands quiver. “Don’t let me see you anywhere it’s dark and lonely, then, you sick harpy. Crawl back to whatever rock you’ve been hiding under. I’ve no quarrel with you anymore. Don’t change my mind.”

He spins away, dismissing her, and Ivy’s throat burns. Angry glitter bursts from her wings. “Oh, you won’t. See me, I mean. You’ll just see your lovely banshee doll’s face, once I’ve made her like you made me. See how you threaten me th—ogg!”

The brass head of Joey’s cane crunches hard into her belly. She yelps, the precious spellvial slipping in her fingers. Breath squeezes from her narrow fairy lungs, and black fingers stretch cold around her throat.

His serpent breath scorches her cheek, sparking horrid memory, and his cold green gaze traps her, inescapable from inches away. “If you lay one spellblack claw on her, I’ll finish what I started, Ivy, and I won’t care who watches.”

Ivy wriggles, but she can’t escape. Tears flood her eyes, helpless. Her voice gurgles. “You ripped up my face, snakething, all claws and smells and itchy poison—”

“Your
face
? Spare me. You deserved every cursed scratch.” He shoves her away.

She stumbles, knocking over a stool with flailing wings. She screeches, and jumps into a crouch, hissing her sharp teeth bare.

Around them, people start to notice, flirty girls in satin and lace sidling away, their boys alert for trouble. A heavy-set green troll stalks forward, growling deep in his chest, and Joey lifts his hands in peace and backs off, spearing her one last menacing green stare before slipping into the crowd and away.

The troll helps Ivy up, sticky black hair trailing over his leatherclad shoulder. Purple ink decorates his massive green arms, and clean white tusks curl up over his lip. The leather buckled around his huge wrist would fit around her thigh. “You okay, lady?”

She sniffles, fury and shame burning her blood. He’s nice. Gentle. Not evil. His rich fleshscent sparks her nose alive, his glamour warm and inviting. Her skin shimmers silver, thirsting for a kind caress. A boy hasn’t touched her for so very long, and it hurts, deep inside her where she’s still a girl, no matter her ruined face and torn wings, no matter the spells and tricks and nasty thoughts that plague her, asleep and awake. “Butterflies. You’re very kind. Can I . . . umm . . . charm you a gift? Something unusual?” She tries to smile, but his hot black gaze slips away, and he mutters something, drops her hand, and leaves her alone.

Ivy’s bright heart extinguishes like a doused flame. She wants to scream and hide her horrid ugly face in her hands. It’s the scars. Always the scars.

Black hate festers in her heart, crusting like old blood clots she’s waited seven years to excise. Joey will suffer for what he’s done, and his sad banshee, too. No doubt he’s screwing the poor little thing, writhing his disgusting snake body over hers, flickering his long wet tongue over her skin, those slick black fingers sliding inside her . . .

For a moment, Ivy’s heart softens, but she chews the compassion up and spits it out in a wet crunch of bone. A beautiful ingénue like that can have any man she desires. If she wants to let an evil serpent take his sickening pleasure, that’s her own can of rocks.

Ivy lifts her chin, her bruised dignity aching. She exhales, and honeyed poison blackens the air. No, Joey will suffer, and damn the consequences. But Joey already hates himself. No point in scarring him. If she hurts the banshee, though, he’ll feel the pain Ivy’s felt. And when she’s swallowed enough of his agony, she’ll kill them both.

She brushes smeared floorgrime from her bruised elbow, and scans the crowd with hungry senses for a pretty blue-haired banshee with the stink of scales ruining her lovely white skin.

4

Outside, beneath a burning moonlit sky, black pavement crackles in dry summer heat. The air hangs still and stifling, sucking every drop of moisture from breath and skin and gritty eyes. In the dark alleys behind Unseelie Court, a greasy green spriggan in a shiny trench coat waddles and curses, poking in the garbage with a stick, his wiry black hair crinkled in the heat. Glamour stings the air around him like static, fooling the casual eye that he’s just a dirty old wino.

A rat sniffles in strewn black garbage, nose twitching in the stink of rotten cheese. The spriggan mutters and shakes his stick, flicking the squeaking thing away and stuffing the rancid cheese into his mouth. On the bin’s rusty lip, skeletal white goblin fingers stretch and curl in a smear of black blood, and from inside a croaking black cackle gurgles into silence. Still the spriggan waddles on, chewing contentedly with moldy cheese crumbling on his chin, sorting in the junk with fat green fingers.

Tiny footsteps clatter closer. The spriggan glances up, his yellow eyes narrowing.

A squawking manikin scuttles by on long white legs, dry insectoid wings flapping, his little elfin body shining white. He dives for cover behind the rusty blue bin, scrawny knees knocking in terror.

The spriggan growls around broken black teeth, waving his stick. “Fuggoff, skinny. My garbage.”

The thing stares at him, chewing little pink nails, shimmering blue eyes wide. Like a little angel with no feathers. But before the spriggan can whack him again, the air splits apart, and the alley shakes with hellripped thunder.

A gruesome black creature thumps to the ground on all fours, shining blue hair dragging over its long hellscorched body. The ground quakes. Smoking black claws rip the asphalt. Long needle teeth gleam and run with hungry spit, and yellow eyes swivel in dark burnt eye sockets to fix on the creature.

The manny shrieks, tears splashing. His wings clatter together, and he dives in scattering garbage, desperate to crawl under the bin and away. But the black hellthing strikes like a screeching vulture, and long charred fingers wrap around the creature’s tiny waist and pluck him effortlessly away.

The manny screams and kicks and flails his wings, but the demon just jerks his bony chin forward to stare the little creature in the eyes. Hellish malice sears the manny’s skin to bubbles. The demon laughs, hollow like a drum, and the air rains ash. “I warned you, minion. This is my city.” And he stretches his jaws wide, and with a swift crunch of razor teeth tears the screeching thing in half.

Scarlet blood froths down the demon’s chin. Wingbones crunch and split. Flesh stretches, tearing as he shakes his long jaws, and soon there’s nothing left.

He swallows, blood dripping, and gives a bone-shattering screech of triumph. And then his birdlike limbs contract and turn pale, his cobalt hair shrinks to blond, his needle teeth slip away behind soft red lips, his blazing eyes fade to cold sparkling black. One moment, a monster. The next, a handsome blond man in a black suit.

And Kane, demon lord of Melbourne and eater of souls, picks a shred of meat from his teeth and turns his empty gaze on the spriggan.

The spriggan gulps, and scrambles away as fast as his fat green body will go.

Kane gnashes fresh white teeth, fury burning rich like lust in his veins. The creature’s foul blood stings in his mouth. He sizzles the stains on his hands and face to nothing with a fresh burst of demon wrath that stirs a sharp whirlwind in the scattered paper at his feet. His clipped fingernails flush violet with rage, and he cracks his neck stiffly, resisting the impulse to change again and howl his indignation to the sky.

Angry blue flames spurt between his clenched fingers. Dirty angel spies. Slinking about where they’re not wanted. Scuttling about on vile spider feet, the flowery stink of heaven’s intruders thick like rotten body fluid.

Kane knows that smell. He scrubbed the city clean of it long ago. It’s Shadow, the feathered freak. Honey-sucking angel scum.

Tossing back clean blond hair, Kane stalks away, his shadow a lean black insect on the spraypainted wall. The battle with heaven was won a long time ago, the territory claimed, the casualties burned and eaten. And the people like it here, living their wild, godless lives without remorse or regret. The city prospers under hell’s rule. Soulfood is plentiful and ripe. Shadow’s nectar-lickers should know when they’re beaten.

He sucks the last bloody remnant from his teeth, his stomach pleasantly full of cherub meat. It’s fun to chase the ugly little fuckers down. Still, he can’t let them do as they please. He’s in a good mood. He’ll talk to Shadow, give them one last chance. No one can call him unfair.

He veers around the corner, malice shimmering around him in a hellbright halo. Outside the club, blue neon shines darkly on colored skin, jeweled piercings, the waft of glitterbright wings. Queuing nightclubbers in denim and lace and stiletto heels move aside unconsciously to let Kane pass. He glares coolly at the troll guarding the door, and the big green thing swallows and steps aside.

Inside, darkness enfolds him like hot velvet. The noise swells his lungs, rich bass thudding in his guts. Salty fleshscent pleasures his nose, and he inhales deep. Colored strobes fire like rockets in smoke, gloating over sweating limbs, painted eyes, glitter lips wet with spit, the shiny glint of fangs.

His hunger stirs again, emptiness roiling in his stomach like a snake. So many souls, ripe and bursting like pomegranates with lust, greed, gluttony. All for the taking. Begging him to ravage, rape, swallow, drink their souljuice like blood and lure them gasping home to hell.

Curse the fucking angels. No one here is on their side. It’s too late for them.

Kane’s nails sprout into hungry claws. A long time since he indulged. Willing flesh presses around him, whetting his desire hard. A soulful fairy child with smudged blue skin and a dark fall of wet inky hair blinks at him, desire hypnotic in his rubylashed eyes, and Kane’s limbs shake. Later. Once he’s finished his work. He resists the need to grab the sherbety sugarplum thing and lick the sweat from its skin, whisper its darkest desires in its ear, and savor its surrender in a bloody kiss.

Instead he blinks, and a wave of hellblack compulsion splits the air, spreading the crowd apart like a spellwarped ocean.

He stalks up to the bar, his mouth watering over sharpening teeth. His fingers smear charcoal on the glowing white glass, and the bargirl with the glitterpink ponytail glances at his sparking blond hair and reaches behind her to tug the scarred boy’s vest.

Rainbow turns, and his oceanblue gaze falters. He swallows and walks up, wriggling his shoulders, no doubt in nervous memory of the day Kane chewed his wings to bleeding shreds. The scars are still there, raw across his back like burns.

Some angels chose to surrender rather than vanish into the void. Like Rainbow, who begged Kane to eat his soul, that last beautiful day when the city fell. For now, Kane lets Rainbow stay. He did promise, after all. Sometimes that’s worth something.

Kane flashes a ravenous grin. Rainbow’s skin still stinks like flowers after all these years, though the smell’s faded. “Bring me Shadow.”

Rainbow laughs, sunflower hair jittering with nerves. “He doesn’t talk to me anymore, you know th—”

“And don’t give me crap about meeting him halfway. He comes here.”

“He doesn’t like it h—”

Kane leans forward, and above the bar, glasses shatter. “I want Shadow. Bring him to me.”

Rainbow’s perfect face pales, and a tiny trickle of blood leaks from his nose. He fumbles for a cloth to clean the bar. “Okay. I’ll do what I can. Don’t break anything else.”

The scent of rich angel blood waters Kane’s mouth. He licks parched lips. “Get me a vodka and lime while you’re at it.”

“Make that on me.” Low purring voice, female. Charcoal. Burnt hair. Ash. Demon.

Irritation sandpapers his skin. His nails blush scarlet, and he tinkles broken glass from his hair, tense. “Don’t even talk to me, minion.”

Delilah smiles and stretches lithe brown arms, jewels dripping yellow and blue from delicate wrists. Pale silk shimmers over her bronzed body, mirroring the sparkles in her champagne glass, the split in her dress sliding up one dusky thigh. Her sultry green gaze drapes over him, inviting. “Oh, come on, Kane. We can at least be civil to each other.”

His mouth sours. She dares to align with his enemies, that cringing DiLuca clan. She’s wasting her time. He’s almost finished them off.

But Delilah’s persistent. Last time, she even tried to seduce him. Pathetic little temptress, desperate to make her mark in the demon court. Just another wriggling worm who thinks she can challenge his rule. He should crush her skin under his nails, make her whimper, sweat, beg. But . . . she does remind him of home. “What do you want?”

Delilah eyes him slyly, painted lashes long around thistlegreen eyes. “To make peace.”

“Were we at war?” He sips his drink through the straw, tart lime pleasuring his tongue, and flicks her a glacial glance of warning.

Ice crystals crinkle her long wine-red curls. She cracks them off in a white puff with a hellbright smile, but dented confidence flickers violet in her eyes. “Don’t posture. We got off to a bad start, you and I. I wanted to ap—”

“You’re not sorry, Delilah. Just get out of my place before you get hurt.”

“I thought we could spend some time. Get to know each other.” She strokes a curl from his cheek with one long purple nail, the caress lingering slyly in a rain of golden sparks. “You know. Make friends?”

Her touch warms his blood sweetly. She’s lovely. Strong. Not vulnerable or breakable like humans, her immortal demon blood insatiable and irreducible. Inviting. Submissive. Starved, like a puppy dog eager to please.

Delilah’s fingers creep to Kane’s shoulder, twining in the hair over his collar. His groin heats. She’s also a disobedient worm who should grovel at his feet. Who should know better than to touch him without asking.

He slurps his green drink to ice, and blasts her finger from his shoulder with a rude electric shock. “I could drag you before the demon court and flay you raw just for showing your face in my city. Imagine how long I can make that agony last.”

She heals her wounded finger, a hiss of steam and a sweet careless smile, but angry ash gusts like snowflakes from her hair. “And I could tell the court how you won this city in the first place. How d’you think they’ll like that?”

“They answer to me. I don’t need to justify myself. You do.”

Delilah smiles tautly. “That so? Your brother Phoebus would say different. . . . Oh, wait. You got rid of him, didn’t you? The rightful prince, out of the way forever. What would the court make of that, if they knew the whole sordid tale?”

Angry red flame licks Kane’s hair.
How does she know that?
Phoebus is gone forever. He made sure of it. Sometimes he still dreams of his brother’s accusing eyes, the blinding brassy flash as the shackles gripped tight, hungry gulls squawking, the deafening crunch as the stone ground into place. He clamps his teeth tight. “Phoebus isn’t your concern.”

Delilah grins, flicking a stray lump of ash from his lapel. “We’ll see, handsome. Remember, you could just be nice to me, and it’d all go away.” She bends closer, and his hair springs alive in her breath, the hot slickness of her tongue a temptation on his ear. “I’m not so bad, once you get to know me.” She nips his earlobe lightly and stalks away, curving hips swaying in translucent silk.

Kane cracks angry knuckles, sparks showering. He could chase her. Drag her down to hell, like the old days before the court took hold. Strip her naked on burning crimson rocks, pin her down with barbed chains and a bloody dagger through each wrist. Taste her blood, her salty juice, her flesh, thrust himself inside her and teach her a lesson. Make her writhe and scream, hurt her, pleasure her until she begs for death or mercy or more.

Hunger rips through his body like razors, and he slams the glass down lest he crush it. The court has rules. He’s broken enough of them already to get here. Best leave it lie. She’s no threat, not really, no matter her taunts. She can’t know anything about Phoebus. Phoebus is dead, or as good as.

Beside him, a clean-faced mortal in an expensive suit shakes his head in sympathy over a glass of goldenbrown spirit. “Women. They’re all the fucking same, mate. They’ll tear your heart out just to watch you bleed.”

Kane inhales, the raw steak scent of the boy’s unrequited need stirring dark desire in his veins. Soulfood. Timely. He clinks glasses. “She can try.”

“You’re tougher than I am, then. Good for you.” The boy’s intoxicated blood smells like plumjuice, sweet and heady, and his tone scrapes with bitterness and loss.

Kane follows the boy’s covetous gaze to a shapely blond girl in a slim red dress. “Is that your girlfriend?”

“Not anymore.” The boy drains his drink, dark auburn hair brushing his shoulders.

“She’s very beautiful.” Kane licks his lips, soullust rich like hot honey in his blood. He wants to squirm, shift, devour.

“Beautiful. Smart. Going places. Fucks like a goddess. I shoulda known better.”