Seven devils, p.5
Seven Devils, page 5
“How are you?” He leaned forward on the wooden table, almost as if he were using it to keep us apart.
Wise man. He hated seeing me upset. It was probably taking everything he had to stay over there.
At least I could lie a little and give him some relief. “I’m holding up.”
The way he stared at me with his jaw set and arms locked told me he didn’t believe my lie. He always did know me better than anyone else. “Whoever killed her wanted her to stay dead. Taking her heart and head should have done the trick, but leaving her in a remote location means no necromancer could revive her, no matter how powerful they were.”
“Exactly.”
“The kill is symbolic. But why?”
That was the billion-dollar question. “I have no idea.”
He kept on studying me with those all-seeing eyes of his. I swear he could hear my thoughts sometimes. If he stared long enough and concentrated hard enough, it was like he could put my pieces together and solve my puzzle. “How did they get access to Midnight Manor? How did Shoshanna get there? Was she a guest?”
Midnight Manor was the exclusive pleasure resort of the House of Argo. It was invitation only.
But there was a dark secret to Midnight Manor that I’d only just learned. I cleared my throat, ready for the fireworks. “I went to Rever for obvious reasons. He came with me to find her body. He studied the scene with me.”
I didn’t need special powers to know Seamus was nuclear levels of jealous right now. He seethed but didn’t say a word. “And how did you get in to Midnight Manor?”
“The Underground.”
He blinked, as confused as I was when Rever escorted me through. “The Underground?”
I nodded. “There is a secret Underground location beneath Midnight Manor.” So secret even Seamus didn’t know about it.
“And Rever knows how to get there?”
“He works there.”
“What the fuck?” His eyes shot to the closed door, probably calculating if it was possible to track Rever down and strangle him. “This is twenty-five levels of fucked up! Midnight Manor is supposed to be secure.” His finger stabbed at the air. “Guests are supposed to be safe.”
If word got out the Underground was operating under Midnight Manor it would ruin the House of Argo. “It’s mostly sealed off. Movement between the Underground and the resort is heavily restricted. It took Rever most of a day to get us onto the grounds, and only because he has family connections. I could have let him go alone but…but I had to see her for myself.”
Seamus resumed pacing. His large body covered the short space in three strides, so the pacing was furious and pointless, but he did it anyway. It gave me a chance to take him in. He didn’t look all that different from the last time I saw him. His hair was a little longer and shaggier, as was his beard, but it was something that suited his rugged look. He wore his usual uniform of boots, jeans, Henley, and jacket. He wore the softest jackets. Well-worn and useful. He seemed to be in good shape. Maybe even better shape. His shoulders seemed wider and the muscles that flexed beneath his collar were more prominent. I ate up the details. I had always been stupidly attracted to the man, and for good reason. He was an impeccable specimen of masculinity.
I always had a thing for tall, but over the years I learned it wasn’t height that ultimately attracted me to a man. It was their confidence. Their strength. It was what usually led me to make terrible mistakes because a lot of confident guys were also assholes.
And then there was Seamus. He was giant, strong, and had confidence for days. It was an easy, patient confidence. The sexiest kind. I’d fallen hard and fast for it.
But like most fires, we burned hot and bright, consuming everything in the process. So while I might have to squeeze my legs a little when he was near, I couldn’t let the physical get in the way of reality. Seamus and I were no good together.
He stopped and turned, so I looked down at the floor.
“There is an Underground beneath Midnight Manor?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“And you got through to the grounds?”
“Yes.”
“So, theoretically, anyone could get through. If they knew the right things.”
I nodded. “That’s what Rever and I just went over.” We poured over the names of everyone who’d been in and out of the Underground over the last month. “He’s having his family investigate whether there’s been any odd events on the grounds.”
“Is Ivy there?”
Rever, along with his seven partners, were mated to Ivy of the House of Volci. They lived at Midnight Manor, all of them working for the estate in one capacity or another. “She is.” There was no one better suited. Not just because she was a wolf shifter, but because she was brilliant.
“And Bridge? She hasn’t been home in a few weeks.”
Bridge was one of the youngest Wrens and Seamus’ cousin. She also lived at Midnight Manor as a samhain companion to a house full of monsters abandoned in our realm after the Convergence. “She’s investigating whether water demons have noticed anything unusual with the mist lakes.”
“Are we sure it isn’t the water demons who did this?”
“I know what I saw,” I whispered, feeling hurt even though Seamus wasn’t questioning my vision, just asking questions.
He blinked and came around the table so swiftly I didn’t have time to move. Suddenly I was back in his strong arms, hauled up against his wall of a chest. “Don’t. You know I don’t think of you that way. Whatever you say, I trust it. What did the murderer look like?”
And that was the problem. As much as the Plane forced me to see Shoshanna’s death, it never gave me a clear picture of the killer. “I don’t know. I never see them. They’re definitely samhain, but that’s all I can tell you.” No human could pull this off. That was so out of the realm of possibility it was almost laughable, but Rever and I covered that option just in case.
Seamus gave me another reassuring squeeze, his lips tantalizingly close to mine. “Where is Rever now?” His breath whispered across my skin, causing it to tingle.
“Back at Midnight Manor.”
“Who else knows?” His eyes drifted to my lips.
One kiss would be fine, wouldn’t it? Kisses were harmless. And it would soothe some of this pain. “Just you, me, and Rever.”
“Not Wils?”
“I haven’t had time to do much more than contact Rever, find Shoshanna, and go home to change.” Seamus being here was just an added bonus.
A perfect bonus, if I could convince him to kiss me and not ask for more.
“Anything else I need to know?”
The tone of his voice caught me off guard and I looked up. His gaze was no longer on me. It was unfocused. Calculating. This was Seamus the shadow dealer, not my Seamus, the man who vowed to work with me.
“Don’t you dare.” I pushed out of his warm, delightful arms.
Stupid arms! Stupid me.
He laughed, all cold and distant, like he could piss me off enough to let him go. “What? Take you into an even more dangerous situation? Where someone is murdering women for no goddamn reason?” Of course he was going to break his promise. He probably never intended to keep it in the first place.
I was just desperate for an ally. Someone I could trust. And while Seamus might be an ally, I had somehow forgotten I couldn’t trust the asshole. “I’ve already been there, Seamus. I’m still alive and kicking.” And this was exactly why we didn’t work. He made one promise and was already breaking it.
The bastard.
I knew I shouldn’t trust him. I knew it. And yet I hoped.
Stupid, stupid hope.
“Go to Wils. Tell her and Vic what’s happening and stay there.” He stabbed the table with his index finger.
I folded my arms over my chest, reveling in the flare of his eyes as they darted from my breasts to my face. “You promised. You’re bound by it.”
“I’ll deal with the consequences. I can take it.”
I can take it. How many times had he said that to me? Usually it made me fall a little for him. Not today. Not like this. “You’d put yourself through pain and suffering rather than accept that I can make my own choices?” Why did he have to be like every other asshole? He knew what was better for me, that I needed protection, that I couldn’t take care of myself. Well fuck him. “If you break your promise, I will never speak to you again. Never. This is it for us.”
His soft brown eyes turned almost black. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Don’t go making threats to get your way.”
Didn’t he know I wasn’t like that? Maybe he didn’t know me as much as I wanted to think he did. “This isn’t a threat, Seamus. It’s a promise.” I held up my hand, binding my words. “If you break your promise to me, you will be banished from my life.”
Banishment was extreme, but necessary. I couldn’t have this man keep stumbling back into my life every few years, making me think things could be different, hoping for more, only to be reminded that he was every bit as much of an asshole as the next guy.
He went white as a sheet as he stared at my hand. “Don’t do this.” His jaw ticked. “Don’t make me choose you over your safety.”
“I’m not making you choose anything. It’s my choice. Mine, Seamus. I get to decide what’s too dangerous and what’s worth the risk. Me. Not you.” We were right back where we started. Three years ago he’d broken his first promise to me by spilling it to Wils, and now he was about to break his last.
Because this would most definitely be the last.
He shook his head. “If something happens to you…”
And there was that glimmer again. That stupid hope. He cared about me. “Then something happens to me. Deal with it.”
His eyes darted up, locking with mine and making my head spin. “You are an infuriating woman.”
It could go either way. He could accept banishment and be done with me or he could trust me. I decided to poke the bear. “I’m three-quarters human. I’ll be out of your hair in a few decades one way or another.” I never did the drinking ritual to unlock the rest of my samhain gifts, including a longer lifespan. Maybe that was why my Gatlin family looked down on me. They didn’t understand that I might want to live to eighty-five, be an old lady, and move on from this shitty world.
“You’re killing me, Florence,” he rasped, his face twisting in pain.
“And I can’t take the pain anymore.” I held out my hand. “We either do this together, or we don’t do this at all.”
CHAPTER 6
Seamus
Florence Figueroa was the most infuriating woman in the world. I wavered between wanting to kiss some sense into her and wanting to lock her up. Only she would risk everything like this. Either I let her walk right into danger or I gave her up forever.
What the fucking hell? Every muscle in my body ached to be used, to let my anger out on every face, every wall, every surface that crossed my path. But instead I was stuck in a room in the Underground with her.
“Who else knows?”
She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a small bit of satisfaction on her lips. “You, Rever, and me.”
“No one else? Where is her,” I gulped, “her body?” How was this happening?
She blanched. “Kris and Rain know now, too. Rever just told me. I’m not trying to keep secrets from you. This is just happening faster than I can keep up.”
Exactly why she shouldn’t be part of this.
But she was part of it. The Plane made it so. “What does that have to do with Shoshanna?”
“Rever put her there.”
I tried to follow. “Kris and Rain’s cottage?” The same cottage where we’d hidden out for weeks while they tracked down Samantha. The same cottage where she spent nights tangled in nightmares while I had no choice but to watch helplessly.
She nodded.
“We should go there. I should see her.”
“How will seeing a mangled body help us figure out who did this? Or why?”
I didn’t know. Just that it felt like the next logical thing to do. But then again, I was flying blind here. Something I wasn’t used to. I had far more questions than answers. Who was the killer? Was it a lone act or part of a group? A conspiracy? What was the fucking point of it all?
We had absolute shit to go on other than Florence’s dreams. And the scene of the crime. “Do you think Rever could get me into Midnight Manor?”
She chewed on her lower lip and shook her head. “Too risky to do it again so soon.”
“What about the Underground? Can you show me the way?” I wanted to see this secret Underground with my own damned eyes. What the fuck? I had been out of it these last two years, trying to untangle my life from Kirk’s and find a new way forward, but this was something I should have known. And I missed it.
She hesitated, then nodded.
Study the body or the possible point of entry? I had to admit, my curiosity was right up there with my irritation that there was an entire Underground location I knew jack and shit about. “Are Kris and Rain looping in Vic and Wils?” I trusted Vic. He worked right by my side all these years. If there was a clue we’d notice, he’d find it just as I would.
“We’re trying to keep this quiet,” she whispered, shrinking in on herself.
“How long do you think it takes before someone notices the Head of the House Gatlin is missing? We’re working against the clock. And then the shit hits the fan, even if it's just search parties getting in our way.” Not to mention how it will look when it’s discovered her body is being housed by the House of Wren.
Shit in the samhain world was about to get real weird.
“Okay. We can ask for their help.” She nodded once but didn’t look particularly convinced.
I wanted to reach out and touch her. But, given the way the last few minutes had gone, if I tried that right now, she’d rip my arm off. “Hey, I trust Vic to keep this quiet and examine the body.”
She nodded again. “I trust them more than anyone else.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I felt myself moving closer to her even though I hadn’t decided to. She was a damn magnet.
She looked up at me with those big eyes of hers. “I just don’t want them to get hurt. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. What if asking them to help means we bring them right into the line of fire?”
Fuck. There she went again, caring about everyone but herself. Florence would be the death of me. “Did you hesitate when Wils needed your help? No. You didn’t. You were there, even when you didn’t want to be, because that’s what family does.” I knew more than anyone how hard that day was for her. Florence had been terrified, but she didn’t let it stop her. She stood by Wils’ side while she faced her sister.
Wils only wanted to return the favor. I knew this because Wils was still my best friend, other than Vic, of course. But Florence had held herself away from us these last two years. Maybe she needed reminding how much she mattered. Even if she didn’t want to matter to me, she did. There was no force on earth, no amount of time that could ever change that.
She sniffed. “Maybe I don’t want her to. Maybe I want to keep her safe so I still have someone when this is over.”
“Fuck, Fig. You’re killing me here.” I hung my head and put my hands on my hips so I wouldn’t reach for her.
“You called me Fig.”
“Yeah well, when you frustrate the hell out of me, I want to call you princess or sweetheart or sugar lips, but I don’t want to make you mad, so I called you by your name.” Even if it wasn’t the one I preferred.
I always wondered what names would escape my lips when I eventually got her under me. When she drove me to madness in a much better, much more pleasurable way.
Silence stretched between us until I looked up and found her staring at me. The air was thick with three different kinds of tension. There was the obvious uneasiness from Shoshanna’s death, and Fig’s anxiety over Wils, but there was also the push and pull that was us. Inevitably, always us. “Wils will be there for you when this is over. So will Vic, and Kris, and Rain. And whether you like it or not, I will be there too. You’re not alone. You never have been.”
Her chin thrust forward but she didn’t say it, didn’t restart the eternal argument between us. “If Wils and Vic are seeing to the autopsy, then we’re headed to the secret Underground?”
“That’s my plan.” We needed something to go on. Knowing how to get in was as good a start as any. I just needed a direction. Something to do. Anything was better than standing here helpless and unable to touch Florence.
“And you’re not going to fight me anymore?”
Not on this. I bit back the urge to call her sweetheart. “You made me choose. I choose you.” I’d always choose her, if only she’d get that through her thick, stubborn skull. “But I get something in return.” I grabbed her hand and placed it on my hip. “Same rules as last time.”
Her eyes flared and she tried to pull her hand away, but I didn’t let her. I clamped down hard. She stomped her foot. “I am perfectly capable of moving around the Underground without touching you.”
Maybe that was true, but Rever didn’t love Florence. I did. And if she was going with me, it was by my rules. “You made me choose,” I repeated, letting every bit of my frustration out, “and I chose you. So you give me this in return. As long as we’re in the Underground, your hand is on me. Got it?”
“This is ridiculous!” She tried to tug away. Again.
I laced my fingers between hers. “Ridiculous or not, it’s what’s going to happen. I gave you what you wanted, now give me this.” I wasn’t above begging. I’d already lost one round, I wasn’t about to lose this one, too.
She stood there, eyes wide and staring at our hands. Her breaths became deeper and faster as her heart rate kicked up a notch. Was it too much to hope it was because I made her feel the same things she made me feel? Or was she just that mad? It was hard to wade through all the things she was feeling and come up with a clear answer.
