I was trapped in his beautiful gaze, and again I felt that strange pull, like tendrils of heat snaking around my body and drawing me in. But before I fell headlong into another totally inappropriate fantasy, he clammed up, grunting once more and turning back toward the fighting crows.
“Whatever you say, Cupcake.”
And just like that, I was dismissed.
Fucking demons.
The wind kicked up, coating us both in a bone-chilling rain, finally dousing the lingering heat between my thighs. Shivering, I hunched my shoulders and shoved my hands into my sweatshirt pockets, surprised to find something stuffed in the left one.
I pulled it out to take a look—a fancy floral napkin from Norah’s place, a message scrawled on the back.
Find Jael. Go alone.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Asher loomed over my shoulder, smothering me in his fiery, spicy scent.
“Someone sending a message.” I fingered the note, turning over the possibilities in my mind. More to myself than to Asher, I said, “Gotta be Haley—she was the only one who got close enough.”
I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or completely freaked. Was Haley an ally after all? Why couldn’t she say this in front of Norah and the others? More importantly, what the hell did Haley know about Jael?
“Jael?” Asher grabbed the note, his brow creased with suspicion. “What’s this Haley chick’s involvement with the Seelie prince?”
I snatched it away from him and shoved it back in my pocket. “That's what I want to know.”
Because Jael—Prince of the Seelie Court, brother of Sophie’s boss Kallayna, and Illuminae’s most sought after deejay—was also Sophie's lover.
Eighteen
Gray
If witches and demon relationships were frowned upon in the supernatural community, witches and fae were practically a capital offense.
Fae were beautiful, otherworldly, and highly manipulative. Get too close to one, and he might have you revealing your deepest magical secrets, or worse—using your magic to harm someone else at his behest.
Thing was, Sophie could read their intentions, which made weeding out the shady ones easier for her. So when she came home late from work one morning last year, glowing in a way that had nothing to do with fae illusion and everything to do with Jael’s touch, I wasn't worried. I was actually happy for her.
Sophie made me swear I wouldn’t tell a soul, both of us giggling like teenagers as she spilled all the sweet and sexy details. She and Jael been flirting for months, all of it reaching a crescendo that night when they’d finally shared a kiss that led to another kiss that led to… well, everything else.
Until I found Haley’s napkin, I believed I was the only one other than Sophie and Jael who knew.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
The only thing I was sure about was that I needed to talk to Jael alone. So when dawn’s first light poked through the clouds the following morning, I sent a little prayer up to Sophie, and slipped out of the house as silent as smoke, leaving the two sleeping, snoring, way-too-overprotective demons passed out on my living room floor behind.
* * *
If you didn't know where to look, Illuminae was nearly impossible to find. Fortunately, I’d been delivering here for years and spent enough time with Sophie on the inside to know the club’s cloaking tricks.
From the outside, the building looked like an abandoned storefront, its crumbling bricks covered in graffiti, the windows so caked in grime you couldn’t see through them.
The entrance was below sidewalk level, down a narrow, seemingly endless staircase hidden under a pair of rotting wooden storm doors. To anyone else it looked like a delivery entrance or a cellar, and one peek into the dark abyss beyond was enough to scare off even the most curious urban explorers.
I yanked open one of the doors and headed down the stairs, pulling the door shut behind me. It felt like an hour before I reached the bottom, and from there I walked straight ahead down and equally claustrophobic corridor, pitch black but for the dim blue light spilling out around the club entrance at the end of the hall.
I recognized the bouncer—Leila, a friend of Sophie’s.
“Gray!” Leila beamed when she saw me. I was glad my first fae encounter of the evening was with someone I actually liked. Leila had waist-length, shocking white hair and bright yellow eyes, the exotic combo reminding me of some kind of Arctic cat. Her gossamer slip dress left little to the imagination, but I was digging her thigh-high red leather boots.
