Page 81 of Playing with Fire

Oh crap.

Chapter Nineteen

>The incubus wanted to play poker.

The incubus pulled a deck of cards out of his pants, and I gaped at him while he shuffled. My stunned silence lasted until he cleared space between us and started dealing. At first I thought he meant for us to play Blackjack, but then he started dropping cards in the river.

By play, he had meant cards? Not just cards, poker.

The incubus wanted to play poker with me. He seemed to have missed the memo that it was a betting game, but I went along with it anyway, at a complete loss of what else to do. Play to an incubus always involved sex.

Why were we playing poker?

After the second hand, the absurdity of my situation hit home along with a skull-splitting headache. The incubus exhibited a few of the classic symptoms of high-grade pixie-dust intoxication, including suppressed willpower and child-like tendencies, but I was worried something else was influencing the incubus.

An incubus high on pixie dust sought out lovers, and anyone would do. They lost control of their powers, influencing everyone in their maximum range. Most incubi were banned from having pixie dust, and the ones who got it enjoyed it under very controlled situations.

A+++ pixie dust would create complete and total chaos centered around the incubus, and I’d get a full blast of it. If I could transform into a unicorn, maybe I’d escape without having to put Sylvester’s bracelet to the test. I gulped. Would the angelic magic work on an incubus so high he’d touch the heavens?

If I stuck around too long, I’d find out what it’d be like to have an incubus’s full attention, which would be even harder to resist. No matter what, I needed to get out of the warehouse and as far away as possible.

“Hey. Can I leave now?”

The incubus looked up from his cards. “Oh no, my beloved harem queen. The mistress would get mad at me.”

Right, of course. I should have known. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, stare at the ceiling, and pray for patience. I ended up praying for patience but didn’t expect an answer. If I couldn’t leave without having to fight an incubus, maybe I could get some information out of him. “So, how long have you been with your mistress?”

“Oh, I don’t know how long. I’m blessed. She wants me to father her children.”

What kind of children was Audrey expecting to have? If an angel, an incubus, and a human made a human, the Sphinx and Anubis made a human, a gorgon and a centaur made a human, I suspected a gorgon and an incubus using me as their surrogate would also produce a human—or a lot of humans born from gorgon eggs.

Hell no. Over my dead body. Since there was no way in hell I’d be involved in such a sick threesome, committing felonies was my only option. I’d start with the illegal handling of pixie dust. I’d add to that with the very illegal intentional overdosing of transformative substances. At least I’d be able to write that one off; I’d be taking the pills instead of forcing them on someone, but I could lose my certification over it. Bonus.

I could try to get a pill or two down the incubus’s throat and hope they cancelled his seductive powers, but I doubted they would work. A higher grade might, but D grade pills wouldn’t do much to him. I’d be better off overdosing myself and seeing what happened. Maybe I’d shift faster, maybe I’d flare and burn hotter than normal. I had no idea what would actually happen.

Some risks were worth taking.

Once I busted out of the warehouse, I’d make my escape. If Audrey tried to stop me, I’d put an end to her idiocy.

First, I needed to make sure the incubus wasn’t packing anything other than his sex drive and desire to spread the love. “How about we play a spicier game?”

I captured his undivided attention. “What game, my queen?”

The real idiot was me for even suggesting a game of strip poker to an incubus. I hoped Quinn would forgive me. “How about strip poker?”

Heat built in my body, the kind I only wanted to be from Quinn’s hands on me. I clenched my teeth and ignored the stirring of my desires. I would not do any sort of dance with an incubus. I just needed to get him naked to make sure he wasn’t carrying any weapons. If he had weapons, I might be able to get hold of one.

I would not succumb to a damned incubus, no matter what.

“That’s my favorite type of poker,” he purred, soft and seductive.

I bet it was. “Deal the cards.”

He did, and I concentrated on winning every hand. Fortunately for me, incubi lived to lose at games like strip poker, and within five hands, I had him down to his socks.

Holy hell. No wonder women jumped at a chance to be with an incubus. The creature’s sculpted beauty went from head to toe, and he wasn’t at all shy about giving me a show to stoke my interest in him.

Yep, Quinn had definitely gotten more than his fair share of genes from his incubus grandfather. I’d thank God for that later—after I escaped. Of course, Quinn wouldn’t be happy with me for working up an incubus and trusting a shiny gold tattoo to keep me out of trouble long enough to make my break. Then I’d have to stay out of trouble until I reversed to human shape, hunted Quinn down, and found relief in his bed.