Demon's Kiss

Reaper smiled slowly. It wasn’t a happy smile; it was a scary one. “I felt your reaction to hearing Jack’s name. You don’t want me to kill him in the process of taking out his boss. I figure I can bargain with you for his safety.”

She lifted her brows. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want you to kill him, but only because I want to do it myself.”

Seth had felt the rush of energy blasting from her at the mention of Jack’s name, too. And while he wasn’t as adept at reading other vamps as Reaper was, he’d always had a knack for reading people. He thought she was lying. It hadn’t felt like a rush of murderous rage to him. It had felt like a rush of pain of the heartache variety, and an all-out effort to hold back a flood of tears.

She changed the subject. “So who are these two?” she asked.

“These are my…” Reaper hesitated, as if he couldn’t quite think of the right word.

“Friends,” Seth filled in, sending Reaper a disgusted look and getting to his feet to offer his hand. “I’m Seth. I’m new to all this undead stuff.”

Topaz shook his hand and said, “You’re kidding,” in the most sarcastic tone he could imagine. Hell, was it that obvious he was a newborn?

Then she turned to Roxy. “And you are…one of the Chosen, but…there’s something different about you.”

“Roxy.” She didn’t offer a hand, and didn’t get up from her spot near the fire. “And everything about me is different.”

“What an odd little band,” Topaz said. Then she shrugged, as if that was all the consideration she was going to give to that subject.

“You were about to go somewhere,” Reaper said, with a glance at the luggage stacked near the front door.

“Yes. I was going to hunt Jack Heart down—and that’s his name, by the way. Jack Heart. This Jack of Hearts nonsense is nothing but vanity. At any rate, I was going to hunt him down, get back the money he stole from me and then kill him. But I had no idea he was running with a pack of rogues.”

“So you know where he is, then?” Reaper asked.

She studied him, and took her time about answering. “I might.” She shrugged. “I must admit, I’m glad you came along when you did. I was walking into a dangerous situation without a clue it even existed. I could have been killed if I’d tried to get to him alone.”

She looked at Reaper, then at Seth and Roxy, and back at Reaper again. Seth could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. And then they seemed to click into place.

The slightly irritated, out-for-vengeance woman scorned melted away like the outer wax of a candle. Topaz smiled all of a sudden, and it was a huge, bright, entirely false smile that was enchanting all the same. Her eyes took on the sparkle and innocence one would expect to see in the eyes of the prom queen he had already mentally compared her to. The aura of being a dangerous predator might have never existed.

“But now I don’t have to go alone.”

“Oh, no—” Reaper began, but she cut in immediately.

“I have to tell you, Reaper, this doesn’t sound at all like Jack. He’s no rogue. A total bastard, yes, but there’s not a violent bone in his body. He’s a con man. A lover, not a fighter.” She sent him a sheepish, almost shy look as she said it.

“That’s good to know—possibly more than I need to know, in fact, but thank you all the same. However, you must understand this, Topaz. All I want from you is Jack’s location. If you could just tell me where—”

She wasn’t paying attention by this point, but was, instead, leaning past him to look out through the door and down the drive to the end, where they’d parked. And then she was speaking again, her tone so innocent that surely not even the most gullible man on earth would have bought into it. “Oh, look at that van! God, that is so cute! And there must be plenty of room. Sam, why don’t you—”

“Seth,” he said. She blinked at him as if not understanding, so he clarified. “My name. It’s Seth, not Sam.”

“Whatever. Be a doll and carry my bags out for me. Isn’t the timing perfect? You don’t even have to wait for me to get ready.” She clapped her hands together and turned her full-high-beam smile on Reaper again. “Here I am, all packed and ready to go, and you guys show up like a limo service or something. This is great.”

She played the spoiled, rich airhead well. But Seth saw right through it. She’d revealed her truer nature when they’d first arrived—when she’d threatened to kill them if they came any closer. This friendly, bubbly ditz routine was for the birds.

“We are not taking you with us,” Reaper said, using his darkest, most bone-chilling tone.

Thank God, Seth thought. Reaper wasn’t falling for it, either. Topaz’s false smile died. Her brows lowered. Her eyes grew dark and dangerous, and in that instant the transformation was so complete that Seth half expected a ghostly wind to start blowing through her hair as lightning flashed behind her. “Oh, yes, you are,” she said. And her tone was every bit as chilling as Reaper’s had been, and every bit as sincere. “Because I am not going to tell you where he is. I’ll give you directions as we go. If you want to find Jack and this gang he allegedly runs with, you’re stuck with me.”

Seth grinned then. He couldn’t help it. The prom queen had Reaper over a barrel, and she wasn’t one bit afraid of him. He had to like that. And he wondered how long it had been since Reaper had come across so damn many people he couldn’t bully with his nasty-ass temper and big bad routine.

Reaper glanced his way, and he wiped the grin off his face in a hurry, but not before it had been seen. Seth sent a quick glance Roxy’s way, just to see if he could tell what she thought about all this. She was studying Topaz as if trying to figure her out. Seth couldn’t tell if she admired the woman’s moxy or hated her guts.

Roxy met his eyes, read his questions and shrugged almost imperceptibly before returning her attention to Reaper. “We’re wasting time,” she said. “Raphael, I don’t see that we have a choice. And standing here arguing isn’t going to do any good. You can see she’s not going to change her mind.”

“Absolutely not,” Reaper said.

Seth tugged his Noisy Cricket out of his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing it to Topaz. “You’re gonna need this.”

Topaz took it from him, a tiny gun just the right size for her small hand. “What for?”

“We’ll explain later.” Seth scooped up half her bags and started trudging toward the van.

Topaz picked up the smallest of the bags, a tiny pink suitcase about one foot square, and carried that. Roxy followed, carrying nothing. She would be damned, Seth thought, before she would wait on a woman who was capable of waiting on herself. A few minutes later, the three of them were in the van and looking back toward the house.

Reaper was still standing in the open doors, blinking at them in disbelief.

“Grab those last two bags, would you, hon?” Topaz called. “And lock up on your way out.” She looked at Seth, who had retaken his seat up front after stashing her bags. “Do you mind terribly, Steve? I get carsick in the back, so I’m going to have to insist on riding shotgun. ”

She was turning up those eyes again. “It’s Seth,” he said. “And you can quit the sweet-shallow-princess bit, Topaz. It won’t work on me.” But he got out and climbed into the next set of seats, as Roxy sent him a look that said, “Gee, thanks.”