Wicked Pleasure Read online

  The woman looked old. Very old. Her white hair was short with waves that marched across her head in perfect order. Small wireframed glasses perched on the end of her nose. A round face, faded blue eyes, a small mouth, and many many wrinkles completed the picture of everybody’s grandmother.

  Trouble was, Kim’s grandmother didn’t look like this. Grandma was slim, trim, and stylish, with great hair. She’d threatened to give all her money to cat charities unless her family promised to make sure when they laid her out that no gray roots showed and that she had fresh highlights. Grandma wasn’t going to knock on the pearly gates looking like a night hag.

  Kim glanced down at the brochure the woman held out to her. The grandma image continued. White cardigan, baggy, flowered dress that showed the tops of knee-highs when the wind caught the edges of her skirt, and black, chunky shoes.

  Kim took the brochure because she didn’t want to insult the woman. “Thanks.”

  The woman smiled at Kim. It was a prim smile. “I’m Miss Abby. Taught first grade for thirty-five years here in Galveston. Kids’ll either kill you or make you stronger. I got stronger. When I retired, I started my own business. Ye Olde Victorian Wedding Chapel. I’ll marry you in style.”

  What to say? “Umm, I don’t think—”

  “That’s the trouble today, youngsters don’t think. Keep the brochure. You never know when you might meet the perfect young man and want to hitch up with him in a hurry. In my day, young ladies didn’t just up and marry someone fast unless they were in a family way. But times change.” Her expression said not for the better.

  Family way? Who said things like that nowadays? “I guarantee I won’t be needing a wedding chapel.” Not unless Mr. Ordinary popped out of the castle wall.

  The woman waved at her. “Keep the brochure. Pass it on if you can’t use it.” She walked past Kim. “I have to leave a pile of them in the lobby. Get a lot of business from the castle.”

  Strange. Miss Abby’s walk was a lot more chipper than the rest of her. But a faint squeaking distracted Kim from Miss Abby’s walk. Birds? Not at night. “Do you hear a squeaking noise?”

  Miss Abby glanced back at Kim. “That’s my girdle, dearie. Every lady should wear one.” Her gaze said no girdle, no lady. She didn’t give the button a second glance as she pulled the door open and disappeared inside.

  Kim was on Miss Abby’s slut list, but somehow she couldn’t drum up the energy to care. She’d take a look at the great hall and then spend the rest of her night trying to reason away Brynn’s very scary emotions that had scraped off on her.

  Finally, she noticed the whispering coming from her pocket.

  “She’s a demon, Kimmie. I’ve been trying to tell you, but you weren’t paying attention.” Pregnant pause. “Someday a demon is going to get you, and you’ll be dead, dead, dead. And I’ll make sure they put ‘I told you so. Love, Fo’ on your tombstone.”

  Kim sighed. What a sweetheart. She pushed the button.

  2

  Kim stared at the closed doors. Well, that was a freaky little scene. Not her weirdest, though.

  Her weirdest had been when a demon wearing a chicken costume had attacked her. The restaurant manager who’d hired him really got bent out of shape when Fo turned Mr. Chicken into a pile of ash. Kim had to sweep Mr. Chicken off the walk and then wear the stupid costume for the rest of the night to calm the manager down.

  But this was close. Very close. At least the strange emotions hadn’t returned. Maybe they’d just been an anomaly, a moment in time and space that would never happen again. She could hope.

  The creak of heavy doors opening refocused her on the here and now. Flickering lights along with the sounds of music and voices washed over her. And a man, no, a wizard, stood in the doorway. Gold-trimmed blue robe, tall, conical hat decorated with gold suns, moons, and stars—yeah, definitely a wizard.

  The thin, gray-haired man peered at her from narrowed gray eyes. His pursed lips announced his disapproval of her appearance at his door. He tugged at his long, pointy beard.

  “Holgarth, at your service, madam.” His expression said he’d eat dirt before ever being at anyone’s service. “Your clothing is distressingly inappropriate for tonight’s ball. Please pay for your ticket and then come with me.” He waved imperiously toward a ticket counter.

  This man was Holgarth? “I don’t want—”

  “You don’t want to be seen in those disreputable garments?” He looked down his long nose at her and then dismissed her jeans, T-shirt, boots, and jacket with a contemptuous sniff. “And rightly so. One always wonders why people don’t consider their apparel more carefully.” He arched one haughty brow to indicate how puzzled he was by such thoughtless behavior on the part of the unwashed masses.

  “No, you don’t understand. I’m—”

  “Appallingly late. I know.” He glanced around at the sea of fake vamps filling the great hall. “Come, come. I have other duties to perform besides greeting and finding presentable gowns for all the local Cinderellas.” Ignoring her attempt to introduce herself, he tried to propel her toward the counter where he obviously expected her to meekly pay for a ticket.

  Kim didn’t do meekness well. “Whoa, your Wizardy Worship. We need to get a few things straight. First off, I didn’t come here for your Vampire Ball. I’m Kimberly Vaughn, and you wrote to offer me the job of making a few improvements to ye olde castle.”

  He stared at her with eyes that looked a little too ancient, a little too crafty. Not a comfy feeling. “Ah, yes. Ms. Vaughn. The owner insisted that you were the only one who could capture the true vision of the castle.” He pressed his lips into thin lines of displeasure. “I was not consulted on the choice.” Once again, he did the looking-up-and-down thing. “I dread to ask what your vision might be.” He held up a hand. “No, don’t tell me. Let it all be a marvelous surprise.” His expression said he expected a disastrous surprise.

  Kim couldn’t help it, she grinned. He was so obnoxious he was funny. “Oh, but I have tons of great ideas. The first thing I’ll do is knock down one side of the great hall and create a wall of glass. Bring the castle into the twenty-first century. Hey, and how about a gatehouse with a murder hole so you can shoot fiery arrows down on customers? How does that work for you?”

  He actually blanched. But before he could express his opinion, Fo expressed hers.

  “He’s too old for you, Kimmie. I can tell by his voice. Why’re you wasting your time on an old fart when you could be searching for a young ordinary guy? Take me out so I can look at him.” Fo vibrated to emphasize her demand.

  Kim clamped her hand over her pocket. Damn.

  Holgarth paused to stare at her pocket. “Your pocket spoke, Ms. Vaughn. The ‘old fart’ will wait while you answer it.” His bored expression said that pockets spoke to people on a regular basis.

  Fine, so she had a situation here, but nothing she hadn’t faced before. She’d take Fo out, act like she was answering a call, and then roll right into the familiar it’s-just-a-novelty explanation. Uh-huh, and that worked so well with Brynn. She took Fo from her pocket and flipped her open.

  But before she had a chance to put the detector to her ear and carry on a pretend conversation, Holgarth plucked Fo from her hand. He narrowed his gimlet gaze on Fo, and Fo blinked her big purple eyes at him.

  “I think he’s a demon, too, Kimmie. A mean one. But he’s not hot like the one we met outside. So can I destroy him now?” Fo didn’t seem to realize she was in the hands of the enemy, so to speak.

  “How fascinating. A tiny homicidal being.” Holgarth seemed intrigued, which was a step up from obnoxious. “Perhaps I’ll take her apart to see how she works.”

  Fo’s eyes widened in alarm. “Get me away from him, Kimmie. And then press my Destroy button. Do it nownownow!” Fo’s alarm was escalating into all-out panic.

  Luckily for Galveston, Fo’s creator hadn’t programmed her with the ability to destroy demons on her own. Kim still had to press the button. “
Give Fo back to me before I yank off your pointy hat and beat you over your pointy head with it.” Way to go, Vaughn. She wondered if Holgarth had the power to fire her. “Besides, you don’t need to take her—er, it—apart. It’s just a cell phone with some clever programming. My brother likes to mess with electronics.”

  Holgarth’s gaze seemed to strip away all her bravado and expose the lie festering beneath. “You don’t tell untruths very well, Ms. Vaughn. Not even to yourself. We both know what Fo is.”

  What did he know? Okay, a moment of self-truth. Kim didn’t believe her family. Fo wasn’t merely a piece of useful equipment like all their other demon detectors. The scientist they’d commissioned to create the perfect demon-detector-slash-destroyer had made Fo first. Then he had the nerve to drop dead. Dad was really ticked at first because he had to find someone else to build all the other detectors. Later, Dad said they’d caught a lucky break because Fo was a useless piece of junk.

  And what did Kim believe? Fo had a personality. Her technology was flawed, so she made decisions based on her emotions. Kim still had trouble taking that last step and demanding that her family accept what Fo truly was, but she knew. Heaven help all of them, she knew. “Give Fo back to me now.”

  Surprisingly, Holgarth handed Fo over, and for the first time Kim thought she saw a slight lift of his lips that was almost, but not quite, a smile. “Perhaps I misjudged you. Your stay could prove to be quite entertaining.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Look, I don’t want to do any dancing or anything. I just want to take a quick look around the great hall and then get some sleep. I drove down from Dallas, and it’s been a long day.” Too long if I’m picking up on the emotions of godlike strangers.

  She’d already checked in and had her bags taken to her room, but she’d wanted to get the full impact of the castle by walking around to the front where, for a few moments, she could forget that the other side of the castle was a hotel entrance.

  Holgarth nodded. “When you decide to retire, you can go through that door.” He pointed toward a door tucked away in one of the great hall’s corners. “It leads to the hotel lobby and elevators. Of course, if you feel energetic, you can always take the scenic route to your room. The four spiral stone staircases lead all the way to the top of the towers. Authentic but exhausting.”

  Kim nodded. “One question. What’s your job description here?” Maybe she should’ve asked that question when she first received his letter.

  “I do many things, Ms. Vaughn.”

  Something in his tone sent an unexplained ripple of unease through her. “Fine, so name a few.”

  “I’m the owner’s attorney, but I also take care of various . . . things here. The owner pays me well to devote myself exclusively to the well-being of the castle.” He seemed ready to walk away from her, but then paused. “Fo mentioned a demon you’d met outside, one that was ‘hot’ as opposed to an old fart.”

  “You can forget the demon part. Fo thinks if it breathes, it’s a demon.” Kim ignored Fo, who’d narrowed her eyes to angry purple slits. “I met two people, Brynn and Liz. I guess they’re both staying in the hotel.” The warm slide of pleasure when she mentioned Brynn’s name surprised her, because the emotion was hers, all hers.

  For some reason, her comment seemed to bother Holgarth. “They were together?”

  Kim nodded. “Before you run off to harass more late-comers—and heaven knows how the castle keeps any business when you greet customers with such joyous enthusiasm—I have two more questions. What’s the owner’s name, and is the owner a man or a woman?” Stupid of her not to have asked these questions sooner.

  Holgarth’s expression turned sly. “The owner prefers to remain anonymous.” He shrugged. “Man or woman? One can never be quite sure, can one? Oh, and we keep customers because my bubbling personality grows on them.” He turned toward the door to welcome another unfortunate late arrival.

  “Like mold.” Her muttered comment drew no response from Holgarth. Left alone, Kim looked down at a subdued Fo. “See what happens when you open your mouth without thinking?” Yes, mouth, not speaker or sound box. Kim didn’t give Fo a chance to reply before closing her and returning the detector to her pocket.

  She wandered through the crowd of dancers. A group of musicians played in one corner of the hall while a long banquet table in front of the large, blazing fireplace was set up as a buffet. A bar was kept busy in another corner. Kim tried to wrap her imagination around an image of hordes of drunken vampires hitting the streets after the ball.

  She ignored the small candlelit tables around the periphery of the room while she tried to picture the great hall the way it normally looked—wall sconces with lights that imitated the flickering flames of many candles, authentic-looking tapestries, armor, and weapons of war, high vaulted ceilings with exposed beams. Yes, she could work with all of this.

  “Spectacular, isn’t it?” The deep male voice dragged her attention back to the ball.

  She smiled automatically as she turned to the man who’d stopped beside her. “Yes, it’s really . . .” Kim had to make trips to Galveston more often. The Gulf breezes seemed to blow in more than the normal smattering of hot guys. “Beautiful.”

  Tall, broad-shouldered, with long black hair just tousled enough to tempt a woman’s fingers, and brilliant blue eyes that hinted at secrets, he was a major wow. Okay, maybe not as major a wow as Brynn, but still totally gorgeous.

  “I heard you talking to Holgarth. We’ve been expecting you. I’m Eric McNair. My brothers and I run the place, so I wanted to officially welcome you to the Castle of Dark Dreams.” He smiled and held out his hand. “I know how Holgarth greets newcomers, so I figured I’d better rush over to do some damage control.”

  Kim clasped his hand and duly noted that actual physical contact with Eric didn’t trigger her body’s awesome-impact alarm. Brynn sure had. Interesting. And how had he heard her conversation with Holgarth? She hadn’t seen him anywhere nearby, and she’d definitely have noticed a man like Eric.

  “I caught a mention of my brother Brynn in your conversation. You said you met him outside, and Liz was with him.” Eric’s gaze might be on Kim, but behind those blue eyes his thoughts were elsewhere.

  Brynn and Eric were brothers? Kim studied Eric more closely. No resemblance other than a sensuality rating that was off the scale. And why were Holgarth and Eric both so concerned that Brynn and Liz were together? Concern was the right word. She sensed worry in both men’s questions. She mentally shrugged away her curiosity. It wasn’t any of her business.

  “Well, when Liz first spoke to me they were together, but then for some reason Liz left. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know.” But she’d like to. Fine, so she couldn’t dismiss her curiosity about Brynn with just a mental shrug. That worried her. She didn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure, and she sensed that Brynn would bring pleasure on a mythic scale.

  Eric nodded, but there was still a line of worry between his eyes. “I’ll leave you alone so you can look around. Make sure you ask the staff for anything you need. I probably won’t see you again until tomorrow night, but maybe we can all get together then and toss around ideas.” Eric turned away and strode to the bar where he joined a tall, muscular man with shaggy dark hair who looked like he’d be more at home wearing a kilt and wielding a sword than dressed in a tux and holding a drink.

  Eric and the other man spoke intently. The other man glanced her way once, so she assumed Eric was passing on the info she’d given him. Then both men left. Hmm. Strange, but she was too tired to think about the undercurrents she felt. Yawning, she headed for the door to the hotel lobby. She’d try to sort out all her first impressions tomorrow when her head was clearer.

  She grinned at Fo’s tentative vibration. Surprise, surprise, Holgarth had scared Fo into blessed silence. Kim would listen while Fo told her Eric was a demon after she’d had a good night’s sleep.

  Brynn stood on the curtain wall’s walkway looking out ove
r the battlements at the Gulf of Mexico. He didn’t have Eric’s enhanced senses, so he couldn’t see too much of the Gulf through the fog that was moving in. But that was okay, because the fog also blanked out most of the traffic on Seawall Boulevard, the street that separated the castle from the Gulf. On a night like this—damp, chilly, and with the fog rolling in—he could almost believe he was the only person alive. And that suited him just fine.

  But he wasn’t allowed to enjoy his fantasy long. Eric and Conall joined him, one on each side, and all three stared in silence at the fog.

  “Hey, relax, I’m not going to jump. Leaping from high places puts a major hurting on me without achieving the desired goal. And if the impact messes up a few body parts, they heal as good as new faster than I can say ouch. Been there, done that, don’t want to go there again.” He could write the definitive book on creative attempts to end demonic existence, but since none of them worked, he didn’t think publishers would put out the big bucks.

  Eric and Conall chose to ignore his comment.

  “I guess you’re here because someone told you I was with Liz.” He figured that someone was about five seven with a mop of curly red hair, huge green eyes, and named Kim. Amazing he remembered even that much about her. There’d been so many women over the centuries, women he’d tried to wipe from his memory as soon as he left them. He’d gotten good at forgetting women.

  But he’d have to be careful around Kim. When he’d probed her mind to find an explanation for her reaction to him, he’d found the echo of his own emotions. From the amazed look on her face, she didn’t understand how it had happened. He’d have to guard his feelings when she was close so it didn’t happen again. His emotions were ugly and not to be shared with anyone.

  Eric turned his deadly vampire stare on Brynn, the one meant to scare him into submission. “I’m going to stop Liz.”

  “No.” Greatest word in any language. No wasn’t a word he got to say often, so he savored moments like this.