Bewitch

This was the last place on earth that Payne wanted to be.

The heavy iron gate squeaked as it closed behind him. Slippery, damp stone steps led downwards into the gloom. Payne allowed his eyes to change to reveal his vampire nature, his irises burning red and his pupils turning elliptical, and the tunnel brightened enough for him to make out the arching roof cut into the rock. Noises came from ahead. He followed the steps in a sweeping curve, his footfalls echoing around him. His breaths formed as white fog in the moist air before dissipating. A golden glow crept into view further down the tunnel and a gust of drier air washed over him, carrying a myriad of scents. Herbs. Spices. Dead things. Blood. Other disgusting fetid smells joined them as he continued to descend and he wished that vampires didn’t feel the need to breathe.

The steps ended and he followed the uneven earth floor. The tunnel grew larger until it opened onto a high plateau at the start of a cavern. His eyes switched back to their normal grey and the world dulled to a more manageable level of brightness. Enormous rust-coloured stalactites hung from the ceiling arching above him, as though the cave had grown fangs, rows of them, all sharp and wicked in the golden glow rising up from below. Their menacing shadows stretched long across the roof, adding to the sense of danger that he liked. He could live in a place like this. A vampire liked mystery. It was perfect for his kind.

Or it would be if it weren’t for the thousands of fae that bustled in the small underground town spread out below him.

Stone buildings covered the huge base of the cavern, a hotchpotch collection of square flat-roofed structures of different heights. Some were two storeys but most of them were a single level, with large windows and tattered canopies reaching out from them into the narrow streets, each a different jewel-tone colour. Some of the ones directly below him bore crests or fae words he didn’t understand. Alleys wound between the stores and homes in stilted lines that reminded Payne of veins. His stomach growled a reminder that he hadn’t eaten in days, not since he had started out from Vampirerotique on this ridiculous mission.

Scents rose from copper stills, thatched baskets, vials and terracotta or stone jars that stood on display outside the stores on his left, and a wooden arch at the start of one of the streets declared it was the witches’ district. Fae and other creatures crammed the streets, passing from store to store. There had to be close to five thousand fae and other creatures in the area.

Payne studied them, an increasing sense of dread churning in his stomach.

Witches didn’t like vampires. His kind had almost driven them to extinction many centuries ago and they hadn’t forgiven them for it.

Still, he had to go down there. He had made a promise and he intended to keep it. He smiled to himself as he thought about the succubus who needed his help. She had chosen to call herself Chica. Andreu, her lover and one of the vampires who worked at the erotic London theatre with Payne, had explained that it was a pet name that he had called her a few times. Payne couldn’t blame her for keeping her real name secret. He knew firsthand the danger of giving your true name to someone.

Chica needed a way to break the spell that bound her to the theatre, Vampirerotique, stopping her from ever leaving its walls. They had tried everything over the past few weeks and none of it had worked. Antoine, the vampire in charge of the theatre, was at the end of his tether and the dark aristocrat didn’t need this extra burden on his shoulders. He had enough to deal with. Callum had brought a very heavily pregnant Kristina to the theatre, moving the werewolf into his apartment there, and then Snow had taken a turn for the worse three weeks ago, shortly after Javier and Lilah had married at Vampirerotique.

Payne smirked. It hadn’t quite been the wedding that Javier had envisioned for his lovely bride, but Lilah had wanted everyone there, including Snow and Antoine, and Andreu. Andreu, Javier’s younger brother, hadn’t wanted to leave Chica alone at the theatre with Snow and Antoine in order to travel to Spain, so Javier had brought his whole family to the theatre to wed his bride on the stage. It had been tasteful enough. They had since left to hold the traditional celebrations in northern Spain at the family’s mansion there.

Chica had been miserable then because Andreu had again refused to leave her and she felt it was her fault that he was missing his brother’s wedding celebrations. Andreu had done his best to reassure her and Payne had reiterated his promise to help her and free her of the binding spell. He’d had more luck in his latest search for a way of undoing it, managing to find three potential leads, all of them in the fae world.

One of those leads had landed him in trouble.

One had refused to speak to a half-breed. That had pissed Payne off no end. He had told the shapeshifter that he was a vampire but the male had focused on the incubus side of his genes. Payne had felt like killing him but had let it go. Dead or alive, the man wouldn’t have been any help.

The final lead had brought him here, to a whole fae town hidden beneath the grounds of an elegant palatial mansion in the English countryside. Fae lived in the mansion too, the elite of the light side of that world. Everyone down here were merchants, plying their wares to make ends meet, or workers and travellers. Payne had thought witches had higher standards but there were probably hundreds if not thousands of them here, trading with other creatures, selling spells, ointments and god only knew what else.

A group of three young females reached the top of the stone steps to his left and passed him, dressed in the traditional garb of witches, long black featureless dresses that swamped their bodies and concealed their curves. They tittered amongst themselves, their eyes on him, blushes heating their cheeks. His incubus side rose to the fore and he shot them a smile, earning giggles and a few sultry smiles in return. The incubus in him loved every second, lapping up their desire, draining it from the air around him.

Payne tamped it down and his vampire side took control again. The witches’ looks turned dark and he knew they had seen the red in his eyes. Strange how they would toy with an incubus, one who wanted them purely for sexual gratification, but they would scowl at a vampire. His incubus nature was more likely to kill them.

He took the steps on the left down to the cavern floor, his eyes on the town, studying it. There were larger buildings near the edges of the town. Banners hung on their walls. He recognised a few. Not just covens. There was a shapeshifter pride. A wolf pack. Ogres too. There was even a succubus clan. He didn’t need to recognise the banner on that particular building to know what type of creature lived within its dark red walls. There was a steady stream of men coming and going, and some succubi were hanging out of the open windows, calling to them and teasing them with flashes of flesh. The fae equivalent of a bordello.

He shook his head and focused back on the witches’ district. He was shit out of luck if the street signs were in fae. The fae language was extensive and his knowledge of it was limited. He knew the basics but names were often written in a special way. He had never learned those characters. He looked down at the line of markings that tracked up the underside of his forearms and disappeared beneath the charcoal grey rolled up sleeves of his shirt. The swirls, dashes and spikes shifted in hues of dark blue and burnished gold. Not a sign of his incubus side. His markings shone bright gold and cerulean when that was in control. No, this was apprehension.

Understandable considering he was about to enter a world that prided itself on bloodlines and purity.

An abomination like him was liable to end up deep in shit. He wasn’t sure which role to play. The vampire or the incubus? They were more likely to accept his demonic lineage and most of the creatures in the area he needed to head into were unlikely to be able to sense the vampire in him.

Incubus it was.

He hated that.

He reached the bottom of the stone steps and the crowd immediately swallowed him. Women dressed in very little tossed provocative looks his way and his incubus side purred from their attention. He wanted to tamp it down but his vampire side had a tendency to show when he forced it to the fore to obliterate his incubus hungers. He couldn’t risk them seeing he had a dual personality.

Payne preened his long fingers through the dirty blond spikes of his hair and the women hissed at him and disappeared in a flash, teleporting out of his presence. Fairly standard behaviour for a succubus when it saw an incubus. He grinned to himself, remembering how Chica had reacted to him in such a way when she had first come to the theatre. Succubi were weaker than incubi, and it had led to the incubi taking advantage of them more than once, and trying to kill them too. It seemed both sides of his genes had trampled on the feelings of other species without remorse.

He found his first street sign at a junction between four shops all selling herbs that stung his nose. Each plump female owner stood outside, trying to outshout the others. Payne covered his sensitive ears and glared at the wooden post in the middle of the busy crossroads and the boards pointing in different directions.

Just as he had expected. He was shit out of luck.

He didn’t recognise any of the symbols on the wooden boards. He jammed his hands in his jeans pockets and not just because he was frustrated. He had been bumped more than once and he was damned if he was going to have his wallet nicked. That would be the turd icing on a crap cake.

A woman with milk white skin and hair the colour of snow approached him, the crowd parting to allow her through. Her starlight coloured robes flowed ethereally around her, revealing more than they were concealing. She looked like a ghost. Payne stood his ground, his vampire senses sparking high alert, and steadied himself. Every instinct said to roar and scare her away.

Phantom.

He had never seen one before but he had heard that a phantom’s touch could make a man incorporeal. A phantom too. It was the only way for one such as her to mate. She needed to make her male as intangible as she was. When he had first heard that, it had sounded as though it might be fun. Then he had learned that once a phantom, always a phantom. The male never got his corporeal status back and was destined to roam the world as a hollow husk when the phantom cast him aside. No way was he signing up for that.

Her palest silver eyes slid to him and she held her hands out.

Payne reacted on instinct, his eyes darkening to crimson and his pupils turning elliptical. He bore his lengthening fangs at her and growled. She halted and even moved back, but she didn’t leave. She stared at him and her white lips moved. No sound left them but he heard her words in his head.

Unfortunately, he didn’t understand most of them. He caught fae words for ‘fated’, ‘bond’, ‘blood’ and ‘death’.

Before he could ask her in English what she had said to him and what it meant, she swirled into smoke and disappeared. He looked around at the people now staring at him, his skin crawling from their attention and the way they were looking at him as though the phantom had just announced his death sentence. He let his fangs recede and his eyes change back to dark grey, and then singled out one of the witches who had stopped to stare.

“What did she say?”

The woman frowned at him, turned her back and went about her business. Just great. It seemed their looks of horror were because he had flashed his vampire nature. No one else had heard what the phantom had told him and he was damned if he could remember what she had said to repeat it to them.

He didn’t need this shit on top of everything else.

Payne stared at the street sign and decided to go left. He was feeling in a sinister mood after all.

He reached another crossroads and was in the process of deciding which route to take next when a huge cloud of sparkling grey dust exploded into the air off to his right. People ran from that direction, pushing past him. He braced himself and frowned over their heads. There was a shape in the dust, small and curvy, and she wasn’t alone. Four larger shapes surrounded her.

That didn’t seem like a fair fight to Payne.

He ran towards the fray and broke through the dust. Storeowners screamed at the fighters, some of them ferrying their wares inside where it was safe and others standing in front of them, physically protecting them.

The female he had seen through the cloud of dust stood her ground before him, feet spread shoulder width apart beneath the hem of her drab black dress, the long chestnut waves of her hair tangled in the pieces of straw sticking out of it. Grey dust sparkled across her backside. She must have hit whatever had exploded and sent the dust into the air.

Four large males stood opposite her, each of them hunkered low, assessing her.

They were witches too, judging by the coven emblem stitched onto the breast of their loose white shirts and the fact they were all wearing matching dark brown trousers, like a uniform. Payne raised an eyebrow at the elaborate lacing down the front of their shirts, and on their trousers. Where had their coven bought their outfits? Or when for that matter? They looked like something straight out of the eighteenth century. Although, the female of their species didn’t exactly dress in modern attire either. His gaze slid back to her, slowly taking in her dull black dress, trying to pierce the material to see what curves it concealed.

One of the men shuffled, bracing his feet shoulder-width apart on the cobblestones, preparing to attack.

What did they want with the female?

Her heartbeat was frantic. Frightened.

One of the males lunged at her and she turned on the spot, threw herself forwards and rolled towards Payne. She found her feet just a few metres in front of him and her eyes widened as they met his. Smudges of black ash dotted her pale face but Payne didn’t notice them.

She was beautiful.

Entrancing.

Her silvery eyes sparkled like stars.

The male grabbed her from behind and leaned back, lifting her feet off the floor. She unleashed a low growl of frustration and landed a series of devastating blows on him. Her foot slammed into the man’s left knee, hobbling him, and then she jammed her elbow into his face, right into his eye. Payne winced when the man howled and dropped the petite firecracker and she turned and landed a hard kick to his balls. The man hit the deck, clutching himself and groaning.

The sight of her so easily dispatching their comrade didn’t stop the other three. They attacked as one with magic, hurling colourful sparkling orbs that caught her right in the chest and sent her flying. She tumbled through the air, the skirt of her dress hiking up to reveal sinfully red knickers. Payne had intended to catch her but the sight of them froze him right to his boots. His incubus purred. The vampire in him purred too.

The female landed hard in the baskets outside one of the stores to his left, scattering their contents. Snakes slithered over the cobbles and frogs hopped, making a break for freedom. Payne lifted his left boot to allow a black and red snake to pass. The elderly witch who owned the store added insult to injury and beat the poor female with a broom. The beauty got to her feet by rolling unceremoniously into the cobbled street, her dress still tangled around her middle, flashing her knickers and a lot of smooth creamy leg.

He wasn’t the only one the sight of her had enchanted. The three males were all dumbstruck too, staring at her exposed skin.

She got to her feet, grabbed a length of thin silver rope that had fallen from one of the baskets, and brandished it like a whip.

She lashed out at the males, cracking the end of the rope across their chests and legs. The males reacted then, each making vain attempts to close the distance between them. Even teleportation spells didn’t help them. She struck them before they could fully disappear, stopping them.

Payne stared. The sight of her with the makeshift whip, dominating the more powerful males with it, was arousing to say the least. He knew his eyes were glowing blue and gold, and he knew he should get his hungers under control before they took him over and made him do something he might regret, but by god almighty he wanted the little witch.

One of the males managed to reach her and caught the hand that held the rope. The others looked ready to pile in. It was going to get out of hand.

Payne felt a strange urge to protect her.

He leaped into the fray, barrelling into the man who had captured her and taking him down. He slammed a right hook into his cheek, felt bone give and then crack under the force of the blow. The man bellowed in pain and he struck him again, breaking his jaw. The enticing scent of blood filled the air and Payne growled. His hunger rose.

The female was back in action, hurling vicious magical attacks at the other two males, shrieking at them in the fae tongue. When he had made a vague effort to learn the language, Payne had followed the tradition of all language students and started with the swear words. She cursed better than any of those clichés. Sailors, soldiers and troopers had nothing on this woman.

One of the males grabbed Payne from behind, hauling him off the other witch. He snarled, quickly turned and caught the man with a hard right uppercut and then a left hook as the man dropped him. He kept dealing blows, driving the man away from the female.

A bolt of something blue shot past Payne and sent the male he had been fighting flying through the air. The man smacked into the side of one of the buildings, rolled awkwardly down the emerald green canopy and landed hard on the cobbled street.

The other man fled, helping one of the injured. The fourth man hobbled past Payne and he growled at him, allowing his eyes to blaze red and fangs to lengthen enough that the man got the hint.

The four males looked back past him, to the female. They said something in fae. Payne caught a few words as his fangs receded and his eyes changed back to grey, enough to know they intended to tell on her to their coven. Had she done something wrong?

Payne turned to face her.

She stood in the middle of the narrow street, her silver eyes dark with determination, her breathing as rapid as her heartbeat. Payne took a step towards her and she lashed out at him with the rope. He easily caught the end of it before it could strike him.

Payne stared at her. She struggled with the rope, trying to pull it free of his grip, her pretty face twisting in anger and her eyes bright with it too. Hay stuck out of her long chestnut hair in places, the tousled waves resembling more of a bush than the beautiful glossy locks they had been before her tumble in the baskets and beating with a broom. She looked like a wild animal, feral and vicious.

Payne wanted to tame her.

He held her attention. The sparks of silver in her striking eyes brightened. He took a step towards her, gathering the rope at the same time, keeping it taut between them. She raised her other hand and a golden orb glowed close to her palm. She didn’t want to let him near her. He got the message and ignored it too. He kept moving towards her, steady steps, his eyes constantly locked on hers. He could see she didn’t want to lower that magic or let him close to her, even as he worked to change it. He hated to use his natural talents on anyone but she was going to get herself killed if he didn’t get her off the street soon. Those males would come back with more like them.

She blinked slowly. Payne lost focus as her long dark lashes shuttered her incredible eyes, stealing them from view. The distraction cost him. She smiled and yanked the rope. It slipped from his grasp and she lashed out with it, catching him hard across the cheek. He didn’t flinch, didn’t take his eyes off her. The smell of his blood mixed with the scents in the air.

Payne kept slowly advancing, his eyes on hers, keeping them riveted on him. She wanted to give up her fight. She wanted him. He sent that feeling to her, filling her mind with thoughts of them together, trying to convince her to lower her guard.

She drew her arm back to strike again.

Payne teleported just as she let loose with the rope and appeared right in front of her. He caught her wrists, his eyes still on hers. She stared up at him, her sensual rosy lips parted in shock and her eyes dark with desire that swirled into him through the point where they touched, feeding his hunger. Her breathing quickened to short soft pants. He had never heard anything so erotic and alluring. He wanted to hear her panting like that into his ear as he thrust into her welcoming wet heat.

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered and her pupils dilated. “Give in to me.”

He felt her relax. Her fingers opened and the rope fell from them.

Her dark eyebrows drew together and her pupils narrowed. She yanked her right hand free of his grip and slammed her fist into his cheek, splitting open the gash there from the whip. Payne grabbed her wrist again and held them both in a bruising grip. It seemed she was a little immune to his charm.

“I won’t hurt you,” he repeated and her struggling slowed until she was wriggling against him in a way that fired him up.

He shoved her away and scowled at her. She blinked into his eyes and then dropped her gaze to his hands where they clutched her wrists. It rose to his cheek and she stilled.

“You’re bleeding.” She spoke in English, her voice soft and light, full of warmth that curled through him, easing his tension.

Was his charm offensive getting through to her now? He focused on her and his incubus side didn’t purr. Evidently not.

She pulled her hand free of his and gently pressed the pads of her fingers to the skin below the cut on his cheek. Payne hissed in a sharp breath, heat flooding him, all stemming from the point where she touched him. He stared down into her silver-grey eyes, hungry thoughts spinning through his mind, his body reacting swiftly.

She broke free of him, a soft gasp escaping her sinful mouth and her cheeks darkening. Had she sensed his thoughts? She smoothed her plain black dress, looking for all the world as if she was doing her best to smooth her feelings with it. Her heartbeat was all over the place and he could sense her desire.

“Come with me.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She turned her back, picked up the rope, and walked away, heading towards the crossroad he had come from. Payne raked his gaze over her, the oversized black dress hiding none of her from his imagination now. He had seen her shapely legs and crimson knickers, and he still burned from that brief glimpse. She plucked a piece of straw from her hair and glanced over her shoulder at him, her beautiful eyes immediately capturing his attention. He was supposed to have cast a spell on her to get her under his control.

He felt as though she had cast one on him.

Payne followed her, unable to resist his need to know her taste and her touch. He could never allow it to happen though.

He couldn’t influence her.

She was immune.

Immunity to an incubus’s charms was a sign that she was their fated mate.

The last woman who had been semi-immune to his charms had broken his heart.

The phantom’s words came back to him.

Fated. Bond. Blood. Death.

Sounded like a recipe for disaster to him, and this little witch was just the first ingredient.