Poison Kissed by Erica Hayes Page B

you.” The boy’s intoxicated blood smells like plumjuice, sweet and heady, and his tone scrapes with bitterness and loss.
    Kane follows the boy’s covetous gaze to a shapely blond girl in a slim red dress. “Is that your girlfriend?”
    “Not anymore.” The boy drains his drink, dark auburn hair brushing his shoulders.
    “She’s very beautiful.” Kane licks his lips, soullust rich like hot honey in his blood. He wants to squirm, shift, devour.
    “Beautiful. Smart. Going places. Fucks like a goddess. I shoulda known better.”
    The boy laughs, and Kane smells heartbreak, obsession, cold liaisons with other, faceless girls that end in silence. Desperation. He nods slowly, teeth sharpening. “I imagine a man might trade his soul for a woman like that.”
    “Heh. If only, mate. If only.”
    Images of bloody shreds, gnashing teeth, the ripe deliciousness of soulflesh. Kane glides to his feet, uncomfortable heat swelling his veins, and leans over to whisper as he passes. “I shouldn’t give up, Joshua, if I were you. I believe it’s your lucky night.”
    The boy stares. Kane glides onto the floor. Red-dress girl jumps as he approaches, and flinches when he trails his fingers over her hand.
    She stares, curious and wary, but doesn’t pull away. “I know you, don’t I?”
    He leans closer, her oriental scent lighting tiny flames along his skin. “You’ve always known me, Lucy.”
    Blood rushes from her shoulders to her face, and she gasps, the same raw, throaty sound they give when he pleasures them. He inhales deeper, and her secrets flower, limp like weak-stemmed roses for him to taste.
    Bruises in the bathroom mirror, concealer makeup cold and sticky on her fingers. A man’s harsh fists across her face, the sick punch in the guts that made her body bleed dark crimson lumps onto the shower floor, bigger than any clot had the right to be.
    Kane’s muscles twitch. Taste that fertile blood, drink that wasted life from her body and make her shudder, lick her soft folds clean and lull her to peaceful sleep in his arms. Drag her and her lovesick auburn pet to hell.
    He brushes his cheekbone against hers, just a tiny gesture of dominance, and she shivers. His throat stings raw. She’s already there, her own private hell of despair and emptiness. Such a small step into the abyss. He whispers warm in her ear, curling a demonic wisp of longing into her despair like sly smoke. “That boy’s dying for love. He’ll never hurt you like the other one did. Why don’t you go to him?”
    “But he lied.” She stares, her lush lip trembling. “He slept with her.”
    “Because you left him. Without you he’s lost.”
    She swallows, her eyes glazing bright with desperate hope. “Really?”
    “I believe there’s magic in the air tonight. He can give you that child you yearn for. Wouldn’t you trade everything for that?” He sears his lips across her cheek, like a mark.
    She trembles beneath his kiss. Her gaze meets his, wide and raw with longing, and she’s lost.
    Kane shudders, breathless. It’s like love, this luxuriant warmth in his blood, so rich and rare and intoxicating. Better, because no one ever says no, not in the end.
    A tear slips down her face, unwilling. She blinks it away. “Thank you,” she whispers.
    Maybe he’ll let her live long enough to enjoy it. “No, child. Thank you .”
    And as she walks shyly across the floor to meet her lover, Kane smiles, content.
    Behind the bar, below gleaming rows of colored bottles that prism strobe lights to shards, Rainbow mixes an angry vodka tonic without looking, his gaze fixed on Kane’s retreating back. The sight of the demon’s ash-strewn hair spikes phantom pain through Rainbow’s shoulder blades. He accepts the girl’s money and fumbles the change, not really paying attention, the cold longing for flight withering his composure.
    A sharp-eyed troll with a shaven green skull orders a cocktail and a whiskey soda. Rainbow spills the ice, and his shaking