“Yeah, so, like, I told Gaire, ’I don’t want a commitment, just hot sweaty sex, thank you very much’. And not only did he look like I’d just threatened to kill him and grill him, but his attitude was all, ’I don’t just hop into bed with anyone, and it disappoints me you do’. I mean, we’d had a whole day with enough voltage flowing between us to light up New York. What’s up with the standoff all of a sudden?”
I belt down a shot of something green. Doesn’t matter, nothing gets me high but human sex or waiting for that last heartbeat when the body-double separates from the host and allows me to make that life-threatening decision.
“C’mon! All I wanted was sex. I thought human men lived for opportunities like that.” I wave my hand up and down the host’s body I’m wearing, my eyes locked on the succubus. “Look at CeCe. Would you turn her down?”
She doesn’t comment about my dilemma. Instead, she looks complacent, knocks her shot glass against the bar, and signals a púca, who at this moment looks like a gorilla. Fifteen minutes ago, he shifted from a toy poodle to a black bear before serving us.
Howls follow a group shape-shift at a table of werewolves when an ogre is served a plate of raw meat. The ogre turns into a threatening, growling, snarling beast as it covets the flesh, ripping it apart to devour it.
“I thought they’d stopped serving ogres,” the succubus says as the gorilla hobbles our way.
I curl CeCe’s lips back and glare at the bleached-blonde, bulbous-breasted wet-dream holding her glass out for our bartender. Sheese, I thought a demon of seduction would be more sympathetic to my plight. Not like I can talk to the bartender; a púca often gives good advice, but Satan knows their advice always comes with a price.
“Another green steam to abjure the sensual chains that bind, my luv?” The gorilla’s voice is all lusty deep male as he locks eyes with the succubus.
She raises a brow and smiles wickedly at the bartender before turning to me. “If you can’t drink from this Gaire guy’s manly charms, dress yourself in him, imbibe with another, and get over it. I see no issue here, Doppie.”
“Don’t call me Doppie! You know I hate it! How about I start calling you Sucky?” I glare at her and suck in a dramatic breath. She knows I don’t need it; she knows I’m threatening her.
The reaction I get makes me smile. Sucky leans out of the line of my suckage and raises her brow. “You really don’t want to go there, do you?” The dream demon curls long slim legs under the bar and hooks them around the legs of her stool.
Although my actions are just a smartass threat—there is no way I’m shedding CeCe and donning the succubus—I pretend to misunderstand her comprehension. “Yes, I do! I want to roll around on that big red-silk bed of his and writhe in pleasure. And I don’t like being refused!”
Her posture relaxes and she even smiles at me. “You know what humans say ’tomorrow is another day’. So take your black ugly self into that diner in the morning wearing major doppelganger attitude, sweetie. And hey, if you can’t make any headway, I’ll be happy to jump into his dreams tomorrow night and assist, ’kay?”
On the other side of the room, a loud crash steals Sucky’s attention as one of the berserkers bursts from a metal cage and takes down three tables as he rolls across the room, blood spraying, fists flying, and angry growls spraying spittle. The flesh-tearing ogre stands in the open door of the swinging cage, roaring laughter over the encouraging crowd. He grabs the bars on either side of the opening as the berserker gets two feet up under him and bellows a threat riding a wave of acrid, carnage breath over the crowd. Half the clientele respond in testosterone injected frenzy and the rest vary in their levels of amenableness.
I crinkle my nose at the smell without acknowledging the useless action because I feel the hair on the back of CeCe’s neck stand straight out, and it isn’t because of the cage fight action. If I were the real CeCe, I would be hyperventilating right now. I’m still holding onto Sucky’s casually dropped comment about entering Gaire’s dream.
I tap her shoulder a bit too hard and my words are a bit too harsh. “You most certainly will not get anywhere near Gaire! The only way you would ever be entering his dreams is if I’m wearing you. Got it?” I think I just growled.
Both of her brows shoot up. Her lips pucker a frown and her head shakes disgust at me. “Oh my, sweetie, tell me you are not in love—”
“I’m not!” I shout while I mentally scold, Damn it, you are so screwed.
The felled berserker scrambles across the bar and, with an abhorrent war whoop, dives for the cage, slamming it into the wall with his girth. The deep throaty laughter of the ogre dances gleefully with the cheers from the crowd.
Sucky’s head whips from the cages to the entrance of Purgatory. I follow her gaze and a moan escapes CeCe’s peppermint-glossed lips.