Page 102 of Lifebound

I squeezed my eyes shut. “He was cursing this little guy—a gnome, I think. He was being really mean, telling him he wanted to skin him alive and stuff. And the little guy looked so afraid, so I went and talked to him. Told him he didn’t need to be rude.” Now that I thought about it, I wanted to slap myself in the face. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have. I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t know he was an imp, and I didn’t know that imps could dothis!”

“Imps are worse than children. They hold grudges for centuries, and some of them have the power to transport objects or subjects to wherever they can see,” he explained.

I sighed. “I thought he was running away from me when he climbed that tree.” Meanwhile, he’d just gone to see the farthest place he could see so he could fucking transport me there.Ugh.

“It’s fine. We’ll be okay, but you have to do everything I say from now on, Wildcat.”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation—and I meant it. For once in my life, I was going to shut the hell up and do exactly as I was told.

“Yes?” Rune said, suspicious. Surprised.

“Yes. Just say the word and I’ll do it.”

He really didn’t look like he believed me. “For now, just let me do the talking. Don’t say anything to anyone no matter what they ask you—or how.”

“Got it.”

The next moment, the horse stopped walking.

* * *

A party.They took us to a party.

Music in the air, a kind that sounded an awful lot like country, but different, too. We were both grabbed and put on our feet at the same time, and the entire world tilted in front of my eyes before my surroundings began to make any sense.

The horse that had brought us here was bigger than any I had seen so far, black, and with a mane that touched his front hooves as he moved. One of the incubi took him away, while the others, led by the tattooed guy with the leather vest on, led us forward—toward the lights and the music.

Warm lights,notthe kind we’d seen everywhere so far. Not fae magic trapped in glass balls, but actual flames dancing in lanterns. They looked almost exactly like gas lamps except they were bigger, and they were spread out everywhere around the front of a two-story building made out of grey bricks.

“What the hell…” I whispered to myself, not entirely sure what I was even looking at yet. Rune walked beside me, analyzing the building, the darkness at the sides. This place could be the only thing awake and alive in at least a mile radius. There were more buildings behind us, and we couldn’t see the trees that marked Cloakwood from here though they hadn’t brought us far, but everything except this place was dark. Silent.

Suddenly I found myself surrounded by possibly fifty succubi and incubi, and the air that went through my nostrils smelled of sex.

My knees grew weak. I remembered exactly what I’d felt when I first saw an incubus—the cowboy smoking his cigar in the Neutral Lands. I remembered the woman, too, and how easily I’d lost control of myself, had succumbed to lust afterward.

And, no, I couldn’t even be sure if all this weakness in my limbs was coming from arousal, or if it was just fear, and my emotional compass was completely broken. All I knew was that we were walking ahead right into the party, and the people all turned to look at us.

They had these long cocktail tables full of empty glasses and bottles on them spread about the open area. They had a band that was playing music—no, not a band. It was one man playing an instrument that looked like all instruments combined into one. The guy moved his hands so fast I literally couldn’t see them. He had buttons and piano keys and all kinds of strings, as well as a place to blow from near his mouth—but that wasn’t even the strangest thing here.

The first floor of the building had no wall on this side, and the party turned to a goddamnorgyinside. There were tables and beds, mirrors on the golden walls and those lanterns were everywhere, big and small, illuminating everything they touched so that I could see in perfect detail how many people were having sex out here in the open.

They weren’t all incubi. Fae with pointy ears, fomorians with glowing eyes, vampires, and even a Twinborn on the other side of the wide room.

Everything was golden—the metal that held up the tables, the legs of the leather couches and recliners, the chandeliers in the ceiling that held these tiny candles that didn’t make much light but looked incredibly beautiful anyway.

My God, itreallysmelled like sex here—sex and smoke and leather. I tried not to breathe in through my nose because I had the feeling the smell was going to intensify my arousal, too, not just whatever magic hung in the air here.

“Try to keep your eyes ahead,” Rune whispered at some point, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Or ears that were already full of voices and laughter and moans of pleasure. Because the deeper into the room we went, the more aware of everything I was, and it was impossible not tolook.

Men and women sprawled over couches—the same couches where others were just sitting and drinking, talking like they couldn’t see what was happening right in front of their faces.Nakedmen and women, all of them being pleased by succubi and incubi.

One woman with glowing eyes was sitting on the back of a leather couch, head back and mouth wide open as she moaned. Because kneeling on the couch and with hisface on her pussy was a sexy-as-hell incubus taking his time with her in front of everyone.

And then there were two fae men, both with blond hair and golden eyes, golden complexions like they’d taken the bronze and highlight game to the next level, were being pleased by two succubi with long black hair that covered their bodies like blankets, icy blue eyes, and bite marks all over their big, naked breasts while they rode them slowly.

There were more—two vampire men with extended fangs sat on the sides of a succubus with bright red hair, who was jerking them off at the same speed while she smiled and spoke to them. Too far and too loud to hear what she was saying, but I could have sworn she was praising them.

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