Of course, seducing the forbidden was even better. The Summer King’s faeries were not to so much as glance his way, and the Sighted . . . oh, the Sighted mortals were a particular treat.
Irial was born to tempt, and he was not one to refuse that nature.
“What are you pouting about?” Gabriel asked in a tone that said he’d really rather not know the answer.
“No one ever says no.”
“No.” Gabriel grinned. “There. Now—"
“To relations, Gabe.”
“Oh hell, no.” The Hound made a face of distaste. “Scrawny thing like you . . .”
Irial laughed. He was quite certain that scrawny was an inaccurate word—in all ways—but to a creature that shook the ground with every step, the word was quite relative. He had no interest in his best mate, of course. Who else would stand at his side and lure him from his many moods? Or toss bodies to the side when Irial’s temper led to brawls?
“She’s mortal,” Irial said quietly. He didn’t mention that she was the mortal. The one human in all the world who could change the shift of power between the faery courts. If he said that, Gabriel would want to be reasonable, and that sounded positively dreary.
“Do you have a sudden aversion to mortals?” Gabriel shoved a man in a tall hat into the street, causing traffic to erupt into chaos.
Irial raised his brows.
“He was too near you.”
“He couldn’t see me, Gabe.” Irial grinned though. His friend’s protective impulses were endearing, even when they resulted in screams and blood—perhaps more so when they did, in truth.
They stood in the French Quarter watching the mortals who’d nearly been trampled, women on the sidewalk clutching their parasol handles, and Irial couldn’t help inhaling the madness of it all. Mortal feelings weren’t sustaining as fey ones were, but he still appreciated them.
“I may want her watched,” Irial said lightly.
Gabriel hesitated. “By the Hunt?”
If not for Thelma having the Sight, Irial might say yes, but the Hunt carried terror in their wake, spilling fears and nightmares where they rode. As a Sighted mortal, Thelma would either be susceptible or immune to them.
“Maybe.” Irial looked in the direction she’d gone. “For now, send a few of the Scrimshaw Sisters her way.”
Then before the Hound could ask questions Irial was afraid to answer, Irial ordered, “Do not follow me today. Check on the arrival of Winter and Summer.”
The order spelled itself in ink on the arm of his most trusted.
“Are we expecting them?”
“Maybe.” Irial lifted the cane he liked to carry of late, carved head and jeweled eyes. It looked a lot like Lady War, and Irial carried it to spite her.
“You’re hiding things.”
“Wise man,” Irial murmured, and then he slid between the fascinating new carriages that the mortals had made. Horseless carriages. Automobiles. If not for the stink of them and the sluggish speeds, he’d own one already. Some day. The joy of eternity was that he had so many centuries to live, to learn, to fuck, and to brawl. It was good to be the Dark King.
When Irial set off in pursuit of Thelma, he knew she’d see him, blessed or cursed as she was. She saw every faery in the city—but she didn’t look at them with that pulsing in her throat. She didn’t look at them and think wicked thoughts that made a tinge of pink tint her cheeks.
She watched Irial that way, though, as if he was a delicacy she wanted to sample. Such temptation was always glorious, but it was more so with Thelma. As a Sighted mortal, she was immune to the allure that Irial had for most faeries and most mortals. She had the beautiful, irresistible ability to refuse him. That made her a challenge. A treat. He hummed happily to himself as he went to stalk his quarry.
He wouldn’t ever force a woman, but he’d dust off old skills he hadn’t needed to use in a few centuries. She was forbidden in so many ways, and she was immune to the very thing that made him alluring to fey and mortal alike. The perfect quarry. The exact enticement to lure the king of temptation.
Until the Summer and Winter courts arrived in his fair city, Thelma Foy was all his, and he intended to make the most of it.
The Dark King whistled a cheery tune as he approached the edge of the Mississippi River. Thelma came here, pulled to water as if she was part-fey. She wasn’t. She was simply an artist.
“Irial?”
He turned, caught off-guard in a way that would make Gabriel gnash his teeth.
His solicitor was there. Saunders. For reasons of practicality, he had been given a salve that allowed the man to see the unseen. The Dark King didn’t go around passing out the Sight carelessly, but he needed the occasional human assistant. Saunders handled legal and business matters, and that meant that to protect him, Irial had given him the Sight. It was that or the poor man would end up crouched in a corner cowering from unseen attacks.
“Sire,” Saunders started.
Irial smiled at the man’s tentativeness. What was the correct term for a king when you were not of his court—or species? There weren’t guidebooks for such things.
“Did you sort out the details on the house?”
“I did, sir.” Saunders cleared his throat. “They were eager to sell once I offered the sum you authorized.”
Irial nodded. He’s made the somewhat unplanned decision to purchase the house he’d been renting in the Garden District. Even if he hadn’t admitted it to anyone outright, he liked the idea of staying here for as long as they could. He still planned to exit before things were unpleasant with the Summer Court and Winter Court, but a house purchase wouldn’t change that.
“A jeweler.”
“Sir?”
“I want to purchase a jewelry shop.” Irial pictured the moment, telling Thelma. What woman wouldn’t be charmed by such a gesture? He gave Saunders the instructions and sent him to the shop in question.
A warning voice in Irial’s mind suggested caution, but caution was tedious. Why waste time when mortals died so often and quickly?
Tam
Tam was surprised that the faery wasn’t trailing after her. Of late, Irial seemed to be everywhere when she was out in the city. He wasn’t precisely a guardian angel, more of a devil that stood in sight awaiting her fall. At that thought, Tam suppressed a smile. The good sisters would be appalled to know that she was thinking of the tempter as charming. Like Eve in the Garden, Tam was faced with a temptation she knew she ought to resist, but John Milton had the right of it in Paradise Lost: the voice of temptation was luscious.
And shouldn’t it be, though? What was the difficulty in refusing temptation if it was dour and dank? Irial, the faery who followed her more and more these days, was anything but dour. Sometimes she glanced at him and imagined the sort of sins no rational woman should.
Don’t look then, she reminded herself. No good came of lingering with faeries.
Chicory coffee, magnolia blossoms, and perfumes seemed to entwine and dance in air so thick that a knife might not cut it. New Orleans on the cusp of summer was fragrant, not yet offering the pregnant air that spoke of hurricanes rolling into the city, no longer bursting into blossoms that tried to drown the next rich scent that wafted in on spring rains. It was a city in that magnificent slice of time that had begun to warm but not yet swelter.