A game of spies and dancing #2

Part 1 

Of course, she didn’t want to work for Devereux and Morgan. Even being glib it was about more than the pay – the two of them were monsters. Possibly, even, entirely deluded monsters with their chatter about ‘our kind’ and hearing heartbeats.

What, did they think they were vampires or something? Demons? Some other supernatural creature of myth and legend? It was absurd.

Yet, she remembered the way they had spun her between them, as if she were nothing but a ragdoll, her weight and the need for air nothing to them. They’d been slow enough that it was possible a skilled dancer could move that fast, right? It didn’t mean…

She swallowed. She rubbed her arm, searching again for the tracker they had apparently installed in her. Maybe it was a bluff.

They’d escorted her to her new bedroom in their compound; it was a beautiful room, a third-floor watercolour of pale blues and greens and floral touches far more feminine than she’d expected in their home.

She’d asked them, exactly, how they expected her to spy for them as a prisoner. They had to be confident that she wouldn’t simply run, or tell her employers what had happened and come back with more back up than even their fearsome reputations knew what to do with. Or double cross them.

Devereux had laughed again at her words, as if the thought she might ever stand a chance against them was infinitely funny. Morgan had leaned down, until their faces were inches apart, and she’d realised with a nervous jolt that he had no breath.

“Cinderella,” he’d said. “You’ll do it midnight has struck, and the fantasy is over, and there are no princes or fairy godmothers to save you. Just as monsters. You know a fraction of what we are capable of. How much can your loyalty truly be worth to men who didn’t even deign to tell you what your mission truly was or what you were getting into? You could have died for them tonight.”

“I would,” she’d said, “have died for me.”

Still, it bugged her. Obviously, the weren’t supernatural beings, they’d just somehow got in her head, or she’d been freaked out or – or something. Or if they were in some ridiculous twist creatures of the underworld, then her employers certainly wouldn’t have known to warn her or train her. Right?”

She spent most of the night laying awake in the stupidly comfortable bed thinking about it.

She knew the basic things about Theron Devereux and Louis Morgan; the same things that most did, about their general wealth and charitable galas and slightly shady dealings that no one planned to press into too much, because they were just so charming and the parties were just so fun! More like they bloody donated to important people.

Nothing said vampires. She was sure she’d pictures of them out in daylight. Hadn’t she?

When she went to the door of the room, it was locked tight, and the window out looked rather unkind. Possible, perhaps, with knotted bedsheets or something ridiculous, but nothing easily scalable.

If they really had put a tracker in her, maybe they were waiting for her to run and lead them to something incriminating. It wasn’t as if they’d specified a mission or exactly what information they wished for her to obtain.

She must have fallen asleep in the early hours at some point, exhausted between the drugs and the dancing, because when she woke up Morgan was sitting on the edge of her bed. Ella stiffened.

“Good morning, Cinderella,” he said. “I hope you’re not feeling too much like a pumpkin. Being kidnapped can really take it out of a girl.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“It occurred to me,” he continued, flashing her a brilliant and entirely empty smile, “that you might need a little more incentive. You probably got into your job as a sense of honour, right? Duty to serve! There’s no other reason someone would mindlessly serve without asking for the bigger picture.”

“You’re a right prick, you know that?”

Possibly, she should have been playing nice. All the better to infiltrate you with!

“Dev, you see,” Morgan continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “has this idea that humans are better organic. As they are. No messing with their brains or anything, you know?”

She edged to sit back against the headboard, abruptly glad that she hadn’t changed into one of the pajama sets or silken slips left in the wardrobe for the devil knew who. She was not prone to feeling vulnerable, but still in the previous night’s cocktail dress, she felt absurdly exposed.

“And you disagree with that idea.”

He definitely spoke as if he wasn’t a mere mortal too.

“For most humans, yes,” he said. “They’re ordinary. Messing with their brains is a bit like tinkering with a tool in a video game to improve the stats.”

“Is that what the drugs you sell are for?” She’d recognised some of them, but others, from the brief glimpses she’d got as she downloaded data to swipe…

He smiled. “Clever.”

“Flattery is not an answer.”

“Even cleverer.”

She glared at him.

In a flash, he’d brushed her hair back from her face again, away from her neck. She considered bolting off the bed, maybe grabbing the lamp for a weapon and – what? She wasn’t sure if that would have more dignity or if he was merely trying to intimidate her into compliance. It was, despite his strange approach, not an entirely unusual interrogation tactic.

“Dev,” Morgan said, “also thinks that I should leave you to come to your own conclusions, piece the evidence together naturally. Better to endear you to us, as if we didn’t kidnap you.” He lowered his voice, hushed, as if they were having a warm and intimate conversation. “I think he likes to think of himself, inside, like the Beast in Beauty and The Beast, yeah?”

His voice was like honey. He was probably the most beautiful thing that she'd ever seen. She just wanted to - she blinked. Her vision flickered, distorting him in flashes, unable to get a clear picture in her head. He was like something double exposed. Something human, and something....

“Oh,” Morgan murmured. His fingers tightened impossibly firm upon her hair, keeping her from scrambling back like she should have done the second she realised he was in the room. “There’s the unsteady heartbeat. Hello.”

And then he crushed his lips against hers.

It was – it was unlike any kiss she'd ever had, and she'd kissed a lot of people. Her lips parted, oddly compliant, as she sagged paralysed loose-limbed against the headboard despite the now primal and frantic roar of her heart. She willed herself to calm down. To go steady. To bite his tongue. To pull back. Because he shouldn't have been kissing her. She shouldn't have been kissing him. And not that strange kiss, that felt like some of her soul was becoming his, and-

The bedroom door slammed open, silhouetting Devereux in her hazy, swimming vision.

His pale face was twisted with irritation, eyes dark and glittering and inhuman and –

Oh, her people really had sent her to bloody vampires or something, hadn’t they? Where were the fangs?

Devereux strode towards them in a blur of movement and –

Morgan pulled back, meeting her dazed eyes, managing two words before Devereux hauled him back and off her.

"Incubus, princess."

That was the last thing that she knew before, once again, everything went black.