Serpent's Desire: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Last Serpent Book 2) Read online

  “It’s alright,” I said. “I want to know what I’m getting into, especially if he’s going to be my mentor too.”

  “No shit,” Liam said. “Your mentor? I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” I asked, turning to look at him, quizzing him for an answer. Before he could speak, the mansion door opened and two figures stood in the doorway, black against the brightness behind them. The man who could only have been Leo came in first, wearing a gray suit with a white shirt underneath, unbuttoned at the collar. He had a buzz cut and stubble on his strong jaw to match the dirty blond hair on his head. Aiden came in behind him with his dark hair shining in contrast against the sun, his leather jacket thrown over one shoulder, and a black t-shirt clinging to his skin.

  Dante and the Keeper approached the two men as they entered the mansion. The Keeper extended his hand first, and Leo shook it. Dante didn’t offer his hand, and it was just as well—Leo didn’t seem keen on taking it anyway. The tension between both men was palpable. Thick. Impossible for me to miss, even if I hadn’t had this strange ability to perceive emotions.

  I saw Leo’s eyes looking for me, and I squared up my chest and met his gaze. He grinned slightly, like a wolf that had spotted a tasty looking elk in the snow, then turned his attention back to Dante and the Keeper.

  “Gentlemen,” Leo said, his voice curt and short. He was American, too.

  “Thank you for getting back so quickly,” the Keeper said. “I appreciate it.”

  Leo nodded. “I hear you’ve been having trouble.”

  “This happens every time the mentors leave, you know that, but it’s… worse this time,” the Keeper said.

  “Because of her?” Leo asked, gesturing with his head.

  “Her name is Lilith,” Dante said, his voice deep and authoritative.

  “Yes, the succubus,” Leo said, pushing past Dante and the Keeper and walking up to me and the other guys. I could feel them tightening the circle around me, as if they didn’t want Leo getting too close, but I squeezed into the gap between Vikram and Raphael and walked up to Leo.

  “You’re Leo,” I said.

  “Observant, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve had to be observant my whole life. It’s what’s kept me alive, especially when vampires were after me.”

  Leo grinned. “Anyway, I hear I’ll be taking you on as a student. I don’t know how compatible we’ll be, but are you willing to work at it?”

  “I want to know more about what I am, so, sure.”

  “No.” He squared up to me. “If you’re going to be my student, I don’t want you to answer questions with sure. I want to hear a yes or a no, is that understood?”

  “Dude, leave her alone,” Liam said.

  Leo’s eyes glanced over my shoulder. “What was that?” he asked, the veins on his neck tightening.

  “Yes,” I said, stealing his attention again. “I meant to say yes.”

  Leo turned his eyes on me again. “Good,” he said, smiling that wolf-like smile. “We should get ready to begin as soon as possible. Nikolai isn’t far behind me. He’ll want to see the body right away.”

  “Body?” I asked.

  “The werewolf,” Leo said. “We’re going to join him and Liam while they carry out their autopsy.”

  “Wait a second… what autopsy?”

  “We want to know why he was here, don’t we? I want to start by figuring out who he’s been eating.” Leo started walking without saying anything else, getting halfway up the stairs before stopping and turning around. “Oh, and one more thing, Keeper.”

  The Keeper stepped up. “Yes?” he asked.

  “I want you to cancel whatever investigations you have currently in play. Call back whatever birds you’ve sent out. I’ll handle this myself.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I said, interrupting. “You can’t just shut down an investigation; the people who did this are out there, and I—”

  “—don’t need to speak anymore. I’m taking care of the investigation, and I’ll get to the bottom of it myself. For now, nobody leaves for any reason, under any circumstance. I know that’ll make Dante uncomfortable, considering this’ll cut him off from the harem of women he keeps, but I’m sure everyone will agree, Lilith’s safety is paramount.”

  “You can’t just lock me in here,” I said. “This isn’t a prison.”

  “Until I say otherwise, it is a prison. At least you’ll be safe in here.”

  Leo turned around and headed upstairs without saying another word. When he was gone, I spun around and looked at the Keeper and Dante, who were standing silently in the aftermath of what had just taken place. Aiden looked at me for an instant, and then followed Leo up the stairs, likely to debrief his mentor on the events leading up to today.

  “So, I’m under house arrest?” I asked.

  “It isn’t like that,” Dante said, though I could tell even he didn’t believe his own words.

  “Why aren’t we going out after these sons of bitches? And why does Leo get to call the shots? I thought the Keeper ran this place.”

  “I do,” the Keeper said. “But in times of war, Leo is the one in charge. We have to do what he says, and if he doesn’t want us leaving the mansion, then we should all stay here.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps saying, but I’m sick of hearing it. I don’t even know this guy and I already hate him.”

  “Try not to. You’re stuck with him.”

  “I still don’t see why Dante can’t teach me what I need to know. He’s an incubus, I’m a succubus; it just makes sense.”

  “Be that as it may, Dante isn’t a teacher, and I don’t want you bringing it up again. Now let’s all go and eat breakfast. You’ll have work to do when Nikolai arrives.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Spectres

  I didn’t understand why attending a werewolf autopsy was part of my training, but then I also didn’t think what I was about to witness was a true autopsy either. I hadn’t had the chance to meet Nikolai in person yet; by the time I was brought into the morgue, inside the belly of the mansion, Nikolai and Liam were already on the other side of the screen separating me from the monstrous cadaver lying cold on the metal slab.

  Aiden and Leo were standing on either side of me in the sterile waiting room which reeked of formaldehyde and disinfectant. Above us, a fluorescent light buzzed. Nikolai was an older man, frail and lacking a single hair on his head, including his eyebrows. He had a severe face, hooded eyes, and a pointed chin. Staring at him from behind the screen in the dim lighting of the morgue, I thought he reminded me of Gargamel, the evil wizard from the Smurfs.

  Only with less hair.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “This isn’t an autopsy like the kind you’re thinking of,” Aiden said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re necromancers, not surgeons,” Leo said. “They’re going to use magic to figure out a bunch of things about the werewolf that medicine couldn’t tell them. “

  “They’re going to perform an autopsy on him with magic…” Aiden said.

  “An… autopsy?” I asked.

  I almost couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea, but what Liam and Nikolai were doing was consistent with what I was being told. Liam had pulled over a surgical tray, but instead of medical instruments, there was a book on the tray, a number of small pouches, and a Kris—a double-edged, wavy dagger that glinted against the harsh, white light above them. The blade is hungry, I thought, hungry to bite into that corpse.

  Liam turned and looked at the screen in front of me. Briefly, I saw the features on his face change; his eyes darkened, the light above him flickered, and when he waved his hand in a sweeping gesture, the screen turned black, as if the world’s largest pot of ink had been hurled across it.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Shut up and give it a second,” Leo said.

  I saw myself reflected in the darkness, and I watched, mesmerized, as my skin seemed to pale a
nd stretch over my bones until my skull became visible. My black hair fell away, my green eyes seemed to melt into their sockets, and my full, red lips thinned until there was nothing left but a thin line of skin drawn over yellowing teeth. Shaking my head broke the trance, and I saw myself again as I really was.

  The darkness then started to fade, leaving only a thin film of deep blue on the dividing screen. By the time the scene on the other side became visible, Nikolai was holding the Kris in one hand and his book in the other; he had impaled the tip of the blade into the werewolf’s chest, and he was speaking words I couldn’t hear.

  The light above him, and the light above us, flickered again, and swirling shadows began to dance around the room in front of me. Liam put his hand on the Kris and plunged it deeper into the werewolf’s chest, all the way to the hilt. For a dreadful instant I thought I had seen the creature’s hand flex, as if responding to the sensation, but its hand was limp. Maybe I had imagined it.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “Figuring out who it’s had for dinner,” Aiden said.

  “How?”

  “By asking the ghosts of the people it’s killed.”

  “Get the fuck out…”

  “If I have to tell you to shut up one more time—” Leo started to say, but the light above us started to dim, buzzing loudly as it lost its potency. The light in the autopsy room darkened to the point where it almost wasn’t providing any illumination at all. Slowly, the shadows became thicker and more solid, until they started to resemble… people… people who were taking turns whispering to both Nikolai and Liam.

  I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but then there was a dead werewolf on the metal slab in the other room, its head thrown back, eyes closed, jaw slack open, tongue hanging. A few months ago, a sight like this one would have made my mind snap like a brittle twig, but now I was fascinated, drawn to this macabre sight with an almost childlike curiosity.

  “They’re… ghosts?” I asked, forgetting Leo’s previous warning.

  “That’s right,” Leo said. “And they’re telling our necromancers exactly what we want to know. At least, I hope they are.”

  “Are ghosts known liars?”

  “Some are. Those who have been killed brutally, the ones with an agenda, sometimes lie to get what they want.”

  “What do they want?”

  “What anyone who’s wronged wants—to enact their vengeance. Only in this case, the target of their retribution is dead, so they look for the next best thing, the necromancer himself. Or better yet, someone the necromancer loves.”

  “That’s kinda terrifying.”

  “Ghosts are a difficult business. I’m much happier being an agent of hell.”

  I looked up at him. “Really? An agent of hell?”

  He turned to look at me. “I’m a demon, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, but heaven and hell? Those are outdated concepts cooked up by men who wanted to control a docile population. I don’t buy them for a second.”

  Leo glanced at Aiden, then back at me, and smiled. “You didn’t tell me she was this clever.”

  Aiden didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at Leo.

  “You assumed I wasn’t?” I asked.

  “I don’t assume anything about anyone. I make calculated guesses.”

  “Really? Make a calculated guess about me; I’ll tell you if you’re full of shit, or if you’re on the money.”

  “I don’t think you want to play this game with me.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “Because demons have a knack for being able to peer into a person’s past, even their future, didn’t you know that?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, let me give you a piece of advice—consider it your first lesson. If a demon ever asks you for something, assume they can’t get it until you say yes. That’s one of our rules.”

  “You need… permission?”

  Leo turned to look at the inky screen again. “That’s right,” he said.

  “Why would you tell me this?”

  He shrugged. “You never know when you’re going to find yourself caught in a demon’s machinations; knowing this will either make you capable of defending yourself, or turn you into a decent challenge.”

  “Is that what I am to you? Just another challenge to overcome?”

  “We’ll see soon enough, won’t we?”

  I turned my eyes on the screen again. I hadn’t even started training with this guy, and I was already sick of him. And why wasn’t Aiden talking? He had barely said a word since Leo showed up. What power did Leo have over him that made him withdraw into himself like a turtle into its shell?

  A shadowy figure suddenly crossed in front of the screen, emitting a scream I heard not with my ears, but with my heart. I clutched my chest and staggered back, trembling, pulse pounding despite the cold chill in my bones. I watched the specter launch itself at Liam. Liam put his hands up to protect himself, but the specter was faster than Liam’s hands were, and it hit him with enough force to send him flying into the wall of freezers and knocking him out cold.

  “Liam!” I yelled, and I made a break for the side door, but Aiden caught my arm.

  “No,” he said, “You can’t go in there.”

  “He needs help!” I said.

  “You can’t help him, okay? You’re not like them.”

  “I don’t care about that—he’s hurt!”

  “Lilith, listen to me.” He pulled me close to him. “There’s nothing you can do for him, okay?”

  The room began to tremble, and the light flickered. “I can’t just watch this. We can’t. That’s our friend in there.”

  “I know, okay? Trust me, I know, but we don’t have the power to help him. That’s their arena, not ours.”

  My eyes went to the screen again. Nikolai seemed unfazed by the malevolent specter flipping trays over, turning faucets on, and opening and shutting freezer doors. The only thing that wasn’t moving was the corpse, thankfully, and Nikolai himself, who seemed as stoic and unmovable as a statue if not for his slightly moving lips.

  I saw Liam regain consciousness, shaking his head, and I wanted to reach for him, to help him. The door was right there. All I had to do was open it. But the activity in the other room suddenly ceased, the dark film on the screen separating the rooms disappeared, and the lights returned to their usual brilliance. The floor and walls also stopped trembling, and in the space of only a few short seconds, everything had gone back to normal.

  I went up to the screen and saw Liam pulling himself up, dazed and confused. Without saying a word, Leo walked around Aiden and me, and opened the door into the other room. I followed him inside, where the smell of disinfectant was even stronger than it had been in the other room, but there was another scent in the air here too—the smell of death and decay, of grave rot and old bones.

  Almost, almost, I thought I heard someone whispering as I walked through the door, but I ignored it and walked up to Liam.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. Am I bleeding?”

  I turned him around and checked. No blood. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Good.”

  “What the hell was that just now?”

  “That was the danse macabre,” Nikolai said. His voice was much deeper than I expected, based on his appearance. It was also heavily accented. If I had to guess, I would have pegged him for eastern European—maybe Russian, or Romanian.

  “The what?” I asked.

  “What did they tell you?” Leo asked, overwriting my question. “And how did our werewolf friend die, exactly?”

  “The werewolf died of heart failure induced by direct contact with the mansion’s protective magic,” Nikolai said, “As for the spirits, many of them were lost, stuck between our world and the afterlife. Death at the hands of a werewolf always leaves a restless spirit behind.”

  “And what did the spirits tell you?”

  Nikolai s
ighed and wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. His missing eyebrows unnerved me. “This werewolf had ended the life of several supernaturals, all men, most of them recent. The beast was young, but smart, and strong.”

  Leo looked over at me, grinning. “And you managed to kill it. You should be proud of yourself.”

  I frowned. I didn’t feel proud. All of this had set my nerves on edge. “Did they tell you what the werewolf was doing out in the grounds?” I asked. “The night it attacked me.”

  Nikolai looked at me, and suddenly his eyes became kind. Soft. A father’s eyes. “Child, the beast was lurking in wait for you. It had smelled you as you arrived at the mansion. It knew you would be here.”

  “Was it responsible for luring me out into the woods?”

  “I’m afraid not. The werewolf is a predator of opportunity, not foresight. There is no way it could have orchestrated the luring as we are calling it. It was simply sitting in the forest, waiting for you to come out, as creatures of the dark tend to do when the mentors leave the mansion and they sense vulnerability.”

  “Would it have attacked me?” Aiden asked.

  “There is no way of knowing,” Nikolai said. “I only know what the spirits attached to the werewolf were able to determine from watching its movements and reading what few thoughts they could catch.”

  “Then it looks like we have our answer,” Leo said. “There’s a greater force at work, one that has both power and secrecy on its side, but one that’s unrelated to the supernaturals hiding in wait, watching for others whose energy they can consume.”

  “I believe so, yes,” Nikolai said. “Now we must dispose of the body at once. The specter that attacked Liam is also hiding in wait, watching for its chance to inhabit the body of this dead werewolf.”

  “See to it, old man. We don’t want that kind of drama on our hands. Meanwhile, the two of you, come with me.”

  Aiden followed me out of the room, and the three of us began the walk back to the stairs that would take us to ground level. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had just seen, but I was sure about one thing—I was going to have nightmares for weeks; if not thanks to the thing that had attacked Liam, then at the thought that it might have had the power to possess a dead werewolf and bring it back to life.