In Pursuit of Prey: Of Gods and Consorts, Book 1 (7 page)

We slam through my Temple floor and reappear with a vicious lurch in Mace’s time, in the deserted confines of Seduction.
 

I deposit his limp body on the stage, propping him against the microphone stand.
 

Sing for someone else, siren
, I think.
Love what is easy.
 

 
I turn then and walk away.
 

Seething in anger, I vow to not look back. In the center of the dance floor, mere feet from where I first pulled him to my body, I vanish from his life.

Chapter Eight

The Prey

I wake up wondering where the fuck the freight train came from. One must’ve hit me. Everything hurts. My bones feel broken and put back together wrong, and whatever’s left feels like someone ripped it out and tossed it in a fire.

Then the goddess’s perfect sculpted body flashes in my mind. My heart thumps a sad, shattered beat, and it echoes in my head.

Sekhmet, goddess of sexual heat and vengeance, and the train that slammed into me.

“She didn’t give me a chance,” I groan out loud, and open my eyes.
 

Disbelief spins in my head. This is all so unreal. The perfect woman appears in my life, and I know from the moment I sense her ripping into this plane that she’s more than human. She seduces me, gives me the hottest sex of my life. Then, she turns out to be a goddess? And not just in a figurative sense, like I thought—though her figure is supernaturally stunning.

Sekhmet is a real goddess.
 

And nothing like the damn succubus Naami. Sure, she has some power and can make things happen, but she’s trapped on this plane, only able to travel from place to place. Naami’s magick is the end product of the lives she steals.
 

Sekhmet has power, she can fold time and space. She even captured my heart, despite my intent to stay single and live the rock-star life. And damn me, after touching her, tasting her, I only want more. Nothing in this life she dropped my ass back into can compete with the passion and soul-deep connection Sekhmet showed me.
 

The band, my career… I would sacrifice them all to be with her.

But, the moment she showed her true form, I flinched. Any normal person would recoil from something like that. Fight or flight is encoded in us. She was a predator, and my prey instinct was to cower. Fucking idiot.

I never felt the blues I sang before. I relied on my talent to make the songs feel real. Now, damn it, my heart hurts. Her scent lingers in my nose, the smell of her oil is embedded in my skin when I slap my face and try to rouse myself. Lilies and lust. Palms over my nose, I draw in deep breaths, feel the pain of being separate from her tolling in me like a giant bell.
 

No hint, not a lingering thread of our connection. She kept it all and tossed my ass out.

My feet drag across the empty dance floor. Every spot with a memory hits me like a fist to the jaw. The point where she seduced me, and the stool where she’d fit her body to me like a lost puzzle piece. I pause beneath the neon Seduction sign, where she’d pushed me to the wall and kissed me like she was publicly claiming me.
 

I clamber into my Chevy Nova, a rolling ghost on the nighttime streets.
It must have rained
, I think absentmindedly. The pavement is wet, the smear of red taillights looking like blood on the street in front of me.
 

“These hands have slung arrows of flame in the name of Egyptian Kings,” she said.
 

I saw that fire on her palm, red and glowing like the puddle of light on the street. And I felt that flame, searing with her anger when she forced it into my head. My brain still pounds, the rest of me feels wrong.
 

“Idiot!” I spit. “Men would kill to have her, and at the first opportunity, I shy away.”

I sit behind the wheel cursing my stupidity, my knee-jerk reaction. I continue the self-directed tirade, calling myself every rotten thing I can think of. Dumbass. Wuss. Pussy.
 

Then, under the stoplight by the apartment complex her last words repeat in my head, minus her silky, sexy voice. “Take your power and your fear and be gone.”

I can see why she’d said fear. But what power?

I gun the Nova, spinning tires around the corner and then squawk them when I slam on the breaks in the resident parking. Thoughts hound my path, snapping at the heels of my consciousness. Steps pass by unnoticed while I climb the back stairs to my apartment. What power could I possibly have? I can sense energy shifts, I recognize beings that most don’t believe are real.
 

I stalk the interior of my loft apartment, bitching, muttering, even kicking furniture in my path. The ottoman skids and hits something soft and lumpy behind a curtain. The loud hiss tells me exactly what it was.

“Dammit, Jonesy.” I pull the footstool back. The orange furball cat streaks away. “I’m sorry. Come back here and let me look at you.”
 

I shove the coffee table out of the way, and crouch to retrieve the orange tabby from the wrapper-cluttered shadows under the couch. The cat’s reflective eyes cast a yellow light. Yellow cat eyes, glowing in the dark. It’s like a size 12 boot to the chest. I rock back on my ass, suddenly exhausted. Having amazing sex, being torn apart and put back together twice, and being expelled from the goddess’s presence finally crush in on me.
 

Achy and tired, I crawl up onto the sofa. Naami might make me die a little every time we bargained sex for success, but she never made me wish I could die. Life without Sekhmet isn’t anything I want.

I eye the bottle of bourbon sitting on the end table. Not enough to kill me, but enough to drown my misery for a few hours. The cork squeaks when I pull it from the bottle mouth. Then I tip it up and swallow. The amber liquor burns down my throat and into my gut. Tip the bottle, swallow the booze, repeat…

Rumbles in my gut wake me. My skin crawls, tattoos stinging like they’re fresh.

I sit up, bleary-eyed and groggy, scratching at my skin, feeling like death warmed over. Between the bourbon and the goddess booting my ass out of her Temple, I’m doubly hungover. Still feels like more is wrong, but my head is swimming and I can’t place the wrong when nothing feels right. Standing is a bad idea, sends my mind reeling and my body tottering backward. Clutching the back of the chair, I stop before I land on my ass.

“Oh fuck me,” I growl.
 

“That’s where the problems always start,” says an arrogant, reedy voice I’ve grown to hate.

Naami.

I sling a look at the succubus sitting in the chair across from me. Dark hair piled and braided, makeup around her eyes blacker than her irises. The low-cut red dress only highlights how sickly pale she is. The slit in her skirt seems eager to meet the plunging neckline. There’s hardly any fabric keeping the thing together. Her legs look a mile long, crossed and spike-heeled.

“Imagine my surprise,” she says, picking at an invisible thread on her skirt, “when Jeneva brings me a handful of white dust hinting of goddess. Then I come here,” her nostrils flare when she sniffs the air between us, “and you reek of her.”

“Oh fucking well,” I huff and drop my ass into the chair, rather than try and stand and look foolish because I’m hungover. “Why do I care?”

“I gave you success, Mace. I can take it away.”

“Yeah, well, I gave you life. The goddess gave that back.”

“So I’ve noticed.” One penciled-thin eyebrow arches in obvious discontent.

I’m tired of games and have no desire to dick around with this woman anymore.
 

“What do you want, Naami?”

“Hm.” She tries for a purr, but it sounds ridiculous from her. Her smile is cutting and cold. “It’s what you might be wanting. Give me a little warmth, and I can make the past few days go away.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh, Mace.” She stands and slinks around the coffee table to me. When she crouches, the dress slits to perfectly display her boobs and crotch. “Silly man. I can take the last few days from you. The hurt, the passion, the lies she made you believe.”

“Why would you do that?” I stiffen, thankful my cock isn’t joining me. “And what in the hell brought you two women to me? The goddess mentioned my power…”

Her cunt snaps shut, her boobs crush together when Naami stands like someone shoved her up. A dark energy like mist and spiderwebs spills into the air around her.

“Power?” She turns her back and strides a couple steps away. “Your precious goddess told you you had power and didn’t tell you what it was? You want to know so badly, you ask her. And when you’re ready to forget her, I’m a heartbeat away.”

The succubus winks out of existence. And as usual, she uses my strength to do it.
 

“Fucking come-guzzling, soul-sucking, life-wrecking succubus!” I snarl and fling the bourbon bottle at the spot where she stood. Then, kicking my ass for my stupidity and waste of fine liquor, I shamble to the kitchen and grab cleaning supplies to sop out the puddle and scrape up the bits of glass.
 

The rest of the day drags by, and I’m not sure if it’s the slow hands of the clock or that I’m so hollow. I’m an empty shell compared to the way I’d felt with Sekhmet. Her fire, her passion, the bond we’d made filled me up and gave me a view of a future I would’ve never dreamed of. Now, I feel gutted. Food doesn’t fill the void. Bourbon hadn’t burned her from me. And painkillers aren’t going to touch this hurt. Nothing can.

With the goddess in my arms, in my life, I felt real, alive—whole. Without her, I’m a wreck.
 

Sleep gives me the brush-off. And I’m too tired to do anything else. Leaving the rumpled mess of my bed, I pad sock-footed down the hall to the living room.

Slumped on the couch edge, I strum my acoustic guitar and hum softly, trying in vain to lose myself in my music. Song after song. No good. No matter how hard I try to forget her, I lose it every time. Sekhmet’s infiltrated everything I do, everything I am.
 

I close my eyes and pick the chords, listening with my soul while I watch us dancing again. Breathing in, I taste her cinnamon spice. Words come then. Aching, mournful blues. I grab a scratch pad and scribble down notes as fast as I can, before it slips away from me. Keys, stanzas, bridges, the chorus. I pour all my pain and loss into the song.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I heave a sigh, then sit back with my guitar and work out the fine points of the melody, half-humming, half-singing the song I’d written.

If I had any magick in my life, it’s in my music. It’s the only place I’ve felt more than what I am. Until Sekhmet.

“Goddess, hear me,” I pray. Eyes closed, fingers dancing on the strings, I melt my voice into the smoky blues and sing the chorus.
 

Beauty in the burning

Her eyes of liquid flame

Her beauty is burning

This broken heart to tame

Burning me

Loving me

Killing me…

I play it over and over, watching dawn light the horizon through my windows. Eventually, exhaustion wins. I tuck my guitar into its case, grab a blanket and pull it over me as I slump to the couch like a bag of bones and sand.
 

Every moment with Sekhmet runs in a repeating loop in my mind. Gorgeous, and so alive. So why do I feel so dead? My last conscious thought is,
Maybe Naami is right. Maybe losing a few days wouldn’t be such a bad idea…

Chapter Nine

The Goddess

My Temple is empty. Shadows have taken life, bleeding out from the corners. Lamps barely hold flame. Incense refuses to rise in sacrifice. Even the sunlight fails to fill the curtains.
 

My heart is as hollow and dark. I tasted kismet in Mace. I found not just a consort in my pursuit of prey, but a soul mate, and he pulled away from me. In my heartache, I surrendered to my vengeful nature and repelled him from my magickal domain.
 

Now, I’m alone.

He merely flinched. Yet I punished him as if it were a sin.

Regret courses though my blood as thick as my magick.

I hate me, and I hate me for it. Heaving a sigh, I rise from my divan, bare human feet on the polished stone flooring. I couldn’t let go of my human form, even after leaving Mace in Seduction. This body reminds me of him, he tasted these breasts, licked this human pussy. I don’t want to part with that. Musing, again, on my actions and what they may have cost me, I pace to the window looking out onto the modern wasteland. Heat deluges my face, save for the single wet tear track.

Mace is out there somewhere. Not now, in my time or homeland, but in that era outside of my window, outside of my magick—where I shoved him. Closing my eyes, I can still feel him, sense his conscious thoughts. Knowing they are on me is a bittersweet kind of pain.
 

He’s in my heart, part of my soul.