“That’s cute, but you can talk now. At least for a moment. I guess familiars don’t usually talk.
You’re doing a good job. Have you been practicing? Sounds like a very realistic squeak.”
“Squeak, squeak.”
She frowned. “A sound which is now getting on my nerves. Would you just knock it—”
Reggie bit her.
“Ow!” She pressed a hand to her neck and stepped back . . .
Into something firm.
She turned around slowly.
“Well, well,” Julian stood there looking at her, from stiletto heels to rat. “Aren’t we a pretty one?”
Val opened her mouth but found that she’d lost her voice—perhaps forever this time.
“Please, allow me.” He reached forward and took her hand in his, pulling it away from the little wound Reggie had made while he’d tried to warn her that frigging Julian himself was standing behind them, wearing an expensive-looking dark blue suit with a white, partially unbuttoned shirt. Looking very nice and appearing to not be afraid of Reggie at all. No, he seemed very calm, cool, and collected. For a demon with low self-esteem and a hidden rat phobia, that is.
Julian looked at her neck, and then touched the wound with his index finger. She felt a familiar tingle . . . the same feeling she got when Nathaniel healed her broken ankle in the alleyway. He smiled at her. “All better.”
Val forced herself to not try to pull away from him in disgust and fear. He didn’t know who she was. She looked completely different from when he’d last seen her at the Paradise Inn after he’d vanquished Alexa and stolen the key. However, he looked exactly the same. Tall, ice blond, high cheekbones, and his arrogant “Aren’t I hot?” mask was firmly in place.
“Thank you,” she finally managed to say and raised her eyebrow in what she hoped looked like a flirtatious gesture.
“I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
“I’m Claire.”
“Julian.”
“My pleasure.”
He smiled a bit wider at that. “Not yet. But it certainly could be. In so many ways.”
“So . . . are you here for the party?”
“Of course.” He glanced over at the mayor and Nathaniel. “What is he doing here?”
“Excuse me?”
“Trying to make his move?” he sneered. “Too bad, so sad.” He tore his gaze from Nathaniel to look at Val again. “Are you here with him?”
She tried to play dumb. “Him who?”
“Nathaniel.”
“Oh.” She glanced over. “Yes, I am.”
“You deserve much, much better than him.”
She smiled at him and forced herself to touch his arm. “I totally agree.”
His lips twitched with amusement. “Claire. Beautiful Claire. I do believe I’ll enjoy getting to know you. And showing you all the ways I could satisfy you better than that poor excuse for a demon could.”
He moved to grab a drink from a passing tray and his shirt opened a bit. His pale but muscular chest revealed something else. On a long gold chain around his neck he wore the Key to
Heaven.
The Key to Heaven. Right in front of her, less than an arm’s reach away.
She must have stared at it a little too long, since Julian looked down at himself. He touched the key and she thought he meant to tuck it back inside his shirt, but he pulled it all the way out.
“Pretty isn’t it?”
“Very.”
He lifted it so it lay flat on his hand. “Do you see? There are words etched into its surface. It’s an incantation.”
“So you’re saying that it’s a magic key?”
His smile widened, although she did notice his gaze flick nervously for the briefest moment to
Reggie. “A magic key. Yes, it is. And very powerful. Do you like power, Claire?”
“Who doesn’t?”
He shook his head. “No, that is not a proper answer. Do you like power?”
She met his gaze. “I’m a witch. An evil one, that is. I absolutely adore power.”
He closed the small distance between them and took the key, tracing the end of it down her neck, along her collarbone, and down her chest to the ample cleavage that spilled out of the top of the corset. “Then we will get along just fine.”
He let the key drop back into place under his shirt and continued his exploration of her chest with the tip of his finger. She froze in place, unable to do anything about what was happening.
“Unhand her,” a voice said from behind her.
Julian smiled, but his eyes were focused on Val’s glamourized body. “Nathaniel. So good to see you again.”
“She’s with me.”
Julian’s eyes flicked to Val’s. “He’s like an incessant little insect buzzing around my head.
It’s been buzzing for nearly two hundred years, but I’m hoping it won’t for much longer.” His hand moved to boldly cup her left breast.