Signed in Incubus: A Paranormal Monster Romance (Possessive Monsters Book 6)

Chapter 7

Prax

“The appraiser is here to see about your collection,” Desmon said when I picked up.

“I’d also like to speak with you about a few pieces I want to purchase.”

That was very good news indeed. I’d been a tad worried the dragon and his wizard would just claim my treasure for themselves, which was why I’d only shown Seth one of the caves.

“I’ll pop right over.”

I was in my room on Desmon’s estate a fraction of a second later. I made my way down to the drawing room, which was where he received guests who were not close friends. It was also where Seth, Liam, and I had left my collection.

The appraisal took all morning and part of the afternoon. I went from owning nothing to being a well-off incubus in a matter of hours! The problem was that I couldn’t pay for things with Spanish doubloons or some long-dead princess’s necklace, even though I had obtained them completely legitimately.

It turned out that even things that hadn’t been worth all that much but that I’d kept simply because I liked them as reminders of past sexual conquests were valuable due to their age and near-pristine condition. My pretties were a collector’s dream!

I sold Desmon all the swords and weapons in my collection. All of them had the same story: they’d been wielded against me by fools who didn’t know better. I also parted with a few pieces of jewelry but kept most of those since they represented better memories.

“There’s an auction for antiques and collectibles next weekend if you’re interested in liquidating any more of your stuff,” Desmon’s auburn-haired mate Carly said after the appraiser had left. “The Curio Collectors’ Dinner Auction gets bigger every year and draws private collectors and museum curators from around the country. They’d be all over this.

“The auction itself is open to anyone who wants to attend, but the dinner is invite only. It’d be a great place to meet potential clients if you ever wanted to sell any part of your collection on your own. I can get you a ticket, if you’re interested? Get you hooked up with the auction house?”

I could continue living on the fringe of society like my kind had for millennia. I’d get by perfectly fine since I didn’t need food or water to survive and could shelter anywhere. In the past, I’d claimed a giant knot hole in a massive oak as my place of rest. But there was one thing I couldn’t survive without: entertainment.

Boredom could drive an incubus insane, which was why I’d elected to sleep through much of my imprisonment even though I didn’t require sleep. Ennui and monotony had driven me to play with fire once, chatting up a powerful wizard’s daughter on a bet just to see if I could get an invite into his abode. That had been a costly mistake. The wizard had ended up entrapping me.

So now, the plan was always to have enough funds to keep myself entertained.

“Yes, please get me in contact with the auction house. There are a few pieces I’m not that fond of that can go. In the meantime, I’ll need to borrow Seth again to return anything I’m keeping back to my caves.” Until I had a place to call my own, the caves were still the safest spot for my stash.

As if on cue, the wizard sauntered into the drawing room with an older witch, his mother, behind him. Elana lived here with Desmon and Carly, rediscovering her magic and working wonders in the kitchen after a lifetime of servitude to her wizard husband. She was a kindred spirit, and I quite liked her.

She’d taught me a lot about living in the modern world, and she was a great teacher, mostly because she’d had to learn much of it herself recently. Unlike me, however, her freedom wasn’t completely assured. She still couldn’t safely spend time outside the dragon’s estate by herself unless she had strong magic to protect her from her ex-husband and his wizard friends.

Seth must’ve accompanied her on an outing to the farmer’s market today, as evidenced by her rustic raffia market bag brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables. I gave her a friendly nod.

Seth glanced around the room curiously. “Did I miss the appraiser? I was hoping to see his eyes bug out of his head at your mini hoard. Are you sure you’re not a dragon in disguise?”

Desmon grunted. “Hmph. Not nearly enough to be a dragon’s hoard. You would have been a failure as a dragon. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“I guess since you’re Mr. Moneybags now, that means you won’t be interested in a job with the EA?” Seth said.

Carly and Elana drifted away, chatting softly, and Desmon went into another room to initiate the transfer of funds to my account, leaving Seth and I free to talk.

“The EA?” It was so strange to think they worked with demons now.

“Yeah. They’re hiring. But it’s hard to find reliable people. You’d come with a recommendation from both me and Desmon.” He looked around at all my stuff. “Except you really don’t need a job if you liquidate part of this and invest the proceeds well. That”s what I did with Liam’s mini-stash.”

“But you still work for the EA occasionally, even though you don’t have to.”

“It’s not about the money for me. It’s about helping out.”

“I see. I might be interested, but I’m not exactly the type to work law enforcement.”

The EA was basically the police force for magical folk. I was surprised they even took my likes into the ranks these days. I remembered a time when the Secret Enforcement Agency had been in cahoots with the Wizards’ Elder Council, and they were both in bed with the church. Those snooty bastards would never have worked with demons in a million years. The world had sure changed a lot.

“Can I back out if I decide not to take the job?” I wanted to keep all my options open.

“Oh, sure. They’ll need to interview you and do a background check, which will come up as nothing because you didn’t exist in the system until a few months ago. They’re a lot stricter about hiring ever since they had a system overhaul and booted a bunch of bad apples. You can cancel anytime before you sign your contract. I’m just putting you forward as a suggestion because I know they’re looking. And you’ve proven yourself not to be a psycho.”

“Wow. Is the bar that low? Well, I guess they did take you.”

The wizard rolled his eyes. “I’m their guy on the inside for anything regarding the WEC.”

I took a step back. “Guy on the inside? I didn’t know you were WEC.” The thought that I’d let a WEC wizard know the location of my treasures made me sick in my nonexistent stomach. The Wizards’ Elder Council was a group of wizards who fancied themselves elites of the world and set out to rule it by any means necessary, in the past by controlling kings and emperors and now by controlling governments and corporations. The goal was never to rule outright but to control the puppets.

“Not anymore. I left with what you’d call a bang. Come on, look at me.” He gestured to his punk-rock-meets-eighteenth-century-poet attire. “And with Liam? They’d all have had fucking conniption fits.”

“I see not everything in the world has changed.”

“Nope. And the EA is most definitely not in their pockets anymore. If anything, they have a bone to pick with the WEC for secretly controlling them for so long. No one likes finding out they’d been duped.”

“All right. Put in a word for me with the EA.”

I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life now that I was free. But I did know what I wanted to do right now, and that was to check up on my little witch.