Chapter Two
Mercurius POV
“What is your name?” I ask the woman as I take a step back from her.
Standing in her kitchen is not where I expected to be tonight, but alas it’s where I am.
Her blonde hair is a mess around her head, but it almost glows in the dimness.
No…it definitely does. That’s not something that happens to a human.
She must be something from our world. But what? I am so caught up in the life of a demon that I can’t begin to guess.
“Felicity,” she replies as she takes a deep breath. I watch her as she moves forward. “What’s your name?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I tease her, but then answer. “Mercurius. Call me anything but Merc.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Alright. Mercurius…” She repeats the name and looks to the side for a moment. “What do we do now?”
“Well, I’ll have to arrange a meeting with the woman that can help you, for now you’ll come home with me,” I tell her simply.
Her face flushes and her blood is hot, pooling in her cheeks and neck. It makes it smell even more delectable. I can’t help the saliva pooling in my mouth.
“Home with you…to do what?” she asks. I watch as her thighs squeeze together. Is it out of fear or something else?
Based on the scent of her arousal, I have to think it’s not fear. Not entirely.
I lick my lips. “Just to keep you while I set the meeting up,” I insist. “I won’t do anything you don’t want to me too, sweetness,” I reach a hand out toward her. “Now, take my hand. I don’t want you getting lost in here.”
“In where?” she asks.
I use my other hand to open up a portal to the side of us. With just a few hand gestures it glows a warm and blurry shade of gold in a circular pattern in the air a few feet ahead of us. Instead of her kitchen, the image inside of the portal is that of the board room of my family’s estate.
Felicity gasps. “I’ve seen this before!”
Before she can say anything else I step into the portal and pull her along with me.
For me it feels like absolutely nothing.
Simply a warm light that disappears within a second or two.
For Felicity, I imagine it feels like several minutes of pulsating light that surrounds her and pulls her forward regardless of whether she wants to go or not.
Eventually, however, we’re both standing in front of the table of my family members who look at me with irritation.
“What is this Mercurius?” my brother Kane asks me.
I wave a hand. “This is the woman who summoned me on accident from our meeting,” I explain.
Felicity looks dizzy. She steadies herself and looks at the other demons in the room with wide eyes. “Where…am I? What is this?” she asks breathlessly. “What was that? Why did I dream about it?”
I look at her curiously. I’ll have to ask about her dreams later on. Perhaps it will help us discover who she is. Why her blood is so deliciously intoxicating just in smell alone.
“Ah, well, you’re needed in this meeting Mercurius. Take the girl elsewhere,” my uncle, Lucas insists. “She’s quite…distracting.”
I glare at him, feeling a sudden sense of possessiveness cast over me. Something I haven’t felt in quite some time.
“Of course,” I mumble. I grab Felicity by the hand and lead her out of the room into the hallway.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” she says slowly. “Is this where I’m going to find help?”
“No,” I say with a sigh. “This is my family’s estate. We are…well, there’s no use in keeping it from you if I’m going to help you. We’re a crime family.”
She blinks at me. “Like…the mafia?” she eyes me from head to toe and I feel her aura grow warmer. Smell her blood hotter and thicker.
“Yes,” I reply simply. I turn and start to lead her down the hallway toward the staircase that leads upstairs.
“You’re a crime family of demons…why would you need to be a crime family if you’re demons?” she asks me uncertainty.
I laugh softly. “Why wouldn’t you? We have advantage over almost everyone.”
She walks up the stairs beside me and looks around at the lavish estate with a glittering in her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve been in a house this expensive before.”
“Get used to it,” I say with a chuckle. “For now, anyway.”
“So, your family…have they always been…like this?” she asks. I lead her to a door and open it without even touching it. She gasps in surprise.
“How did you do that?” she asks with an excited look on her face.
I sigh, getting a bit tired of the questions. “Please, just go inside and get changed. Don’t mess anything up. Don’t go into any rooms with closed doors. The library is open for you,” I inform her. “I need to get to my meeting.”
I turn around to head back down the stairs.
“Wait!” she says quickly.
I turn to look at her. “What?” I narrow my eyes.
“You’re not going to answer any of my questions?” she folds her arms. “You brought me here.”
“I’ll answer plenty of them after my meeting,” I step closer to her, looking down at her with a dark expression. “Don’t forget I brought you here, alive. I can easily remedy that.”
She blinks and takes a step back. I watch her throat move with a hard swallow.
She smells…so good when she’s scared. Something about her draws me to her like nothing else. I tell myself it’s the scent of her blood and that’s it. That’s all it is…
But even as I head down the stairs and back into the meeting, she is all I can think about.
“Are you done with your human, brother?” Kane asks with a cheeky look as I step back into the room.
“I doubt she’s human,” I say simply and sit back down. I grab a cigar from the middle of the table and light it with my finger before taking a long drag. “Are you telling me you didn’t smell her?”
Kane glares at me. “She’s nothing special. Not if she summoned you.”
“Alright, that’s enough. We have business to discuss,” Lucas insists. “We must decide whether or not to take the Michaelson’s down before they take us down.”
“I think it’s an easy decision,” I tell them. “They’ve already threatened us once. I doubt they’ll be backing down anytime soon.” I tilt my head to the side and look at my brother and uncle curiously.
“We’ll have no trouble at all,” Kane insists. “After all, they’re merely interspersed with warlocks, they’re no match for us.”
I nod. “Don’t be too cocky, brother. It’s true they’re no match against us power wise, but…they do have bigger numbers than us,” I remind him, and Lucas.
“He’s right,” Lucas taps his claws on the table. “We must go about this quickly. In the night while they’re off their guard.”
“I’ll call in all of our guards and the cousins from their posts to join us. It won’t make up the numbers completely, but it’ll be something,” I insist.
“Very well. Once they’re here, we can talk strategy,” Lucas agrees.
I take another puff of my cigar before putting it out on the table and pushing up from my chair. It only takes a split second for me to appear at the door out of thin air.
“Don’t get distracted with this girl, Mercurius,” Kane reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “Have I ever?”
He just glares at me before I disappear from the door to the room, up the stairs and in front of the door to the bedroom I took Felicity too.
I don’t bother to knock on the door, simply opening it and the sight before me makes my mouth water.
“I took a shower, I hope that’s okay,” Felicity says as she is standing there in a black as night bath robe. Her blonde hair is wet and the curls weighed down. Dripping along her supple skin.
Her blood smells even hotter as I step into the room and close the door behind me.
“You make it difficult to resist devouring you,” I growl under my breath.
Her face and chest grow pinker and she takes a small step back from me, but as I get even closer, I can smell her arousal. Musky and warm.
“Not until I know what I am, or why I am,” she says determined.
I sigh and lift a hand. I brush my fingers along her cheek. “Don’t you have questions for me?”
My claws brush her skin and she shivers.
“Why did I dream about this place?” she asks.
I eye her face. “I’m not sure. You must have some kind of…ability of foresight,” I reply. “Tell me, what you remember.”
I brush my thumb along her bottom lip, admiring how plump and juicy it is. I bet I could bite right into it like an apple.
She swallows thickly. “I remember the…portal you brought me here in. The room. With your family. I don’t remember this room, but I did dream about a bedroom. Or…well, I’m not sure if it was a bedroom.” She steps away from me, and I find that I already miss her heat. The scent of her so close to me.
Just the smell of her blood makes every part of me tingle.
“I remember a chair. A blue chair with several tears in it,” she motions her hand in the air as if she’s trying to feel for something that isn’t there. “The floor underneath the chair is…dark. Scuffed.”
Felicity’s eyes go wide. “Something is wrong,” she says quickly. “In the dream. I remember feeling scared. Terrified.”
“Are you scared right now?” I ask her. Inadvertently showing her the sharp points of my teeth. My forked tongue drags across the front of my teeth for a moment as I step closer to her.
“No,” she whispers.
“I can hear your heart beat,” I tell her. “It’s so fast, like a little hummingbird in a cage.”
She gasps softly, but doesn’t step away from me. “N-Now you answer one of my questions.”
“Mm, not yet,” I tsk. “Have you had these dreams for long?”
“My entire life,” she admits. Felicity tilts her head back and forth.
“At least, as long as I can remember. Sometimes they come true, sometimes they don’t.
I remember only bits and pieces. I’ve never remembered an emotion quite as wrong as this one.
” She puts her hand on her chest and takes a deep breath.
She’s so…distracting. Her soft hair and skin, the blood pulsing just underneath. So divine.
“Are you alright?” she asks when I’ve been quite for a moment or two too long.
I clear my throat. “Just fine,” I insist. “You may ask your question now.”