Steal the Day (Thieves #2)(98)

“I have to find the right room.” I wondered why Stewart had thought I would magically know which room he was in. I looked around, hoping he’d left a note or something. At the third door, I knew where that cheeky bastard was.

I stopped in front of the door numbered sixty-nine.

“Excellent,” Dev said as he opened the door and entered. “My lucky number.”

Stewart was sitting in a chair beside an enormous bed. “I thought you would like it, you naughty faery.”

After Neil was in, Daniel closed the door. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“He’s here to help.” The explanation sounded ridiculous to my own ears.

Dev threw his big body in the middle of the plush bed. He exhaled and looked at me with an invitation in his green eyes.

“Seriously?” I asked him. How could he think about that now?

“Help, Z? He’s here to f*ck everything up.” Daniel pointed to Stewart, his head shaking in disapproval.

Dev gestured to some writing on the walls. The walls of the room were decorated with wards and spells, each drawn with what I seriously hoped wasn’t blood. Paint. Maybe demons liked paint. “Those are lust spells, sweetheart. Lust wards. I have no control over it. Can’t you feel it?”

Stewart was putting his two cents in. “I saved her when we were in Arkansas, Your Highness,” Stewart said to Daniel. “Ooops, are you undercover? Do you have a code name?”

“You didn’t save her. You were the reason she was in danger in the first place,” Daniel replied.

“Come on, Zoey, I don’t think I’ll be able to go through with this mission unless I give in to those spells. It’s really quite overwhelming.” Dev laid back, patting the bed beside him. “I’m so hard right now I can’t breathe.”

“Dude, we’re trying to deal with a demon,” Daniel pointed out, ignoring Stewart to complain at Dev. “How horny can you be?”

“Tell me you haven’t thought of what we could do to her? This is a big bed, man, and I bet those drawers over there are just full of toys we probably can’t get on the Earth plane. How many times can we make her come?” Dev asked. “You can’t feel that? Really? Listen, if you’re not interested, why don’t you deal with the demon, and I’ll do what I do best. I’ll handle Zoey.”

Stewart nearly bent over with laughter. “Those are very weak lust spells. They’re really only there for decorative purposes. His magic is all sex, isn’t it? Funny.”

Stewart stopped, and I could tell he was thinking. I didn’t like it when Stewart thought.

“Daniel, he’s the only one who can get us through the right door.” I hoped Stewart would follow me and leave Dev alone. Once I got him out of this room, he would go back to normal, which for Dev was still sex obsessed but not spell struck. “He’s helping us because it hurts Halfer.”

“He really is a sex god,” Stewart said thoughtfully, looking at Dev who had grabbed my hand and was starting to suck on my fingers. “You would think an actual sex god would be interested in the very beautiful bodies in the room. I mean, this meat I’m in gets paid millions for his body. The king over there is terribly hot in a dark, violent way, and don’t forget my poor little zombie puppy. God, just looking at him makes my mouth water. Yet our Green Man only has eyes for the girl.”

Daniel exhaled a frustrated breath as Dev started to tell me all the things we still hadn’t done. He jumped up and put a quick fist through the charm on the wall that controlled the lust level.

Dev stopped and shook off his previous haze. “Thanks. Umm, I guess the underworld has found my weakness. I tried so hard to hide it.”

Stewart just kept talking. “Even the girl here has thoughts about her own sex. Yes, I can pull out that little fantasy about Angelina Jolie. I can make that happen, Zoey. My point is one as dedicated to sexual pleasure as the faery should be into all kinds of things, not just boring heterosexuality.”

“I’m a fertility god,” Dev responded, his tone flatly stating he wanted out of this conversation. He hopped off the bed and straightened his clothes. “You aren’t fertile, so I’m not interested.”

Stewart’s face spread into that Cheshire cat grin he got when he wriggled something out of your mind you didn’t want him to. “Poor little mortal. That must have really hurt to so set you off men, as deviant as you are.”

Dev turned on the demon. “Stay the f*ck out of my head.”

“Leave him alone,” I told Stewart.

Stewart shrugged. “All right, but I warn you it might come up later.” Stewart turned happily back to Daniel. “Now, Your Highness, I have a few suggestions. I’m more than willing to help your queen and her…what should we call him? Assistant? Social secretary? Official royal f*ck buddy? Never mind, we can come up with some suitable title later. The point is, I’m willing to give her everything she needs to make her way through the plane. I’m giving her the key to the bloody city here. I promise she’ll get there, do her job, and come back in one piece. All I ask is a few minutes of your time.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and looked at me. “You’re really going to leave me here with him?”

“I’ve done everything you asked of me tonight,” I said quietly. “I kept my mouth shut as you and Dev played me like your little pawn. Yeah, I’m going to leave you here with him.”