Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(14)

He heartily approved. He asked, “Okay?”

She nodded again. Face calm, eyes sharp. Gods, this woman was hotter than Death Valley in July.

He couldn’t resist touching her again. He cupped her cheek and rubbed his thumb gently along the soft, plush arc of her lips. Her expression softened, and the look she gave him was filled with equal parts tenderness and amazement. He wanted to ask her what caused her to look so surprised when he touched her with affection. He wanted to kiss her slowly and savor that first, intimate taste of her.

Hunger hissed along his nerve endings and turned aggressive. Her mouth would be so soft, the tender flesh giving way under his. He wanted to coax her lips apart and enter her with his tongue, and just the thought of deepening the kiss was so sexual his groin tightened.

Someone shouted nearby, splintering the moment. Frowning, he glanced around at the dust filled parking lot then he offered Seremela his hand. She took it.

“After this is over and we get back to Miami,” he asked, “where are we going to go for our first date?”

Half a dozen of her snakes rose up to stare at him, and the nictating membranes snapped shut over Seremela’s eyes. Then opened. Then shut. And opened. She blinked rapidly and it stopped. “First date?”

He wondered what that meant. Perhaps she got sand in her eyes. He asked, “Will you go out with me when we get back? I like the opera. But I like rock concerts too, and I’m a sucker for a good movie.”

Her delighted smile was truly one of the loveliest expressions he had ever seen on her face. “Yes,” she said. “I like all of that too, but I especially like the opera.”

“Perfect,” he said with satisfaction. “It’ll give us something to look forward to.”

At the time, he had no idea how much that would matter.

Hand-in-hand, together they walked into Devil’s Gate.

It was everything he had expected, and more: dirty, stinky, unpredictable and overcrowded. The night was windless, and smoke from campfires hung in the air, thick with the scent of cigarette smoke, cooking meat and onions.

The scene threw him into a cascade of memories. He remembered how incredulous he felt when he found out that his legal work had come to Carling’s attention. She had still been Queen of the Nightkind then, and she courted him with the wily patience of a professional politician and all the wisdom of a seasoned courtesan, until they had reached an agreement, about business and about other things.

His last meal before she changed him had been a sixteen ounce porterhouse steak, medium rare, with fried potatoes, apple pie and cheddar cheese, and a Guinness.

He remembered each detail as if it were yesterday. The meat had been so juicy and tender, he could cut it with his fork, and the potatoes had been crisp, salty with butter and a rich golden brown. The apple pie had been both tart and sweet, the tang of the sharp cheddar its perfect complement, and damn, that Guinness had been frothy and yeasty, like a satisfying novel for the taste buds, telling its dark, full-bodied and soul-nourishing story with every swallow. He had eaten until he thought he would burst.

Even though he still dreamed about that meal, the real thing would turn his stomach now, and while the present day camp brought back vivid memories, there were plenty of differences too.

The hellish red glows from the flames were interspersed with the cold, thin illumination from LED camping lanterns. Different kinds of music clashed, most of it blaring from boom boxes, but the sound of a few instruments, a guitar, a fiddle and drums, carried the piercing, startling sweetness of live passion.

Painted prostitutes, both men and women, walked the “streets” between the tents, campers and a few mobile office buildings. Humans, Elves and Light Fae, Demonkind and Wyr, and of course, the Nightkind were out in force. Vampyres prowled the area, smiling white smiles, drawn by the lawlessness and the lure of so much living blood packed into one space. Duncan backed them off silently with a glittering look. The Vampyres took one look at his hard face and melted into the crowd.

The tent city was a melting pot with the burner turned on high. At any minute he expected a fight to break out, and he wasn’t disappointed. They had to sidestep two brawls as they navigated to “main street,” the largest pathway that lay between camps.

He didn’t pretend to himself that he was the only reason they remained unmolested. People took one look at Seremela, with her set expression, sharp gaze and snakes raised and wary, and they gave both of them a wide berth. When a drunk stumbled into her path and startled her, all her snakes whipped around and hissed at him, scaring him so badly he pissed himself as he ran away.

Duncan murmured to Seremela, “The California Gold Rush was so much more charming than this. I’m sure it was.”

She glanced at him sardonically. “And I’m sure you have swamp land in Florida you’d like to sell me.”

He grinned and said to a tired looking, sunburned human, “We’re looking for the pharmacy. Do you know where it is?”

The human’s gaze passed over him and lingered on Seremela. “Five or six camps down,” she said. “It’s one of the fancy ones. Hard to miss.”

“Thanks.”

“Wonder what she means by fancy,” Seremela muttered.

They discovered the answer to that soon enough as they found one of the few mobile buildings several campsites down. A simple sign that said “Wendell’s” hung outside the door. The pale, cold light of LED lamps glowed through the window, and the door was propped open to the night air. Wendell’s was open for business.