Sorin found himself studying her. Fixating on her with an interest he could hardly deny.
Desire flickered through his veins as he watched her bring the slender glass to her mouth. Lush lips parted over perfect white teeth as she took a brief drink. Watching her pretty mouth and throat work suddenly made everything male in Sorin—everything dangerously, carnally Incubus—crackle with rapt, unswerving attention.
Korda Marakel seemed equally entranced with his companion. Leering openly, he leaned in close and whispered something against her ear. She smiled, but the curve of those mesmerizing lips seemed too tight to be genuinely amused.
Marakel didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he didn’t care. Crowding her body even more where they stood at the roulette table, he petted her silky platinum hair with a lover’s caress. His fingers slid around to her cheek, and the grin he gave her was profane, purely sexual.
Before Sorin could bite it back, a low, disapproving growl rumbled over his tongue.
Marakel must have shocked the poor thing with whatever he suggested next because she recoiled from him, teetering unsteadily on those sky-high heels. With her sudden, awkward wobble, the drink in her hand slipped through her fingers and crashed to the floor.
Champagne exploded in all directions, splashing her and Marakel both. The Incubus sputtered a string of curses as he tried to brush the spilled alcohol from his tux and white shirt.
Sorin grinned. “Couldn’t have happened to a better man.”
Champagne dripping off his chin, Marakel was furious. He bellowed for help from one of the nearby servers while his lovely companion cautiously backed away from the ruckus.
She didn’t seem clumsy at all as she withdrew from the table. And the look on her pretty face was nothing close to contrition.
No, the slight tilt of her lips told a different story altogether.
“Shall I have them both removed from the premises, sir?” Milo asked, chuckling from beside Sorin now.
“No. That won’t be necessary.” His gaze locked on to the intriguing beauty, he watched as she slipped out of the roulette room to the main parlor of the casino. “I’ll handle this personally.”
CHAPTER TWO
Ashayla hurried out of the crowded gaming room, her sleeve and fingers soaked with spilled champagne. She wasn’t embarrassed for what she’d done. She sure as hell wasn’t sorry. Especially considering she’d doused the demon on purpose.
He had been dropping innuendos and suggestive comments all evening, despite the fact that she wasn’t remotely tempted to take his bait. The lewd remarks and none-too-subtly roaming hands were annoying, but Ashayla deflected the Incubus’s advances without too much concern.
She was a Nephilim, and she could handle herself well enough. She had no interest in playing games—his own or the ones taking place in the casino. Ashayla was focused on a bigger prize, and she wasn’t going to let her unwanted but necessary “date” faze her.
That is, until the sex demon suggested he might console himself over his losses at the roulette wheel by making her his Thrall for the night. The thought sent a fresh spike of outrage through her. The bastard was lucky all she’d had in her hand at the time was a glass of champagne.
The prospect of losing control of her body and mind under the influence an Incubus’s sexual power was no laughing matter. Their kind was dangerously alluring without the benefit of the ability to bend any female’s will to their own. Add in the hypnotic force of the thrall, and there wasn’t a woman alive—full human or half angel like her—who could resist them.
Even the dark-haired demon who’d brought her to Ebarron’s casino had a certain coarse sensuality that some females might find attractive. Ashayla wasn’t one of them.
She didn’t know anything about him beyond his first name, Korda. Nor did she need to know anything more. They’d met only last night, after she’d arrived in Bucharest from the States. Ashayla had gone into the city and its after-hours nightclubs with the sole purpose of hiring an Incubus to bring her to the exclusive casino.
She’d learned the House of Ebarron’s family business and residential stronghold was located somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of place you’d find in any tour guide. And to get there, she’d needed to find a demon to teleport her onto Incubus soil along with him.
Korda had seemed willing enough to take her there. He’d seemed almost too willing, as if the five hundred euros he’d demanded in exchange for the favor—an amount twice as high as she’d budgeted—had been merely an afterthought.
If she hadn’t worked so hard and saved so long for this trip—this quest, to be more precise—it wouldn’t have stung so much to watch her hired companion throw away her money at the tables along with a huge sum of his own.