Read The Ruby Kiss for Free Online

arm—“I’m not watching my father perform. Come on. Let’s go somewhere private and get ourselves laid.”
    Nightshade stumbled after Devin without question, his surroundings blurred into a swirling mass of color and sound. Branches hit him in the face and he noticed the noise had faded. Suddenly, a glowing purple tent with three peaks appeared between the trees.
    “I need to find my father,” he mumbled.
    “Time for that tomorrow.” Devin slapped him on the shoulder, making him stagger into the tent pole supporting the door. “Hey, look where you’re going,
ya rajol,
or you’ll have the whole thing down on top of us. We wouldn’t want that. I have a surprise for you.”
    Nightshade found himself pushed inside the glowing interior of the tent. Warm incense-laden air hit him like a stifling blanket, and he coughed and wiped his mouth on his hand. Three veiled, dark-eyed women with long black hair circled him, giggling. Their fingers fluttered over his chest and arms in light, exploring caresses.
    He tripped and landed on his knees on a heap of silk cushions. The jewel-bright colors ran together, and he tried to blink away his dizziness. When he raised his head, the women had stripped Devin of his coat and shirt. His friend’s golden skin glowed in the oil lamps as he lowered the pink, silky veil from a woman’s mouth and kissed her.
    Devin dropped to the cushions near Nightshade and lounged back while the women pulled off his boots. He gave a wolfish smile. “What do you think of my harem?”
    Harem?
Nightshade pitched forward into the cushions, his head throbbing.
    Someone pulled off his boots. He drifted in a hot, confused haze for a while. The next time he opened his eyes, Devin was naked. A golden-skinned woman clad only in a wisp of pink silk sat astride him, his hands cupping her small round breasts.
    Fingers trailed up Nightshade’s arms and speared into his hair. With a grunt, he pushed the person away. The burning tangle of heat the caresses had ignited in his belly summoned a vision of Ruby half-naked, her eager hands roaming his body. “Ruby,” he muttered.
    Fingers pulled at the button on his jeans. He jerked his head up and growled.
    “Leave him,” Devin said with a soft caress in his voice. “Come back to me, sweet ones.”
    Nightshade snuggled down into the silky cushions and imagined he was cuddled up against Ruby’s ample curves.
    * * *
    Devin lay staring up at the gently fluttering purple silk of his tent. The three women he’d made love with were curled against him like kittens, sleeping peacefully, happy he had deigned to notice them tonight. He was tired, sexually sated . . . and he felt like crap. He got up and put on a black silk robe and slippers to match his mood, then stepped outside into the chilly, pine-scented air.
    One of the guards who accompanied his concubines when they traveled drifted out from the shadow of a tree and fell to his knees at Devin’s feet. “Master, do you need anything?”
    “Shh.” Devin glanced over his shoulder through the door into the tent. Nightshade was dead to the world; the combination of Troy’s blood followed by the honey wine had wiped him out. But Devin didn’t want any of his women to wake, either. He couldn’t face them in his present mood.
    He turned back to the guard. “Remain invisible.”
    The man stood up and drifted back into the shadows.
    Devin lit a taper in the campfire outside the tent before touching it to the tip of a spiced cigar. He inhaled deeply and puffed smoke rings into the air. The tang of cinnamon and cloves mingled with the taste of tobacco in his mouth, and he closed his eyes. Receiving pleasure from the women’s lovemaking cloaked him in a miasma of guilt. In his fantasies, every kiss and caress came from Aila, his beautiful, unobtainable love. Why couldn’t he just forget her? Why did she haunt him?
    He walked over to a tree and slammed the side of his fist against the rough bark, relishing the jolt of