Jason rushed from the wedding rehearsal feeling like he had a bad case of poison ivy. His skin itched and burned, and the throb at the base of his skull had grown more intense. Boom, boom, boom. The pain demanded attention.

He reached into his glove compartment and fished out a bottle of pain relievers, popping the cap and dry-swallowing three. The pounding took on a rhythm, morphing into a voice, Nickelova’s voice. Come to me. Come to me. Her command echoed in his head until it became a stabbing sensation. He rubbed where it hurt the most. Jason had a nagging suspicion the discomfort was only going to get worse unless he found a way to break the curse. He needed help—magic powerful enough to undo what Nickelova had done to him. And he had an idea where he might find it.

Exiting the highway deep within Carlton City, Jason drove down the alley behind the Mill Wheel Night Club, wishing he’d had the forethought to bring a gun loaded with wooden bullets. A couple making out behind a dumpster turned their heads long enough for the two puncture wounds on the woman’s neck to gurgle blood that ran in lazy rivulets into her cleavage. Fuck, he hated vamps. If he wasn’t desperate for a solution to his Nickelova problem, he’d never risk this part of town.

He parked under a rectangular tin sign that read Ryker’s Lost Things. The logo was a chipped etching of a boy with a handkerchief on a stick over his shoulder, an unsettling smile on his freckled face. The sign squeaked on rusty hinges as it swung in the evening breeze.

Jason had loaned Ryker his start-up capital for this place, despite shady references and a business plan that was one step up from a cocktail napkin. Only Ryker proved persuasive, so persuasive that Jason caught on quickly that his aptitude for business wasn’t quite human. And based on the return he’d seen come through his e-mail, the guy had serious connections inside the world of the occult.

The bell over the door chimed and the smell of dust hit Jason’s nostrils. The inside of Lost Things looked like an episode of hoarders. Stacks of books, artifacts, and shiny objects crowded the doorway. He had to turn sideways to slip between two large crates of Fabergé eggs, pausing halfway through when a low hum met his superhuman ears. It emanated from one large black egg that gleamed in the dim light, its ebony luster drawing him in. He leaned over for a better look.

“Don’t touch that,” came a smooth voice from deep within the shop. “Unless you’d like to spend the night locked inside that shiny trinket. I won’t be able to get you out until sunrise. I need to move them into the back room. Haven’t had a chance.”

Jason stepped back from the eggs and made his way deeper into the dimly lit store. A squat woman waddled up to the counter with a handful of dried lizards. Her T-shirt read, Witches do it in circles.

“Do you sell these in bulk?” she asked the dark man behind the counter.

“Five for twenty.”

The woman plopped down a bill. She waddled out the door, giving a wide clearance to the crate of eggs.

“Ryker Vandoren, how’s my favorite client?” Jason spread his arms wide.

The man glanced up from his work and promptly disappeared, becoming a twist of smoke in a blink of an eye. The dark fog rolled over the counter and through the hodgepodge of collectibles. Ryker rematerialized near Jason, smelling of sulfur and dried things. Black eyes burned above a smile that boasted two overdeveloped cuspids. His olive-toned skin seemed to give off its own light in the haze of dust around them.

“Favorite client?” he asked. “Never try to charm an incubus, Mr. Flynn.” His voice was pure silk and flowed from full lips like a whispered seduction. “It makes you seem insincere.”

“Call me Jason. I assure you, I’d never attempt to charm you, Ryker. It would be like trying to sell an air conditioner to a polar bear.”

Ryker blinked upturned eyes, a ghost of a smile turning the corners of his mouth. He narrowed his gaze on Jason. “What brings you here today? I’ve honored our agreement. Are you unhappy with your rate of return?”

“On the contrary, I’m impressed with your success. Who knew an antique shop for magical artifacts would do so well in the vampire district?” He rubbed the ache at the back of his head. “No, I’m not here about my investment.”

The demon gestured toward the store. “Then what can I do for you?”

“I have a problem, and I think you might have a solution. But I need you to promise to keep this confidential.”

Ryker’s ears bent forward slightly. “We are alone. Your secrets are safe with me. I assure you, I have many.”

“Well, yes. I assumed. That’s why I came to you. I need your help. I have a problem with a dragon fae.”

With a step back and a hiss, Ryker shook his finger. “Dragon fae are not my area of expertise. If you’ve offended the female, I suggest you apologize.”

“How did you know I was talking about a female?”

“Because the only dragon fae to be in this city in a century is female.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“No. But I’ve heard.”

“I had a relationship with her.”

“A physical relationship?”

Jason lowered his chin and gave an almost imperceptible nod. “And now she’s haunting me.”

The incubus’s long tapered fingers lifted to his mouth to conceal a chuckle. “Even I wouldn’t risk an affair with a dragon.” Ryker’s barbed tail twitched behind him.

“For your information, I didn’t know she was fae when I was, er, drinking from her teacup. And now she’s possessing women I’m with and saying that every time I have sex I’ll trigger some kind of curse that will make me her slave.”

The demon inhaled through his teeth.

“I need a way to break her curse.”

Ryker took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “The only way to break the curse of a dragon is to remove her heart.”

“As much as I’d like to do that, first I’d have to find her, and then I’d have to have a plan for removing said heart. That might take a while. In the meantime, you must have a talisman or an enchanted gem that will disconnect her from my… business?”

The laugh Ryker let out was gritty as though his throat was lined with hot coals. “I am not a doctor or a witch… or a witch doctor, for that matter.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m a demon, an incubus to be exact. I don’t know for sure the nature of this dragon’s curse. Only another fae would know for sure. But the fact that she possessed a woman you were with and didn’t simply pop into your bedroom does tell us something.”

“Like what?”

“Like there’s probably a reason she can’t come to you physically,” he said. “She’s cursed you to come to her because she can’t come to you. That’s likely why she used your vice.” Although Ryker used a matter-of-fact tone when he said the word “vice,” Jason scowled. “You didn’t think I was aware of your vice? I feed off sexual energy, Jason. I smelled it on you the moment we met. Your reputation filled in the gaps. My presumption is, when you had sex with the dragon fae, she cursed your vice.”

“Just my vice?”

Ryker pointed at Jason’s cell phone poking from his suit pocket. “From what I’ve been told, a dragon’s curse can act like a virus someone e-mailed to you. Every time you click on the link it runs a program that accomplishes something nefarious in your device. Magic can attach to things, be introduced to a host in various ways. You are both man and beast but your vice is the lowest common denominator between the two. The dragon fae left you a gift where it counts. Every time you get busy, she gets busy. A curse like that could be used to track your whereabouts, visit you through the body of your partner, influence your mind, even mess with your chemistry. All from the comfort of whatever hole she’s hiding in.”

“Mess with my chemistry?”

“Have you noticed your vice growing stronger? Harder to manage? You’ve got a monkey on your back for sex, my friend, and I’m willing to bet that monkey is about to get much heavier.”

“So she makes my vice worse but every time I indulge it, the curse brings me closer to being her robot.”

“Exactly.”

“Fucking fantastic.” Jason took a deep breath. “You need to help me. You have magical objects from every corner of the earth in here. There must be something that can extract a dragon fae curse.”

He rubbed the smooth skin of his chin. There was a rumor that incubus demons were completely hairless aside from their eyebrows and the tops of their heads. Jason tried not to think too much about it or about how the man survived as an incubus.

“There is something…” Ryker said, eyes darting around the shop.

“Please.”

“I have procured a demonic object with promising capabilities, but there is no record of a werewolf ever using it. Your kind is more human than my kind. There could be side effects.”

“Tell me more.”

Ryker coupled his hands behind his back and made his way through the stacks toward the office door behind the counter. He fished something out of a case on the desk.

“Once there was a demon who fell in love with a human. She wanted exclusivity. Silly. My kind is incapable of monogamy. But the desperate demon commissioned this from a witch.” He held out a box with a carving of a serpent eating its own tail on the lid.

Jason flipped the box open, revealing a shiny platinum snake, body straight as a pin. “What does it do?”

“It mutates sexual desire into another form. For this male, sex became hunger. It worked for a while. He took sexual nourishment only from his mate and filled his lust for others with food.”

Jason reached for the box. “So then why is it here and not on some incubus living happily ever after?”

“The female left him. The demon, in his grief, refused to take off the ring. He ate himself to death. At least that’s the rumor. I can’t be responsible for verifying the stories of every treasure in this place.”

“But if I wear this, I can avoid having sex. And if I avoid having sex, I avoid Nickelova.”

“Nickelova! You are in deep. I was not aware it was the princess of the Siberian dragon fae who was gracing us with her presence.”

Jason sighed. “How much for the ring?”

“You’d do better to visit a witch familiar with your kind. This might not be safe for you.”

“How much?”

The demon considered him for a moment. “Forgiveness of my remaining debt to you should do it.”

Pausing for a moment, Jason did a quick calculation in his head. It wasn’t much by his standards, and the royalties on his investment far exceeded the investment itself. “Only relief of debt. No change in ownership percentage.”

Ryker bowed his head slightly in agreement.

“How do I use it?”

“Put it on your finger.”

Instead of asking how he was supposed to wear a straight piece of jewelry like a ring, Jason poked the silver serpent. The snake came alive, inched over his knuckle, and coiled itself around his pointer finger. Immediately, the dull ache he constantly carried between his legs eased. Or maybe it just changed into something else. The heavy weight of sexual need was now a feeling of nausea, like he was in the first days of a stomach flu.

“I think it’s working,” he said.

“Good.” Ryker narrowed his eyes at Jason, a cross between concern and self-preservation coming through his features. “As a precaution, don’t leave it on all the time. Have you heard of Maison des Étoilles?”

Jason snorted. He knew Maison des Étoilles well. His brother, Silas, had dated the madam of the famed bordello. “I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s run by celestial fae. If there were a group as powerful as dragon fae, the celestial variety would be it. Not only are they resistant to another fae’s possession, they have protections on the building that may prevent the activation of Nickelova’s curse. Think of their magic as antivirus software.” He pointed at Jason’s phone again. “Go regularly. Take the ring off and feed your wolf.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I’ve never had to pay for sex before and I don’t intend to start now.” He’d also rather not frequent a bordello run by his brother’s ex—who still occasionally chatted with his big bro. The farther he could keep this problem from Silas and Laina the better.

Ryker shook his head. “Jason, about this ring…” He trailed off as if considering whether to share more.

“What about it?”

“It’s a temporary fix. It stores up all the wanting, all the desire you feel while you wear it, and channels it into something else. But the moment you take it off, everything you were avoiding comes back exponentially stronger than before. Make sure you are in a safe place to vent your pent-up desires.” Ryker handed him the wooden box the ring came in. “Also, keep it in this when you’re not wearing it. Could be dangerous in the wrong hands. It’s your responsibility now.”

Jason accepted the box, a stiff sweat breaking out on his upper lip. “I think I need some air.”

“Hmm.” Ryker dissolved into a dark fog and blew through the store, reforming at the entrance to hold the door open for Jason.

Feeling feverish and more than a little woozy, Jason made his way through the stacks to meet Ryker at the exit. He stumbled toward his Bugatti.

“Oh, and Jason…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you fucking crazy driving that thing in this neighborhood? Count yourself lucky you still have four wheels.”

With a two-fingered salute, Jason slid behind the wheel and headed for home.