Kat added, “Plus, Rook’s damn dragon, Circe, flies the skies most of the time he’s not here in London.”
Xander leaned forward more thoughtfully. “So we need a good plan.”
“For that, we need information.” Dommiel scratched the scruff at his chin.
While they all looked off to nowhere in general, plotting some escapade into the inner sanctum of Simian and Rook…of Rook, the demon prince with whom I’d once shared a bed and who’d torn off a piece of my soul, I realized I was venturing into extremely hazardous territory. Walking to the outer edge of the circle, I turned, hands on hips.
“Look. Whatever you’re planning, don’t say another word in front of me. I need to keep out of this.”
A few confused glances—then Kat asked, “Why?”
Dumbfounded, I half laughed. “Because I’m a demoness.” No one even batted an eye. I waved an arm as I spelled it out for them. “A fallen angel. A creature of darkness. A ward of the underworld.”
“So what.” This from Anya, her perfectly beautiful wings opening halfway, which only enhanced her heavenly aura. She shrugged. “Dommiel is, too.”
Rolling my eyes to the ceiling in exasperation, I tried to hold back the words I knew would sting, but couldn’t keep my anger from driving me on. “Dommiel is a traitor to the underworld. He switched sides out of spite, and necessity, when it suited him.” Anya scowled at the insult to her man, but Dommiel only grinned. I then added with a gesture to Anya, “And when his loyalties attached to you.” And, more softly, “Of course.”
I felt a hard glare from Xander boring a hole into my face. One glance told me his own anger had spiked high. He eased off the sofa slowly, taking a step toward me, arms at his sides, shoulders taut.
“Dommiel is one of us.”
“Exactly. And I am not.” I held his fierce gaze, stiffening my spine into a steel rod.
“You could be…if you opened your fucking eyes.”
I took a step closer, hands on both hips, notching my chin higher. “My eyes are wide open, hunter. And all I see is death. Centuries and centuries of murder and cruelty built up to this final bloodbath we call the apocalypse. Well, you can fucking have it. I made my choice long ago. I chose to become who I am…what I am.”
His brow furrowed in confusion as he studied my face intently. More of that black substance shadowed his blue irises. His next words were softer than before, the bitterness replaced with compassion.
“It’s who we choose to be now that makes us good or evil. Not our past mistakes.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself.
“Who said I made a mistake?”
His cold expression melted, his pretty mouth ticking up on one side. “Oh, darling.” Sarcasm dripped from his honeyed voice. “Let’s not tell ourselves lies, shall we?”
Silence. A memory pounded forward from centuries past—angelic singing, Abram’s sweet voice above them all, lions roaring, flesh tearing, and demons…demons laughing. I swallowed the heartbreaking memory, hardening my resolve to forget the past, forget who I was and what I’d lost…to be Bone, metalworker and free agent, belonging to none. Heart encased in the unyielding steel I forged in my fires.
“That ship sailed long ago,” I finally responded with a cynical smile.
I hardly registered people leaving the room until it was only Dommiel standing with us. Xander and I hadn’t moved from our standoff.
“Look, Bone.” He gripped my arm gently with the mechanical hand I’d made for him, finally breaking me away from Xander. “You don’t have to choose sides or leave your inner sanctum of neutrality.”
Only Dommiel could make me laugh when I was so damn angry. “Inner sanctum of neutrality?”
He grinned. “All I’m saying is, we don’t know exactly what Rook plans to do with this collar or crown or whatever the fuck it is that he’s asked you to make.”
“Asked is putting it mildly. It was a command, Dommiel.”
“All the more reason to find out exactly what he plans to do with it before you blindly create this weapon for him. For that’s definitely what it is.”
“I make weapons for all creatures, you know that—”
He sliced the air with his flesh hand to cut me off. “Yes. But you make weapons so everyone can fight for themselves, right? You ‘choose no sides, so everyone has a fighting chance.’ That’s what you told me once. Remember?”
I nodded, trying to ignore the intense stare of Xander close at my side. Impossible to do, really. Dommiel went on.
“Well, think about it. You don’t know what he’s going to use this for. It may very well be to give many no fighting chance at all. Complete enslavement, Bone. That would go against your own personal creed.”
I swallowed hard, closing my eyes. He knew what that did to me. I might have left the Light for a world of darkness and loneliness, but I was a woman of honor. At least, now I was.
“So what are you asking?”
“Help us discover what he plans to use this for. I’m sure it has something to do with what’s going on at Allerton Castle, but we need to get in there.”
I measured what he was saying, and of course, it was all true. I couldn’t keep my own dignity unless I knew what it was Rook was using my abilities for. This collar was to enslave someone hopelessly to the two dark princes’ will. And it very well could be the prototype for hundreds more. Though, I wasn’t sure what otherworld weapons forger he’d find to do such a thing. And if I refused him…no, I couldn’t go there yet. One step at a time.
“Okay.”
Dommiel smiled wide, reminding me why he was so devilishly irresistible. No wonder that angel was seduced. She never had a chance.
“I have an idea where to start,” Xander said, drawing my attention back to him.
I wished I could ignore the effect his closeness had on me. The heat of him—not just his body but his striking aura of both predator and protector—pulled me like the moon to his sun. I was afraid that once I was truly in his orbit, I’d be powerless to pull free of his gravitational force and be a solitary planet as before. It already felt too late. Was it because I’d caressed and healed his heart with my magic? Was it because he told me I could make a different choice and no longer be alone? The thought terrified me…and magnetized me. To him.
“Where’s that?” asked Dommiel.
“Axel,” answered Xander. “He has tons of information. If he knows anything, he’ll tell us.”
“You know Axel?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes,” he said, glancing at Dommiel then back at me. “We fought together recently. You know Axel?”
Dommiel laughed. “She used to sing in his band.”
An enamored expression glazed over Xander’s face. “Really?”
I huffed out a breath. “Briefly.”
“Good,” said Dommiel. “You two go see what Axel knows. George and Kat will patrol with Cooper tonight. Humans are being snatched left and right. Anya and I will head back to Allerton and scout for any perimeter weaknesses.” Then he strolled for the door.
I chanced a look at Xander. His eyes were still all for me.
“Oh!” shouted Dommiel from the door. “You’d best not go back to your place just yet, Bone. The red priests could be watching then follow you to Axel’s.”
“I’m sure my place is fine. They won’t be watching me—”
“She’ll come with me to my place,” said Xander, as if he spoke for me.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Dommiel cut in too quickly.
“Excellent.” With his signature devil-up-to-no-good grin, he added, “You two kids have fun.”
Then he was gone, and I was left standing alone with Xander, trying to figure out how to not go with him to his place without appearing like a petulant child.
“Well then, darling.” His charming, sexy voice was back. I ignored the jelly-like feeling in my knees. “Looks like you’re coming home with me.”
Chapter Six
/> Xander
I could hear her brain working ten miles a minute as I led her into my top-floor flat in Chelsea. The wards were strong here. I always sifted to the rooftop courtyard to avoid any of the red priests patrolling the streets, then took the stairwell down to my place. George had a flat one building over, but he kept to Thornton Hall outside the city most of the time now.
“I think it’s being overly cautious to avoid my shop,” she grumbled, walking toward the wall of windows overlooking the Thames.
“Better to be cautious right now. Rook might trust you, but Simian is unpredictable.” I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Guinness from the fridge. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he had you watched just to be sure you were making the collar and not entertaining new clients.”
She turned from the windows and strolled closer, her gaze sweeping over the clean slate-gray and white marble surfaces.
“He did pay me amply to keep me working on his torque till it was done.”
“Amply.” I swigged back three gulps, noting that her eyes were on my throat. Why that made me smile, I have no idea. “Want a beer?”
She shrugged. “Sure.” Before I was halfway through the kitchen, she brought up what I’d been waiting for. “The girl, Maddie.”
“Yes. What about Maddie-bear?”
“She’s half seraph.”
“She is.” I took out her beer and popped it open, watching her from across the marble island.
“Who are her parents?”
“No telling who her father is. One of your kind, obviously. Former kind, that is.”
“And her mother?”
“Dead.”
She seemed to struggle with what she wanted to say before finally spilling it. “She needs me. I mean, she needs someone like me. A seraph needs to know about her gift, and how to wield it. Otherwise, she might hurt herself. Or others.”
This, I didn’t realize. With a definite nod, I answered, “Then I’ll talk to Cooper and find some time for you two to be together.”
With a look of relief and maybe even pain, she started to walk the room, admiring the little decoration I did have in the apartment—my artwork collection. Recently acquired, of course, since no one was manning the museums anymore. Or much cared about art. I took it upon myself to save the works whose theme always resonated most deeply with me.
Taking her beer, I joined her in front of Klimt’s “Judith I.” The artist’s version of the biblical figure was more femme fatale, gloating over her recent kill and caressing the hair of the decapitated General Holofernes.
“Here,” I handed her the beer.
She took it absently, still staring at the piece. Her fingers brushed over mine. The skin to skin contact snapped her attention to me, to my hand, a heated awareness thickening the tension between us. She strolled to the next depiction, Baroque, the much more vicious version of “Judith Slaying Holofernes” by Artimisia Gentileschi.
“This is…shocking.” She took a gulp of beer.
“Why is that?”
“It’s just not what I’d expect to find on your wall.”
I took a moment to admire the contours of her profile—the smooth slope of her brow and nose, her high cheekbones and full lips, her small braids and loose dark hair all coiled together and bound back from her goddess-like face. She could’ve been an Egyptian queen, putting Nefertiti to shame. The swirling and barbed tattoos half hidden by her clothes only made her more mysterious, more dangerous, more enchanting.
“What is it that shocks you?”
She glanced at the next one in line, by Francesco Furini, painted in 1636.
“All of these paintings depict the story of Judith and Holofernes.”
“They do.” Another swig of beer to cool my wayward thoughts. “And?”
“What’s your obsession with her?”
I looked on Gentileschi’s painting, my favorite, noting the fierce but cool determination in her expression as her maidservant helped her take the head of the foul general planning to kill her people. “Not an obsession.” I downed my beer. “Just admiration.”
Returning to the kitchen, I tossed the bottle away and grabbed another, finding her on the sofa when I returned, still staring at the art.
“Why do you admire it so much?” She appeared deeply confused, which only made me smile wider.
Taking a seat closer to her than I should’ve, I rested my arm along the sofa back. “I always think Judith must’ve been terrified. Don’t you agree?”
Her attention finally swiveled to me. “Of course she would be.”
“Of course.” I nodded with a smile. “And yet, she went into his tent anyway, right into the devil’s den, the man who planned to annihilate her entire people. She knew he wanted her body. Rather than cower from his evil, she walked right into his lair, mellowed him with the wine, then did brutal violence for the sake of her people, for every innocent he planned to destroy. She beat him before he could hurt a single soul in her care.”
Bone’s eyes widened, the hazel-gold swimming with emotion as I leaned forward and continued.
“For the souls of her people were in her care. His lust was her opportunity—and his own undoing. She used his evil to do good.”
“To chop off his head. Good?”
“Yes. And in doing so, she prevented the destruction of so many innocent lives.” I glanced back at Klimt’s staid and confident Judith. Regal and content over her prey. “Judith represents the victory of virtue over evil.” I couldn’t help but lift my index finger and stroke a few strands of her hair that had fallen over the sofa back.
Her breathing quickened.
“You’re a bit idealistic, aren’t you, hunter?”
I chuckled, twining a lock of her black hair around my finger. She had to have noticed, and yet she didn’t pull away.
“Not idealistic enough, I’m afraid.” I swallowed hard against the desire building low and deep, remembering how different she and I were. “You see,” I leveled my gaze on her steadily, letting go of her lock of hair. “I’m not like you. Rather the opposite, really.”
She stared and didn’t say a word, waiting for me to go on. So I did.
“I’ve got a lot to atone for. The wrongs I’ve done—” I shook my head, not wanting to think on those specific images right now. “Let’s just say, I need to help those who can’t help themselves. I owe it to them.”
Mesmerized, she asked, “Why?”
I smirked. “That’s a story I’m not ready to tell.” But for some reason, I wanted to tell her, wanted to share my dark secrets, wanted her to tell me it was all right. That I was good, despite what I’d done, what I hadn’t done. I laughed at my own idiocy, sitting there and wishing this demoness would absolve me of my sins. “I believe there’s some witch in you.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t have that power. Why would you say that?”
I lifted the lock of hair I’d been playing with and leaned forward. Still, she didn’t jerk away from me as I’d expected her to.
“Because every instinct tells me not to trust you, to push you away.” Leaning farther over, I rubbed the silken strands against my lips, reveling in the sultry scent of vanilla and wood embers. Then I dropped the lock, gulping hard. “And yet, a deeper force compels me forward…closer.” I tilted my head. “Is it the essence you used to mend my heart?”
She watched my hand where I placed it over my chest. She shook her head.
“No. I told you. My essence doesn’t work that way. My seraph song persuaded the metal to mend you. That’s all.”
“That’s all? You saved my life with a song…and that’s all?”
Night had fallen, and I’d only flipped on the kitchen light, which now touched her face, turning her skin a honey hue. But shadows were creeping, the darkness suggesting things, conjuring images I couldn’t help thinking about. Warm caramel skin laced with intricate tattoos, naked, limbs spread on my bed. For me. She must’ve sensed my errant thoughts.
Setting her beer, unfinished, on the glass coffee table, she stood suddenly. “I think we should go see Axel.”
I stood, facing her with no qualms about what she did to me and what I wanted from her. Make no mistake—we would be lovers. And sooner than she realized.
I glanced outside, the dark of early nightfall just sinking into the landscape.
“It’s too early. He may not be at his club yet, and unless you know where his hidden lair is, we may end up sitting around waiting.”
Axel and his brothers-in-arms, two other high demons, Gustav and Wolfrick, had lost their regular haunt in Berlin after an attack by the Archangel Maximus and his army. They’d moved venues here to London, having taken ownership of an old bar called Cargo in Shoreditch. Their lackeys had followed them, from what Dommiel had said. But of course, Axel wasn’t telling anyone where their new home was. Few otherworlders shared that kind of vulnerable information freely. Except I’d taken Bone right to my house. A compulsion I couldn’t seem to control made me want to take her here, made me want to keep her here. Into my home. Into my keeping.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” I popped up and went to pull out an angora throw I had stashed in the linen closet, then returned and handed it to her. “I’ll wake you in about an hour.”
Using the remote, I clicked on the gas fireplace. A blaze flared to life beneath a bed of blue crystals. The shimmering prisms cast on the ceiling always seemed to hypnotize me. Glancing at Bone, it seemed to have the same effect on her, but she didn’t make a move to lie down. Making a quick pass into my bedroom and back out, I fluffed my pillow at the head of the sofa and gently nudged her shoulder.
“Come on,” I urged quietly. Gently. “Lie down and get some rest.”
She gave me a quizzical look before finally lying down on her side. I wondered why she found my gesture strange. She didn’t say a word when I opened the blanket and draped it on top of her. With one more squeeze of her shoulder, I urged again, “Rest.”
Then I left her alone, resigning myself to my bedroom and my private balcony. I didn’t know whether Bone had ever truly needed someone to watch over her while she slept, while she was vulnerable, but it made my heart swell to be the one to offer this small solace.
Hardest Fall Page 5
