by Sharon Page
“Cease,” he croaked. “You may have your demons free. Pull your hand from my chest, you damned witch.”
“I’m not a witch,” she shouted with pride. “But I will spare you—” But in truth, she could not believe what was happening. How could she have the power to vanquish Lucifer? “I will spare you, if you release Zayan and Lukos, and you let them go free. You can wreak no vengeance upon them, nor harm anyone they love. You must release them from your service. Zayan must be released from the red power, the Pravus, if it exists.”
His body was collapsing, sinking. “I will. You have my promise. You cannot destroy me. You cannot upset the balance of the human world. Stop.”
Miranda, you have to stop.
“Aunt Eugenia?” Stunned, Miranda instinctively jerked her head around. But she had heard her aunt in her thoughts.
The vampire queens, along with Althea and Serena, have given me the power to speak to you. It is the truth, there must be a balance of good and evil, and Lucifer must rule the Underworld, for mortals need the threat of his realm.
But I want Lukos and Zayan to be free. I want to stop him from creating demons—
You cannot, Miranda. Good and evil will always exist. And if you destroy him, you will take his place. You will become the devil. You’ve done enough.
Was that true? She couldn’t take the chance it was. But what of the queens? she shouted in her thoughts to her aunt. Lukos believes they want me destroyed.
They are afraid of you, Aunt Eugenia answered. That is the truth. But they also believe you can use your power to return Zayan’s and Lukos’s souls. They believe it might drain your power completely to make them mortal again. They would have nothing to fear from you then. You would be safe…
It would drain her power. She would be normal, with nothing to hide any longer.
A jolt of pain shot through her. Grimacing, she gazed down upon the devil. He was beginning to grow smaller, as though her power was draining his essence and shriveling him up. The sensation of power left her heady. She could destroy Satan.
She could do whatever she wished…
And what she wanted to do was find happiness and love, not rule the Underworld. She did not want to destroy. She never had.
With a scream, she ripped her hand off Lucifer’s chest. His form slumped to the white chair. Instantly, he grew larger, his limbs straightening.
The golden glow surrounding her hand burst suddenly in a shower of glittering sparks.
Gold swiftly turned to black and Miranda pitched forward into a cold, fathomless void.
The black ground hurtled at him and slammed hard into his chest. Lukos lifted his chest, blew out a mouthful of melting snow, and rolled onto his back, feeling the cold through his bare skin. What in blazes had happened? One moment, he’d been Lucifer’s captive. Now he was beneath the night sky, with snowflakes peppering his face—
Miranda.
What had she done?
“Lukos? He freed you? Good heavens, I cannot believe he actually kept his promise.” Miranda’s babbled words poured over him and he jerked toward her. He rose to his feet as her warm body barreled into him. Her cheek pressed tight to his chest, and her disheveled hair tickled him. At once her arms wrapped tight around him. “I thought he would cheat me—”
He pulled her back, clutching her arms. “What did you do? What did you promise him for my freedom?”
Snow melted on her lovely pink lips. Gold waves of hair fell in tangles around her face—the most beautiful face he knew he’d ever seen, because it was hers.
“I didn’t promise him anything. I made him promise me to let you go.”
“How did you force the devil to make a promise?”
“I touched his heart.”
“I told you not to—” he began. Then stopped. She had done it and survived.
“I assumed he’d lost his soul and I wanted to return it. But instead of giving him life, I was sucking his out of him. So I stopped—in return for our safety and your freedom.”
“You must be one of the most powerful beings in existence.”
Adamantly, she shook her head. “When you and Zayan said you both loved me, I felt my power grow. It is the three of us together who are powerful.” She stared over his shoulder, and a smile curved her lips. “Zayan!” Then to Lukos, she cried, “I have you both safe. I could not ask for more.”
Zayan, who was stumbling in the field rubbing his head, looked up and saw them. A broad grin spread on his face, and he ran toward them.
“Thank heaven,” she breathed. Lukos cradled her as she pressed tight to his chest again. “When I found I was out in this field, I feared I was alone here at first. I feared I’d lost you both.” Then she stepped back. “Are you not cold? Since you are naked?”
He had to laugh. She’d literally gone through hell for him and now worried a bit of snow would hurt him. To satisfy her, he created a cloak to cover his body. And when he summoned it, he let it fall around her too.
Zayan had reached them. Lukos willingly let her go into Zayan’s embrace. At the general’s questioning look, he nodded. “I can share her. She loves us both, and I think it would be impossible to make her choose. I want her to be happy.”
“As do I.” Zayan hugged her and kissed the top of her head. His brow furrowed. “Over there—on the field. I see movement and sense a heartbeat.”
A heartbeat…Barely daring to hope, Lukos jerked around. A woman was hugging her body as she stumbled across the field. The glimmer of reflected light on the snow revealed she was naked, and her long golden hair fell to her hips.
“Ara. Christ Jesus, that is my sister.”
A wave of Zayan’s hand and a cloak appeared around Ara’s slender form. She stopped in her tracks and stared down at it in amazement.
Miranda clasped his arm, and Lukos met her gaze—he saw the faint tremble of her lips, the gentle smile. “Go to her,” she urged. “But bring her back to us. We must go back to the slayers. Zayan’s children are there. They are helping us, and I know they will help your sister too.”
“Dawn’s close,” Zayan added.
But Lukos stared at Miranda. “Slayers? You left Zayan’s children with vampire slayers?”
She nodded. “Althea, Serena, my aunt, and the men of course.”
He looked to Zayan, who quirked a brow. “It is true. It appears we’ve struck a truce.”
What astounded Lukos was not the fact that Zayan and Miranda had trusted vampire slayers. It was the reality of freedom. It struck him suddenly. He had escaped servitude to Lucifer and had rescued Ara. He had gone to this Underworld knowing he would have to sacrifice his life, believing he would not survive to have Miranda.
But he had. And after one thousand years, he was finally free.
All because of Miranda. His amazing, magical woman—who was staring at him in shock. “Your hair!” she gasped. “The color has changed. It’s golden blond.”
The color it had been when he had been a mortal. He grasped a lock to see for himself. Sure enough, it was the color of autumn grass waving in a field. “I think its proof, angel, that you’ve freed me.”
“Well, my dear, you are the only person I’ve known who has seen the Underworld, and who has done combat with Lucifer and won!”
Aunt Eugenia grasped Miranda’s hand and drew her away from Lukos and Zayan, leading her down the hall of Blackthorne Castle. She looked back, but Eugenia insisted, “They will be fine. Zayan should go to his children, and Lukos’s sister Ara needs him right now. She must heal from a horrific ordeal. And there is someone I wish to see.”
Miranda found herself at the door to a bedchamber. A man lay within, swaddled beneath the heavy counterpane. Stealing forward, Miranda recognized Lord Blackthorne. “What happened to him?”
“He was found by the grooms, wandering naked near his stables, confused and weak. He was babbling about a red mist, and of a siren’s voice calling to him.”
“The red mist? Did it possess him as it did Mr. Ry
der?”
Aunt Eugenia crossed her arms. “I believe so, but when the mist vanished, he was freed. He also spoke of you.”
“Me?”
She remembered that moment in the village inn, when she’d had her romantic dreams dashed. She had found true love, though, and it was much deeper and richer than the infatuation she’d built up for Blackthorne.
Her aunt nodded. “He said he had fallen in love with Miranda Bond, a woman he could never have, because the siren told him she was the lover of two powerful demons.”
Miranda flushed.
“I know it is the truth, my dear. I can also see that they are deeply in love with you.”
“Will he recover?”
“I believe so.”
“What of James Ryder? Has he been found?”
Adjusting the lace fichu at her neck, Eugenia said, “Yes, he was found on the castle grounds just before he died. He confessed to what he had done—he had been paid by rogue members of the Royal Society to destroy you. With the money, he intended to destroy his titled father and make the man pay for ignoring him.”
“And he died?”
“Yes, his life force had been tied to that of the Pravus. When that was destroyed, his life force gave out. He managed to survive a few hours, to try to escape, but that was all. He was a vicious man. An evil one.”
Miranda had to agree with that. “So the Pravus was destroyed? It is gone?”
“For now,” Aunt Eugenia said. “The vampire queens believe a new one will eventually be born. Evil always exists in the world. It is our mission to combat it, to control it, and to help people turn it away.”
There was something Miranda had to ask. She caught her aunt’s sleeve. “When I was trying to return Lucifer’s soul, you spoke in my mind. That is true, isn’t it? It was really you.”
Eugenia nodded.
“You told me that I could return Zayan’s and Lukos’s souls. Why? Do you believe they would want me to?”
“Elizabeth told me the vampire queens want you to. For them, it ensures the vampires cannot use their power to overthrow the queens. And for Zayan and Lukos—”
“They would lose their immortality.”
“You are not immortal, my dear.”
Miranda turned away from Blackthorne’s chamber and her aunt closed the door. “Zayan tried to change me in the Underworld, when one of the succubi cut my throat. He could not make me into a vampire, though I did heal myself—with his help.”
Eugenia embraced her. “For Zayan and Lukos to be at peace, I believe they should become mortal once more. Otherwise, the queens will never rest easy, and may prosecute Zayan and Lukos for past crimes. They do have the power to banish both men again.”
“Are you implying that I should try to return their souls for their own protection, whether they want it or not?”
Her aunt drew back to face her. “No, love. I am advising you to ask them what they want.”
But Miranda did not have the chance to be alone with Lukos and Zayan for another day. After they left Blackthorne’s bedchamber, Eugenia took her to one of the drawing rooms, in which the vampire slayers had gathered, along with Lukos, Zayan, and Zayan’s children. Ara was resting in her own bedchamber.
Miranda caught her breath as she recognized a man who sat in the corner of the room—Lord Denby, the man she had encountered on the mountain road, the gentleman of the Royal Society who had been betrayed by his compatriot. Lord Denby rose, crossed quickly to her, and bowed over her hand. “I must take my leave of you, Miss Bond. It is urgent I return to London. It appears there is much rot in the Royal Society that needs to be rooted out, and I am making it my task to do so.” He inclined his head toward Eugenia. “It will be the mandate of the Royal Society to understand the world of magic, demons, vampires, and the like, not destroy it.”
Eugenia nodded with satisfaction.
Deciding to trust Denby, who appeared to have the support of everyone in the room, from the smiles and nods that traveled around the group, Miranda clasped his hand. “I think that is wise, Lord Denby.”
She noticed then a handsome, silver-haired bespectacled man who had moved to stand at her aunt’s side. Althea introduced him as her father, Sir Edmund Yates. He also bowed over Miranda’s hand. “I have heard much of your unique abilities from Miss Bond.”
Her unmarried aunt, of course, had the same name as she did. She caught the looks of admiration—and smoldering interest—passing between Sir Edmund and Eugenia. She looked to Zayan and Lukos. Zayan was bouncing Marc on his knee, and Lukos was teasingly tugging Lina’s braids. Both men sensed her gaze, and each one winked at her.
It could have been a scene in any English drawing room. The children scuttled down to the floor before the fire and played on the carpet. Althea and Serena gracefully perched on their seats, their men standing at their sides. Sir Edmund Yates was excitedly recounting stories of researching vampire lore in the Carpathians to Eugenia. But after an hour, Miranda almost fell asleep on her chair—in the midst of telling her own story of the labyrinth to the Underworld yet again.
Laughing, Lukos scooped her up to take her to bed, but Aunt Eugenia stopped him to clasp Miranda’s hands. She whispered, “What you have, my dear, is a gift. The gift to heal and to give love. And whether you possess magic powers or not, you will always have that gift.”
Whether she possessed magic powers or not.
Would Lukos and Zayan want to be moral—as she was? But her head felt too wooly to worry then. Her thought began to fade…
Lukos carried her to her bedroom, and she fell asleep in his arms.
Billows of steam and an exotic, flowery fragrance met Miranda as, smiling, Althea pushed open the door to the bathing chamber. The women had told her that she’d slept for a day and half!
Serena nudged her. “Go inside. They planned this like excited schoolboys. I never imagined I would see Lukos—who always seemed so frightening to me—look so vulnerable.”
“I believe love does that to every man,” Althea added. Then they both propelled Miranda into the room and backed out, shutting the door behind them.
An enormous bathtub stood in the middle of the chamber. Lukos lounged in the water, a glass of brandy in his right hand. His wet hair was slicked back, darkened to rich amber, and droplets clung to his lashes and full lips. She was not quite used to his blond hair, though it was beautiful.
Silver reflections glinted in his eyes, rippling like water. “Come here, Miranda. I want to taste you on my lips more than wine.”
She knew what he meant, her heart making a merry dance of arousal in her chest. Zayan stepped out of the shadows, naked, and he stripped her bare with a wave of his hand. She should have expected it, but it still astonished her when her buttons opened themselves and her gown slithered off her body of its own accord. Winking, Zayan set her petticoats whirling up around her, a froth of white lace.
Then he came up behind her. He nuzzled her neck while her corset magically unlaced itself. As her shift leapt over her head and pirouetted by itself to the floor, he cradled her breasts. Her hard nipples tightened even more as he whispered, “I want to taste every inch of you, myself. I love you.”
Lukos crooked his finger to urge her to come to him, then flicked out his tongue. She knew exactly what he intended to do.
She stood still, her hair loose and falling to the small of her back. Zayan’s breath gently brushed her shoulder blades. She knew she should ask them now. She had to offer to make them mortal—
To protect them all.
Lukos reached out, water sloshing around him, clamped his hand over her bottom, and dragged her cunny to his mouth. And she knew it was not the time to talk of serious things. But she was so tense, his tongue slicking her clit made her almost melt to the floor.
She had to grip the edge of the tub. From her view, she could see his golden head at her quim, his big shoulders, the beautiful, muscled vee of his back. She could see his tailbone, and the curves of his arse disappearing int
o the water.
Just the sight of him seduced her.
And he was using magic. It felt as though his tongue was teasing her clit and her anus at the same time. But in her thoughts, he murmured, I was betrayed by the demoness who took me into the Underworld. I believed I’d lost Ara, whom I adored, and you helped me rescue her. You’ve wiped away the pain of my past, Miranda, and helped me to discover love.
You have done that for both of us, Miranda. Saved us from the wasted existence of anger and vengeance, and opened our hearts to love. Zayan tweaked her nipples, sending shock waves down to her throbbing clit. “We vowed to share you, Miranda.”
Lukos stopped suckling. “And when we share, I want…mmm, the bottom half.”
“Lukos,” she gasped.
Zayan tickled his fingers down her spine, making her jump. He nuzzled the nape of her neck. “You can have the back, Lukos. I’ll have the front.”
Gazing down at Lukos, at the droplets of water that beaded on his lashes, lashes that swept over his eyes and revealed the vulnerability in his heart, Miranda whispered, “I want to kiss you both. I love you both. It is as simple as that.”
She crouched until she was at the same height as Lukos’s face. He wrapped his wet, muscular arm around her. Miranda gave herself to the magic of his slow, sensual kiss. Her blood burned with the heat of it.
Then Lukos broke the kiss and took her hand. Clasping his fingers, she hoisted her leg over the side of the enormous tub. He gave a teasing tug and she fell in with a splash. And surfaced with an indignant splutter. But she climbed on him and licked the water along the edge of his hard jaw.
In a hearbeat, Zayan had joined them. “Tonight,” he said, “we are at your command.”
“Hell,” Lukos chuckled. “The truth is, we are always at your command.”
“What is your most illicit fantasy, my love?” Zayan asked, water sloshing around him. “What would you love to do with us that you would be too afraid to ask for?”
“If I am too afraid to ask, I couldn’t put it into words, could I?” Miranda felt a blush sweep over her, from the tips of her nipples up to her hairline.
