by Elle Cross
"I really liked your performance out there. It was delicious. Tell me, would you like a repeat?"
He was already rolling up his sleeves. If he was going to be that crazy, then I was going to have to check out.
"Uhm, I already played my part, thank you. I think I actually deserve just to relax and play, don'tcha think?"
"Play, huh?"
Demons were so easily distracted. And that was what he was. A Demon Prince.
I found my voice, though I was afraid it would shake. "Yes, don't you want to play?"
"I do like to play. Okay, why not? I do have to warn you: sometimes, I break my toys.”
He shifted us into a private room that looked more like a penthouse suite. I ogled the view. Three sides of it were windows overlooking the city. From here, I had a view of the brewing storm that was responsible for the humidity. The lightning strike seemed personal, searching.
There was a raised area in the middle and with the dim lighting, I didn’t realize it was a bed until I was right on top of it. I skirted around it primly to see the view. The moon loomed larger than I’d ever seen it, and I felt a nagging, like I should know the significance of this moon.
My host walked up behind me, sliding his finger down my spine. My backless dress left nothing to the imagination. He mistook my shiver of revulsion for something else.
He angled his way in front of me and gave me another drink. I wasn’t stupid enough to drink it, even when he downed his and expected me to follow suit.
Drinking Goblin wine was one thing. This was something else. I could feel the heaviness in the goblet.
Instead, I gave him a sly grin, put my drink down and before he could protest, I took him by the tie and pulled him into a crushing kiss.
He gripped my arms tightly, maneuvering for control here. I wouldn’t let him. I danced us around and then pushed him onto the bed.
“I like being on top,” I purred, stepping out of one shoe, then another.
He stayed on his back, a self-satisfied smirk widening across his face. “All right. We’ll have it your way first. Then it’s my turn.”
Yes. That's exactly what I needed. His words. Words had power here, they were the key.
“Promise?” Then, I jumped on him without waiting for an answer, straddling him and devouring him with kisses. I worked bits of his clothes off of him, his jacket, tie, shirt, and belt. When he would rip off my dress, I stopped him playfully. “Now, now, my way first, remember? Besides, you have on way too many clothes,” I added as I snaked off his belt.
Even with my words, his hands were still grabby. I made a play of taking off my jeweled snake belt and pinned his arms above his head and twining the belt around his wrist. My bubbling laughter kept him playful and curious, licking at my wrists, nipping at where he could reach even when I knew he would have torn me into little ribbons by now if our positions were reversed, which I planned would never happen.
I teased him with kisses, staying out of reach until I felt the lightning come closer. Still in character, I arched over him playfully teasingly. “Do you want to touch me? I know you want to.” I rocked my hips over his body, showing off a playfulness that I didn't feel.
He growled beneath me, unconsciously tugging the chain. I flicked my eyes to his wrist, to see that the restraints held. That was a mistake. Something crossed over his face. Knowledge. And, I knew he was done playing.
When he lunged at me, I hopped off of him, landing soundlessly on the floor beside the bed. The chain I had wrapped around his wrists were another story. They bound his hands even tighter. All that blessed gold.
He stood about to lunge when the lightning took form and crashed through the glass, becoming a whip-like thing that restrained him, leaving him dangling over his bed.
He started bellowing, all noise and sound without meaning, and I looked at him and commanded him to shut the fuck up.
The gold spread down his arms then as he was strung up, covering his shoulder, up his neck and over his mouth. Even with half his face covered, I could see how his features were transformed. His cheekbones were sharper. The eyes no longer pretended to be human, but reverted back to something else, something not part of this world. And they promised a long, drawn out death.
While he was restrained, I asked the lightning to move the bed. What I saw there was an abomination that doubled me over, gagging.
It was a portal, but not any I’d ever seen before. It was powerful, but dirty. Sullied. Like it was a constant violation of the Fade. And I saw how it was kept open. Glowing jars placed in various points. I suspected that those points had purpose, the structure built precisely. But it was in the jars, the shimmering, the pulsing.
Oracles, all of them. Distilled, and forever separate from the Fold, not able even to be an offering to the Fade. It was endless torture and violation.
“What are you?” I gasped into the room, not expecting an answer.
Then the gate spoke, not in words but in images. Death, pain, and torture came at me. Endless chaos and blood and glory in destruction.
I wanted it to end, but all my power was trying to keep me from lunging headlong into that abyss. I clawed at the floor. I could feel the guy’s approval in his leering eyes, confident that the monster he served would get what he wanted after all and he could continue reaping the side benefits of his worship: cruelty and torture.
I would die before that happened. In the tumult, I saw a ghost’s outline, more vividly than I’d ever seen. I saw her hover over a jar in the flickering light and disappear. I hoped I interpreted her wish correctly. I channeled the lightning and swiped at the jar, shattering it and dispersing the contents into the night. Warmth rushed over me, a surge of strength that pushed me away from the gaping portal. Scrambling to my feet, I focused my energy to the lightning again, and in a flash of happy memory—Enver holding me in a meadow, trailing a flower over my face—I destroyed the other vessels.
The portal collapsed in a heap, the tremors of which made me think that it was as much a physical collapse as one of power. The monster on the other side bellowed rage before the sound disappeared. It wasn’t dead. Not a power like that. But at least it would no longer feed through this guy.
The flash and substance faded away, and it just looked like there was a wild storm inside this penthouse. The bed clear on its side across the room. Fractal starbursts crawled over the weather-proofed glass of the windows. Shattered glass from the drinks. And in the middle, he, the weakened demon prince, hung there, still secured by the blessed gold chain. If I had thought of it, I should have released him into that portal to be an offering to the monster. At least it was fitting for him to dangle there like meat on a hook like he’d done to so many others. Arrogantly, he stared me down, not even deigning to struggle. As if he were invincible.
I backhanded him across the face. It was petty, but his flash of anger and struggling more than made up for it. “How you like me now?” I taunted him.
He answered with a kick to my head that I dodged.
When I would have retaliated, I felt a hand on my arm. I looked to my side and it was a waifish girl, her eyes dominating her face, accented by the blunt cut of her bangs. She was beautiful and terrible all at once. I lowered her gaze carefully, knowing that behind the girlish facade was roiling power held in check.
“Do not worry, little queen. There is no need to fear us.”
“Yes,” said another, appearing at the first’s side. I didn’t know this one, and was in the robes of an Oracle, anonymous, covering her face and body. More appeared, nine others in total, all clothed in black shadows. The only one unhooded was the one who had stayed by my side. Of course she had never left me.
"Una?"
She didn't have to answer. That wasn't her real name anyway, I knew that. She was one of many.
“We remember.” They had collected impressions and thoughts from me. I wondered if some of what I'd felt was all me or them?
"You are yourself. Never forget that. We
won't let you forget. My queen." The promise of the Oracle, not just one, but when they were whole, the collective beings that were Oracles. In all my years living in the Nightmare Court, the Oracles were always set apart. They served, but they were not allied to one court over the other. They were neutral.
The nine converged on the squirming form of the man bound tight with the blessed gold chain. Even though I knew what no outsider should know, he clearly did know what fate was in store for him, and I finally saw true fear in his eyes.
He put his faith in the wrong guardian, and he was about to pay the price for it. I wondered if it would be enough.
Whiplash cracked in the silence. I didn’t see it, but I saw the red line that cracked across his chest that wasn’t there before. A crack sounded again. And again. There was a staccato rhythm to it, like something galloping or a furious heartbeat.
I looked frantically around for a specific canopic jar. To feel out Raya in this madness. The other that was unhooded turned to me. “You have served us well. Do not worry for Raya, the queen apparent. She travels the straits far from here. But she shall return. We shall keep her safe for now. Go now.”
I didn’t need prompting. Without a backward glance, and with my fingers clamped firmly in my ears, I walked stiffly away.
The lightning still searched. My men were showing me the way out. The room was collapsing. I only saw a little bit, enough, out of the corner of my eyes.
The Demon Prince was being excoriated. Ribbons of his flesh kept peeling back and reforming. Afterward I discovered that he had been healing nearly as fast as they were whipping him. They just did it just fast enough that it would hurt and made him feel every bit of the healing that he needed to get his flesh stitched back together.
The bubble around them gathered as the ghosts from the surrounding labyrinth poured in from everywhere. I felt them as they whipped past me, their energy moving toward the Oracles, and creating a bubble around them until the opacity was too much and I couldn't see them any longer.
And then the labyrinth started to collapse. I knew where I was supposed to leave, but I didn't know how I'd be able to make it from one side the place to the other.
"Can I be of assistance?" a voice like the velvet night spoke quietly behind me. It was so weird to have someone come up on my back like that.
I felt a sense of panic in my heart, and it was the space that I shared with Enver. He wanted to be here and felt powerless.
The man behind me was barely visible and at first I thought that he had been a ghost. But then he shifted slightly, more for my benefit than his.
He was darkness, if darkness had a form. Black wasn't accurate. He was darker than black. He had the form of a man, with a head, two arms and two legs, athletic build stacked on a beautiful over-six-foot-frame.
In the flashes of the lightning that still snaked throughout the labyrinth, I finally took him in and when my eyes adjusted to the impossibility that was him, I was able to see the whorls of red that swirled over his skin like silk ribbons. I didn't know where he started and the darkness around him began.
"Queen Karina, I presume? The Brightling?"
I cocked my eyebrow at him. "Have we met somewhere before?" I was very aware that my belt and sword were no longer on me.
"You needn't worry about me."
Some random bit of darkness come to life appearing behind me and tells me that I didn't have to worry about him. Okay. That was going to happen.
"So, do you randomly walk through unsolvable labyrinths and save lost passersby?"
"No." I didn't know how but I swore he was smiling. "But I do get purposely sent to places that are hard to find and hard to reach for the purposes of retrieving lost Queens."
Oh. Well. That was one way to grab my attention.
The whole world seemed to be crumbling around me, but I still couldn't get myself to trust him.
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't. I am loyal only to three people in the whole of history. You're not one of them. But for the sake of one of those three people who would like for you to remain alive, I am here." He extended his hand to me.
And then Cordell’s words floated to me. There are several things that like to hide in the shadows that may be faster than a ghost to come to your aid. I slipped my hand in his. “What should I call you?”
He looked at me a moment, testing and weighing out something in his mind. Finally, he replied, “You may call me Corso.”
That was the word for power in the Elder god’s language. Something akin to prophecy jolted in my heart. Lightning snaked over our heads just then. He reached up and grabbed it, and then we were off.
The last thing I saw was the world of the labyrinth falling away from me, before the crackling lightning overwhelmed my mind.
Karina
I WOKE TO NOTHING. It was so dark, like I was swaddled in endless night. I heard whisperings and shushings.
A hand stroked my hair.
And then light pressure graced my eyelids. Oh, eyelids.
I tried to get them to open, but it was nearly impossible.
And then a warmth filled me, and then I was able to breathe freely and openly again.
I opened my eyes.
It was like I was in another building, this time soaring above the earth. There was something about it that made me realize that I was far, far away from the earth beneath my feet. Maybe it was my bond with Taran and his affinity for earth.
Taran.
At the thought, I realized that the beating heart under my ear was his. And when I blinked the room in focus, his green eyes warm and nurturing told me that we were safe. "Welcome back, my queen."
Beyond him, I saw Enver, who cupped his hand over my cheek. "The rest have gone ahead to prepare the house for your arrival. You are never leaving my side."
I snorted a disbelieving ‘okay, sure,’ in answer, chuckling against Taran. And then I felt a presence, and realized belatedly that we weren’t alone.
"I like her already." It was a woman’s voice, cool and magnetic. It reminded me of silk, something that you just wanted to touch and feel against your skin, yet handle with care.
I turned to face the source of the voice. She looked to be my height, luminous skin like crushed pearls, violet eyes, and black hair that fell around her like decadent fabric. She looked like she could be a Shade, but she didn't feel like one. She felt more real, more multi-dimensional.
Plus she smelled amazing. Or maybe that was the cup of steaming coffee that she balanced on a saucer in her gloved hands.
"Karina, Queen of Shadows, I presume? You may call me Vesper. And no, we have never met,” she rushed in, clearly picking up on my confusion. “You worked with my best friend in the precinct. Lieutenant Corbin Troy."
My squad leader from Major Crimes. The one with the sharp eyes who never seemed to forget me. I smiled at the thought of her. "Yes. I enjoyed working with her."
One of the men behind her coughed a little in his hand. It almost sounded like he was stifling a laugh. But there was something about this Vesper that she captured my attention, and I was reluctant to look at anything else but her.
"Good. Corbin asked me for a favor, to make sure you were okay in your… transfer, so I relayed the favor to some others, and here you are. Plus, it isn't every day that there is a queen of power this side of the veil."
My head was swimming. They knew more than what they were saying. Being raised in my mother’s court, I knew when people where shading their words. After all, why would she care about my transfer? My job?
Vesper had kept me enchanted so well, that I hadn’t seen much beyond her form. Two men stood behind her, backlit by enormous windows that spanned the room. Daylight rushed in and filled the space with warmth.
If I remembered my skylines, I was in the legendary Black Tower in the middle of Manhattan. The stronghold for Janus Holdings, a corporate conglomeration controlled by the Remnant Gods. If that was the case, then I was standing before
Remnant Gods, and I was still alive. One of the men, the bigger one, shifted a little so that he was casually standing beside Vesper.
He was nearly seven feet tall, golden skin with black whorls that danced seductively over his chest and arms. His black hair spiked forward, reminiscent of Havoc’s haircut, accenting his high cheekbones and maroon eyes that seemed to hold a millennia’s worth of memories, most of them unpleasant.
A smile slow and sensuous stretched his lips. Lords above, but that mouth was made for sin and endless pleasure.
That power. That confidence. This was the Power Broker. The Power Broker. The one who struck fear into Remnant Gods. And here I was sitting before him, sprawled over one of my men.
Vesper had mentioned the veil. Did she know what the Oracles did to get me here? Worse, what my mother did to get my Inner Circle here? A little tremor of panic swelled inside of me.
In the face of my mounting anxiety, Vesper sipped delicately from her cup of coffee and replaced it on its saucer. And, within that span of time, that one little sip of coffee, I suddenly felt… better. The anxiety and fear that threatened to crush my chest became an afterthought or the wisps of a forgotten dream. “Now, now, Deimos, she’s had a long night. I’m sure she would like to go home sometime soon, and be with her men.” She winked at me.
Deimos? The god for fear and terror? How appropriate.
He gently pet her head, skimming the silk of her hair before resting his hand at her neck. His long fingers curled around her throat. I shivered to see such intimate action in this setting. "You’re right, darling. There will be more than enough time to talk about other matters.”
Something told me those other matters involved me and my court. I bit my lip, not wanting to draw out any discussion about my status and my court’s safety longer than it needed to. And again, just as I thought it, the anxiety flowed from me like clear water down a mountain.
I lifted my gaze toward Vesper once more, her serene countenance as smooth as a mirror. Even though I couldn’t prove it, she had to be doing something to keep me this calm. Or to keep me from saying anything that could get me in trouble.
