A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  He threaded his fingers through her hair and cradled her head. “Why ask that of me when there are things you might ask instead? When we might dare to try other things.”

  “Promise me.”

  He shook his head. “You’re too resourceful not to think of something else.” It was as if he refused to believe.

  “I believe in contingency planning.”

  “So practical.” He stroked his fingers through her hair.

  “Please?”

  “Yes, Claudia, I will. For you.”

  “Thank you.” She put her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  With catlike grace, Tiber lay next to her, grabbing her and pulling her underneath him. He raised his head and concentrated now on their joined bodies. His hair fell forward, past his cheeks, framing his face. From the shadows, his eyes glittered. “I like this part, too,” he said. “With a woman like you, when I’ve fed this deeply. I like to make love against dark sheets, a dark mattress so I can see how pale she’s become.” He pressed himself against her, rocking. “When we’re home, I’m going to make love to you in my bed, on black silk, so I can see you like this, all pale and delicate. All the way to the edge.” He stretched out one of her arms. “We’re at the edge now, Claudia. If I took any more from you, you’d start to slip away, and I could do anything to you I want. Anything at all.” He rolled over, taking her with him and settling her astride him. Her thighs pressed against either side of his body. Claudia’s head swam and even though her eyes weren’t closed, she saw black sparkles. The only thing that kept her upright was his hands around her waist. Her heart beat hard and slow in her chest.

  “Tiber—”

  “The demon blood in you makes the edge razor thin. It’s addicting.” He ran his hands over her belly and upward to her breasts. “Claudia. You bedazzle me.”

  “I feel dizzy.” Speaking took too much effort.

  “Yes.” He dropped a hand to her sex, sliding a finger between them. “But wait till I’ve made you come again. Lovely, pale as snow Claudia. There’s nothing between you and orgasm but more exquisite pleasure.”

  All sensation turned liquid, hot, urgent. Shattering. She felt his orgasm, too, soon after, shattering them both. She reached the edge and fell long and hard.

  Later, he shook his head and touched the pattern on her hip. “I don’t know much about dark demons and their magic,” he said in a low voice. “But, I hate that you’re bound to them somehow. I hate it. I don’t care how much time you have, I don’t want to share. I’m too selfish.”

  She pried open her eyes and looked at him. Korzha lay sprawled across her, his head on her belly. He had a fabulous ass. He must have been one hell of a soldier. Maybe a knight. “Is that as bad as you make it sound?”

  “Worse.” He kissed her stomach. “Now, come closer, Officer, and make one of my old fantasies come true. Show me how the Los Angeles Police Department interrogates wanted criminals.” His cool hands cupped her backside. “This time, you’ll be the good cop. I’ll be the heartless vampire rogue.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tiber was surprised by Claudia’s ready agreement to his suggestion that she stay in the snare while he went after Holly. She just nodded and said, “I’ll only be in the way. I want you concentrating on keeping her safe.” Before he left, she threw her arms around him and said, “You be careful, Tiber, please? I want both of you back safe and sound.”

  He kissed her. “Just be ready to go when we get back.” Getting past the portal guards wasn’t going to be easy, but he was at full strength now, and in the portal room, the fact that magic was dangerous gave him a good chance of neutralizing the guards.

  In Biirkma palace, Tiber melted into the shadows and considered his options. Speed was important, but so was success. Identifying Holly was no trouble. She sat alone, a human-looking demon, separated from five demon children of roughly the same age. In this setting, without the confusion of the portal, he sensed her identity easily enough. She rocked with her arms tight around her shins and her chin pressed to the tops of her knees. Her face retained a hint of childish roundness, but the promise of her mother’s beauty was there in the curve of her mouth, the sweep of cheek, and the set of her eyes, which were large and pale brown. Her chestnut hair hung in a single braid down her back. He was shocked by the pang of seeing so strong an echo of Claudia’s face in the child’s.

  Despite her parentage, in a room of full demons, Holly reeked of humanness, and unhappiness and warm blood beneath her skin. She looked healthy, but thin. She had spindly arms and legs, an indication she would be taller than her mother. Apart as she was, making off with her wouldn’t be a challenge. Plainly, the adult demons in attendance weren’t worried about kidnapping. They sat on benches against the wall, talking or reading. One napped, but the others looked up now and again if the noise level varied. A black mink-like creature with a pointed snout and pale yellow eyes washed itself at Holly’s feet.

  Unseen, he scaled the stone interior wall, spider-like, until he reached the deeper shadow of the inset window. He opened the window a crack. Enough to make a quick exit. Below, guards patrolled the perimeter of the exterior courtyard. A sharp cry brought his attention back to the room where Holly now had the mink on her lap. One of the demon children tossed her ball at Holly, knowing she would not respond. All Holly did was, too late, lift a hand to ward off the hurled object. The mink hissed. Korzha saw the girl’s eyes quite clearly; shadowed brown. Pale, pale brown.

  He tightened his mental focus. The napping adult demon stirred, and Korzha melted into shadow until he felt the demon’s mind relax toward sleep. He launched himself into the air, above the center of the room and then dropped straight down to land in front of Holly. He looked straight into her pale eyes and said, “Polka dots.”

  Holly’s eyes went wide when she registered that Korzha had given her the secret phrase that meant Claudia had sent him. He smiled at the child. “Come, Holly, I’ll take you to your mother.”

  “Whiskers!” The girl bent for the creature, which clambered into her arms and up to balance on her shoulder. Tiber scooped her into his arms.

  “Hold tight.”

  The adult demons were on their feet now, gathering the children. One of them ran for the door while another lunged at him. He hissed, showing his fangs, and the demon stopped. Holly, having been at the edge of the group and furthest from the adults, was too far away for their late intervention to matter. He soared up and out the window into the crisp night air. Holly and the mink clinging to him, he raced toward Claudia.

  Even before he and Holly entered the area that had once been the snare that contained Vasile, he knew demons were there. The resonance of nullity that had been the snare had begun to evaporate, and curious demons had come to investigate and reclaim the streets. Korzha’s now indelible imprint of Claudia thundered in him. She was in danger, in mortal danger and frightened.

  Inside the house, just past the entrance, he went to the right at top speed, straight to the columned inner courtyard. A few of the columns had toppled over while others no longer had the connecting arches and reached to nowhere. A portion of the northwest wall had fallen in. What he saw made his heart sink. A demon sprawled on the flagstones, its neck at an odd angle. It was dead. Claudia stood in a corner of the destroyed wall surrounded by more than a dozen demons. Two were mentally susceptible, and Korzha killed them with a ruthless blast of mental energy that stopped their hearts. The other demons weren’t attacking Claudia because she had one of them by the neck, the blade of her knife pressed tight against its throat. Her eyes flickered to him.

  “Get Holly out of here,” she shouted.

  Behind him, he felt the air pulse. He whirled and cursed himself for a fool. The black-haired Bak-Faru Lath walked through the doorway with a self-satisfied grin that advertised his presence here was no accident. He’d followed Korzha. In the meantime, the effect of the lone Bak-Faru on the other demons was electric. One vaulted fo
r the sidewall only to be caught by a blast of fire from the Bak-Faru. A more confident demon muttered a series of syllables that he finished off with a gesture that turned the air thick and damp. Korzha watched the ripple head for Lath, gathering energy, spinning with a laser’s edge of water.

  The Bak-Faru demon stood his ground. Moments before the blast ought to have hit him, Lath lifted a hand. Steam hissed in the air. His eyes swept the courtyard and stopped on Claudia. He moved toward her, speaking as he did with low and guttural syllables following so close on each other not even Korzha could separate the words. Another of the demons roared, a sound that rang from the walls. None of the demons attacking Claudia moved, and from their horrified expressions, Korzha assumed Lath had managed to immobilize them. But for how long? Lath walked toward Claudia. He gestured, a sinuous dance of his hand in the direction of the demon Claudia still held at knife-point. A flash of light tinged purple at the edges hit her hostage square in the chest. Lath thrust out a hand. The motion ended in a blur of crimson at the other’s chest. “The human female is mine,” he growled.

  He glanced once at the tight knot of paralyzed demons, then lifted his hand in the air, his fist crimson with blood. Heat radiated from him in pulsing waves. Lath opened his fingers. The heart fell wetly to the floor beside the body. The blood on his hand flaked off his skin. He smiled, and dimples danced in his cheeks. The platinum thread in his hair shimmered. “No one touches her but me.”

  Claudia let go of her hostage; the demon’s knees crumpled, then toppled over. Eyes fixed on Lath, she retreated until her back was to one of the huge blocks of stone that had once formed the wall. Blood smeared her shirt, but it wasn’t hers. Lath whirled and sent a pulse of light speeding toward the ones he’d frozen in place. It hit them with a blaze of purple-white light. Half of their number vanished. As for the rest, Lath smiled and spoke a single word, and they were gone, too. The smell of burnt air rose. All that remained of the demons who’d surrounded Claudia was a lilac fog dissipating in the air.

  More demons appeared in the arched doorway. Lath laughed, a sound of delight. “More of you?” he said to the newcomers. “Come, come.” He gestured with two hands. “I am en-Lath of the Bak-Faru. Come. I will kill you all.”

  With this new threat, Korzha and Holly were directly in the line of fire. Korzha folded his arms around the child and darted up. He landed on top of a free standing column, a position that gave him a view of Lath surrounded by a glow of light. Claudia took one look at Lath, another upward at Korzha and her daughter, and started scrambling up the collapsed wall. She too was heading up to relative safety. A line of sweat tracked down her cheek and dampened the back of her shirt. Knife in hand, she hauled herself upward. Two jumps and then she, too, landed on top of a column, well above the demons. Behind her the moon rose huge and red-tinged. Korzha resettled Holly in his arms and with a hop, he landed on a column nearer Claudia.

  They watched as, with chilling proficiency, Lath cut down the other demons. One dashed free of the carnage and transformed to gargoyle shape. A blast of purple fire caught it mid-flight and sent the creature whirling through the air. A streaking, turning ball of orange fire erupted from it and headed straight for Korzha at blinding speed. The blast, meant for Lath, was too close and too fast to miss Korzha and Holly. Claudia’s horrified scream echoed in Korzha’s ears. He turned his back, shielding Holly, and let the fire hit him between the shoulder blades. Pain embraced him, took his breath and ripped through him. He tumbled off the column, falling downward with one thought in his head; he couldn’t let go of Holly. Claudia would never forgive him if something happened to Holly.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  For a life-stopping moment Claudia thought she was going to watch her daughter die. Korzha tumbled groundward, but he didn’t let go of Holly. He hit the ground on his knees with Holly safe against his chest. She could smell the burning air. The vampire collapsed to the flagstones. The back of his shirt had been burnt away and exposed a hideous injury. Though he wasn’t moving, neither was he turning to ash, the only sure sign she knew indicated a vampire who wasn’t coming back. By the time Claudia made it to the ground, Holly stood at the vampire’s side clutching a black mink in her arms. The animal’s nose twitched, and it wiggled out of her arms to curl around Holly’s neck.

  Claudia held her daughter again. At last. “Oh, my God, Holly. Sweetpea.” Tears welled up, burst over her, a wave of all the horrible things that could have happened, all the awful, things she’d imagined. She pulled her daughter tight against her, touching her everywhere. My God, she was thin. Too thin. Claudia pushed her back to stare into her face, drinking her in. She looked pale. Her eyes were big in her face, the skin beneath them blue. The mink chittered softly. “He knew the word, Mom.”

  “You did good. Exactly what you were supposed to.” Claudia kept running her hands over her daughter, he arms, face, stomach, re-memorizing her daughter, assuring herself she wasn’t physically injured. “Are you all right?”

  From behind her, she heard a sound. “Claudia-tes.”

  Claudia whirled and got Holly behind her. The mink-like creature arched its back and hissed. The demon Lath walked to her, hand extended. Two more Bak-Faru stood behind him. His eyes fixed on her, razor-sharp. His black hair gleamed blue in the light. He didn’t look dangerous. He didn’t even have a weapon, for cripe’s sake. Not that he needed one.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Tes,” he said to her softly. “You are safe now.” With a quick look over his shoulder at the Bak-Faru who waited at the entrance to the courtyard, he said, “No one comes in.”

  When he faced her again, he stroked her hair, winding a lock around his finger. “I do not want you,” he said softly. His eyes flashed red again. “To have the vishtau with a human is worse than to have no mate at all.”

  She lifted her hands, palm upward. “If you hate me so much, why don’t you let us go? Me, Holly and Tiber.”

  The demon stared at her and almost smiled. His dimples winked in and out in his cheeks. “I have the vishtau with you,” he said gently. “I can do nothing about that.”

  “Take us to the portal. Let us go home. You’ll never see us again.”

  “The Bak-Faru will come to the Overworld, Claudia Donovan.” A growl rumbled in his throat. “Humans will pay. I will find the ones who summoned the Bak-Faru and kill them for what they did.”

  She studied Lath’s face. How interesting that even though she felt desire for the demon, the sensation paled in comparison to what she felt for Tiber. “I can’t imagine anyone making you do something you don’t want to.”

  “Claudia,” he whispered. His fingers trembled as they moved along her shoulders. “A human who knows the magic to summon demons binds us to that magic. We can do nothing but what the magic demands.”

  “Have humans summoned you?”

  Lath shook his head, but Claudia wasn’t sure if he meant that as a denial or a refusal. “They will die. Every one of them.” He nodded in the direction of the Bak-Faru guards. “We must speak without listening ears, Claudia-tes.” He pointed to an archway that to her diurnal eyesight seemed nothing but shadows. Lath addressed Holly. “Holly Donovan. Please attend to your pet.” He smiled at the child. “We will go to the Overworld soon, and your pet must be calm.” In a softer voice, he soothed Claudia’s instinctive reaction against being separated from Holly. “My Bak-Faru will not allow harm to come to your daughter. And we will not be far. Just there.” He pointed. “Only a short distance.”

  In the anteroom, Lath did something and soft blue light glowed from the wall sconces. He stayed close to her. Too close. “You are human,” he said after a moment’s deep silence. “I do not know if you can understand the vishtau. It is the business of demons.” He brushed a fingertip along her cheek. “When you left me, when you left with the vampire, I felt the loss here.” He touched his chest and then sighed. “Some things you must know even though you are human. I wish you to understand what has happened to me.�
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  She had to tilt her head back a long way to look into his face. “I’m listening.”

  “Then hear me, Claudia-tes. Understand. Demons cannot choose the vishtau. When it happens…” He paced, three shorts steps away and then back, frustration and indecision in every step he took. When he stood before her again, he took her hands in his and, leaning toward her, twined their fingers. A portion of his ponytail fell over his chest. He left the wrist-thick shank where it fell. “We do not know in advance who will be our mate. If it happens, we cannot choose. The vishtau chooses for us.”

  “Why me? Why a human?”

  “Tes. I cannot answer.” He let go of her hands and drew a deep breath. “It sometimes happens between a human and a demon. So it has happened between us. The vishtau is always stronger for males because we must protect our mates. I felt you before I saw you. I wanted to deny you. I tried, but I have failed. You are not demon, so I believe you do not feel what a demon female would.” His eyes filled with sadness. “A demon female would love me. She would feel the vishtau and want me to protect her. Claudia. Tes. I must protect you. I cannot let you die.”

  He reached up and untied the braids that held back his hair. With long, delicate fingers, he pulled one of the platinum strands from the plait. The material glittered, a rainbow of colors refracting from the thread. He spoke as he worked the strand into her hair. “Long ago, tes, when I was in the Overworld, I saw many beautiful human women. They were weak. I did not want to mate with any of them.” She felt the strand heat then settle into her hair. “But I want to mate with you.”

  His fingers touched the side of her head. The demon leaned over her and caught her face between his hands. His hair fell around them like a veil of black. Arousal shot through her. She didn’t think she was imagining that the air around them was hot. Claudia felt sure, was certain he meant to kill her despite his protestations otherwise. She waited, frozen, holding her breath. The air got hotter. A corona of lilac formed around him. Claudia’s head spun. Flashes of the demon echoed in her head. And then all the air in the world disappeared. The sudden change in pressure hurt her eardrums. On her hip, the mark Aslet had made flared up, burned her, paralyzed her, suffocated her.