by Karalynn Lee
“You’ll take it off?” she said, excitement overcoming her nervousness.
“I’m not sure I can,” he said, staring at the embossed wax. “There’s a holy seal placed on it. No demon can touch it.”
“Can’t I undo it, then?” she asked.
He caught her wrists before she could reach for the collar. “It’s been affixed by sin,” he said. It was unheard of to juxtapose the two in such a way.
“Who would have access to both?”
“I don’t know.” He held his hand above the seal, feeling the wrenching sensation of wrongness that always overcame demons in the presence of blessed objects. “I wish I had asked the merchant more about you.”
“I never saw him before I woke up in the market,” she said, then looked away.
She was hiding something, but he didn’t press. “Go on and start eating,” he said instead.
She moved past him to the table. The belt of her robe had loosened and a narrow window of skin was laid bare to his eyes, pale and smooth and terribly inviting to touch. Desire caught at him. His knuckles wanted to stroke the notches between her vertebrae, one at a time, down to the small of her back, and then to the sweet rise of her buttocks. Then he could delve into her, and find her most private flesh…
He reached out, wrestled against the draw of her skin, then said in as neutral a tone he could manage, “This has come loose,” and tightened her belt.
“Thank you,” Jahel said, sounding surprised. She sank down onto the bench with such a heartfelt sigh that Kenan wondered how sitting could bring her such pleasure. Then he saw her tuck her feet under the bench to take all her weight off them.
“Were your shoes taken?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced down and self-consciously set the soles of her feet flat on the floor, but couldn’t manage it without wincing. “I didn’t have any. Angels don’t wear them.”
He cursed himself for a fool. Of course, they flew everywhere or walked on the clouds of Heaven. “I made you walk through the city barefoot?” A smooth start to his seduction.
She shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad.”
He wouldn’t let her dismiss it so easily. “Your feet must be sore, if you’re not used to walking much.”
“A touch,” she admitted. “But we heal quickly.”
He had found a jar of salve amidst the clutter. He dug it out again, heedless of the mess. “This should help.”
She put her hand out, but he held the jar out of her reach. “I’ll put it on,” he said.
“You needn’t—”
“Don’t make me crawl under the table.”
After a moment she turned and brought her feet up onto the bench. He sat where he could straighten one of her legs and rest her foot on his thigh. He worked the salve in with his thumbs, kneading her sole with increasing pressure until he saw her shoulders relax.
He repeated the massage on her other foot, enjoying the sight of her eyelids dropping. Her skin was amazingly soft, and it was almost disappointing when his hands finally tired.
“Less sore?”
Her slow, dreamy smile made it all worthwhile. His touch often had that effect. She was easier to handle than he’d expected, but he wasn’t feeling his usual disappointment. The true challenge was still to come.
“And the merchant whipped you,” Kenan said, recalling. “I’ll tend that, too.”
“It’s nothing.” She opened her eyes, reclaimed her feet, and stood up hastily. “Look, my feet are already better.”
He rose with her and spoke gently. Sometimes women were frightened by the strength of their reactions to him. “Sit down.”
Jahel perched on one side of the bench, looking straight ahead to avoid his gaze. Color had blossomed on her cheeks again.
He straddled the other end, facing her, and set the jar between them. “Give me your hand.”
After a moment she surrendered it to him, palm upward. He turned it over. There was an ugly welt across her knuckles where the whip had struck her. He dipped a finger into the jar and spread salve over the wound.
Her head had turned toward him. When he let go and made to close the jar, she said, “You, too.”
He looked down at his own hand, where the twin to her lash-mark lay. “Just a love tap. He didn’t want to scare off a customer.”
“You treated me. I should do the same for you,” she insisted. She spread her palm under his to hold his hand steady. Then she took her turn with the jar of salve. She went about it slowly enough for him to become all too aware of how only a breath separated them. Her fingers were cool. The heat from his skin must scorch hers.
She didn’t let go when she was done. “Why did he hit you?” she asked, absently tracing the outline of his fingers.
Kenan cleared his throat. “I wanted to touch your hair.” His voice was deeper than usual. The trick with his seductions was coming up with an excuse for contact and letting them feel his allure, but she was touching him of her own initiative. His allure had worked more swiftly than he’d expected.
She seemed thoughtful, though, not enthralled. “And then you bought me and took me out of that cage.”
“Are you sorry I did?”
“No.” But her smile was a little crooked. “I’m grateful. If what you wanted was to touch my hair…” She began following the lines of his palm, but blindly, by feel alone. Her gaze had lifted to his so that there no question about what she meant by her next question. “Do you still want to?” That wasn’t all she was offering.
He had to force himself not to grab her. Instead he reached out with his free hand and sank it into the cloud-silk of her hair, fine and smooth and ever-shifting. Beneath, he could feel the delicate shape of her skull. He slid his fingers along the curve of her ear, then down the line of her jaw. The rapid flutter of her pulse was visible just above the collar.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her.
It started as a slow dance of lips and tongue, coaxing her into a little gasp and then slipping inside. He explored the mysteries of her mouth, convinced that one more taste would reveal everything, then another, and yet another. He was kissing her hungrily now, taking her mouth roughly, raking his teeth down her lower lip. She made a helpless sound and he was almost there. He set his palm along the curve of her waist and pulled her in closer, toward his straining cock.
The jar fell from the bench and broke with a sharp crack, startling them apart. Jahel laughed breathlessly.
He looked at her, with her eyes smoky and lips swollen. He could have claimed her mouth again, but he wanted her so fiercely it alarmed him. This was the desire he was supposed to incite in others. He enjoyed his seductions, but they had never before overwhelmed him, never made him feel as though if he could not have her he would burn to ashes, still smoldering, still yearning, even in cinder form.
“What are you doing?” he rasped.
It took a moment for her to register the question. Then the haziness fell away from her face, and she drew back a little. “You’re helping me,” she said. “Angels always pay their debts.”
Anger flooded him. “And I suppose your body is the only payment you can offer right now.”
She flushed. “On the mortal plane, our bodies grow more vulnerable to carnal urges. I thought—you’re an incubus, doesn’t this please you?”
“All too well,” he said savagely. He couldn’t think with his cock throbbing this hard. It would be the work of a moment to undo his trousers and free himself, and even less to draw up her robe and plunge into her. But she had to want him for more than an obligation, and he had to be in control when he took her, so that he could judge the moment when, amidst her cries of yes, yes, he could ask for her soul and she would again say, yes.
She drew up her knees and hugged them, watching him warily. The pose was so like the one she’d been in inside the cage that it snapped him out of his temper. She was an angel—of course she was curious. She’d probably never been touched with sexual intent before. And if she needed
an excuse for giving in to her carnal urges, as she called them, he would let her have it.
“I haven’t helped you yet,” he said, forcing his voice to calm. “You should repay me after we get the soul.”
Her face eased. “You have your own sense of honor.”
He bit back a sharp response. She meant it as a compliment. In a way it was true—he kept his bargains. “All right,” he said, turning to practical concerns that were sure to dim his ardor. “Let’s eat. Then you’ll need shoes. And after that, we’ll find this soul.”
Her smile was tentative, but he felt himself becoming less tense all the same. He smiled back at her, wondering who was seducing whom.
Chapter Two
Kenan was so bemused by the amount of food she ate that he nearly forgot she could use new clothes as well as shoes. Having her precede him to the door was all the reminder he needed—the robe gaped again, and he grabbed the trailing ends of the belt with such firmness that she was nearly yanked backward. “You need to keep this closed,” he said, retying it more tightly.
“I loosened it while I was eating to make room for the food,” she said.
He couldn’t stay exasperated then. It was good to see the hollowness gone from her cheeks, and a slight roundness to her belly instead of a painful concave. “You need something more decent than that robe,” he said. “Can you bear walking to the dressmaker’s first?”
“If I’ll get another foot massage,” she said lightly.
He could promise her much more than that, but only said, “I think it’s this way.”
It wasn’t. He had lived in Hellsgate for decades now, but it kept growing and changing, and he’d been off on one of his trips to the mortal realms till recently. And he had never had reason to visit a dressmaker before—usually he was taking dresses off women’s bodies, not buying them.
“Do you actually know where we’re going?” Jahel asked after they’d circled several blocks and made their way back down a narrow alley. Their first passage through it had been hard enough to manage, with her wings barely able to fit.
He stepped over a pile of horse dung. “It’s in this area,” he said. “I remember seeing a sign with a dress on it.”
They emerged from the alley and looked at the signs hung over the doorways of each building. There were pictures of shields, candles, furs, and yarn, but no dresses.
Jahel pointed to the yarn-maker’s. “Yarn’s related to clothes. Someone there will know.” She made her way across the muddy street so purposefully that a cart-driver stopped his horse to let her go first.
Kenan had long since let go of the cuff. He followed Jahel and just managed to get hold of it as she leaned over the counter where a woman was stacking balls of yarn.
The yarn-maker looked up and lost her smile as she saw Jahel. “What are you doing here?”
Jahel ignored her hostility. “Do you know where the dressmaker is?”
The woman sighed as she took in Jahel’s garb. “I can see you need it,” she said. “Down to the second street and to your right.”
“Thank you,” Jahel said, but the yarn-maker had already turned to Kenan.
“Well, now,” she said. “How might I help you?”
He shook his head and turned to follow Jahel. They went past the first intersection, then turned on the next corner. This area seemed familiar…And there was a sign with a dress on it, right next to the cobbler’s shop. No wonder he had remembered seeing that sign.
“Perhaps we should have tried to get you shoes, first,” Kenan murmured.
“You—” Jahel spun around, looking so furious that he took a step back. Then she threw up her hands and started laughing.
Kenan grinned, then laughed with her. They’d made their way around most of the neighborhood at least twice, but avoided this one street because he’d known that the cobbler was here, and they were supposed to go there after the dressmaker’s.
“You’ll have the finest shoes I can buy,” he said in apology. After all that walking, footwear had to be the priority.
The cobber was a hunched old man, near-blind unless he brought something close to his face. He crouched over Jahel’s feet to make a charcoal tracing of them, then studied the outline. He nodded. “Got something that should fit,” he said.
Despite his poor eyesight, he unerringly picked out a pair of ankle-high leather boots from a row along the wall. After a glance at Kenan, Jahel tried them on.
She took a few experimental steps, then stopped.
“Do they fit?” Kenan asked.
“I think so,” she said, staring down at her feet. “They just feel so strange.”
The cobbler pressed around her toes. “They fit,” he said.
Kenan pressed plain silver into his hand. “Many sales,” he said, then took Jahel next door.
She kept staring at her newly shod feet instead of where she was going, so he wrapped one hand around her arm to guide her. This time she didn’t pull away.
The dressmaker looked up from a length of cloth she was draping over a wooden figure and smiled an invitation when she saw Kenan. “Welcome, sir. What can I do for you?” She cocked a hand on her outthrust hip. It was clear she wasn’t offering him a dress.
He was used to this sort of reaction. “Not for me,” he said. He gestured toward Jahel. “She needs a dress.”
“An angel?” The dressmaker frowned, her attention diverted.
“There are winged demons. Surely something similar to what they wear would do for her.”
She tsked. “It’s nothing alike. You clearly know naught of clothing. And that’s not the problem, anyway.”
He could have convinced her in his usual way, but Jahel’s presence inhibited him. He wasn’t about to seduce a woman in front of another he planned to seduce later.
“I’ll pay now,” he said, searching through his coins for more silver. He gave her what he found—probably too much, but he didn’t care. “And you’ll garb her straightaway. Something simple will do, but decent. Or would you have me go about Hellsgate with such an ill-dressed slave?”
“I’m not—”
Kenan gave Jahel a warning look before her anger carried her away. To his amazement she fell quiet, although her glare promised more words later. He turned back to the dressmaker and shook his head. “Angels are so proud, they don’t even know to be ashamed when they should be.”
“Eh, then, seeing as how it’s for your dignity…” The seamstress beckoned Jahel forward, but she kept looking at Kenan. “Return soon, sir, I’ll be quick with this one.”
He smiled politely, careful not to be encouraging, and stepped out.
“Wait—”
He turned to see Jahel standing in the doorway.
“Where are you going?”
“To find the demon you were seeking,” he said. “I might as well ask around while you’re in there.”
“Oh.” But an anxious furrow remained between her brows.
“I’ll return once your dress is done,” he said.
“I’m just worried you won’t be able to find your way back,” she said, but the furrow was gone. She smiled a farewell, then went back in, and he was the one left lingering there, hoping for another sight of that smile.
He shook his head to clear it. She was coming to depend on his company in this city—that was good. Now he had to deliver on his promise to find the hellhound.
There weren’t many hellhounds in Hellsgate, as they tended to prefer Hell proper. But demons who had ventured onto the mortal plane often stayed awhile in this city before returning—still in the mortal realm, but close to Hell, with many of its denizens fellow demons. The transition from a physical body and a freer society was difficult. Kenan himself hadn’t passed through the portal to Hell for decades. He thought that this hellhound might still be in Hellsgate, and if so, someone would know where it was.
He made his way to a tavern where both mortals and demons gathered. There were establishments that catered to one or the other, but
Kenan rather thought that missed the point of Hellsgate. The horned barkeep nodded to him as he entered and poured him an ale. “What brings you here today?” Adino asked as he handed over the tankard, familiar with Kenan’s ways.
Kenan took a long drink. “A hellhound.”
One of Adino’s brows rose. “Not being chased by one, I hope.”
“I’m looking for one, actually.”
The other eyebrow went up. “Now that’s not something commonly heard. Not as insane as wanting to tangle with, say, one of the princes or with the First, but still a fair bit foolish.”
Kenan took out a coin—Calla Moon Shion, a woman of quiet, mysterious smiles and few words, only a quiet gasp just at that moment—and balanced it on its edge with one finger. He flicked it, sending it spinning into Adino’s reach. “So if you want it phrased in a more familiar way: if I were avoiding hellhounds, where shouldn’t I go?”
Adino snorted and plucked the coin from the bar. “Try asking Edom.”
“At the stable?”
“Hellhounds aren’t the sort to stay in inns,” Adino pointed out.
Kenan lifted the ale in a conceding gesture and drank from it again. Then he carried it over to a table of regulars.
“Kenan! How many conquests since the last time we’ve seen you?” a man asked. Humans were always impressed by incubi’s powers, for all that they were considered weak among other demons.
“A few.” He smiled and patted his belt pouch, although those women had given him little pleasure past the moment. Mortals were too easy—thus his interest in Jahel, who would understand the full import of what he asked for. “What’s happened here?” It was a game they played where each had to offer a piece of news.
“An ifrit nearly burned down one of the Hellside quadrants,” the man said.
“All the princes of Hell are on the other side of the gate,” an imp offered.
That was good news. All demons moved warily in the presence of the great infernal ones. Hellsgate was a place for demons on the mortal plane, where they could indulge in the pleasures of the physical world without worrying about hierarchy. It worked, surprisingly, and the city ran as well as any mortal town. But the demon princes considered it an extension of their domain, and whenever they were here they interfered with unspoken understandings already established.
