Emry shook where he stood. “You-you said you wouldn’t need to expend any energy in bespelling the house. That they wouldn’t get that far.”
Damn, but the demon was right.
Belpheg drew in a deep, calming breath and paced a short distance from the rest of the men. The simple fact was he’d underestimated the brothers. Once again.
Though he’d expected Mammon’s sons to use the sword to tear the shield, he’d been overly confident his men would disable them once they arrived. He hadn’t wanted to expend any additional power on his shields because that was much-needed energy that could be conserved for himself.
Now he had only one card left in his deck. The tracking device he’d implanted on the angel. Thanks to it, he’d located the four brothers just yesterday and placed tails on them and their mates. If not for that, he’d have no clue about their secret hideout.
The brothers were bound to return to their hideout, but while part of him longed simply to attack them there, it was a risky endeavor. He’d have to bring his scrolls, would have to reveal that weakness. And they were so crafty he wouldn’t put it past one of them to escape before he managed to get them back here. Yes, he could bring the succubi and simply have Mammon absorb their powers right there, but that was too complicated a scenario, with far too many players.
Hmm… according to his spies, one of the brother’s mates and their child was already there. If he sent Mammon, would the demon be able to make it to the hideout before the brothers arrived?
Now there was a thought.
Turning, he strode back to Emry. “Get Mammon out here immediately. It’s time for him to make himself useful.”
The chief sentinel flashed him a grateful look before racing into the house to do his bidding.
“Didn’t you put some sort of bomb in that hot angel?” Rage spoke up from where he still leaned against the railing. “Why not set it off?”
Belpheg gritted his teeth at the vampire’s ignorance. “If I do that, I’m likely to kill the Detainors, and I want them alive.”
Damn Thorne and his incompetence. The angel had been his duty, the bomb nothing more than a method to bend the Detainors to his will. If Thorne had been able to keep her restrained, Belpheg would still have his leverage, but now his plan had backfired. Good thing for the hubrin demon that he was dead. Otherwise, Belpheg would have torn him limb from limb, unnecessary use of his powers be-damned.
“Too bad,” Rage commented, his tone amused. “The bomb was for nothing, then.”
Belpheg scowled and swept up the stairs, ignoring the vampire. He was a fool. If Belpheg didn’t have use for him, he would have destroyed the man by now. But what Rage didn’t realize was that his fate was to be the same as the brothers he’d never met. Though it amused Belpheg to keep Rage around, mostly because it clearly disconcerted Mammon so much, the vampire’s days were numbered. Once Mammon absorbed the life sources of the four Detainors through the succubi, Rage would be the final piece of the puzzle.
And Belpheg would at last have the twelve he needed for his circle.
…
The soft but steady croaking of crickets woke Lina from a dreamless, healing slumber, instantly telling her she wasn’t in her bed. Insects were far from a normal sound in her tiny West Village apartment. She suffered a moment of panic trying to remember what had happened, but then the memories came racing back.
Thorne…the bomb…escaping through the portal with Dagan.
From there, the memories dimmed, letting her know she’d probably relapsed into unconsciousness. The upside was that she seemed to have slept through the worst of the nausea and shakes. Now she felt mostly sweaty and grimy.
She slowly sat up in the small bed, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She was in a rustic log cabin, lying beneath a blue, green, and ivory striped comforter. Windows were cut into the log walls, and they were cracked open to magnify the singing of the insects.
A moment later, the sound of footsteps along a wooden floor padded toward her. The electrifying energy stream told her it was Dagan.
Holy shit, Dagan. He’d stuck with her, despite the fact that it could very well mean his death. Even more surprising, Ronin had allowed it.
Before she could further ponder that, the door slid open a fraction, admitting a sliver of light from what must be a dimly lit lamp in the other room. Dagan peered inside, his turquoise eyes landing on hers with relief.
“Thank the devil, you’re awake.”
She nodded, self-consciously patting down her hair. It was tangled beyond belief and slightly crunchy to the touch, as if she’d vomited in it at some point. Hell, she probably had.
Wincing, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “How long have I been out?”
“Not long. A couple hours at most,” he murmured, stepping further into the room. He didn’t turn on the light, no doubt recognizing that such a drastic lighting change would likely give her a splitting headache. Rather, he left the door open as he strode to the bed and sat down beside her.
“How you feeling?” he asked softly.
“Like shit.”
He chuckled, and for the first time she noted what he was wearing: an overlarge, gray T-shirt and black sweatpants that looked a couple sizes too big. While she couldn’t call it an improvement over the snug black boxer briefs he’d been clad in earlier, it was certainly less distracting.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Somewhere in upstate New York.” He shrugged. “After we let out from the portal, I drove until I found an old, secluded cabin out in the woods. There’s no one around for miles as far as I can tell.”
She read his unspoken words. No one else around to get hurt if I go ka-boom.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
A brief smile lit his face. His eyes moved from her face down her body, leaving a trail of heat and awareness she couldn’t quite ignore.
“I figured you’d want a shower when you woke.”
“Hell, yeah.” Now that Dagan had mentioned it, she didn’t know how she could go another minute without one.
“There’s a small bathroom right outside this room. I laid out some clothes I found on the countertop next to the sink, but they’ll be huge on you.”
“I presume it’s from the same benefactor who provided your clothes.”
When he nodded, she peeled the comforter from her body, wincing at the momentary stab of pain her stomach. He noticed it, though. His mouth tightened, and he reached forward, lifting her shirt up to reveal the spot where the dark fae had implanted her with a magical bomb. Thanks to her angelic healing power, the skin was smooth and unmarred. Only someone with Maya’s immunity to glamour would be able to see it for what it really was.
“I can’t believe it,” he murmured, his brows furrowing. “How was that bastard even capable of doing something like that?”
“Belpheg is strong. He has powers beyond what we’re accustomed to.” Which was what made him such an unpredictable foe. “If I try to cut it out, it’ll detonate.”
Dagan’s jaw clenched. “I don’t get it. If he’s so powerful, what could he possibly want with us?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But it is you he wants. The four of you.”
His eyes rose to meet hers, and the flaming blue heat in them momentarily stole her breath. “Does it hurt?”
“Just a bit sore.” Nothing to complain about. At least that wasn’t. “You shouldn’t have come with me. You’re risking your life for no reason.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s for no reason,” he murmured.
Something wild and heavy suddenly flavored the air between them, making her breath catch. Only the realization that she probably stank to high heaven was enough to make her unglue her gaze from his.
“I… I’d better go wash up.”
He nodded and rose, the hem of his sweater momentarily lifting to reveal that the sweatpants were slung low on his hips. A hint of a happy trail disappeared beneath the knot in h
is pants.
Lina held her breath at the sudden clenching of lust in her body. Horniness had never been one of the symptoms of recovering from score, so she couldn’t blame her reaction on anything other than pure, instinctive desire. She’d secretly lusted after Dagan for so long, and now they were alone together…for the devil knew how long.
How would she survive it?
After rising to her feet with only the minimal nauseous response, she followed Dagan outside the bedroom. She stepped directly into a tiny living area, with nothing more than a battered old couch in front of a grimy fireplace, a small two-seater dinette in one corner, and an adjoining kitchen with a two-burner stove. Soft, crackling music played from a radio somewhere, the song classifying the station as one that played the “Oldies,” but there was no television in sight. This was a hunting cabin with nothing but the essentials.
“Clearly a bachelor’s paradise,” she murmured.
Dagan chuckled. “At least there’s electricity and water.”
That alone made it better than her old hovel back on Infernum, so she wasn’t about to complain.
“I’ll be right back.” With those words, she disappeared inside the door to the right of the bedroom. The bathroom was even tinier than the kitchen, but it contained a small tub with a shower, and the water was hot. She peeled off her sweaty clothes, tossing them in a corner until she could thoroughly wash them out, and hopped in the shower. The steamy water sluiced down her body, washing away the aches and grime of her drug-induced high. If only it would wash away the memories as well.
Thorne had betrayed her. He’d sold her to the dark fae like no more than a second-hand possession. The worst part about it was that she wasn’t even that surprised. After all, a man who could forget his own daughter’s name would have no qualms about using his former bond mate to get in tight with a powerful fae.
Any warm feelings she might have still retained for the demon were long gone, leaving just one certain fact: next time she saw him, he was dead meat.
After using a thick bar of soap to furiously scrub her hair and body clean, she let it all rinse away, taking the remnants of her headache along with her. Honestly, she didn’t feel too bad considering she’d been drugged—twice—with more score than any person should realistically do in a month. Of course, this was only the first of many lulls in her recovery period. Another painful lesson she’d learned long ago.
She stepped out of the shower and toweled off, but when she tried to slide on the sweatpants Dagan had left for her, she couldn’t get them to stay up no matter how tightly she knotted them. Finally she gave up. At least the oversize T-shirt fell down well past mid-thigh. It would have to do until she’d laundered and dried her own clothes.
Recognizing that she was stalling, unintentionally allowing her nerves about being alone with Dagan to slow her actions, she hurried to brush her teeth with an unused toothbrush she pilfered from inside the medicine cabinet and stepped outside.
Dagan paced the living room with a glass in one hand. Worry marred his brow, but he came to an abrupt stop when she entered the room. His eyes trailed over her body, then down her bare legs, flaring with heat. He averted his gaze and turned to grab a tumbler off the small dinette directly behind him. It was filled almost to the brim with a dark liquid.
“I thought you could use this. Not exactly black label stuff, but it was all I could find to drink around here.”
She accepted the tumbler gratefully. Anything that would help to take the edge off would be more than welcome at this point. Taking a swig, she made a sour face. No, the whiskey was definitely not the top shelf liquor she’d become accustomed to. More like the very, very bottom of the shelf. But she wasn’t about to complain about free liquor. Not now, not ever.
“Have you heard from Ronin or your other brothers?” she asked.
Dagan shook his head. “Not yet, but that’s no big surprise. I doubt they went straight to the cave. They’ll probably fly around for a bit to make sure they don’t have anyone tracking them.”
When she nodded, Dagan took a hesitant breath. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
Something else? Well, whatever it was, it was no doubt serious.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m all ears.”
He took a long swallow from his glass before meeting her gaze. “It’s about your ex, Thorne.”
Her heart clenched, but other than a momentary tightening of her fingers around the glass, she managed to hold her composure. “What about him?”
“I doubt you were lucid enough to remember what happened, so…”
After carefully setting his glass on the dinette directly behind him, Dagan turned back to her. “He came into your room when I was there trying to save you. He tried to stop me and…he’s dead.”
Dead?
Lina stared at Dagan in silence, allowing the full meaning of his words to penetrate deep in her mind. Thorne was dead?
His voice tight, Dagan said, “I…I’m sorry if you’re pissed, but we fought and, well, it was either him or me.”
“Damn right I’m pissed.” She squeezed the tumbler once again, and this time she heard a slight crack.
Shit.
Lina quickly tossed back the contents before they could begin to leak out. “I’m pissed because I wanted to be the one to kill his sorry ass.”
The look of relief on Dagan’s face would have been comical if the whole situation wasn’t so damn sad. Lina tossed the cracked glass into the fireplace.
“Dagan, the man abandoned me when I needed him most. Me and our daughter. He drugged me, knowing that I’ve been in recovery for two years, and sold me to some sick bastard for a couple of bucks. Yes, I loved him once; I’ll be damned if I know why. But I’m not sorry he’s dead. Not by a long shot.”
“Thank the devil,” he breathed, the tension leaving his body. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”
“Mostly just pissed,” she said honestly. When a knot of tension formed in her temple, she rubbed at the spot and moved to the couch with a heavy sigh. “You have to understand, when I met Thorne I was a broken shell.”
He moved swiftly across the room, padding with fluid, silent steps until he sat right next to her, his gaze bright and steady. “Tell me about it.”
“I…I’d lost everything I ever loved. Starting with my parents. Then, just when I’d recovered, just when I began to think all was right in the world again, Xander, as I knew Ronin then, vanished.”
An old, familiar pain clenched her heart. Fighting back the moisture in her eyes, she gazed down to where the hem of her shirt met the bare skin of her thighs and trailed slow circles on her flesh.
“I loved Mama Flavia. I did.” The woman had been kind to her, a surrogate mother when she’d had no one else. “But Ronin was the one who helped me heal. Helped me see the light in the world again. He was my brother at heart. When he left…”
Dagan’s hand hooked under her chin and turned her head so their gazes met, effectively granting her distance from her painful memories. His blazing eyes bored into her, lending her heat and strength.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
“Me too.”
Her eyes locked on his full lips, on the curve of his jaw that was punctuated by a sexy five o’clock shadow. She lost track of how much time they spent there, with their gazes sealed on each other, before he spoke again.
“What happened next?”
She gave him an absent smile. “Flavia and I eventually came to terms with the fact that Ronin wasn’t coming back. We adjusted, in our own way. She was a good woman, a good mother to me. But then, five years ago, our town was all but leveled by a plague.”
Dagan frowned. “She didn’t make it.”
“Hardly anyone did. There were maybe a handful of us left when it was all over.” Each of them wondering why they’d been among the ones to survive. The horror of that feeling would never escape her.
“What did you do?” he murmured,
his hand trailing down her arm and his fingers absently locking with hers.
She sucked in her breath at the sparks of electricity Dagan’s touch elicited. Shaking her head to dispel the haze brought on by being in his proximity, she said, “We all went our separate ways. We couldn’t stand living in a ghost town. I…I went to ground.”
Dagan let out a soft noise. “That had to have been strange, not to mention dangerous. A creature of the sky down on the hellish soil. You must have been scared.”
“Yes.” And now, with the distance of time, she could recognize what she hadn’t back then. She’d had a death wish. Everyone she’d cared for had abandoned her, and she’d subconsciously been searching for an escape from the pain.
Well, she’d found it, but not in the form she’d envisioned. “That was how I met Thorne.”
Dagan’s lips curled in clear distaste. “He took advantage of your suffering.”
He would see it that way, she supposed. “From my perspective, he was a relief from the pain I felt. A young, good-looking demon who seemed more carefree than anyone I’d ever known.”
Damn, what an idiot she’d been.
“We’d only dated for a few weeks before he convinced me to try what he called his ‘happy medicine’. He told me I’d never see the world in the same way again.”
And fool that she was, she’d bought it. She was so ashamed.
Casting her gaze down, she shrugged. “I was instantly hooked, as so many score users are. And he was right. It was a happy drug, for a while. I forgot about everything other than the next high.”
As if he sensed her pain, Dagan grabbed hold of her other hand, squeezing them both. “It’s not your fault, Lina.”
“No?” Bitter regret and anger twisted in her stomach. She forced herself to look him right in the eyes, so she could read the condemnation in his gaze. “I was so messed up I didn’t even think to take precautions.”
“It was an addiction,” Dagan shook his head. “And not just any addiction, but probably the most powerful one out there.”
“I could have done something different. Instead I got pregnant.”
“Lina…you did the best you could.”
Call of the Siren (Demons of the Infernum) (Entangled Edge) Page 18
