Darkest Heart

by Juliette Cross

  The truth rang in the room. I squared off with her, edging farther into her personal space, hands low on my hips, dropping my voice to an intimate whisper.

  “But there are definitely things here I’d like to infiltrate.”

  I let my gaze wander down to her full breasts, then back up to her mouth before moving back to her eyes. The gold was drowning in black, dilated from arousal. Good to know I still had my touch. This was the most important conquest of my life. Everything depended on it.

  “My price is five hundred drakuls for a battle with Sheeba in my arena.”

  “My slave is lethal,” I promised. “Your bitch is too pretty and precious to be marred by the likes of her. How about one of your warriors?”

  She tilted her head, marveling at the scar running above and below my eye patch. Yeah. She liked ’em rough and scarred. Just take a look at Uriel, poor bastard. I didn’t even want to know the things she’d done to him in her pursuit of pleasure. And of all the half-dressed, whorish-looking get-ups on these courtiers, not one was fully naked. Fully exposed. Only Uriel. A punishment, torture, of sorts, I imagine. Stripped of his dignity. The witch liked inflicting emotional as well as physical pain.

  She glanced down her line of courtiers, some of them obviously trained warriors.

  “I have one or two you can choose from. Several furies, in fact. And the five hundred drakuls? Is that satisfactory payment for your angel slave?”

  Inching forward, I reached below with my mechanical hand, letting a finger brush the skirt by her thigh, not quite making contact with her skin. With a swipe of my tongue across my bottom lip, I said, “I’d rather negotiate my price in private.”

  Smiling like the fiend she was, she stepped back out of reach and sashayed down the red carpet as if leaving, stopped beside Anya, and perused her from head to heel before tossing over her shoulder for all to hear.

  “Negotiations in my bedchamber at sunset, my lord. Dinner will follow in the main ballroom before our entertainment. Gibbon will make sure you’re settled into the guest quarters.”

  A small train of courtiers followed. Others bustled freely. The seraph was escorted with a gold chain around her neck by a behemoth of a fury, his horn in the middle of his forehead tipped with a silver spike. Another fury in similar garb pulled Uriel behind him by the chain attached to his neck collar. Uriel breathed not a word, barely glancing at me, then Anya before he was gone. The rage still simmering behind crystal-fire eyes.

  Skaal moved in close and offered his hand. I took it. “Good luck to you, Dommiel.” His words held weight and meaning just for me. “I’ll be off now.” With a quick nod, he followed the crowd back toward the exit.

  Then that skeletal advisor stood before me. Gibbon. Asslick. He outed me in front of Anya. Something I wasn’t ready to talk about.

  “My lord, if you will follow me, I’ll show you to your quarters. Vaughn will take your slave to hers.”

  “Whoa.” I held up a hand as Vaughn wrapped his hand around Anya’s forearm. “She stays close to me.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but slaves have separate chambers. Vaughn will be careful—”

  “No. She goes with me. She’s my property. And I don’t trust everyone in this place.” I emphasized that with a death glare.

  Clearing his pencil-sized throat, “That’s highly irregular, my lord. I’ll have to inform Her Grace.”

  “Don’t bother.” I pressed into his space, voice dark. “I’ll tell her myself when I meet with her privately in her bedroom.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. Th-this way.”

  He led on. Vaughn followed, apparently the official guard assigned to Anya. Or to both of us. Perfect. Making our way through the tiled halls, Anya behind me, we followed Gibbon to the second floor and down another hallway. He stopped before a door and gave a tight bow.

  “An escort will arrive at sunset to escort you to Her Grace’s chamber.”

  “Thank you, Gibbon.”

  Vaughn took his guardian stance as I let Anya enter before me. As soon as we were inside, an audible snick of a key locking the door from the outside answered the final question I had about this place.

  Anya spun to face me, eyes pooling with angry tears. She scream-whispered, “What in the hell were you doing down there?”

  I stalked forward. “I told you I had a plan.”

  She stepped back.

  “Is it true? Is Maximus your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You never asked.”

  She continued to shuffle back away from me.

  “And you want to seduce that…that thing. Did you see Uriel?” She choked on a sob. “What she did to him?”

  “Yes. Of course, I saw.”

  Clamping my jaw tight, I tried to ignore the stricken pain on her face at the thought of Uriel, knowing he could very well be my one competition for her affections. Once we got him out of here.

  Arching a brow, “Why are you walking away from me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m furious. And I don’t know why.”

  “Yes, you do.” Her wings and back hit the wall. I corralled her in, cupping her jaw with my real hand, tilting her face up to me. “You’re seething with hatred because of what she did to Uriel. And that I have to take the risk instead of you being in the pit this time.” She bit her bottom lip, her eyes flinty. “Well, let me fucking tell you something. No way in hell am I standing by and watching you fight again. I have a plan to get us and Uriel out before.”

  “Fine. Tell me your plan.” Furious sparks glinted in those beautiful pools of violet.

  “I’m going to seduce her.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Her hands on hips, she rolled her eyes.

  “Pretend to seduce her, that is.”

  “Do you see what she’s done to Uriel? You think she can’t overpower you? You think that—”

  I cupped my hand over her mouth as her voice rose in anger and glanced toward the door. No one entered. She inhaled and exhaled in large gusts, her eyes more cloudy than before. Had I triggered my essence somehow and not known it? It appeared to be filling up too much of the blue-violet.

  “Listen, baby,” I crooned.

  She narrowed her eyes, still fuming. She didn’t like me gentling her when her blood was up. So cute. It made me want to sit and pull her onto my lap and let her ride out all that anger on me.

  “Listen.” A stern command. “I’m not going to fuck her, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nadya told us that she keeps Uriel in her room, like her own personal dog. I’m going to get close enough to use my essence to bend her to my will, kill her, take Uriel, then come back and get you.”

  Her intense breathing slowed. Her eyes easing up on the death glare. I removed my hand.

  “She’s a powerful witch. You heard Nadya. She may overpower you. It’s dangerous.” She lifted her hand to cup my face in a gentle caress that made my heart stutter.

  “We knew this would be dangerous.” I wrapped my hand around her nape. “But I’m more powerful than you think.”

  Sweeping my lips against hers, I nipped and licked and pried till she softened and opened for me, my pretty night flower. Then she was on me, legs wrapped around my waist. Cupping her perfect ass, I walked backward to the bed and sat, swallowing her sweet moan when she ground herself down on my dick. With soft strokes of my hands, I caressed every part of her I could—her ass, her thighs, hips, waist, breasts, back, wings. I wanted to touch all of her, wanted to kiss every inch, wanted to consume the sweetness of her and let it linger on my tongue for-fucking-ever. She was the most powerful balm to my weary soul. These moments had become everything to me, when I could touch and kiss and claim and call her—

  “Mine,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” She bit my bottom lip, grinding down harder. “And you are mine, Dommiel.”

  Christ. The very thought of belonging to one as sweet as her tore me in two, the idea too perfect, too euphoric
to contemplate for too long.

  Happiness? What the fuck was that?

  With a firm grip, I cupped her jaw with both hands, easing her back, my heart in my goddamn throat for what I was about to say. But it must be done. And one thing I wasn’t was a coward.

  Brushing my thumb in that curve beneath her lip, a place I was apparently addicted to, I met her questioning gaze.

  “What is it?”

  “Baby.” We were both panting. “I want you. Not for an hour or a day or a month.” I licked my lips, stalling while my heart stopped slamming painfully into my ribs. “I want you for eternity. I want you in my bed.” I nibbled at her bottom lip, finding my own lips trembling as I whispered, closing my eye and pressing my forehead to hers, “I want you in my heart.”

  A soft exhale. I couldn’t look. Couldn’t see any form of rejection. Temporary lovers was one thing. But I saw the way she looked at Uriel. She cared for him. And if it was one tenth what I felt for her, then I’d surely lose her to him.

  “Oh, Dommiel.”

  Her soft lips pressed to mine.

  “Look at me,” she coaxed with that heavenly fucking voice.

  I did, unable to defy her, finding tears streaking her face.

  “You’ve had my heart for some time now.”

  I couldn’t speak. She laughed.

  “I think it was when you fed that dog a scrap of food in Venice.”

  “Anya.”

  Crushing my mouth to hers, I showed her what I couldn’t say in words. A kiss of longing, gratitude, relief, passion, unending need.

  She moaned again, her hands clutched in my hair, pressing her body, molding it to mine. It was the happiest goddamn moment of my life, and it was in the middle of a demon witch’s palace surrounded by those who would flay us alive—literally—if they knew the truth. Never before had I endeavored to protect a lie so dear. A lie that sparked light and life into my demon heart.

  On a shaky breath, we parted. Pulling her back onto the bed, I lay on my side facing her, wrapping an arm around her back to press her close, our legs tangled.

  “I’d rather do this naked, but now isn’t the time to consummate our relationship.”

  She laughed intimately. “I think we’ve consummated it quite enough.”

  “No. That was just sex.”

  “Just sex?” She hmphed. “I thought it was rather…something better, more than that.”

  Preening a little, I arched a brow and smiled. “It was everything, Anya. It was our beginning. But I want inside you now that we’ve…”

  I was at a loss for words, trying to figure out what to call us. Girlfriend/boyfriend? No. That was stupid. Lovers wasn’t strong enough.

  She giggled again and said in a rather superior tone. “Now that we’ve committed ourselves to each other. And each other alone, you mean.”

  “Yes.” I kissed her, sliding my tongue in for a quick taste. “That.”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and tucked her face into the crook of my shoulder. I squeezed her to me, both of us seeming to understand how dire this was. It was easy when we were risking just ourselves. But now we risked each other. We risked this newfound bond, fragile and fresh. The fear of losing it was the most horrifying feeling I’d ever known.

  So we held each other. Quietly. Saying nothing. Just feeling. As the sun slipped lower, the light darkening through the window, marking our time as almost up. Then she asked me a question I wasn’t ready to answer.

  “What happened between you and Maximus?”

  What a question. Sighing heavily, I figured I’d better tell her. No. I wanted to tell her. I knew she’d let me unburden, and there would be no judgment coming from my angel.

  “How old are you?”

  Pause. “Five hundred and three.”

  I tugged her close, my hand at the small of her back. “You’re just a wee babe. Feel like I’m robbing the cradle.”

  She half laughed, but said nothing, her arm around my waist hugging tighter.

  “I am over four thousand years old. I stopped counting once I hit four millennia.” Inhaling a deep breath, I just said it all. “As per usual, when angels are born, our parents let the warden angels raise us till we were old enough to find our calling. It was obvious that Maximus and I were built to be warriors. So we joined. And fought.”

  I paused, remembering Maximus and I sparring together, laughing as we learned our brutal work of art—combat.

  “You may not realize this, but there have always been demons. Even before the Fall. Creatures of such putrid malice. Malformed, horned, diseased, rotting.”

  I squeezed her to me, as if I could protect her from the memories of those days, fighting evil incarnate.

  “Our job was to keep them in their realm, in the netherworld. And so we did. It was enough for a while. But then grumblings began. All we did was fight and bleed. Get clawed and maimed, heal, then do it all over again. Year after year. Decade after decade. Century after century. Then finally, some of them got out, venturing into the realm of men. And that’s when angels finally took notice of the fragile beings called humans and their world.”

  Such a very long time ago, and yet, I could still see myself then. Vast black wings, skyrocketing down to the earth when the earliest of mankind was plagued with these monsters, infiltrating life on earth.

  “We continued to fight our fight, but we also noticed something we’d never seen before.”

  “What was that?” she whispered, voice husky and soft. Laced with sorrow.

  “Humans. The joys and pleasures of the flesh. In all their forms. We wanted more than toil and battle. Some in Elysium started to rebel. I was one of them.”

  “But Maximus wasn’t.”

  “No. My brother was the one who tossed me out of Elysium, cast me down personally. I can still see that enraged look on his face.”

  We were quiet. Anya stroked her hand up my back, like soothing a child. I would’ve laughed if it didn’t feel so fucking good to be soothed, to be cared for. To not be condemned.

  “The ironic thing is that I never wanted to stop fighting. Never wanted to leave Elysium. It was that I saw the flaws in our world. We defended what was good and right, but we never savored it. We never cherished it. All we did was work, defend, guard, bleed, then do it some more. We only knew toil, no joy. No pleasure.”

  Why I tried to defend my choice to break from a home that had once filled me with pride and contentment, I had no idea. Whether it was wrong or not, it was the path I’d chosen. And nothing could change what came later.

  “So, you and the rebels, rose up against Elysium.”

  “And lost. Of course.”

  She sat up, leaning her weight on one arm. I couldn’t help but stray to her wings, arching behind her, reflecting a sapphire sheen in the light of dusk. Something like regret and sadness flitted over her expression.

  I chuckled, twining a dark lock of her hair around my metal forefinger.

  “No need to feel sorry for me. Though my heart wasn’t totally for the rebellion, once I was cast out, I took full advantage, falling as far as I could go. I earned my title of a high demon of hell, baby. No mistaking that.”

  She swallowed hard, her brow pinched, soft voice thick with emotion.

  “And yet, you’re not entirely like the others, are you?”

  I rolled up into a sitting position with an exasperated sigh. “Don’t try to make me into an innocent. I am not innocent.”

  “I never said you were. Who is, really?”

  I brushed a finger along the porcelain line of her jaw. “You are.”

  She laughed and arched her beautiful brow. “I am most certainly not. Wrath sits on my heart like a dragon just waiting for the chance to breathe fire.” She angled her head thoughtfully, staring down at the white coverlet. “When I was in that pit with Crusalla, beating her wasn’t enough. I craved annihilation. Obliteration.” Velvety-blue eyes locked onto me. “Bloodlust rode me hard. And I let it take control.”

 
; “I’m aware of that.” Like this wasn’t something I knew already. “She deserved it.”

  Anya shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if someone deserves the worst kind of fate or not for their foul deeds, the darkness was reflected in me. In my need to punish, to feel that thrill of justification by blade and the spilling of blood.”

  This was a feeling I was all too familiar with. A feeling I relished. It obviously had the opposite effect on my angel, her tender heart pricking at her own ability to wield such bloody vengeance. And that alone, the pain of regret in her eyes, drew me to her like a magnet to the north. Sweeping close and cupping her jaw, I brushed my lips over hers, that heady feeling of intoxication knocking my senses off balance.

  She whispered, “It’s like you said. The lines are blurred.”

  “You’re far from damned, baby. If anything, that sweet soul of yours might just save mine.”

  We lingered, foreheads together, breathing each other’s air, inhaling one another’s emotions, savoring this nascent intimacy that I didn’t even know existed. Until, finally, I swung out of the bed, offering my mechanical hand. She took it without a thought, something that still jarred me. So accepting. So trusting. Of me. I guided her down on the chest at the foot of the bed. She flared out her wings and closed them again. Her nervous tic.

  “If,” I started, holding her gaze, “for some reason I don’t make it back.”

  “No,” she snapped. “You will make it back.”

  “I sure as shit plan to, baby.” I swept a finger along her pretty jaw. “But if I don’t, kill the guard and get out of here.”

  I pulled two of the finger-length daggers from their hidden sheath on the backside of my belt and gave them to her.

  “But, Uriel—”

  “Anya. Hear me. Get yourself out. Find Genevieve and come back with an army to get him. Hell, that’s probably what we should’ve done anyway.”

  Of course, that never could’ve happened. There was no way across Vladek’s borders without detection. The only way to infiltrate Lisabette’s lair was by deceit and stealth, exactly how we’d gotten ourselves here.

  “Dommiel. Please, you must come back to—”