Darkest Heart

by Juliette Cross

  I screamed, but Dommiel swallowed the scream, swallowed the pain. My back bowed, agony zinging down my spine, I clenched fists into his jacket and hair, tears spilling, but he didn’t relent. Didn’t allow me to pull away. Refused to let me go.

  My mind drifted, limbs heavy, as I slipped unconscious. Simian was there again, standing in a misty London street, holding out his hand to me. He no longer grinned fiendishly or cackled maniacally, but simply watched me and waited, offering me his hand to take. Like a river rushing with the current, I stepped closer, my pace quickening. Then something jarred me to a standstill. I said, “No” and turned, ignoring his hissing response and fought to move upstream, stretching an internal tension, like the ripping of my soul.

  But he held me in place, a gravitational pull straining to haul me backward. My spirit balanced on the razor’s edge of light and dark, freedom and slavery, life and death. And it wasn’t an archangel, a host of Elysium, tearing me from the arms of darkness, from certain doom. It was my demon lover…my demon love, fighting to save my soul.

  “You think to take her from me,” growled the demon prince, dripping with hatred and malice.

  Dark midnight cradled me, though I couldn’t see him. Only feel his presence tugging me gently away from the malevolent creature in my mind, grappling to claim my soul.

  Then his voice. His deep, dark, beautiful voice resonated like the ripple of an earthquake. “She was never yours. She will never be yours.”

  The earthquake inside me rumbled. The vision of Simian shook, his black eyes glinting with hellfire, knowing he was losing. Black smoke swept around him like a vaporous cloak. Rather than shriek in defeat, he bared his fangs and whispered in a monstrous hiss.

  “You will regret this, traitor.”

  Dommiel’s one-word reply was the final powerful stroke to sever the link. “Never.”

  Then the ripping snapped, the heavy pool of malice lifted away. Gone in an instant. The darkness dispelled. As well as the cool presence of Dommiel’s essence, which left me strangely bereft not to have part of him inside me.

  I snapped open my eyes and sucked in a deep lungful of air, finding utter exhaustion and fleeting despair written in the sharp lines of his face.

  “Dommiel?”

  His complexion pale and his breathing labored, he smiled.

  “There you are.” His voice was jagged, fierce with emotion. “I thought I’d lost you for a second there.”

  “I thought so, too.” My heart yearned for him even more, if that were possible.

  He traced his fingers across my brow, pushing my hair aside, then below one eye and across my lips, his mouth quirking on one side. His touch was so tender, a different swell of emotion threatened to make me weep again.

  “All better?”

  I pressed a hand to my chest where I’d felt the pain the most.

  “Yes. You took it all away.” You made me whole again.

  He pressed his forehead to mine. “Next time, just trust me.”

  “God, I’m such a fool. I should have. I just didn’t know—”

  I closed my eyes and simply bathed in his presence, his compassion. In him. How could I know when I first met him that the snarky, foul-mouthed, one-eyed, one-armed demon I’d been partnered with held the ability to take away demon essence? Even if I did, I wouldn’t have trusted him. Not then. I had no idea he’d been an archangel or that he still held the power to help me. My prejudice against his kind clouded so much of my own perceptions. But not anymore.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

  A soft sweep of his lips against mine. “I’d do anything for you, Anya.” A grave, solemn promise. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

  The hound whined, snapping our attention up. Following her gaze, we saw the courtiers spilling out of the open doors, smoke billowing out.

  “Time to go,” he said, voice gruff.

  I helped him to his feet, noticing he moved slowly, his brow pinched in pain.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not exactly. More like I’ve run a mental marathon. I just need rest. Let’s get out of here.”

  I knew using that kind of power was exhausting for archangels, which was one reason I’d known only Uriel would consider removing Simian’s essence. That is, until I’d fallen in love with this high demon.

  I helped him to the hound, who automatically knelt for him to climb on behind the slouched form of Uriel.

  “Which way do we go? I can follow you from the air.”

  “To the Narva River. We need to find a boat that’ll take us safely out of Vladek’s wards where we can sift away.”

  So smart, my man. I smiled. There was no way I could carry the weight of even one of them without the power to sift. I sure as hell wasn’t leaving either of them behind anyway. This was a good plan.

  “Okay, I’ll go ahead a ways and find a boat.”

  “Go.” He stared through the trees at the snow-laden garden filling with frantic courtiers.

  I lifted off, flying close to the tree line, so I wasn’t an obvious silhouette against the setting sun. But the demons were all staring back at the palace and too worried about their own skins to notice me.

  I swept north toward the river, remembering how we rode parallel to it for some ways. I hated to have Dommiel and Uriel out of sight, but I had a job to do. Both of them were so weak. I was thankful Dommiel had a gift with women of all kinds for that Sheeba seemed more devoted to him than her maker, the witch.

  Snaking out of the woodlands ahead was the Narva, glistening black under the darkening sky. I sighed with relief and dipped lower along the shoreline. Because we were inside Vladek’s territory and apparently he had little use for humans, there was no one on or near the river. Up ahead was a rudimentary quay with three boats—one sailboat and two speedboats.

  “Yes.”

  I winged back, crossing over an empty village, detecting no beating hearts in the deserted place. So sad. I wondered briefly if they’d all been killed or enslaved by Vladek or if some of them escaped before he moved into their territory. So much sorrow since this whole thing began. But then, there were the Twelvers and demon hunters like Xander standing with them. There was hope yet.

  Then there, trotting up a village street heading straight for the river, was the hound with Dommiel and Uriel. Smiling, I banked hard toward them.

  Uriel was slouched forward and Dommiel sitting straight, his head swiveling back and forth on alert. He must’ve heard me, looking up right before an ether arrow, blazing with green fire shot straight through the hound’s head.

  “No!”

  Dommiel and Uriel went flying through the air as she crashed sideways, dead on impact to the pavement, ether flames flaring around her head. Uriel was completely unconscious. Dommiel leaped to defend him as Simian’s red priests attacked.

  I reached for my daggers, realizing I didn’t have them as I launched to the ground next to Dommiel.

  “Shit.”

  But I had those finger-length daggers. Pulling one each from my back pocket, I readied for combat as the ground rose up fast.

  Descending with a sharp whip of my wings behind Dommiel, I kicked a red priest in his ugly face before my boots hit the pavement. The priest shrieked, then launched back up along with another, both coming for me. But I was far more adept to defending myself against multiple opponents to go down easily. Apparently, so was Dommiel.

  “Goddammit, Anya! Get out of here!” He shoved one of his small daggers through the black eye of a priest, whispering the expelling chant.

  The priest exploded into ash and embers before another was on him.

  “Not without you.”

  Dommiel fought with a ferocity I hadn’t seen before, casting out every priest who came within touching distance. He grabbed one around the throat and burnt him into cinders and sparks with a single word, power rippling off of him in potent waves. Even so, the sickly pale look on his face warned he couldn’t keep this up forever.

&n
bsp; Uriel was surrounded by three red priests, simply guarding him, hands behind their backs.

  I slashed another priest with my blade before a third was on me, whispering, “Ad infernum” with my heavenly power. Then he did indeed go to hell, his flesh incinerating into gray ash.

  All at once, the red priests, or what was left of them, about ten, shrieked and backed away, holding their attack stance from a short distance.

  Dommiel panted in great heaving breaths, while his burning ruby eye scanned our enemies, his fangs bared. The heavy steps of a newcomer sounded just before he stepped into the circle of priests, his gray, black-veined skin rippling with each swish of his muscular arms.

  “Bellock,” grunted Dommiel.

  The gargantuan angel hunter moved with casual grace, swinging his scimitar in his right hand with each menacing step.

  “Dommiel.” His black eyes narrowed, fanged mouth grinning wide. “Tsk, tsk.”

  He glanced at me, his eyes lingering on my wings. No doubt because he wanted to chop them off.

  “Now, there’s no doubt you’re an angel lover. You really have fallen far, haven’t you, demon?”

  “Go, Anya. Fly now,” commanded Dommiel.

  But he’d taken away his essence. His bidding did nothing but infuriate me.

  “Not without you and Uriel.”

  “Touching, that,” grumbled Bellock, a behemoth of a creature, voice like rock scraping together.

  “How’d you know where I was?” asked Dommiel, obviously pointing out to the fact that they were lying in wait for us, knowing exactly what path he would take to escape.

  “Wasn’t so hard. You gave away all the cards when you helped her save those Twelvers back in London. I’m a hunter, demon.”

  He nodded at me but didn’t flinch his focus from Dommiel.

  “She leaves a brighter trail to follow. Just had to knock off the right head to figure out what she was after. Then I knew where I’d find you.”

  His black gaze swiveled to Uriel, who still lay unconscious in a circle of red priests.

  Bellock grunted and swung his arm up, resting his scimitar over one shoulder like a farmer would a garden hoe.

  “I can’t figure out why you’d risk your hide for these fucking angels.”

  “No. You wouldn’t,” was all Dommiel replied, his words lilted with sadness.

  Bellock went on.

  “Seems you have a choice here, Dommiel. Surrender. Or die trying to fight your way out.”

  “I’ll fight till my life force is spent and my soul sifts out of your hands into the wastelands of Erebus. And I know you don’t want that. Your master has plans for me. Doesn’t he?”

  Bellock’s grim expression darkened, his muscular body tightening.

  “One or all of you will die right here and your souls taken with me to hell,” he swore with certainty.

  “I don’t doubt that. Or…you and most or all of these priests could go instead.”

  Bellock shrugged. “It’s a gamble.” His black gaze shifted to me. “Your call.”

  They were making some kind of deal between what wasn’t being said, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Dommiel stared at me then, expression unreadable except for the fact he was drinking me in as if to memorize every shape and line.

  “Dommiel?”

  His attention swiveled back to Bellock, who stood only a few yards from us. Dommiel straightened suddenly from his defensive stance with a stiff nod to Bellock, took the two steps needed to reach me, and pulled me into his arms.

  I gasped, the action so wrong for our current dilemma. He pulled me close, metal hand at the small of my back, his real one cupping my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone.

  “What are you doing?”

  He kissed me swift and hard, grief and pain etching itself line by line into his face.

  “As soon as we’re gone, I want you to go to Maximus.”

  “No. Dommiel, what are you talking about?” But I knew, the hard-fixed angles of his face telling me it was done already. “You’re not giving yourself up. No!” I dropped the small blade still in my hand and gripped him by the nape and hair. “Don’t leave me,” I begged.

  “Shh.”

  He pressed another kiss to me, completely unfazed by the hissing of the red priests behind him.

  “It’s one or all of us, baby. And it sure as fuck isn’t going to be you.”

  “Please. I got you into this. It’s my fault. I—”

  Another burning kiss, this one with a deep, languorous stroke of the tongue, his hands and arms banding me tight with desperate, feverish need. The red priests shrieked and hissed at Dommiel’s obvious affection, not lust, but affection, adoration—dare I say love—for one of the enemy.

  Jerking apart, panting, he pressed his forehead to mine. Tears spilled down my cheeks.

  “Take Uriel and go to my brother.” A rough command. “He’s the only one who can protect you now. Stay with his army.”

  “You’re not giving up.” My voice trembled. “We can fight them.”

  “They’ll kill you first to hurt me, Anya.” He straightened with a violent shake of his head. “I won’t allow it.” He squeezed the hand at my nape and pressed one more swift kiss to my lips. “We always knew our story would be a tragedy, didn’t we?” he whispered against my lips.

  Tears burned red-hot down my face as I clenched hold of him, willing him to listen, to stay. He was right, but my heart wouldn’t accept it, my chest seeming to cave in on itself at the very idea of the loss of him.

  “Please, Dommiel.” I kissed him, breathing my secret I needed him to know, “I love you.”

  He sighed, ruby eye sliding closed as if in pain. “Adieu, my angel.” Soft, soft words. “Remember me.”

  He let me go, then everything moved fast yet slow at the same time. With quick strides, he walked straight to Bellock, his arms out in surrender, the angel hunter swinging his scimitar blade down from his shoulder.

  A ghastly shriek and a beat of wings. A shadow descended from overhead. A red-scaled dragon with black eyes and black-flecked underbelly descended from the sky, his massive wings stirring up snow on the streets. The red priests strode toward the dragon as it landed behind Bellock.

  Bellock said something I couldn’t hear to Dommiel and grinned right before he stabbed his curved blade into Dommiel, the blood-tipped blade coming out between his shoulder blades. He fell to his knees, deep dark red blood spilling to the pavement while I screamed.

  “No!”

  I charged, but a priest intercepted me, knocking me to the ground with a hard kick to the stomach. All while Bellock slid his blade out slowly and tossed Dommiel over his shoulder, heading for the dragon. By the time I was on my feet, Bellock, Dommiel, and the red priests were all atop the dragon’s back.

  Bellock grinned at me. “Another time, angelheart. I’ll get those blue wings yet.”

  Running for them and readying to launch into the air, the red dragon roared, his hot breath warning me he’d blow fire, stopping me in my tracks. With a forceful beat of wings, he lifted off. Heaving panicked breaths, I glanced back at Uriel, then back at the huge dragon growing smaller.

  I could follow, but as soon as they crossed the wards, they’d sift back to hell, a place I couldn’t follow. And how would I even know where to go to find him? I’d need a guide.

  A raucous caw caught my attention. Perched on the sign for an abandoned bookstore was Puck.

  Fuming, I cried, “You’re not going after your master?” I jerked my arm, pointing toward the sky.

  Puck cawed again, his dark birdy gaze on me. Dommiel’s words about his familiar popped into my head.

  He comes when he’s needed.

  “Oh, Puck.” Perhaps he had a part to play after all.

  I had my guide. Plan already formed, I bent down to grab hold of Uriel, locking my elbows under his arms from the front. Able to lift his dead body weight a foot off the ground with the strength of my wings, it was enough to half drag, half fly him
onto the motorboat I’d spied earlier.

  “You’d better follow me,” I shouted back at the bird.

  He made a deep croaking sound, then lifted off of his perch and soared down the Narva River, apparently not happy with the idea of following.

  Not a problem. Having laid Uriel on the floor of the boat, started the engine, tossed aside the ropes, and swiveled the boat back—bumping into the wooden quay several times—I tore off down the Narva River toward the Baltic Sea, exactly as Dommiel had told me.

  I even planned to seek out his brother, but not for the reason of hiding among his army.

  “No.”

  My heart protested the very idea, regurgitating the thought that I’d never see him again, that he was at this moment on his way to endure horrific torture.

  My demon lover had sacrificed himself for me. The lines weren’t so blurred that I couldn’t see in that one moment, with that one selfless act, he’d turned away from the darkness, streaking toward the light, toward redemption, whether he knew it or not.

  “Hold on,” I whispered as the icy wind and water sprayed my face. “I’m coming, my love.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dommiel

  One thing I knew for certain as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I’d been battered and maimed and tortured many times in my immortal life, but nothing…nothing compared to the inventive agony in Simian’s dungeon.

  “Wakey, wakey,” came the singsong tune of the demon prince who had apparently been the one who’d put the highest price on my head.

  Bellock had joined in the fun. First came the rack where he’d pulled my shoulders and one kneecap out of socket. I’d managed to stay awake for that hell.

  Simian had chopped through my metal arm, through the industrial tendons, not the flesh at my elbow. There was pain still, since Bone had attached the tendons to my real ones. It seemed Simian wanted to keep me conscious. Even in hell, if my body was destroyed, the soul could slip away to the darklands where he couldn’t get me back unless he went hunting. And he wanted to play with me longer. Much longer, it appeared.

  Bellock dragged my body toward a human-sized wooden X on the stone wall with foot-long spikes facing outward, a longer spike at the middle of the X. No imagination needed for what was coming. Without ceremony, he hauled me up and shoved me onto the X, the two-foot spike shooting straight through my back, exiting somewhere around my navel.