Princess of Lust (For the Love of Evil)

by Mayburn, Ann

  “Of course. Tanth is one of God’s first angels, and it will take more than a back-alley brawl to remove him from the game.”

  Male voices came from outside of the room, and the nun’s lips pressed together in anger. “It seems as if the fates are conspiring against us as well.” Her eyes blazed, changing from a kindly brown to a glowing blue that cast shadows on her face. “Listen well, Daughter of Lust. We believe Mr. Wright has been in contact with the human agents of Belal, though we don’t think he knows who they truly serve. If they see you, they might be able to see through your illusion, so try to keep out of sight.”

  The meager amount of food Natalia had eaten threatened to come back up, and she barked a laugh that held a bitter edge. “Oh, sure. I’ll just duck out the back door if the High Prince of Sloth shows up for tea.”

  The woman’s voice filled Natalia’s head with thunder. “You have been blessed with this task, Princess. Do you not think I would give anything to be able to take your place? The existence of all that I love rests in your hands, and so far I have been less than impressed by your actions.” Natalia started to defend herself but the nun cut her off. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. Scared of the mortal world becoming hell on earth as more and more people become enslaved to opium. You must do whatever you have to in order to stop this. Things have become worse in Hell during the two mortal days you’ve been here.”

  Someone knocked on the door to Natalia’s room, and she and the nun exchanged panicked looks.

  “One moment. I’m almost done with the patient.” The nun gripped her good hand in her own and said in a whisper, “I have to go before my presence here alerts the others to your location. Both demonic and angelic forces alike know you’re in London, but they don’t know where.”

  “My father, my men—are they all right?”

  “For the time being, but—”

  At that moment, Christopher came into the room with another man who looked vaguely familiar. Eliza’s memory supplied that the man with Christopher was Dr. Monroe, his mentor and a member of high standing on the medical board of St. Mary’s. The nun gave her hand a final squeeze before removing her breakfast and placing it on the cart. She curtsied to both of the men and pushed the cart out of the room, the wheels squeaking along the floor.

  “Well, Dr. Wright, she is looking much improved.”

  Christopher nodded and gave her a small smile before moving over to the bed. She kept silent, knowing Christopher liked for Eliza to be seen and not heard. He pulled back the edge of her dressing gown and gently peeled back the bandages. His voice held a note of surprise as he said, “Much better than expected.”

  The other doctor joined him at her shoulder and she tried not to wince as they poked and prodded her wound. They treated her as if she weren’t even a person, just a scientific curiosity to be examined and studied.

  Dr. Monroe tapped his lip as he stepped back from the bed. “Yes, I do believe she is ready to go home.” With that, he dismissed her, turning his attention to Christopher. “I have a lecture to attend tomorrow. How about I stop by your laboratory the day after to take a look at your latest work?”

  Christopher beamed and Natalia had to deal with the conflicting emotions of Eliza’s pride at Christopher finally being recognized for his work, and her own fear at being too late to help him do whatever she was supposed to do.

  “That would be wonderful.” Christopher held open the door for Dr. Monroe and the two left the room without another word, or a backward glance at Natalia.

  Chapter Ten

  Gregor clenched his teeth and forced his gaze to remain on the succubus projecting the image of Natalia. They were in one of the coven’s practice rooms deep in the heart of the palace, guarded by Kirin and Raum. Exhaustion clung to him, draining him to the point of black spots on the edges of his vision, but he continued to push himself harder to see the true demoness beneath the illusion of his heart’s desire.

  Kirin spoke up from where he sat on the rose velvet couch placed between two worktables. “Try to see past her, like you’re looking over her shoulder. Try to look beyond.”

  Gregor shut his eyes and pressed his palms against them until bright bursts of light raced across his vision. “Try to see beyond,” he mimicked in a snide impression of Kirin’s Greek accent. “I’ve been trying to see beyond for the past eight hours—”

  “Ten,” Pyriel said in a bored voice.

  He bared his teeth at her, hating how his heart ached at what his mind insisted was Natalia. The illusion of Natalia that Pyriel wore was impeccable, flawless. He wanted nothing more than to gather his Mistress into his arms and protect her from a universe bent upon her destruction. It didn’t help that the succubus had dressed in a sheer bronze gown that showed hints of plump breast and thigh, womanly flesh that kept him at an almost constant state of arousal.

  “Can’t you put on something decent?” he snarled at Pyriel.

  The succubus laughed, her breasts jiggling in a delicious manner. “You should get a glimpse of what I’m really wearing, mortal.” She ran her hands down her waist, pausing before the oh-so-bare flesh between her thighs. “But you can’t, can you? That’s why you followed that piece of filth wearing your Mistress’s image out of the safety of your rooms and into a trap. You should have known better. She deserves better.”

  His pride stung, and he barely kept himself from fingering the healing scar on his lower ribs from where an assassin’s blade had pierced him. It was true. He should have known…on some level had known…but he’d been so worried about Natalia and when she’d appeared in the hallway between their suites and the coven’s floor where he’d been practicing, he’d run to her like a fool. When he thought back on it, he should have known right away it wasn’t Natalia. There was no sense of her through their psychic bond, but at the time he didn’t care.

  Thankfully, Kirin had been a couple paces behind him and managed to shove him at the last moment. Otherwise, the blade would have pierced his heart instead of grazing across his ribcage. Worst of all, he’d fought Kirin, thinking he was going to harm Natalia, and the assassin had escaped.

  “Stupid, weak, foolish man. I should have expected as much from a boy groomed to serve Belal.” Kirin started to rise from the couch but Pyriel held up her hand. “I would kill you now and replace you with one of my incubi, but unlike you, your Mistress has worked hard enough to see past my illusions. Only she isn’t here for you to hide behind her skirts now. What a waste. You can’t even protect yourself.”

  Rage at his own stupidity gave him a surge of energy and he rushed at the succubus, wanting to show her how wrong she was. He managed to grab one shoulder and froze in shock. Before his astonished gaze, the image of Natalia melted like a child’s chalk drawing in the rain, revealing pale skin with sparkles of crimson like little burning embers trapped beneath the skin. He had enough time to look at her face and see a stunningly beautiful, but unfamiliar woman before she backhanded him hard enough to send him flying across the room.

  His ears rang as he managed to push himself onto his hands and knees. Kirin was yelling something at Pyriel in a language he didn’t understand as he strode across the room to Gregor. Pyriel responded in an acidic voice and spun around, her tail lashing the air. Her tail lashing the air?

  His arms shook, and he didn’t have the strength to fight off Kirin as he held him, inspecting the side of his face with surprisingly tender fingers. He grabbed the other man’s hand and looked up into his deep, dark eyes. “She has a tail.”

  Kirin stared at him, then smiled and pulled him into a hug. “That she does.”

  Pyriel must have heard them because she stopped her pacing and gave Gregor a long, slow smile. “What else do you see, mortal?”

  He tried to pull himself out of Kirin’s arms, the voice of his father railing at him inside of his head for allowing another man to touch him in such an intimate manner, but when Kirin tightened his hold he didn’t resist. To be honest, it felt good to be hel
d, good to take the comfort offered, though he would never admit it aloud. “You have dark hair like Natalia, but your skin sparkles as if you have embers burning deep within. Beautiful, perfection, but deadly. Like a poisoned needle hidden in the thorns of a perfect red rose.”

  She blinked at him in surprise then gave him a slow smile. “Well, I can begin to see why your Mistress keeps you around.” She smoothed her hands along the black leather dress that clung to her lush figure. “Very good, concubine.”

  “Yes, you did well,” Kirin said before placing a kiss on his temple.

  Gregor wanted to turn into that kiss, to experience the rush of pleasure that had been absent from his life ever sense Natalia had gone over two weeks ago. Time moved different in Hell, and he found himself going mad with the need to see her. Kirin said it was because of his bond to her as her concubine, but he knew it was because he loved her. Part of his mind tried to tell him he was merely enthralled with her, that his feelings weren’t real, but in his heart of hearts he knew he would love Natalia even if she was the peasant girl he’d thought she was when they first met.

  A knock came at the door and Gregor struggled to his feet as three succubi came in. One held a tray of food and his stomach growled in hunger. The one in the middle had blond hair, but the other two had dark hair like Pyriel. All three were stunning enough on their own to rouse any man’s interest and Kirin made a low rumble of approval as they curtsied, displaying mouthwatering amounts of cleavage. Though he was loyal to Natalia with every drop of blood in his body, he’d have to be dead not to appreciate the display of female beauty before him.

  Pyriel gave him an amused smile and sauntered over to the blonde succubus, giving her a kiss on each cheek. “Sycha, ladies, thank you for coming.”

  His gaze followed the woman with a tray piled high with food and his mouth flooded with saliva at the sight of his favorite meal, roasted lamb in mint sauce. His stomach growled again, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since that morning. Kirin stood and gave the women a bow and Gregor followed suit. He started to cross the room to the meal but Pyriel stepped in his way and stopped him. He went to push her aside but felt a shoulder where there should have been an arm. He stared at her a for a moment before realizing that the succubus was shorter than Natalia, and even though she wore an illusion to look like her, she couldn’t change her actual form beneath.

  She shook him off and continued to block his path. “Not yet. You have to earn your meal.”

  He bristled and gave her a glare that had turned the men who’d served him on mortal earth into quaking bundles of fear. “I saw through your damn illusion.”

  “You saw through it only after you touched me. How is that going to help you next time they make an attempt on you?” She poked a long, wickedly sharp, black-painted fingernail into his chest. “You may think you won’t fall for it again, but what if they wear the face of Raum next, or Kirin? They will do whatever they can in order to separate you from your guards, and you must be able to see through their disguises.”

  He wanted to argue with her, wanted to tell her she was full of shit, but that wasn’t the truth. He’d been raised to be a leader of the mafia, trained to be aware of his own weaknesses and ruthlessly weed them out, and he wasn’t going to be weak now. Not when his vulnerabilities could get his beloved Mistress killed. “What do I need to do?”

  Kirin sighed and took a seat on the couch again, stretching out as if he expected to be there for a while. The bastard managed to charm one of the dark-haired succubi into feeding him bites of Gregor’s meal. He caught Gregor watching them and winked, turning the act of sliding the fork out of his mouth into a sensual gesture that made Gregor’s balls draw up tight. So far he’d managed to avoid any intimacy with Kirin, but oh, how he wanted the other man. They both knew it was just a matter of time before Gregor gave in, and Kirin seemed to be enjoying the chase, seducing him every chance he got.

  “Kirin, behave,” Pyriel said in an amused tone and the other succubi giggled. “Ladies, if you will.”

  The three succubi linked hands and began to spin in a circle, reminding Gregor of little girls playing a game. He watched them then shot Pyriel a questioning look but she merely smiled. They spun faster, blond and black hair flying, and began to blur. One minute he watched three succubi, the next—three identical versions of Natalia.

  They slowed and stopped, laughing and stumbling a bit. His stomach clenched and his mind rebelled against seeing three perfect versions of his beloved before him. So Pyriel had been right. The only reason he saw behind her illusion was because he’d touched her.

  The Succubus Queen gestured to the women. “My ladies will rearrange themselves and you must tell me three times in a row which of them is golden-haired Sycha before you can eat.”

  He smiled at her, more a feral baring of the teeth than anything else, and nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

  ***

  The clump of their boots hitting stone floors echoed through the arched ceiling of the hallway leading to his and Natalia’s private suite. Located on one of the highest levels of the royal tower, it afforded magnificent views of Hell. Normally, Gregor enjoyed looking out the window, examining the patchwork of colors that made up this portion of Hell, but it was now dark outside and a familiar and unwelcome presence waited for him in his suite.

  “Raum’s here,” Kirin said in a rough voice. “Something is wrong.”

  The men glanced at each other and sprinted the last hundred feet to the enormous door of the waiting room. In that brief amount of time, Gregor imagined a hundred, no a thousand, horrible things that could have happened to Natalia. They’d had no contact with her since she went to London and yesterday, word from Tanth had reached them about the attack by another angel. Gregor knew she was still alive because their bond as concubine and Mistress remained intact, but other than that no one had any idea where she was.

  Kirin reached the door first and slammed it open, narrowly missing hitting Raum, on the other side, in the face.

  Before either man could say a word, Gregor had Raum’s black dragon skin tunic fisted in his grip. “Where is she? What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Standing a few inches taller than him, Raum gave a bone-rattling growl and gripped his hand into the back of Gregor’s hair, holding him immobile as he stole a long, slow kiss. Stunned, Gregor tried to fight back the surge of lust that went through him but it was impossible beneath the skilled assault of the demon’s mouth. He trembled, struggling against the onslaught of sensations as his grip on Raum’s tunic went from pulling closer to weakly trying to shove him away.

  As quickly as he’d grabbed him, Raum released him and stepped back, citron and aqua streaks flowing through his green eyes. He abruptly turned his back on Gregor and pulled Kirin into his arms, repeating the kiss. Gregor watched them, trying to tell himself that his throbbing erection was because of Raum’s magic, not a true reaction of his body. That excuse burned up like a flimsy piece of paper before the bonfire of heat Kirin and Raum generated together.

  When they broke their kiss, Raum reached and gently brushed a tear from Kirin’s cheek. The tenderness, the love in that one gesture made him feel so alone. “What the hell is going on?”

  Raum turned back toward him, the blue of his skin glimmering faintly in the light of the will-o’-the-wisps floating about the ceiling. “I’ve been called to battle. Belal’s armies are gathering at the border and I must be there to lead my legions for the High Prince.”

  All the spit in Gregor’s mouth dried up and he gripped the back of a cream and gold high-backed chair near him. His mind raced through the villages and towns near the border, the faces of the people inhabiting them making his heart sink. He’d spent most of his time with Raum and Kirin while Natalia had been gone and had joined them when they went from town to town, checking on the defenses of each and going through their evacuation plans. Most of all, he remembered the children. He straightened and looked out the window at the dark countryside, focu
sing on little bits of light in the gloom here and there from the windows of houses. “I’ll need a few supplies from the coven, but I’ll be ready to go—”

  “You’re not coming with me,” Raum said in a tight voice. “Neither of you are.”

  Kirin started to protest but Raum gently placed a finger over his lips, stilling him. “I know you’ve ridden into battle with me before, my beloved, but not this time.”

  Gregor pushed away from the chair. “He doesn’t need to stay here and babysit me. We can both go with you.”

  “No.”

  Kirin took a step away from Raum. “Master, please, let us come with you. You know my advice on the battlefield has never been wrong, and while Gregor may be young, he’s a brilliant tactician.”

  “No,” Raum said again in a soft voice.

  Kirin shot Gregor a desperate look and he understood his friend’s pain all too well. “Look, Raum, we both know I don’t care for you, but I swear I would never betray you in battle. You can trust me.”

  Raum gave him a small smile with a hint of his earlier heat. “I know I can trust you. That’s why I’m leaving you my most precious possession to protect.” He pulled Kirin into his arms, closing his eyes and pressing the swarthy man’s face to his chest. “Kirin, you have to stay here with Gregor. Natalia is going to need both of you when she comes back, and you’re the only ones I trust with her safety. ”

  Gregor started to protest but Kirin’s ragged voice startled him into silence. “Is it really that bad?”

  “Yes.”

  Kirin audibly swallowed and hugged Raum so tightly the veins on his arms stood out. “I love you.”

  “And I love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you standing in the middle of the gladiator arena, sweaty, beaten half to death, but still handsome enough to steal the beauty from the sun.”

  Gregor swallowed hard and hated the tears that clogged his throat. A month ago, he’d have been throwing a party at the thought of Raum dying, but now, after having spent so much time with the demon, away from Natalia, he had to admit he’d grown rather…fond of him. Before he could second-guess himself, he went to their side and slowly wrapped his arms around each of them, holding the demon and the damned soul close.