Feed the Flames (Steel & Stone)

by Annette Marie

  “Information is the most valuable currency.”

  Seiya sneered. “You think I was privy to all sorts of confidential information while I was locked in his dungeon?”

  Maasehet shrugged delicately. “One can never be sure.”

  “I have nothing to tell you.”

  “Well, that is a shame.” She brushed an invisible speck from her skirt, making the gold chains jingle. “Perhaps it would inspire your memory to know that the current highest bidder for your life is none other than your former master.”

  The blood drained out of Seiya’s head, leaving her dizzy. No. No, that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t face Asphodel again.

  “I doubt he will allow anyone to outbid him,” Maasehet continued. “So unless you can provide me with a reason I should reconsider his most generous offer ...”

  Seiya opened her mouth, but no words came to her. Horror and dread swirled through her, erasing all thought.

  “If you give her back to Samael,” Lyre spat, “he’ll use her to breed even more draconians for his private army. What do you think will happen then?”

  Maasehet fixed her gaze on him for the first time. “I do believe the politics involved are beyond an incubus’s understanding—even an incubus with your impressive pedigree.”

  Lyre’s anger vanished and wariness flashed across his face.

  “We will not be taking any bids for you,” she continued, with a sly gleam in her yellow eyes. “Your family has already offered me a considerable ransom for your life.”

  Seiya had never seen Lyre’s normally warm complexion go so white.

  He shook his head sharply. “But ...”

  Maasehet touched a long, elegant finger to her lower lip as she smiled coolly. “An incubus allied with a draconian—such an outlandish combination. After my brother’s first encounter with you, we were very curious as to your identity. Why would one such as Ashtaroth tolerate your presence? Of course, I now see why he would welcome your company.”

  Lyre didn’t answer. His jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists.

  “Your family will be pleased to have you back, I am sure.” She glanced at Seiya, surveying her for a long moment, then turned away. “If you have nothing else to share, I will resume negotiations. Finalizing arrangements for you both will take some time, I imagine. Someone will bring you food at some point.”

  She drifted toward the door, her skirt swirling around her legs and jeweled chains serenading her every movement. Her guards trailed behind her, wary gazes on the captives.

  Seiya struggled to find her voice, to come up with something to say that could stop the events Maasehet was setting into motion, but she couldn’t think of a single thing. And then Maasehet was gone, the door closing behind her last guard and plunging the room back into shadow.

  Seiya staggered away from the bars and sank against the wall, her knees shaking. She couldn’t go back to Asphodel. She just couldn’t. She turned to Lyre, her whole body cold with dread.

  He stared back at her, his face still ghostly white.

  “Lyre,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “You need to make that spell work.”

  He nodded. Even though his expression was empty—almost numb—shadows of fear darkened his golden eyes.

  If he couldn’t, she would have to find a way to end her life before they could hand her over to Samael. Death was her only option besides escape. She was never going back to that living hell.

  CHAPTER 4

  SEIYA leaned back against the cold cement wall, her eyes half closed as she watched Lyre. With only the bars separating them, she could have reached through and touched his face if she’d wanted.

  He hunched over the chain in his hands, lips moving as he mumbled silently to himself. He’d been concentrating for hours, searching for a way to pull the tiniest touch of his magic past the dampening collar to trigger his spell.

  She studied him, focusing on the small details of his appearance as she fought to keep her panic under control. It simmered just beneath her thoughts; a single moment of weakness and it would overwhelm her. She would shade and go berserk with the need to escape. Without magic, shading would get her nowhere.

  Lyre’s pale hair gleamed in the dim light seeping through the tiny window. In spite of everything, his hair was somehow sexily tousled. Over the last hours, his complexion had gradually returned to its usual warm, golden brown, so striking against his cream-colored locks.

  He was a handsome man—of course, because he was an incubus—and irresistibly alluring to most women, but he didn’t have much of an effect on her. Maybe if he’d ever flirted with her the way he did with Piper, she would have felt some sort of lure, but he never had. At first, she’d been offended. Didn’t he find her attractive? Incubi flirted with all remotely good-looking women.

  She’d soon realized that he had for some reason categorized her in his mind as nonviable—as off limits. He wouldn’t flirt with her now or ever. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. She didn’t want him to flirt with her—all that innuendo and suggestive teasing he indulged in with Piper seemed irritating at best—but at the same time, a small part of her resented that she wasn’t worthy of his attention or efforts.

  Pulling her ponytail over her shoulder, she idly smoothed her hair as she watched him. Lyre and her brother were very good friends. A draconian and an incubus. Outlandish, Maasehet had said, and she was right. Seiya hadn’t understood it either, not until she’d seen Lyre unleash his deadly spelled arrows on Samael’s soldiers. Even then, many daemons were better warriors than him—as well as more powerful. But Ash didn’t just value Lyre for his abilities; he respected Lyre’s opinion above all others.

  Including hers.

  Her fingers closed into a tight fist around her ponytail. Ash always took Lyre’s advice over hers, and over the last two months, while hiding together, it had grated on her like nothing else. But her brother didn’t trust easily, and she was realizing now that she should have been paying more attention to Lyre and what made him worthy of that kind of trust.

  With a frustrated exhalation, Lyre lowered his hands. He tipped his head back, resting it against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  “Anything?” she asked. Her voice sounded loud in her ears. She hadn’t spoken in hours, not wanting to break his concentration.

  He shook his head. “I need to take a break, then I’ll try again. I’m sure I can crack it.”

  She nodded slowly. “Lyre ... if we can’t escape, I need to ask you a favor.”

  His eyes opened, golden irises sliding toward her.

  “If we can’t escape and they come for me, I need you to kill me.”

  He didn’t even flinch. “You have weapons under your glamour. You don’t need me.”

  She dropped her gaze, shame infusing her. “I’m afraid that ... that I’ll hesitate. And they’ll stop me, and then it’ll be too late.”

  He sighed. “We got you out before. We can do it again.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t ever go back. I can’t let Samael have that kind of power over Ash again.”

  “I won’t kill you.”

  She nodded again. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

  “Seiya ...”

  She turned her head away, hiding her face in shadow as she bit her lip against a tremor of fear. If she had to, she would do it—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of dying. Everyone was afraid of dying.

  He said nothing more. They sat quietly for a few minutes, the silence pressing in on her. She turned back to him. His eyes were closed again, exhaustion aging him. She wondered how old he was. Incubi retained their youth for decades longer than humans. His appearance said nothing about his actual age.

  She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “So how bad is it for you?”

  He raised an eyebrow without opening his eyes.

  “Your family. You turned whiter than snow as soon as she mentioned the
m.”

  With an annoyed grunt, he folded his arms. “I’m not about to fall on a sword to spite them, but I might try to kill them. They’ll probably be expecting it though.”

  “Sounds friendly.”

  He shrugged.

  “An impressive pedigree,” she murmured, recalling Maasehet’s words. “Does that mean I would recognize your family name?”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched but he still didn’t open his eyes. She scrutinized him, wracking her brain for any well-known incubus families.

  “Any hints?” she asked.

  “Nope, but a suggestion.”

  “Oh? What?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  She recoiled from his acid tone. Glowering, she put her back to the wall. Anger and resentment simmered, mixing with dread. Fear for Ash boiled beneath it all. Where was he? Was he looking for her and Lyre? Or was he a prisoner as well—or already sold back to Samael? Everything had gone to hell and there was nothing she could do to fight back, not while trapped in this cell with a collar around her neck.

  “Do you still want to defend Piper?” she asked bitterly. “Your fate is no longer unaffected by her never-ending poor decisions.”

  “Would you grow the hell up?” Lyre exclaimed furiously, sitting up and turning to glare at her.

  Seiya sat up just as aggressively. “You don’t—”

  “I’ve had enough!” he snapped. “All you see is how dangerous Piper is to your brother. What you don’t see is that out of all of us, you are his greatest threat.”

  She froze, mouth open, her retort forgotten.

  “Your whole life,” he continued angrily, “there’s only been one person who’s mattered to you: your brother. And you seem to think that it’s the same for Ash, that no one else is important to him other than you. Well, guess what. Ash loves you, but he cares about other people too. He cares about Piper. Not in a superficial way either, but in a real, important way. And that’s not going to change.”

  He pointed at her. “You know Ash isn’t okay right now. You know he’s messed up from his last time in Asphodel. And two months with me and you didn’t do a damn thing to fix him. But Piper can help him. She’s already helping him.”

  “She hurts him more than she helps him! You were there when he tried to attack Miysis and almost killed her.”

  “Yeah, and you know what? Neither of us could have stopped him, but she did. You aren’t everything he needs. Piper is something he needs. And yeah, it’s gonna hurt him, and sometimes it’s the hardest damn thing, but love is like that.”

  She pressed her lips together, squeezing her hands into tight balls.

  Lyre gave his head a slow shake, the anger on his face fading. “Piper isn’t perfect, and Ash has ended up in some pretty messy shit because of her, but that’s on him, not her. He takes risks because he cares about her and wants to protect her.”

  His eyes went cold. “Right now, he needs her, and you’re sabotaging that.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  “I think you know why you really hate Piper. Ash means everything to you, but he keeps selfishly putting his life in danger for someone you don’t care about. If you can’t blame Piper for that, then you would have to blame Ash instead, and you don’t want to do that.”

  Seiya squeezed her eyes shut as Lyre’s words rung in her head.

  “He’s all I have,” she said hoarsely. “I just want him to live. Why does he keep trying to throw his life away for a stupid girl? Why doesn’t he love me enough to stay alive for me?”

  “He loves you more than his own life,” Lyre said quietly. “But he loves Piper too. Having to choose between the two of you is killing him.”

  “Why doesn’t he just choose me? I’m his sister.”

  “Why should he have to choose at all? Why can’t he love and protect you both? Why can’t you protect what he loves too?”

  “I ...” She blinked rapidly, struggling for words.

  Lyre fell silent. She tightened her arms around her legs and turned her head away.

  Why should he have to choose? Piper was nothing but trouble. She was weak and her enemies were powerful. Ash would always stand between her and danger—just as he’d once stood between Seiya and danger.

  Ash was all she had—the only person she’d had in her life since her earliest memory. He was her reason for surviving, for fighting, so they could be free together. Without him, she had no one. No purpose. No future. No reason to keep going.

  But Ash had someone else to fight for. Someone else he was willing to die for. And Seiya hated Piper for that. She knew she had no right to feel that way—Piper had saved her and Ash from Samael—but if Seiya didn’t hate Piper for taking her brother away, then she would have to hate Ash for choosing Piper over her.

  Was Seiya really Ash’s greatest danger? By trying to separate him and Piper, was she putting his wellbeing in more danger than Piper was? Releasing a shuddering breath, she glanced at Lyre. He’d closed his eyes again.

  “How do you see so much?” she mumbled. “You hardly know me ...”

  He peeked at her with one eye, his eyebrow arched. “To seduce women, one must understand women.”

  She snorted. “You don’t need to understand women to seduce them. You just need to flirt with them.”

  He shrugged.

  “When did you learn to be so observant?”

  “Long time ago. It was a necessary survival skill.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Observing others was crucial for figuring out when people might try to kill me.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t know the life of an incubus was so fraught with peril.”

  “You learn new things every day.”

  She studied him in silence for a long minute, thinking of the open, unfaltering trust between him and Ash. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I admit I have treated Piper unkindly,” she said tersely, “but I have never betrayed anyone’s trust or confidence.”

  He opened his eyes and turned to her. She tensed, muscles going hard with readiness—his eyes had gone completely black.

  “Unkindly?” he repeated, his voice deepening into a growl. “Is that how you describe almost killing her?”

  Seiya met his ebony stare, surprised by his sudden lethal temper, but held her ground. “I only threatened her. I was trying to scare her.”

  “Is that how you describe it? It looked a hell of a lot more like an outright murder attempt to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The path along the cliff. Piper’s fall.”

  She blinked at him before realizing what he meant. “You think I did that? That I arranged it?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No! Piper saved me and Ash from Asphodel. I would never repay that debt with death.”

  He watched her in silence, his disbelief heavy in the air.

  “I can’t believe this,” she snarled, launching to her feet.

  He shot up at her sudden movement, an instinctive reaction while shaded.

  “All I ever did was threaten her! I never wanted her to die, or even get hurt. I just wanted her to go away.”

  “Killing someone is the best way to make them go away.”

  She felt it closing in around her, edging closer—shading. She took a deep breath, pushing her fury down.

  “I would never do such a thing. Ash considers her his responsibility. I would never hurt him like that.”

  Lyre’s eyes lightened just slightly as he considered her. “You pulled Ash back before he could grab her.”

  “I mistimed. It was a reflex.” She swallowed hard as the accident played out in her mind again. “It was a mistake. I told Ash that. I told him I was sorry.”

  He flexed his jaw. “If you didn’t set that trap, who did? No one else wanted Piper dead but you.”

  “I do not want her dead. And who says the trap was meant for h
er?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Ra daemons went first. Who was next in line?”

  “Me.”

  “Exactly.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “If Miysis planned to betray us from the start,” she said, “you were the wild card. Getting rid of you while making it look like an accident would have been to his advantage. You must have stepped over the trigger or something, and it got Piper instead.”

  Finally, his eyes returned to gold. He heaved a sigh and sat back down. Rubbing a hand over his knuckles, he frowned at the bars of his cell. “If we’d pulled our heads out of our asses and set our squabbling aside from the start, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Seiya nodded as she sank down as well, leaning against the wall. That was probably as close to an apology as she would get. “We screwed up royally, didn’t we?”

  “We did. But we’ll get out of it, one way or another.”

  She didn’t answer. The “other” way involved a grave, for her at least. She was not going back to Asphodel.

  Lyre gave her a long, penetrating look. “You’re stronger than you think. You could survive it.”

  “Do you have some kind of super incubus mind reading ability?”

  He huffed a short chuckle. “No.”

  “Did you invent a mind-reading spell?”

  “I wish.”

  She grimaced. “That must mean I’m embarrassingly transparent then.”

  Another chuckle. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Your deception skills just aren’t quite up to the same level as my family.”

  She glanced at him, biting back the urge to question him.

  “Going back to that life ...” He was quiet for a moment, eyes distant with memories of the past. “My family takes competitiveness to whole new heights.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “Part of the reason. I wasn’t as talented as my siblings, so I was always going to be on the losing end. Being smarter than them could only protect me for so long.”

  She frowned. “How could you be smarter than them but less talented? What was this talent they valued so much?”