He started for the bed with a viselike grip around my wrist.
“No!”
The very thought sent me into hysterical panic. I struggled, despite the compulsion threatening to break me in half as I tried to bend away. Furious pounding echoed from the outer door, growing more incessant. Danté laughed, whether at my vain struggle or at the one who I could guess was banging for entrance to this macabre place, I wasn’t sure.
I punched toward his throat while trying to wriggle out of his grip. He slid sideways in a fluid, sinuous motion, tackling me to the white fur rug. His strength far surpassed his demon minions. Spreading his body atop me, he pinned my wrists above my head, leering from blood-red eyes. He smiled, all sharpened teeth and elongated canines. My heartbeat sped in terrified alarm, the rabbit once again caught so easily by the cat. His cold aura scraped against my skin.
“You think I care about the hunter’s fixation on you? It’s so perfect, it’s almost poetic. I’m amused just thinking of it,” he said, laughing between serrated teeth. “I know you want him. There’s no doubt he wants you. The fallen are forever looking heavenward. It’s so obscene.” He paused to run his tongue along my neck. I bucked to push him away. That wicked laugh again before he pierced me with a bloody gaze. “Please, with my permission, take him to bed. Go for a nice long ride. Then you’ll be perfectly ripe for the taking. I don’t mind sharing, just that one time. One time is all it will take,” he gloated, “and you’ll be mine forever.”
He bent to kiss me. I twisted away violently, disturbed at his body pressing intimately against mine. No, not my body. Just my soul. Just my soul? I struggled insanely to get free. The pounding ensued downstairs, growing louder and louder. Danté nuzzled my neck in a grotesque action of playfulness. I realized I was crying, petrified and panicked. Then something tingled inside.
I shut my eyes, searching in the dark. There it was, a glimmer of white, sparkling silver deep within. I called to it, praying the words of protection in my mind. A swish of silky blonde hair brushed my cheek in memory. Swathed in my mother’s embrace, she cooed soft words from long ago. Shining, beating brighter, a moonbeam pulsed out and out. The enraged pounding downstairs grew more relentless, rebounding through the castle. Sharp pain in my wrists as Danté repositioned and bound them both in one hand. I battled to regain a hold on my VS, but he was too strong, overriding my thoughts with his dominant will and piercing pain.
He gripped my jaw, snapping my face toward him. “Open your eyes, Genevieve!”
The compulsion to obey him tore a streak of pain through me when I refused, a whip licking bare skin. My VS was building, growing from that inner place. He pressed his lips against mine, grinding to try to open my mouth. My scream muffled between our lips, I wrenched my face away. His free hand roved and squeezed as he hissed in my ear.
“I’m not done with you yet. Open your eyes and look at your master.”
I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I’d never get away if I did. Burning pain seared down my spine, the penalty for fighting his will.
“Ahh!”
“It hurts, doesn’t it, baby?” His voice had lost every ounce of civility, now only the grating of a monster. “I can make it worse. Much, much worse.”
An agonizing sharp stab bowed my back. I screamed. He chuckled.
“Open your eyes.” A sultry command, like the voice of a lover.
I did, peering into the blood-red gaze of a true monster. Tears streaked hot from my eyes, slipping into my hairline.
“There now. Relax.”
I stopped struggling. The pain ebbed when I obeyed his will.
“That’s my girl.” He pecked a light kiss on my cheek, pressing his body harder against mine. I stiffened. “No need to fear. We’ll wait for our first coupling when your body and soul are one.” His grin cut a sinister line across his beautiful face. “Now, as for your soul, I believe I will take a taste.”
His lips pressed to mine and pried them open. When his tongue swept in, my mind folded inward. The sensation of being flipped inside out melted over me. I tried to suck in a breath, but no air came, as if I were paralyzed, as if I’d lost all control of myself. Then…
Darkness. Nothing but infinite darkness. I could breathe again. So cold here. But I wasn’t alone. He followed me. No. He brought me here. His presence—a web of tangible evil wrapped me in his net. If I moved, he sensed the motion, following with stealth. His cold breath brushed the back of my neck. His voice was a hollow echo in this place.
“Mmm… You’re even lovelier on the inside.” Panic gripped me hard. He was inside me, his ghastly essence strangling my soul, taking hold of me from within. His voice, a sibilant whisper, breathed close to my ear, “So many delectable memory scars.”
A flickering of light, then I stood in my mother’s studio. I was nine years old, braids in my hair, eyes wide and staring at the horrifying canvas before me, the paint still wet. In a vast ocean of blue, nude bodies of dead women and children floated on the waves, bloated in death, hungry shadows lurking beneath them. In the sky, a bright golden sun shone in mockery of the floating dead. My mother stepped from her washroom, drying her hands.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t hear you come in.” She stepped behind me, resting one hand on my shoulder as we both gazed at the horror in oils. She brushed a hand down my back, a soothing gesture of hers. I trembled before her artwork. “Remember, death is always waiting for the innocents. Waiting to reach up and pull us down to the world below.”
“Lily! What are you doing?”
I spun, finding my father in the doorway, his expression dark, his posture tight.
“Just showing our daughter my latest work.”
He stormed across the studio. “You are never to show her this so-called art of yours.”
“Why keep her from the truth? Evil lurks. I want her to be aware.”
“Are you crazy!”
I pressed my hands to my ears as the arguing escalated to shouts. I backed to the doorway till I was outside and running from their raging voices.
Darkness again. Coldness seeped through me.
“No,” I whispered, still shrouded in night, constricted by ropes of Danté’s making.
“There are so many to choose from,” he hissed. “How about this one?”
Another fluttering of light, and I stood in the hallway of my middle school, opening my locker. Brenda Blakely hovered a few feet away with a gaggle of girls. I’d beaten Brenda for the last spot on the girls’ soccer team the week before. One of her friends whispered something inaudible.
“I don’t know,” replied Brenda. “Her mom jumped off the Mississippi Bridge. Who could she possibly bring to the Mother/Daughter Tea? She’s probably crazy too. Like mother, like daughter.”
They giggled. I slammed the locker door and walked away, refusing to let the burning tears fall.
I never did go to the Tea. Never even mentioned it to my dad. One of many events I’d forego because she chose to step off that bridge.
The black enveloped me for a split second before I was once more standing inside a painful memory. “No,” I said the second I realized where I was—the cemetery where we’d memorialized my mother with a stone marker. The swirling eddies of the Mississippi had never borne her body up. We were left engraving her name in marble and visiting this empty plot next to where my father would one day lie.
I was sixteen and had come home a day early from a beach vacation with Mindy, knowing how depressed Dad could get near their anniversary. I’d found empty beer bottles and old photograph albums open on the kitchen table. But no Dad. I’d waited for hours, but he’d never come home. I’d called his friends. No luck. Seeing the evidence strewn about the house, I’d finally found him here, stretched out in front of her headstone.
“Dad.”
He jerked up, eyes rimmed with red. He burst into tears. Never had he shown such emotion in front of me. Never had I seen my strong father reduced to such despair. I knelt down and hugged him. His shoulders
shook with sobs.
“Why wasn’t I enough for her?” he cried, heartbreaking anguish in his voice.
“Dad, no. She loved you. She did.” Hot tears welled in my eyes.
“But not enough,” was the desolate reply.
My soul screamed and ran from the memory, remembering that I’d also felt I was never enough. She chose death over us.
“No more,” I whispered into the pitch black. Malevolence skated along my skin, petting me. “Please. No more.”
Invisible arms wrapped me in an embrace. I held still, unable to fight or struggle, wanting only the peace of mindless oblivion.
The sensation of folding inward again and falling fast through an even darker hole made me nauseous. I gagged as if someone were choking me, the stranglehold of Danté releasing my soul then…candlelight.
I lay beneath him as before. He still had my wrists pinned with one hand, laughing down with undisguised mirth. “Your fear is a powerful aphrodisiac.” His other hand roamed down my rib cage. “Just imagine when you are good and mine, the pleasure we’ll share.” The painting of the floating dead flashed to mind, and I realized what it would mean to be a Vessel for a demon prince. Not only would I be forced to commit his atrocities, I’d be corrupted into relishing the evil deeds.
“No,” I said, jerking my arms, testing his hold.
“No?” He stilled, his fangs elongating. “I grow rather weary of that word.” Hard lust glinted in his eyes. His hand clasped the top of my gown and ripped, tearing it down the middle.
“No!” I screamed, wrenching one hand free and grappling to push him away. He was too strong.
A flash of sharp fangs. His teeth sank into the tender hollow of my neck below my jaw, penetrating me with frost-numbing pain. He groaned with sick pleasure, sucking at my neck viciously. A strangled scream reverberated against the walls. My own.
The pounding on the outer door snapped me away from the brink of insanity. Danté had violated my mind, my soul. He’d take no more.
Amid the cesspool of potent fear and pain I was drowning in, a flicker of light, a tattered thought, buoyed its way to the surface, up to the moon-brightness. He would not take all of me. He would not take all of me. Righteous fury flared into a building burn as my lips said the words.
“Flamma intus.”
With a blinding flash, my VS exploded in a burst of silver white. Danté flew off me and crashed half across the dining table. China shattered, silver scattered, and a candelabrum knocked to the floor, snuffing out the candles. He stared with wide, gray eyes, half-dazed, bewilderment plastered on his face. His fierce expression, hard and dangerous, jarred me into action.
I leapt to my feet and sprinted out the door, not caring that the torn gown fell half off my body and flew behind me in torn strips. Practically stumbling down the steps, I scraped bare feet and toes on the cold stone. I followed the hammering echoes—down, down, down. It was only one flight of stairs, but a chill wind brushed my back. No! Leaping the last few steps in one bound, I made it to the giant black door, which swung backward at my touch.
There on bended knees was Jude. Fists tightly clenched and so, so bloody. His head snapped up, black gaze tormented with despair and helpless rage. Bursting onto his feet, he took in my state of undress as I teetered on the threshold of the door, dazed and terror-stricken. He grabbed me by the shoulders, gaze flicking behind me, and yanked me roughly into his arms. A gust of cool wind slammed the massive black door with a resounding boom, but not before I heard the distinct, smug sound of lilting laughter.
Chapter Nineteen
Sifting through space, Jude crushed me in his arms, no chance of letting go and losing me in the Void. Iron-clad armor covered me like a blanket of steel. In a state of shock, I held on and kept my eyes closed, oblivious to any motion sickness that normally twisted my stomach when sifting. I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to erase the images of Danté. Impossible.
I don’t know how long we sifted, but when the sensation of falling had stopped, I opened my eyes to see my body, still as death, tucked safely in bed, one arm hanging over the edge. Jude quickly laid my spirit literally on top of my still, solid form. Darkness behind closed lids for a split second before I opened them and sucked in a lungful of air. Whole again.
That elusive feeling of transparency had vanished. Back in my skin in my own room with Jude standing above me, I sat up and burst into tears. Abruptly, he had me on my feet in his arms. Panicked, I pushed away. He pulled me close and sifted out again.
What? Where is he taking me?
I beat and shoved, trying to break free of his tight grasp. My hair whipped wildly. The dark Void sucked at me when I put distance between myself and Jude, drawing me toward windy oblivion. I almost wanted to go. He manacled my wrists, yanking me toward him.
“No!” My scream echoed in the abyss.
Gray shapes blurred past, some drawing closer, as if curious, whispering. I kicked and punched, managing to free one hand. Jude spun me by the other wrist, pinning me against him, my back to his chest.
The vacuum released me, and we were standing in Jude’s living room.
“Let me go!”
He did. Still, I spun with force and cuffed him under the jaw with the heel of my hand. He didn’t resist or restrain me as I rained blows on him, one very hard across the cheek. I don’t know why I hit him. My mind knew it wasn’t his fault, but my body didn’t care. The fierce hatred boiling to the surface needed release. And he was there, standing and taking it when I needed something to beat.
I finally took several steps away from him, my chest heaving in gasping breaths, hot tears spilling down my cheeks.
“Why did you bring me here? I want—”
“Genevieve, it’s safer here.”
Jude’s voice was thick with emotion I’d never heard before—his words tight and hard. I didn’t give a shit. My body started shaking, teeth chattering with grief and anger thrumming through my veins.
“Safe?” I choked on a laugh, my sardonic tone biting the air. “Safe? I’m not safe! Not here, not with you! Not anywhere!”
His eyes, devoid of all color but the darkest pitch, glared with seething anger. Tangible rage beat off of him in a misty, black aura. This only incited me more.
“How, Jude? How did he get to me? You promised,” I sobbed, “you promised he couldn’t soul-sift me again.”
He stepped toward me. I took a giant step back, bumping against the fireplace, where something poked my shoulder. I jumped at the carven image of the writhing dragon that wrapped the wooden mantel. My mind shifted, seeing another one, deep red with amorphous eyes…feeling the white fur carpet against my bare back…the bronzed creature looming over me with a sinister grin. Disgust and horror permeated every fiber, though I felt no bruising on my wrists or neck, no memory of Danté’s dark invasion. I sighed a shaky breath, trying desperately to forget the visceral image and feel of him invading my mind and soul.
“He’s grown in power,” Jude began, his own breathing labored. “My cast of protection should’ve kept him at bay. But somehow, he circumvented it. I’m—” He paused. His gaze dropped from me to the floor as if he couldn’t stand to look at me, his bloody fists clenched. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t even begin to touch how I feel.” Voice trembling, I turned away. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“What?” His shoulders squared to rigid stone. His gaze was the same.
I ignored his question, unable to keep Danté’s hateful threats from spewing from my mouth. “You know, he talked about you.”
Jude moved closer. There was nowhere for me to go. I tipped my chin up defiantly.
“What”—his voice grating like steel on stone—“did he say?”
“He told me you would be the one to deliver me to him—body and soul. ‘On a silver platter’ were his exact words.”
If black could burn, there would’ve been fire in his eyes. The darker shadow hovering around Jude swelled outward. “And how would
I go about doing that?”
He edged closer, now only a foot away. My pulse raced.
“He said you’d seduce me because you couldn’t help yourself. He even encouraged me to do it, to, how did he put it? ‘Take a nice long ride.’” Bitterness leaked from every word, but I couldn’t stop. “Of course, he’d only let you fuck me the one time, because that’s all it would take to ‘taint’ me before I’d become his play toy forever.”
Jude gripped my arms, squeezing long fingers into bare flesh. “Do you think I would do that?” he asked, voice vibrating with fury.
I shrugged. His fingers clenched tighter.
“Fuck you and leave you for him? Is that what you think I’d do?” A vein pulsed at his throat that I’d never noticed before, but of course, I’d never seen this Jude—completely, absolutely consumed with burning hatred. It might have even matched mine.
My heart pounded furiously against my rib cage. I wanted to scream, but my instincts pulled me into a morbidly calm place. “Let go of me, Jude,” I enunciated softly. My eerily gentle tone spun him into madness.
“I couldn’t get you out!” He released me with a jerk. “I couldn’t fucking stop him!”
His fists came down in a thunderous crash on the mantel behind me. A resounding crack split the dragon down the middle, his jaw stretching in a grotesque yawn.
The silent aftermath made my quiet words even more cruel.
“No. You couldn’t,” I said, watching him try to regain control with his palms splayed on the wall above the mantel, his head bowed between broad shoulders. “And neither could I. Not until he held me down and possessed me, forcing me to relive my most painful past, showing me how easily he could take me and do what he wanted.”
Jude flinched, jerking upright, frozen in place. Horror bent his features into fearsome, hard lines. Whatever stormed inside of him was nowhere near what raged inside of me. But the truth cut deep, and I knew we would both bleed from this wound for a long, long time.
I walked away, went into his bedroom and slammed the door behind me, locking it. Though he could sift in any time he wanted, I knew he’d get the message.
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