by Jane Kindred
“Thanks. Just give me an estimate—”
Rafe cut her off firmly. “Family doesn’t pay.” He winked. “Yes, I caught that comment. You called me family.” As he opened the door, Phoebe and the twins peered in, huddled outside like a brood of hens.
Rhea muscled her way past Rafe, looking disappointed. “Is the dragon gone?”
Ione grabbed her and spun her back around to face the door. “He is, and so are you.”
“But—”
Phoebe tucked an arm around Rhea’s shoulder. “Come on. We can all go out for breakfast somewhere. The guy doesn’t need the entire Carlisle clan hovering around him. He’s been through enough.” She cast a glance at Ione. “Though I wouldn’t mind a peek—”
“No peeks.” Ione ushered them onto the doorstep and pulled the door closed behind her. “I can’t thank you guys enough, though. I don’t know what I would have done.” She smiled at Theia, standing behind the others. “Even if I did tell you not to tell anyone else.”
Theia shrugged. “You’re welcome. Just stop shooting things. Plus, I made fifty dollars.” Rhea opened her wallet to hand over two twenties and a ten to her twin, waggling her eyebrows at Ione with an evil grin.
Ione rolled her eyes. “Okay, get out of here. All of you.”
Phoebe took Rafe’s hand and headed for her Jeep, throwing a look at Ione over her shoulder before she got in. “I will be getting all of the details from you later.”
Ione stepped inside and closed the door.
* * *
Stabbing pain in his arm and a hangover that felt like a Mack truck had run him over greeted Dev as he opened his eyes. Pale evening light made soft shadows against a bedspread he didn’t recognize.
Dev sat up and gripped his head with a groan. Where the hell was he? As he turned to look around the immaculate bone-and-ivory room, the familiar pull of torn skin at his back made him wince.
Shite. Kur had gotten out. How the hell could he have gotten out? And how was he in? He had a vague recollection of someone chanting unfamiliar words at him while his sigil burned. Dev rubbed the mark below his breastbone, the edges raised and red, and pinched the bridge of his nose against the ache in his skull. The last thing he remembered was driving to the bar and—
“Oh, my God.”
A moment later Ione Carlisle appeared in the doorway. “Dev? Thank God, you’re awake.”
Dev’s eyes narrowed on her. “You.” He flung the covers off and threw his legs over the side of the bed, wincing again at the fiery pain in his left arm. He tugged his elbow forward to see the bandage taped over it and peeled the tape back. His head darted up. “Did you shoot me?”
Ione’s face flushed red. “I didn’t know I was shooting you at the time.”
And he hadn’t known he was having sex with Ione Carlisle at the time. “Did you do this on purpose?” Outrage propelled him to his feet.
Ione blinked at him, taking a step back in the doorway. “Do what? Turn you into a dragon? Yeah, I do that all the time.”
“You bloody well know what I mean. You lured me here, pretending to be someone else. Did you know about the demon?”
“What demon?”
“The sodding dragon!” Dev had crossed the room and grabbed her by the arm, inadvisably. There was an intense magical current running between them.
Ione recoiled and jerked her arm from his grasp. “I didn’t know anything about Kur. And I didn’t lure you here. I had no idea who you were when we met at the bar. The first time.”
“Ha!” He couldn’t help the outburst at that little three-word addition. Then the rest of her words sank in. He felt heat coming off his eyes almost as if they were Kur’s. Dev took a step closer, backing Ione against the door frame, one hand braced on the wall beside her head. “How do you know it calls itself Kur if you didn’t know about the demon?”
The gray-green eyes flashed defiantly as she glared up at him. “Because he told me—us.” She made a semi-strangled sound of exasperation in her throat, like she was trying not to swear. “He told my sister when she read your tattoo.”
“Your sister?” Dev’s head ached as he tried to process this. There had been someone trying to reach him inside Kur’s cage, someone communicating with the demon. And there had been...others. “What did you do, have a fucking party with my demon?” He made a grunt of surprise as Ione shoved him backward with both palms against his chest, that brief contact igniting the current like a ripple through his skin.
“Having a dragon tear my house apart and nearly rip my head off is not my idea of a party!” She shoved past him out of the room and Dev saw the landing behind her, the iron railing bent and torn away, and the gaping hole in the glass wall where the last of a magnificent sunset was fading over the rust-colored rocks. Ione paused on a spiral wooden staircase scored with claw marks to look back. “Your clothes are on the chair by the closet. And you’re fucking welcome.”
Dev turned and found his clothes laundered and folded, the belt neatly coiled on top. The belt he’d bound Kylie—Ione—to the bed with before he’d made her come till she was crying and then screwed her brains out. He dressed furiously, hissing at the pain of the claw marks at his back against the fabric of the T-shirt, holding on to the anger to keep the memory of those little kitteny sounds out of his head as he shoved his feet into his boots.
Pulling on his jacket, he clattered down the stairs to where Ione stood watching him from the edge of the living room, arms folded tightly around her.
Dev flung open the front door with a growl. “Send me a bill for the damage.”
Ione’s voice was perfectly calm. “You don’t have a car here.”
“I’ll get an Uber,” he snapped and then paused on the doorstep. “And I’m fucking welcome for what?”
Ione crossed to the door and grabbed the knob. “For saving your bloody life.”
The door slammed in his face.
* * *
Ione melted onto the bottom step of the spiral staircase and hung her head between her knees with her arms crossed over it. She’d expected things to be awkward, but that could not have gone worse. He thought she’d played him, deliberately hooking up with him at the bar—apparently par for the course in the long list of unethical practices he believed her capable of. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for the assumption, but the idea that he thought she’d done it to manipulate the demon inside him made her stomach churn.
Dev had turned her inside out, leaving her like a quivering bag of jelly. She hadn’t even had time to deal with how intense the sex had been. But now that the threat of danger from the dragon and the fear of Dev dying was past, all she could think about was how unexpected and amazing that connection had been. And Dev probably thought the entire thing was an act she’d put on just to get to his demon.
She raised her head, hands still clasped on top of her crown. “Who the hell has a demon? A demon?” Somehow the idea of a magical dragon had been easier to take. It was sort of romantic, the enchanted knight under a dragon spell, perhaps, to be released by true love’s kiss. But how had he managed to become bound to a demon? And who was he to judge her and report on her minuscule drop of demon blood while he was walking around sporting a full-on demonic possession? That was definitely against Covent doctrine.
Her phone rang, the Caller ID announcing Phoebe’s number. She wasn’t up to being ribbed by Phoebe for another sexual indiscretion. Her little sisters had been shocked to learn she’d been dating Carter Hamilton, but at least they hadn’t been able to tease her about it, given how despicable and deceptive he’d turned out to be. There was simply nothing amusing to rib her about. But annoyingly pious, stickler-for-the-rules big sister picking up a guy in a bar and accidentally releasing his secret dragon with a night of wild sex? That was Phoebe fodder she’d never hear the end of.
She let
the call go to the machine, sighing as she surveyed the wreckage of her living room. She’d managed to clean up some while Dev was sleeping, but the blood and the shattered glass were going to take a professional. Maybe Rafe would have some contacts in industrial cleanup.
Phoebe’s voice came over the machine as Ione got up to search the utility closet for heavy-duty rug cleaner. “Hey, it’s me. I forgot to tell you what I found out yesterday at Florence.”
Ione paused and turned toward the phone.
“It turns out the bag of dicks has been getting weekly visits from one person in particular. Someone calling herself Lorelei Carlisle. Seems a little too close to home, right? I ran a search and there was a Lorelei Carlisle living in the Phoenix area, but she passed away six weeks ago. What do you make of it? Think someone’s trying to cash in on the family name? Call me later and we’ll put our heads together.”
“Tell her the other thing,” Rhea—or maybe Theia—chimed in from the background.
“Oh, yeah. We have reservations for six at Blue Moon tonight at eight o’clock. You can bring your dragon boy as long as he doesn’t shift and go on a rampage.”
“We’ll make sure they serve raw steaks.” It was definitely Rhea. Ione sighed and went to get the cleaning supplies as the call ended.
* * *
After Rafe stopped by to board up the windows, Ione asked him to give her sisters her regrets for dinner. He didn’t ask about Dev, and she didn’t volunteer an explanation. Her sisters left increasingly annoying messages from the restaurant, trying to get her to change her mind, until she finally silenced the machine and the ringer in exasperation and went to bed.
Without the dragon’s presence downstairs or at the foot of the bed, knowing the house was wide-open made it impossible to sleep. Magical harm might be kept out by Rafe’s wards, and the alarm would be triggered if anyone tried to come in through the garage or the front or kitchen doors, but if an ordinary, determined prowler decided to go around back, he could yank out a plank and crawl in.
She fell asleep from exhaustion around dawn, waking after nine to the arrival of Rafe’s construction crew. They were extremely professional, asking no questions about how the glass and frame had been shattered and making no mention of the blood stains on the carpet she’d only been able to scrub to a dull pinkish-brown. One of them even straightened and re-anchored the railing on the landing while another reinforced the cracked frames on the bedroom and bathroom doors without a word. When they were finished, a cleaning crew showed up, ostensibly to clean up the glass and plaster and any sawdust the workers had left, but they also steam cleaned her rug and buffed out the scratches on the wooden stairs, which she was sure was why Rafe had really sent them.
Family or not, she’d have to repay him somehow. Money meant little to him—in addition to the thriving business, he owned two of the most astonishingly gorgeous properties in a town full of astonishingly gorgeous property, despite his preference for staying at Phoebe’s tiny 1950s ranch house—so Ione would have to come up with something other than cash. At least she could give the workers a sizable tip to express her gratitude for their efficiency and discretion.
They left her with an immaculate home that no one would have guessed had been the scene of a demonic dragon rampage the day before. It occurred to her that Diamante Construction might have a crew dedicated to such events. The Diamantes had been one of the founding families of the Mexican branch of the Covent. According to Rafe, journals belonging to Rafael Diamante Sr. had spoken—albeit in couched terms—of the legacy of the quetzal. Rafe’s transformation had been anticipated, though his father had never suspected the quetzal would be his own son.
But if feathered serpent god scions were an expected part of the world in which Covent families like the Diamantes lived, other arcane creatures most likely were, as well. Within the European branch of the Covent, Ione’s own ancestors had been known carriers of the recessive gene from which she’d inherited the blood of a demon. Creatures like Dev’s Kur, then, might be more common than she’d thought.
Dragons, demons and divine scions had belonged only to the realm of myth and allegory for Ione just a few months ago. Now they’d become shockingly commonplace. More than ever, the events of the last forty-eight hours made her long for the comfort of the church, even as she felt less worthy of it.
The invitation to apprentice at the Covent had come a few months after the death of her parents, when her responsibilities had been slowly subsuming her individuality. She’d jumped at the chance to prove herself as something other than a substitute mother. She’d practiced her own eclectic version of the Craft in her teens, but with her formal studies, the reality of how far she’d drifted from the laws of the church had finally sunk in. Ione had been too ashamed to attend Mass and take Holy Communion, so she’d compromised by taking part in the weekly Taizé prayer service at the Chapel of the Holy Cross. But since discovering she had demon blood, Ione had stayed away.
Tonight was Taizé night and the service was in an hour. Ione had never needed it more.
After straightening her hair and dressing in a long, cream-colored silk skirt with a pair of knee-length black boots and a lightweight black sweater, she headed out. The chapel was just north of Covent Temple, four miles from her place, tucked into the rocks at the top of a winding road. She could see the temple from the chapel parking lot. Though, thanks to the glamour, she knew the white spires were passed over by the eyes of the rest of the tourists and visitors taking pictures from the gorgeous vantage point. It was a constant reminder to her of who she really was, and she always took a moment to acknowledge it when heading in to prayer services.
Ione sat in the back row of the simple wooden pews, the atmosphere completely different from that of the temple. Soft light passed through the chapel in a straight path from the patchwork of leaded panes on the front and back walls of the A-frame building. The flames flickering within the red votive glasses lining the altar on either side added to the gilded effect of the early evening light. Even without the singing, this moment was magical for Ione in a way no temple ritual could ever achieve.
A few minutes before the service began, Ione turned at a tap on her shoulder to find a sweet-looking older woman standing behind the pew.
She gave Ione a tentative smile. “Are you Ione Carlisle?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
The woman handed her a folded note and the smile faded as her eyes focused on the pentacle Ione had forgotten to tuck into her sweater. “God may welcome all, and far be it from me to tell anyone they shouldn’t attend the services here, but true children of God don’t dabble in all this New Age pagan nonsense. It’s nothing more than devil worship prettied up with crystals and chimes. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She was too shocked to respond as the woman moved away to one of the side benches and fixed her with a disapproving glare. Ione opened the note. Beneath a hand-drawn red pentagram were the words “damnatum cum diabolo, et angelis ejus, et omnibus reprobis in ignem aeternum.” They were part of an excommunication ritual declaring a person anathema for heresy. If she remembered her Latin correctly, it translated as “condemned with the devil and his angels and all the wicked into everlasting fire.” In case she hadn’t understood the reference, the note writer had added the more recognizable final invocation of the ritual in English. “Ring the bell. Close the book. Quench the candle.”
She didn’t need to see the signature to know whom this had come from. Which meant Nemesis might still be there.
Slipping her purse strap up onto her shoulder, Ione rose, trying to make the movement casual despite the heat in her face. As she approached the deliverer of the note, the woman pursed her lips and glowered, her expression as unwelcoming as it could possibly be. She turned her head when she saw Ione wouldn’t be deterred and pretended to be intently interested in something at the front of the altar.
The older woman turned. “I’m sorry?” She clearly was not.
Ione waved the note in her hand. “Someone gave this to you to give to me. Who was it? Are they still here?”
Seeing Ione wasn’t going to let it go, the woman lifted her chin, though it wavered slightly—she obviously hadn’t expected to be challenged. “A young woman who is evidently one of your ilk.”
Ione ignored the slight. “What woman? What did she look like?”
“I only promised to hand you the note. I don’t know her. Or you.”
“But you didn’t mind reading correspondence between two people you don’t know and making judgments about them.”
The woman reddened, glancing at the people seated near her as if they might defend her from this obviously deranged person. “I believe she was short, dark hair in a sort of pageboy cut.” She leaned toward Ione as if delivering a confidence. “Said she belonged to your coven.” She hissed the final word as though she’d been forced to say “whore” in the middle of a church service. “She left as soon as she gave me the note and I’ll thank you to do the same and stop harassing me.” Apparently believing she’d now turned the tables, she drew herself up straight. “And take your disgusting little satanic incantation with you.”
They’d attracted the attention of everyone around them. Sound carried in the little chapel. There was no point in telling the woman the words were part of a Catholic ritual and not a pagan one. The end result was the same.
Ione tucked the note into her purse and walked to the door with as much dignity as she could, going against the grain of those still coming in. Though it was difficult not to be noticed given the chapel windows now illuminating her back with the shadow of the cross within a golden arc of light. Luckily, she’d parked at the top of the hill, so it wasn’t a long walk of shame.