The Night Realm

by Annette Marie

  In another cycle or two, Clio would return to her world, and he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. Short of repeating the circumstances of their last encounter, he was sure his self-restraint would be sufficient. But he couldn’t forget the driving hunger that had overwhelmed him, so demanding it had been all he could do to contain his aphrodesia so he didn’t harm her. He didn’t want to test his willpower around her a second time.

  He wasn’t like Madrigal. He didn’t want to be like Madrigal. And he didn’t want to hurt Clio.

  For now, he’d keep his distance. She would have to handle Madrigal on her own, but considering she’d blasted Lyre off her like a total pro, not to mention her escape from Dulcet, he wasn’t too concerned. She wasn’t as helpless as she’d first appeared.

  So, he would maintain his distance while keeping an eye on her—and on Madrigal and Dulcet. No need to take chances. Soon enough, she would leave his world and return to hers, where she would be safe.

  Then he would figure out why the safety of a random Overworlder was so damn important to him all of the sudden. Why Madrigal seducing her had enraged him. Why he’d chased after her and risked a confrontation with Dulcet to protect her. And why he was planning to watch over her like she was somehow his responsibility.

  But for now, he didn’t want to think about it.

  Clio sat at the table in the inn suite. Kassia and Eryx stood on either side of her. Together, they stared at the invitation lying open on the tabletop.

  “You can’t not go,” Eryx said, breaking the tense silence.

  “But she can’t actually go,” Kassia shot back. “That’s an invitation from Samael.”

  Clio shuddered at the name. Samael, warlord of Hades, head of the foremost reaper family, ruler of the most powerful Underworld territory. And de facto owner of Chrysalis.

  “I already agreed to go.” She propped her chin on her hands, elbows braced on the edge of the table as she gazed gloomily at the paper. “It will look even worse if I back out.”

  “We’ll request to return to Earth immediately,” Kassia said. “Chrysalis might not know about this invitation or that you’re expected to attend. We’ll have them return us to the ley line before the eclipse.”

  “And grievously insult the Hades family?” Eryx shook his head. “You’re overreacting, Kassia. It’s a political function, not an abandoned warehouse. There will be a ton of daemons there.”

  “Underworld daemons. Hades allies.”

  “As far as Hades knows, we’re well on our way to becoming another ally. They want to make nice.”

  Clio craned her neck to look at the two chimeras. “Since there will be a bunch of unknown daemons there, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you two to accompany me. That’s why you’re here, after all.”

  Kassia frowned. “If we can come with you … it will still be risky, but we can make sure Hades doesn’t try anything aggressive.”

  “Excellent.” Eryx dusted his hands together as though the matter was settled. “Now we just have to figure out how to find those prototypes in Chrysalis while we wait for our commission.”

  Kassia folded her arms. “Clio isn’t going off by herself again. Not after that ‘Dulcet’ incubus almost captured her.”

  Eryx nodded, his agreement surprising Clio. He strode the length of the small room, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Kassia hovered beside Clio’s chair, watching her cousin with narrowed eyes.

  Clio massaged her temples to soothe her headache. She’d told them about sneaking off and getting caught by Dulcet, but she hadn’t mentioned Lyre. She also hadn’t mentioned what Madrigal had done—and tried to do—in the meeting room. Humiliation crawled under her skin. She couldn’t admit to Eryx that an incubus had so easily seduced her with his magic.

  “Kass or I need to go with Clio,” he muttered, more to himself than them as he scrubbed at his shaggy red hair. “It’s too dangerous for Clio to wander by herself. She doesn’t have the training for stealth work. Maybe we should sneak in while they’re closed.”

  Clio worried the hem of her shirt. “But if they catch us, we’ll have zero plausible deniability. If I’m caught where I shouldn’t be when I’m already there, I can claim I got lost.”

  “Also keep in mind,” Kassia added, “we need their help to leave this world. If we’re implicated in anything, they could refuse to let us leave. It’s better to wait for the commissioned spell and leave it at that.”

  Eryx stopped pacing and planted his hands on his hips. “But these prototypes are probably the best magic Chrysalis can create. It might be significantly better than what they’ll make for us.”

  “Searching for them puts everything at risk, including Clio.” Kassia’s eyes blazed. “Her life is more important than any spell, and we’re already at a disadvantage. This isn’t like any mission you or I have done or trained for. There’s no way out of this place if things go wrong.”

  Biting her lip, Clio looked back to the letter on the table without seeing it. Instead, she saw gleaming, deranged amber eyes. She felt cold fingers squeezing her neck, cutting off her air.

  I know how to make you scream for me all night long.

  She forcefully cleared her throat, dispelling the phantom pressure, and rose to her feet. “I need to lie down.”

  Leaving Kassia and Eryx to argue, Clio retreated to the bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed on the bed. After a moment, she curled into a ball and hugged the blankets to her chest.

  The bright day had passed and a strange semi-darkness lay over the land like a blanket of cool shadows, warning of the long Underworld night to come. But though it had been hours, the fear was still lodged in the base of her spine like a block of ice that refused to melt.

  Dulcet throwing her into the shelves, choking her. Whispering reverently in her ear about his pain weavings. Hitting her with that weakening leech ailment and stalking her through the halls, a patient hunter confident he would capture his prey.

  Delayed tears flowed down her cheeks and she wept into the pillow as the terror replayed in her head.

  And then Lyre had saved her. His spell had hidden them. She was pretty sure the weaving had created an illusion that matched whatever he was seeing—the reason he’d stared so intently at the blank wall.

  Lyre’s, and Dulcet’s, utter mastery of magic had left her feeling woefully incompetent. Clearly, their titles were well earned. How many years of study did it take to gain such skill? How much of it was natural talent? Seven brothers … seven master weavers.

  With their unique astral perception, nymphs were considered excellent weavers in the Overworld, but she’d never seen anything like what Lyre and his brothers could do. And it wasn’t just weaving complex spells into disks or doors or collars. Dulcet had counteracted her attacks with laughable ease, his on-the-spot casting as strong as his advanced weaving. She’d studied thousands of casts and weaves, but the difference in their skill lay in ‘seeing’ versus ‘understanding.’ She could see magic in all its shapes and forms, but the master weavers understood those shapes and forms on a deep, intrinsic level.

  A soft tap sounded on the bedroom door. Wiping her eyes, Clio called, “Yes?”

  Kassia slipped inside and closed the door. She sat on the edge of the bed, looked Clio over head to toe, then leaned back against the headboard.

  “Tell me what else happened,” she murmured.

  Clio winced, then flopped onto her back. No point in denying it. In a tremoring whisper, she first told Kassia what Madrigal had done. Fear slithered through her at the memory, and in some ways, the seductive incubus frightened her more than Dulcet’s psychopathic violence. Dulcet she had fought, even if she hadn’t been effective.

  But against Madrigal … she had been helpless. She hadn’t even tried to fight him. And if the messenger hadn’t interrupted, she probably wouldn’t have resisted whatever Madrigal had wanted to do.

  “Bastard,” Kassia hissed when Clio had finished describing the meeting. “Slimy bast
ard to infect you with his magic like that.”

  “I shouldn’t have let my guard down,” Clio mumbled.

  Kassia squeezed her hand. “You’ll know for next time. Or you can insist Eryx and I come with you.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Lyre told me afterward that—”

  “Lyre told you? When did you see him?”

  “Um. Well.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and hid her face against them. “I didn’t escape Dulcet by myself.”

  She explained how Lyre had saved her, and his pointers on how to defend against Madrigal. But she trailed off after that, memories flashing and heat rising through her body. Lyre pressing her into the wall. His warm, hard body, his hand on her hip. His mouth on her neck.

  His ravenous black eyes.

  “What else?” Kassia prompted. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Clio grimaced into her knees. She couldn’t hide anything from Kassia, could she? Haltingly, she described how Lyre had hidden her from the passing daemons … and what had happened afterward.

  When she fell silent again, Kassia let out a long exhale. “I’m glad you escaped him as well.”

  “But he … he saved me.”

  “He did. But any daemon in that state is a danger. If he wasn’t an incubus, with an incubus’s nature, he might have been seconds away from tearing out your throat instead of tearing off your clothes.”

  Clio flinched at that dramatic imagery—both parts.

  Kassia stretched her arms above her head. “I know you nymphs are pacifists at heart, but trust me. He could have switched from lust to bloodlust at any moment.” She cast a hard look at Clio. “And even if it had been safe, you didn’t come here to sleep around with incubi. It’s dangerous no matter what.”

  “I wasn’t going to—I never would have—” She spluttered into silence, then glowered at the bed covers. “Besides. Being a virgin is my best protection right now, according to Lyre.”

  “You don’t want your first time to be with an incubus anyway. I’ve heard rumors, and it rarely goes well for the girls.” Kassia playfully tugged on Clio’s braid. “Those incubi are sex fiends, as you like to call them, and we can’t trust a single one—not even Lyre. Now get some sleep, okay?”

  After Kassia had left, Clio rolled onto her side and hugged the blankets to her chest again. Not even Lyre.

  In that alcove, pushing him away had been the right thing to do—it’s what he’d told her to do. He’d had enough restraint to realize how out of control he’d become, but he’d been dangerous, like Kassia had said. The line between violent passion and outright violence was a fine one, and it wouldn’t take much to push an incubus over it.

  Even if he hadn’t been a danger to her, pushing him away had still been the right thing to do. It hadn’t been the time or the place for … for that. In fact, no time would ever be the right time to let an incubus pin her to a wall and—

  She swallowed hard. He was her enemy. She couldn’t trust him, even though he’d saved her. Even though he’d risked his safety for her, for no reason she could guess.

  He was her enemy.

  She kept repeating that as she drifted into a broken, restless sleep. But in her dreams, he wasn’t an enemy. And in her dreams, she didn’t have to push him away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lyre leaned casually against the wall, arms folded. The interior foyer, where the east and west branches of the building met, was mostly quiet, with only the occasional daemon or two passing through. Some of them greeted him, others just nodded, but he ignored them either way.

  Twenty paces down the south hall were four doors, three open and one closed. The small meeting rooms weren’t often used, so it was easy to keep track of them. The closed door was the reason he was loitering in the foyer.

  This was Clio’s third meeting with Madrigal. Lyre had spied on the last one too, and he couldn’t quite describe his pleasure when, after an hour, Madrigal had stalked out of the room looking royally pissed. It seemed Clio had figured out how to shake off his aphrodesia. As long as Madrigal didn’t grow desperate enough to really enthrall her, she should be fine.

  Lyre tapped one finger thoughtfully against his chin as he waited. Once Clio was successfully escorted back to reception and sent on her way, with no more excursions through the building, he could get back to work. This hadn’t been his most productive cycle.

  The meeting room door popped open and Madrigal stepped out, his body language stiff with annoyance. His dear brother wasn’t accustomed to rejection.

  Clio appeared in the threshold behind him, her blond hair pulled into a high ponytail and her small frame clad in dark, fitted pants of a common Underworld style and a green scoop-neck sweater at least two sizes too large. She folded her arms and cocked her hip, her mouth moving in words he couldn’t hear but imagined were scathing.

  Madrigal shooed her back into the room, shut the door, and strode away, likely to alert reception to send an escort to take her to the inn. Another point for Clio.

  His neck prickled, and he pivoted. Two feet away, the last incubus he wanted to see smiled at him.

  Lyre sprang away from the wall with a snarl. “What the hell, Dulcet?”

  His younger brother shrugged. “You looked distracted.”

  “And that’s a good reason to sneak up on me?”

  Dulcet nodded, and Lyre flexed his jaw. Despite having six brothers, he only cared to spend time in the company of one, and if there was a family member he could kill without a flicker of guilt, it was Dulcet. He’d be doing all three worlds a favor by ridding them of that twisted mind. That was assuming he could actually kill Dulcet, which he seriously doubted. Despite being younger, Dulcet had surpassed Lyre years ago in both weaving skill and unchecked viciousness.

  “What do you want?” he asked icily.

  Dulcet hummed a few notes of a song as he picked at something under his fingernail. “I wanted to ask a favor.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. My answer is no.”

  Pouting, Dulcet canted his head. “But you haven’t heard the favor yet.”

  “Don’t need to.”

  He started to walk away but Dulcet stepped in front of him.

  “Brother, brother,” he chanted. “Don’t be that way. It’s not a difficult favor.”

  Lyre rolled his eyes. “Fine, tell me. Then when I still say no, you can get lost.”

  Dulcet pursed his lips. “Lyre, why are you always like this? We have so much in common. We should be good friends—the closest of brothers.”

  “Wow, that sounds delightful. We can bond over all the dead bodies in your secret lab.”

  Eyes gleaming, Dulcet tapped Lyre’s chest. “Don’t be silly. We have more than that in common. We’re the nearest in age—I’m only two seasons younger than you.”

  “So?”

  “And we’re the smartest of our brothers. The true inventors.”

  Dulcet walked around Lyre, reaching out to tap his shoulder. Lyre stepped away and turned, not allowing his brother behind him.

  “I’m better at weaving than you,” Dulcet continued, “but you’re just as gifted at creation as I am.” He paused as though waiting for Lyre to thank him for the compliment.

  “Problem is,” Lyre said instead, “you only create variations of two things. So, really, I’m the better inventor.”

  “I make more than two things.”

  Lyre held up a finger. “Weavings that hurt people.” A second finger. “Weavings that kill people.”

  “I make more than that,” he insisted.

  “Give me an example.”

  Dulcet frowned, then shook his head and brightened again. “Why don’t we work together, then? Imagine what we could weave.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “But Lyre—”

  “Forget it, Dulcet. I don’t want anything to do with your inventions. Go back to your evil laboratory and leave me alone.”

  Dulcet grumbled, then rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “I still n
eed to ask my favor.”

  Sighing, Lyre waved his hand. “What is it?”

  “It’s quite easy, like I said. I want you to give me the Irida envoy.”

  Lyre didn’t allow his sudden fear to show. “The envoy?”

  “She’s your client, yes? Give her to me. I’ll finish her consultation.”

  “You’ve never done a consultation in your life.”

  “It’s not a difficult job.” Dulcet clasped his hands together like a pleased child. “You hate it, so I’ll do it for you.”

  Lyre worked to keep his expression mildly surprised. Bloody hell. Dulcet must have asked around about a blond girl until he connected the intruder in the basement with their Overworld customer. It seemed he didn’t know Madrigal had taken over from Lyre. And now, for reasons Lyre didn’t want to think about, Dulcet wanted access to Clio.

  “You don’t know how to consult,” Lyre told him. “And, frankly, you terrify everyone. I can’t think of anyone more unfit to work with a buyer, especially an Overworlder.”

  “I’ll make sure not to be terrifying.”

  “Forget it, Dulcet. Andante was clear he didn’t want this transaction to go sour.”

  Dulcet’s face hardened slightly. “Since when do you care about Chrysalis’s success, Lyre?”

  “Since it’s my neck on the line this time.”

  Dulcet smiled, his expression soft and almost angelic, and the eerie gleam in his eyes intensified. “I would be very happy if you gave me the envoy.”

  Lyre tensed. “I said no.”

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Hmm.” Dulcet’s sweet smile stretched into a grin. “But are you … really … sure?”