Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1)

by Laura Thalassa

  I stared at her, unable to look away, suddenly bewitched by her. Like a moth being pulled toward a flame. Her allure was toxic. And I needed to get away from her before I did something I would regret.

  But I didn’t edge away. Neither did she.

  “Wait,” she said, “you won them, you should get some too.” She lifted off half the necklaces and stepped in close as she reached up to put them over my own head, so close I could smell her ashy scent, a scent I’d come to hate. A scent I was now reconsidering.

  Her fingers brushed my chest, and my pulse spiked before her hand flinched back.

  She’d felt it too, whatever that was.

  Whatever this was.

  I felt a tickle on my lip, still bleeding, and her eyes darted to it. I licked it away.

  She wanted that blood.

  Her gaze lifted shyly to mine. “Was that fight about me, Jame Asher?”

  She was calling me out, and I had no answer. I shook my head, my heart thumping at the base of my throat.

  “About how he was talking to me?”

  And looking at you.

  “Nah,” I said, running a hand through my hair, “I just didn’t like his punk attitude. Wasn’t about you.”

  She knew I was lying, she could read it on my face.

  I knew I should break the moment, snap out of it, ignore her and keep walking like I didn’t want to be here, but I couldn’t budge. In that instant, everything else faded away—the drunks swimming around us like fish, the chaos of Bourbon Street, the rhythm and blues thumping from nearby clubs. Maybe it was the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, maybe it was the odor of sex and desire in the air, maybe it was the way her eyes seemed to glow like blue-violet flames, but all I saw right then was her.

  And for the barest of moments, it didn’t matter that I’d sworn to kill her kind, or that they were hunting me. All that mattered was that for the first time in a very long time, I felt something beyond grief and anger. Something light and good. And even though a part of me knew it was reckless, knew that I was that idiot moth about to get burned, for once I didn’t fucking care.

  I cupped the side of Lana’s neck and I kissed her.

  Chapter 13

  Lana

  Asher’s lips were magic. Human magic, but magic nonetheless. They glided over mine, so much softer than I would have imagined. Each stroke of them felt like lightning, like gathering power in my veins.

  Jame Asher is kissing me.

  Jame Asher is kissing me.

  And it feels amazing.

  My lips moved against his, my arms draping themselves around his neck. Thank the gods for the alcohol that dulled my mind. Sober, I would’ve wondered about a whole slew of things, but right now all I could concentrate on was Asher’s touch and his taste and the odd things they were doing to me.

  My fingers stroked the ends of his hair. I was playing with a man’s hair! How I’d imagined what this would feel like. How I imagined what being enveloped by a man would feel like.

  It felt exquisite.

  I savored the blood that still lingered on Asher’s lower lip. He bled defending me. Heat roared through my veins at the thought, and it was all I could do not to moan against his mouth.

  His hand gripped my neck tighter as he held me close, his other arm going around my waist. Had his arm not anchored me to earth, I would’ve floated up and away.

  This was too much. And yet . . . I leaned deeper into Asher, wanting more.

  Instead, the kiss came to an end.

  Asher pulled away slowly, his eyes lingering on my lips. I felt the heat of his breath against me. Reluctantly, my arms dropped from his neck. His gaze moved up then, meeting mine.

  Damn this alcohol, I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking while he stared at me. Then, all at once, he startled, blinking as though he were waking from a dream.

  He straightened, and the arm that had pressed against my back fell away.

  My stomach still felt as though it were made of sunbeams and laughter. A shy grin spread across my face. Was this how mates felt when they found one another? I’d never been kissed, so I wouldn’t know.

  Asher’s eyes returned to my mouth and I saw him swallow. He glanced away, his attention moving above us.

  “We should get going—before I start another fight,” Asher said.

  Another fight on my behalf.

  I tried to suppress my smile, but failed. The look he gave me was a bit more troubled.

  I should be troubled as well. Falling for the hunter would be bad for so many reasons. It didn’t matter, my heart couldn’t be reasoned with. Already it was fluttering at the memory of his lips on mine.

  I let him take my hand and lead me through the streets; he walked a step ahead of me the whole time. I found it a bit strange—the silence, the distance. I assumed natives talked about these things, but what did I know? Human customs were strange. So I settled instead on drinking in in the sculpted muscles of Asher’s back and the tousled hair that I touched only minutes ago. My stomach felt like all the cicadas we ran from were now trapped inside it. I let myself smile again, high on the feeling. And I let myself hope for the first time since we met that this might end well.

  I glanced at our entwined hands and bit my lower lip.

  It might end really, really well.

  Asher

  Back in my room at Grandmaddox’s house, I paced in the tiny space between the bed and the French doors, furious with myself, then spun and kicked the bed frame. The whole house shuddered.

  Come on, Asher.

  What were you thinking?

  Kissing her? Are you insane?

  I stormed back to the opposite wall, where hideous paintings of ghoulish demons leered down at me . . . judging me.

  In that moment, everything had melted away. Me being a human, her being a demon. In that moment, she was just a beautiful girl, and I was a lonely, lonely man.

  You idiot.

  I’d never felt this way about a demon before. Attraction. Desire. Protectiveness.

  How could I justify that when demons had cursed my family? When they fed off us like parasites? When their very existence meant humans must suffer? Demons were a vile pestilence that needed to be eradicated.

  Yes, demons.

  But not Lana.

  In my brain, there was a category for demons like Azazel, Grandmaddox, the portal master. But Lana wasn’t in that category. She was in her own category, all by herself. A category for what . . . innocent demons? Please. It was an oxymoron. There was no such thing.

  If I followed that logic, the portal master should go in that category, too. He wove portals, he didn’t kill. In fact, few demons killed willingly now that their civil war was over. It was their blood magic that killed, that cursed, that wreaked misfortune. She might be a healer, but Lana had culled human blood to do it. She had cursed humans unwittingly.

  How many wrecked families were her doing? How many widows? How many fatherless children? How many weeping parents?

  An innocent demon . . .

  Evil wore all kinds of faces, a pretty one the most deadly of all.

  But Lana wasn’t evil. She couldn’t be.

  Guilty, but not evil.

  But not innocent either.

  No, she belonged in her own special category because she was a demon I could forgive.

  And there it was. That was the difference. I could forgive her.

  Maybe I already had.

  The floorboards groaned under my boots. I stopped pacing and dragged my hand back through my hair, glaring down through the rotted gaps where I could see Grandmaddox shuffling about her dark kitchen. My room spun in dizzying circles. The alcohol was turning on me.

  I’d been cold to Lana after the kiss. She
didn’t deserve that.

  Kissing her was my fault, my lapse in judgment, and she shouldn’t be made to suffer for it. I could at least apologize to her.

  I opened the door to the haunted, creaking hallway, hoping to catch her before she went to bed.

  Really, I just wanted to see her again.

  Lana

  I lay sprawled across my bed, my eyes absently trained on the ceiling. I traced my lips with a finger.

  Kissed!

  I remembered the sensation of being caught up in Asher’s arms, his body dwarfing mine. That intense personality of his focused wholly on me.

  What would it be like to always get to kiss him? To do more with him?

  I felt my already flushed cheeks heat at the thought.

  That cold human was not so cold when I was in his arms. The stories had gotten it wrong—Primus Dominus had gotten it wrong.

  They are lying, calculating creatures, he’d told me. Disloyal to their core.

  Asher was loyal to a fault. So loyal that he still avenged his wife and daughter, though their bodies were likely nothing more than bones beneath the earth.

  My mind went to his wife and that photo he kept of her. To her lovely, pale hair and her wideset blue eyes.

  I got up off the bed and approached an antique mirror propped up in the corner of the room, its silver edges blackened with age.

  I frowned at my reflection. I looked nothing like her. Not my violet eyes, not my restless, glowing hair, not the shape of my face.

  I closed my eyes, remembering exactly what his wife—what Nicole—looked like. Her face was wider than mine, and her eyes, thinner. She had cleverly arched eyebrows and a small, pert nose. And her smile . . . That alone would have made her beautiful. I pictured it all, and I didn’t even think when I drew on just enough of the blood culled from Clades for my face to subtly shift.

  When I opened my eyes, my hair had shortened and lightened, my irises now cerulean blue.

  I wore Nicole’s face, the face of a dead human woman.

  And I envied her. I brushed the pads of my fingers over a cheekbone, then over that achingly sweet nose of hers. I smiled, just for the hell of it and felt a pang deep within my chest.

  I can’t compete with this.

  I ran my hands through my hair—her hair—humming a sad melody as I tilted my head from side to side.

  I didn’t hear the door open, but I did hear the sharp intake of breath.

  I swiveled around. And there, standing at the threshold of my room, staring at me like I just fulfilled every one of his deepest desires, was Jame Asher.

  Chapter 14

  Asher

  “Nikki?” I whispered.

  Staring back at me from the opposite end of the room was Nicole Asher, my wife, her blue eyes lit up in surprise. My stomach plunged into freefall, my heart galloped, I couldn’t breathe.

  Back from the dead . . . like an angel.

  But then I noticed the details. Her blonde hair flowed around her like she was underwater, defying gravity. Not real . . . she’s not real.

  Her blue eyes flickered crimson.

  Not human.

  My hope died with a sickening crash.

  I looked around for Joy, our daughter, who would surely be with her mother.

  But my daughter wasn’t there.

  My daughter was dead, and so was my wife.

  There was no one in the room but Lana.

  No one but a demon.

  Nicole began to change, morphing back into Lana. Seeing it happen, something tugged painfully at my heart.

  Deep down, I felt hollow. Emptied of something essential.

  “Never . . .” I rasped, my voice shaking, “never . . . never do that . . .” My fingers coiled into fists.

  She swallowed, her eyes wide. “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she whispered, backing up. She banged into the mirror behind her, its surface vibrating. “I wanted to see . . . I’m sorry.”

  I was dying inside at the reminder of what I’d once had—a beautiful wife, a perfect daughter, a blissful family . . . oh God, I’d had it all—and it was stolen from me. And this demon, she was like rot in the wound, making my grief fester.

  “How dare you wear her skin,” I said, my voice hoarse with anger. With pain.

  My wife. My wife. Lana wore her face like someone would a coat, and she used her black magic to do it, cursing someone else by doing so.

  I prowled toward her, my chest rising and falling faster and faster, my breath escaping in furious hisses. I stepped into her space, my body towering over her.

  “How dare you disgrace her memory, how dare you mock her, how dare you defile her, demon.”

  Lana’s eyes welled with tears.

  Letting a demon into your heart . . . it was like swallowing cyanide. I should kill her right here, right now, just as I would any other demon. But even now I couldn’t, much to my everlasting shame.

  Instead, I spun and punched the wall, putting a hole in the rotting, termite-infested wood. The nearby photo fell, its flimsy frame breaking apart.

  I stormed back to my room and slammed the door. All through the house, I heard frames thunk onto the floor.

  The last thing I heard, before I roared in agony, was the quiet whimper Lana tried to suppress.

  Lana

  I collapsed against the wall, letting my body sink slowly down to the floor. A sad sob slipped out. I covered my mouth, afraid Grandmaddox would hear it.

  That Asher would hear it.

  My tears rolled down my cheeks and onto my hand as my shoulders shook. I bowed my head, my hair lank and listless around me.

  What had I been thinking? Wearing her face was torture enough. But then to get caught? And by Asher of all people? If only what I felt right now was simply embarrassment . . . It was so more than that. So much more.

  In those first few moments when Asher had caught sight of me, before he realized I was Lana and not his wife—the expression he’d worn was somewhere between hope and rapture.

  He’d never looked at me that way. No one had ever looked at me that way.

  But the way he had looked at me once he realized who and what I was?

  Disgust. Horror.

  I pinched my eyes shut, two more tears squeezing their way out.

  You are an Infernari, one of the last of your people. I comforted myself. You are strong, and brave, and kind.

  I dropped my hand from my mouth and pressed my forehead to my knees, which I gathered in close to my body.

  I wanted to hate Asher for the way he looked at me, the way he made me feel, but I understood. I’d worn the skin of fallen Infernari many, many times, and every once in a while someone recognized my likeness. No one wanted that kind of reminder; it mocked their grief.

  It was just that this time my heart had also gotten stepped on.

  I didn’t know how long I sat there like that. Long enough for my shoulders to stop shaking, my tears to stop falling. Long enough even for the sounds outside to die down just a bit.

  I drew in a shaky breath, and pushed myself up to my feet. Heading into the bathroom, I turned on the faucet to wash my face.

  The spout gurgled and spat. I almost groaned when I remembered the water here didn’t work.

  I began to leave, but then my eyes landed on a razor. It was carelessly lying on the counter amongst dozens of other old knickknacks, the color of its green handle faded with time, a relic from some long forgotten guest.

  I was mesmerized by its blade, which was mostly dark orange from age. Without thinking, I reached out and picked the razor up, turning it over and over in my hands.

  It wasn’t a real weapon, but it could cut all the same. And being in this world, my body depleted of magic for long stretches of time . .
. I wanted to cut. To release my blood from my body, savor the sweet pain of it, then cull my magic.

  With a swift twist of my wrist, I snapped the handle off. Then I worked my fingers under the edges of the brittle plastic, trying to pry the razorblade out from it. With a pop, the small, flat blade was free.

  I stared at it in wonder, then ran my thumb over the rusted edge. It wasn’t very sharp, but if I pressed, it could split my skin.

  I moved the blade to the crook of my arm just to test the theory. The edge of it pressed into my skin, then I sliced the razorblade across my flesh.

  My skin split, and the pain that flared up was instantly overshadowed by the satisfying feel of it burning up into magic. I didn’t bother healing the skin, even as I converted the blood. I didn’t much care that I was cursing myself.

  I pocketed the razor. I would be keeping this. Sometimes—sometimes the urge to blood-let came over me. This little razor, it could control the urge if I turned it on myself when the need got bad. For now I still had a small reservoir of magic, but it wouldn’t last forever. Once it was gone, I would need to control the urge to cull because, from my best guess, Asher and I were still a ways from the portal.

  The portal . . . through my drunken haze I remembered. The bargain I struck with the hunter, the one that would allow me to fulfill all my oaths, it all rested on Grandmaddox lifting the memory spell.

  She would never lift it, she said as much.

  But I didn’t technically need her to lift the spell; I just needed her elixir. And as a potion master, she’d undoubtedly have a bottle of it here in her house.

  Those conniving humans had rubbed off on me, I thought as I began moving, heading toward the door to my room. The floorboards beneath me creaked, and I heard wood splinter. It wouldn’t surprise me if this house was held together by magic alone.

  I stepped into the hall, closing the door softly behind me. At the end of the hall, a narrow staircase continued up the rickety house. I made my way toward it, the ancient wood floors creaking under my boots. Grandmaddox had told me once that she kept her potions up in the attic; now I followed her old words.