Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1)

by Laura Thalassa

Finally, he seemed to deflate, and he said, “Maybe.”

  I felt my entire body relax, too.

  Maybe was good enough for me.

  Human aromas filled the kitchen as several of the pots and pans in front of me bubbled and simmered. Next to me sat my mostly empty glass of wine.

  “I can’t believe I’m making Italian food in Mexico,” Asher muttered from where he cut vegetables.

  “I can’t believe I’m making human food!” I was practically bouncing on the balls my feet.

  I might’ve drunk my wine a little too fast.

  “You’re watching noodles boil,” Asher said over his shoulder. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  He stopped chopping. “And—” He came over, stepping up behind me, so close that his chest pressed into my back.

  I didn’t breathe for a moment.

  “—you’re supposed to be stirring.”

  “Hmmm?” I said, distracted by the way I fit against him. The crown of my head came up to his sternum, and my torso was engulfed by his broad chest.

  He was big, even by Infernarus standards.

  Asher picked up a large wooden spoon and put it in my hand. Then he wrapped his fingers around mine, our arms brushing together. He directed our hands round and round the pot in front of us, stirring the long flat noodles.

  If this was how humans always cooked, I’d found myself a new hobby.

  A lock of my hair draped itself over Asher’s arm. He paused, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Human hair didn’t do that—lay claim to things it liked. And Asher was pretty skeptical of anything not human.

  I could practically feel his eyes on the dark strands that lay against his skin. After a moment, he resumed stirring as though nothing were amiss.

  We stood together like that for a while. I wondered if he was as tense as I was; I couldn’t tell. He seemed like a natural when it came to physical closeness, despite his cold and aloof attitude. And he seemed content to stay pressed against me.

  “Are you sure this is going to taste good?” I asked, dragging my attention back to the boiling pot. The noodles were interesting enough to look at, but earlier, when I tried to bite into one, it was hard and bland. Even softened, I couldn’t imagine these tasting all that appetizing.

  “I’m sure,” Asher said, his breath tickling my ear. “In fact, now’s a good time to check if the noodles are ready.”

  “How do you check?” I asked, only slightly interested in what he was saying. I was more enraptured by this strange intimacy between us.

  “You taste one. If they’re soft, they’re ready.”

  Sounded easy enough.

  With my free hand, I reached into the boiling pot of water.

  “Lana—” Asher said, alarmed.

  “What?” I asked, pulling a long noodle out. It flopped around my hand.

  Asher grabbed my fisted hand, his brows pinched together with concern.

  Thinking he wanted the ribbon of pasta, I handed it over. It draped itself into a pile in his palm. He stared at it bewildered.

  I missed something.

  Finally, Asher said, “Your hand. You stuck it into boiling water. Didn’t that hurt?”

  Oh.

  I held the hand up and wiggled my fingers. “It’s fine.”

  Dumping the noodle onto the counter, he took my hand and turned it over.

  I froze as his hand encased mine, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. He gaze scoured my skin, looking for some injury that wasn’t there.

  He was concerned that I was hurt.

  And now, watching him, I had the oddest sense that he was fighting the urge to do more. To reel me in, to move his hands up my arms.

  My mate my mate my mate.

  Now that my mind had acknowledged it, my blood seemed to sing it.

  I swayed a little on my feet. All those pretty delineations between Asher and me boiled away. Human. Infernari. Victim. Villain.

  My hand began to tremble. He had to notice.

  “Jame Asher, I don’t want to be your enemy,” I whispered.

  He shook his head slowly, his cheeks sucking in. “You’re not.”

  I could feel it searing through me—hope. Hope that even though he didn’t think and feel like an Infernarus, he might care for me the way I did him.

  The alcohol made me bold. No, my heritage made me bold.

  I dared to look Asher in the eye. “What am I—to you?”

  His jaw clenched as he stared at me. I thought he would answer, I really did. But then he blinked slowly, and his gaze shifted. He reached around me and turned off the burner, grabbing the pot and moving to another area of the kitchen.

  “Asher, what am I to you?” I repeated. Because now, on the eve of battle, I needed to know.

  I could hear water splashing as he poured the noodles into a metal bowl with holes.

  He brought the bowl over and dropped it on the countertop next to me. “What do you want to know? Whether I like you? What do you think, Lana?” He jutted his chin as he asked. “I was supposed to kill you just like every other demon. I couldn’t. You were supposed to be my prisoner, and now we’re making dinner together. I saw you dying, I saw you giving up, and it broke something inside me, and I couldn’t let you. I’ve been alone for years, and now I don’t want to be.”

  Gods, he looked so angry. All I could hear was the pounding of my pulse.

  “So yes, I like you. I feel a helluva lot more than that for you. And that’s got me all kinds of conflicted right now . . . because I shouldn’t. But I do.”

  So he felt it too.

  I didn’t think humans could, but from the very beginning, something had come between him and that vendetta he carried. At least, when it came to me.

  I laid a hand on his cheek. “I like you too.”

  He held my gaze for another second, his nostrils flaring with each deep breath he took.

  I could tell he was still uncomfortable, so very deliberately I turned my attention from him to the food. “So what happens next?”

  And then we moved on with dinner.

  “What’s the primus like?” Asher asked.

  We sat outside on the back patio, our food long since finished. The pasta might’ve been good; I didn’t taste much of it sitting across from Asher, every fiber of my awareness focused on him and the space between us. The sun was setting, turning the hunter’s hair into a corona of fire. The dying light of the day also burned in his eyes. He was almost painful to look at.

  Beautiful, cold man.

  “The primus is a . . . complicated man.”

  Asher gave a little huff at that.

  “To be honest, he’s one of the only Infernari I don’t know,” I admitted. “He and I have chatted plenty about our affinity, the war—little things. He shares what he wants to, but there is a lot of him that no one will ever know.”

  “Can’t you feel him through your affinity?” Asher asked, leaning forward a little bit.

  “I can and I can’t.” I had to pick my words precisely. “When I reach down my connection, the primus feels like—like life itself. He feels inherently good. But he can sense my presence down the line—as I can his—and he’s made me swear an oath not to peer into him through our connection. It’s been a long time since I studied his essence, but I feel it there, along with every other Infernari’s.”

  Asher’s eyes narrowed. “He made you swear an oath?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “He wanted his privacy. How can I not be okay with that?”

  “But he didn’t swear an oath to do the same when it came to you, did he?” Asher’s voice dripped with so much disdain.

  I bristled. “He is the primus. The king. I don’t get to make demands of him.”

  He leaned
back in his seat, somewhat appeased by that. “And he loves you?”

  “Not in any romantic sense.” It seemed important to clarify this to the human, even though an Infernarus would understand the distinction immediately. “He used to have a mate and a child, but they died a long time ago from what I understand.”

  Asher frowned.

  “His birth family was long gone by the time I was dumped in front of his throne. I think he got lonely, and healers like us . . . There is the urge to heal and nurture. He wanted to find the last of his close kin, those that share his affinity. He’d looked for me a long time, from what I hear.”

  It was my turn to frown as those resurfaced memories flashed through my mind. Of burning tents and burning flesh, of my parents dying.

  “I thought for healers like you, all Infernari are close kin.”

  Asher had me there. I shrugged again. “Like I said, the primus is complicated.”

  Across from me, the hunter leaned his forearms on the table. “So what’s it like being related to the primus?”

  All those scared looks from the servants and foot soldiers. All the posturing from the primus’s inner circle. All those long, lonely days spent wandering through the ruins of the old city. Coming topside, as uncomfortable as that process was, was far more enjoyable than the sad monotony of my existence in the capitol.

  I looked at my nails. “It’s fine. What’s with all the questions?”

  Humans could weaponize questions the way Infernari did magic. Wasn’t that one of the first rules I learned?

  Your mate would never harm you, my mind whispered.

  “This is what humans do when they want to get to know someone better,” Asher said. “They ask them questions.”

  And now my heart was back to pattering along in my chest because he wanted to learn more about me. He liked me—he helluva lot more than liked me.

  “If you want to get to know me,” I breathed, “maybe we should stop talking about the primus.”

  The corner of Asher’s mouth curled upwards. “Fair enough. What do you do for fun?”

  It was such a benign question, it had me smiling. “I make dinner with strange human men. Next question.”

  That caused his eyes to crinkle. “What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?” Now he wore a wry grin, something I’d only seen once or twice.

  A laugh escaped me. “Asher, these are terrible questions.”

  Please keep asking me them.

  “Favorite flavor,” he pressed.

  I popped one of the Mardi Gras necklaces in my mouth, running the beads between my teeth. “I haven’t tried enough ice cream to know,” I said, letting the necklace fall back down. “Maybe the white one? Vanilla?”

  He was shaking his head. “Rainbow sherbet. I’m positive that one would be your favorite.”

  I laughed again. “Then you shouldn’t be asking me the question.”

  Asher’s eyes twinkled, and Mother above, there might not be anything more breathtaking than him happy.

  “If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only bring one thing with you, what would it be?” he asked.

  “I’ve already been stranded, and so far, you’ve managed to keep me alive. I’d say bringing you with me would be a good idea.”

  The twinkle in his eyes deepened, becoming something else, something that made my skin flush. “Would you like to go up to the balcony to see the sunset with me, Lana?”

  I couldn’t tell if there was more to the question than that, but I didn’t care. I wanted more. I welcomed it. The gods couldn’t keep me away.

  “I would love to.”

  Chapter 19

  Asher

  The villa’s balcony overlooked a densely jungled river valley. Beyond it, Pico de Orizaba rose into the heavens, high above the clouds that were still smoldering purple and violet from sunset.

  They were the color of Lana’s eyes.

  Next to me, she shivered, the night air too cool for her.

  I pulled her into me, letting my body heat keep her warm. I was done fighting this attraction to her.

  Her back pressed against my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her midsection.

  Tentatively she laid her hands over mine. “Is this something else humans do?” she asked.

  I breathed in her ashy scent. “It is.”

  She leaned into me more, and I could tell she was trying to relax. Feeling this small, delicate body stiff with nervousness had me tightening my grip.

  I thought I’d be rusty at this . . . I thought the guilt, the betrayal, of doing this with someone other than my wife would be impossible. But Lana was poles apart from anyone else I’d ever met. She knew loneliness like I did, and she had a past with just as much baggage as mine.

  “You’re different from when you captured me,” she said. “Do you feel different?”

  “Toward you, yes.” Toward the rest of her kind . . . I wouldn’t ruin the moment by mentioning what I thought of them.

  In the silence that followed, her hair pulsed with color. “What I feel for you,” she said, “wasn’t supposed to happen, either. And now we’re here, standing at the edge of your world and at the beginning of mine. What do we do now, Jame?”

  Gazing out, I followed the volcano’s slope to its snowcapped summit. Somewhere on that mountain was a cave that led to a portal that led to Abyssos, the homeland of the Infernari. A cave guarded by some number of Infernari. They were waiting for us, waiting to take down the infamous Jame Asher and the traitorous woman in his arms.

  Reflexively, I squeezed her closer to me.

  We could still run from this fate we were hurtling toward.

  The Infernari would continue to cull, but why did it have to be my problem? We had seven billion people, they had a thousand. Was it that hard to believe that their race deserved to live as much as ours? Wouldn’t it only be fair to let them cull from us?

  For two years, I had buried those questions.

  Now they clawed back to the surface. Why was I so angry?

  I tried thinking about it the way I was used to, putting myself in my demon hunter shoes.

  Every day that portal was open, more demons arrived on Earth . . . and they were after my blood, they were after Lana’s, and they were going to kill and cull and curse everything that breathed until we were all dead. We couldn’t just run; it would be suicide. Our only hope was to head them off at the portal.

  Which might also be suicide.

  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  I never imagined I’d get myself into one of these conundrums the Infernari so often found themselves in.

  I nuzzled Lana’s hair.

  Nor had I ever imagined wanting to know anything about an Infernarus aside from the best way to kill it. But holding this proud, strange creature in my arms, I was curious about her the way any man would be curious about a beautiful woman. No, I was more than just curious, I was fascinated . . . I was obsessed. I wanted to know her fears, her desires, what made her laugh. Why her hair lit up, what each color meant.

  I wanted to learn everything about her, absorb her into my pores, memorize her.

  And I hadn’t felt that since Nikki. And even then . . . Lord forgive me, the pull had never been like this. Nikki hadn’t had to overcome my hate; back then I hadn’t harbored hatred.

  Goddamn, but none of it was fair.

  Lana’s fingers trailed over my forearms. “I think sunsets are tragic,” she mused.

  And then she said shit like that. My heart squeezed. I wanted to see the world the way she saw it. Like the world was beautiful. Like it was good. Like the saddest thing out there was a sunset.

  All my jaded layers were dissolving away around her.

  I was so fucking doomed.
r />   Lana

  By the time the sky was a deep blue, the two of us were sitting on the balcony, Asher with his back pressed to the now closed doors that led back inside, and me between his legs.

  Just this contact was almost too much. And it might be casual for him, a human, but nothing about this was casual for me.

  “Do you fear death?” I asked, softly, like raising my voice might catch the attention of the gods.

  I felt him shake his head behind me, trailing his thumb over one of my arms as he did so, the gesture almost absent. “For a very long time I wished for it. Death is easy. It’s life that’s hard.”

  “That makes me sad, Asher.”

  He peered down at me, a wry grin lifting the corner of his mouth. “Lana sad? Is that even possible?”

  When it came to him, a great deal made me sad.

  “What about you?” he asked, his tone turning serious. “Do you fear death?”

  My eyes roved over the dark landscape. “It petrifies me,” I admitted.

  I’d seen enough of it, I knew that the dead found peace with the Mother, but it didn’t matter. Death went against my very nature. To heal. To live. To thrive.

  “You are not going to die tomorrow, Lana.”

  “I would believe you if you didn’t have a penchant for lying,” I said, my mouth twisting in a reluctant grin.

  The arm that wrapped around my waist tightened. “Lana,” Asher said hesitantly, “tomorrow, if there’s a fight, don’t waste your life attempting to save mine. I’m ready for death if it comes.”

  I shivered at what he was asking. He didn’t realize that even now that was impossible.

  “I am oathbound to protect you,” I said.

  “Then I release you from it.”

  I sighed. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  He growled, “I don’t give a shit about your oaths. I care about your life.”

  I swiveled to face him. “You know, you’re so very human, Asher. So very human, and so very inhuman.”