“Why did you ask me whether I would ever hurt you?”
And there I was, thinking I’d gotten away with that little gem. I couldn’t lie to him, not when he was glaring right into my eyes. He’d know a lie immediately. I chose instead to stand firm and glare right back at him. “I don’t trust you.”
“When have I ever given you reason not to trust me?”
His teeth appeared perfectly white. His eyes were a little brighter than the ambient light could account for. Even his expression had lost its human fluidity. His whole body tensed. He had never given me a reason not to trust him. That was what made all of this so difficult to digest, but he couldn’t deny his very nature, could he?
He released my chin and stepped back. “What did he say to you?” I blinked, trying to pluck one of Stefan’s pieces of advice from my memory, but I’d already hesitated too long. “Don’t lie to me, Muse. I will not tolerate lies.”
That was rich, coming from a demon masquerading as a man.
Akil clench his right hand. “You were with Stefan, were you not?”
“Yes,” I replied, struggling to retain my stubborn bravado. “He saved me from the Hellhounds.”
Akil arched a single eyebrow. “Ingenious, isn’t he?” he said dryly.
Ingenious indeed. “Why didn’t you help me?”
Akil regarded me, eyes narrowing a little as he considered his reply. “Your brother, Valenti, sent those hounds. You know I cannot interfere with his intentions.”
The convenient “gentleman’s agreement between demons” excuse. The Princes had agreed never to dabble in each other’s lives. Apparently, immortality bred contempt. They lived too long to get along, so instead, they agreed to disagree and moved on, preferring to dabble in the lives of humanity. The same agreement bound the Princes’ offspring. Val, being the son of Asmodeus, was obliged to follow the same ground rules. Akil could no more meddle in Val’s machinations than Val could in Akil’s. Didn’t seem to stop Val from trying to kill me, though, a crime for which one detective had recently been skewered.
I dropped my gaze, unable to carry the weight of Akil’s stare on me any longer. “Those hounds could have killed me. Stefan was there. He saved me.”
“What lies did he tell you?” He seemed more concerned about what Stefan might have said than about the fact that I could have been killed.
“Akil.” I smiled thinly. “What is this? Why are you behaving like this?”
“I’m not the one sneaking out the door.” Akil moved closer again, taking both my hands in his warm grip and lifting them between us. “He told you I sent those hounds, didn’t he?”
A shiver rippled through me. I closed my eyes. Somewhere amid all the uncertainty, the doubts poking holes in my perception of Akil, the seed of mistrust had been planted. Its creeping vines strangled my conviction.
“What else did he tell you?” His voice had softened, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw the barely suppressed anger tightening his smile. I needed to tread carefully, like walking on hot coals.
“Let me go.” I yanked my hands free and staggered back. “He said you sent the hounds—okay—then told me not to come back here.” I threw up my hands. “What do you want from me? It’s not like I wanted to be there with him. I had no choice. You’re lucky I’m here at all, Akil. Those hounds…” My stomach flipped just thinking about how close they’d been. Stefan had faced one of those creatures head-on. Who did that?
Akil had fallen quiet. I could have left it at that, but I knew of one more chink in his armor, one last little shard of truth that would unnerve him. “Stefan said I swapped one owner for another. To be honest, right now, it’s beginning to feel that way.”
Anger immediately flared in Akil’s eyes. “Do not ever compare me to your previous owner—that despicable excuse for a demon—Muse.”
I took a deep breath. “Stefan said you were too demon to love me.” I watched Akil flinch back as though I’d hurt him. “That you were just playing with me, a cat with a mouse. He implied that when you got bored of me”—I shrugged a shoulder—“you’d kill me.”
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. I watched him closely for any clues as to what might be going through his head, but he’d locked away his emotions. Then he quite unexpectedly laughed.
“He’s got balls. I’ll give him that.”
I frowned. Laughter wasn’t the response I’d expected. Fury, I’d expected. Akil’s crooked grin confused me. Why wasn’t he angry? He stopped before me, bowing his head so that his lips brushed mine. “He is nothing, Muse. How can he possibly understand what we have?” The words whispered against my lips, tugging at the embers of desire settling inside of me.
I chased the tease of a kiss as Akil pulled back a little, leading me into him.
“He cannot know you, Muse. Not as I do. I would not have bothered with you in the beginning if I didn’t see something in you I admired. You were a crushed and broken thing, like a butterfly crumpled in the hand of a child, but I saw the beauty in you. I found you, Muse. I created you. Someone like Stefan, he will never understand what we have.”
“I didn’t believe him,” I whispered. Placing both hands flat on his chest, I soaked up his warmth. “I just… I was afraid.” It wasn’t strictly a lie, but neither was it the truth.
“I know. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be dead soon.”
I let Akil pull me against him, hiding my spike of fear behind the flush of desire. I couldn’t ask what he meant, not without rousing suspicion, but I couldn’t get away either. I would have to wait until morning before I could make my escape. Until then, the only action I could take was to convince Akil I had no doubts about him. I was a rather convincing liar when the situation demanded it. Lying to Akil with my body was easier than lying with words. A trait beaten into me to aid in my survival. It would serve me well now.
Chapter 11
The flame twisted on its wick like a tiny exotic dancer. In the gloom of the humble basement apartment, the candle barely penetrated the shadows loitering beyond the coffee table. Stefan’s artwork still adorned the walls, and those marks were the reason I was back. They subdued elemental magic, and that’s exactly what I needed if I was going to survive an encounter with my brother.
Stefan wasn’t there. I hadn’t really expected him to be, and yet my own disappointment surprised me. He could clearly look after himself. While Akil had hinted that Stefan’s number was up, I was quietly confident the so-called Enforcer had dealt with such threats before. Besides, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t know where Stefan was or what Akil planned. I could only look out for myself.
The flame spluttered. A dribble of wax spilled over the candle lip, dribbling down its side onto the coffee table, where it hardened. I straightened the kitchen knife beside the candle, going over the incantation in my mind. Summoning a demon isn’t as difficult as you’d think. In fact, all you need to do is invite them by name, but you have to be careful. They’re slippery bastards, and my brother was no exception.
I picked up the knife then put it down again, wiping my clammy palms on my jeans. “I can do this.”
Outside the basement apartment, the city noises mingled in a cacophony of passing cars, high heels clicking on the sidewalk, and the occasional blaring horn. I found it all comforting. I always had. Silence made me nervous. I picked up the knife again, wrapping trembling fingers around the handle. My brother would sense my fear. He’d enjoy it. If I was uncomfortable, he was happy. It had always been that way, but he wouldn’t be pleased that I’d summoned him. At least the marks would keep him under control—hopefully.
“I must be mad,” I muttered. The one demon I knew without doubt wanted me dead, and I was summoning him. What part of that was sane? But Val would have answers.
Kneeling, I leaned forward over the table, my face close to the flame. Knife in my right hand, I clasped my left hand around the blade and tugged. The cut stung, but it was a necessary pain, part of the payment for the summo
ning. Squeezing my hand into a fist, I lifted it before the candle and watched a few droplets of blood trail down my pale skin.
“Valenti, first born of Asmodeus, Son of the Seven, Guardian of the Dark, Brother by Blood, I, your half-sister, summon you into this time and place. I invite you to share with me your presence.” My throat constricted. The sudden grip of fear strangled me. “You will not harm me.” My voice trembled. “I bid you heed my words. By this flame, our element, I welcome you.”
Nothing happened.
I looked around me, expecting some sort of movement, but besides the little candle flame, nothing moved. There was the chance the marks might have prevented me from summoning him, although a summons itself was not elemental magic. It was just an invitation extended between two layers of reality.
“Sister,” he hissed.
I twisted to face the source of his voice and scrambled backward, knocking an elbow against the table and making the candle wobble.
Val stood motionless by the door, head slightly dipped, gazing from under snow-white lashes. His storm-gray eyes were beautiful. I’d always thought so. Hair as white as snow cascaded over one shoulder. A simple leather strip tied it together. The weathered leather coat, which hung from his shoulders to his gray lace-up boots, was more cloak than coat. Supple black leather trousers and a black leather vest completed the ensemble. I could pick out the close-set tubercles in the cuts of animal skin and might have placed the leather as shark, but there are no sharks in the netherworld. There are, however, plenty of vicious, saw-toothed demons. I didn’t want to think about what demons might have died to satisfy my brother’s leather fetish.
Nerves fluttered in my chest like butterflies in a jar. My element stirred within me, but the marks adorning the walls prevented it from manifesting. In fact, all I felt was cold. The trembling in my body completely betrayed the depth of fear my own brother roused in me.
He had a look of perpetual amusement, as though this world and its people were an infinite source of humor. His lips constantly flirted with a smile, and his eyes were alight with infinite knowledge. He might not be one of the Seven Princes like our father or Akil, but you wouldn’t know it from the sheer confidence he exudes. He lifted his head, finally detaching his powerful gaze from me and sweeping it around the room.
I fought not to sigh with relief, trying desperately to keep all of my emotions locked tightly away.
“Curious,” he mused, approaching the kitchen to admire Stefan’s hastily spray-painted artwork on the cabinets. “These will be the reason I cannot shake off this mortal guise.” Every word was a precise study in elocution.
He had wanted to arrive tooled up in his full-demon guise as opposed to the man-suit he wore now. I was glad he hadn’t been able to. When he looked human, I could at least pretend I might have a hope of talking with him. I silently thanked Stefan’s ingenuous symbols.
As I clumsily got to my feet, Val swung his attention back to me, pinning me to the spot. I froze, giving him the typical deer-in-headlights expression, because it was all I could do not to run through the door out into the street. I hadn’t been this close to him in nearly a decade. I’d been a young girl then. He hadn’t aged at all.
He very slowly tilted his head to the side. “I had hoped you’d be dead by now.”
“Did you send Hellhounds after me?” I blurted. The less talk, the better. Neither of us wanted to be here, in each other’s presence, so the sooner I could get the truth from him, the sooner we could go back to our lives.
“Hellhounds are so archaic…” He continued around the small room, admiring the markings. He was certainly more interested in those than he was in my presence.
Hellhounds archaic? No more, or less, than he was.
“Did you paint these symbols?” He flicked his hand.
I didn’t reply. He could think that I had. It might make him wonder what else I knew. He smiled at my silence, not in the least bothered whether I answered or not.
“No, I see not. This cage is beyond your rudimentary thought processes.”
It wasn’t an insult, not in his eyes. It was fact. I clamped my teeth together, refusing to react to his words. They were, after all, just words.
His tour of the lounge complete, he stood opposite me, mere feet between us. I had a fleeting thought that if Akil knew I was doing this, he’d never let me leave his side again. Val reached inside his coat and withdrew a rapier, the type of sword one might use to pierce one’s opponent through the heart. The point would be needle sharp, the edges less so.
I smiled, an odd reaction, but I could appreciate a well-crafted weapon, and his rapier was indeed a work of art. The blade appeared to ripple. Light glanced off its mirror-smooth surface. There was no elaborate flare about it, just ruthless efficiency. “Really? Swords? I mean, I’m unarmed, I’m half human, and I’m female. Strapping guy like you, you don’t need a sword to kill me.”
He lowered the sword until the tip hovered a few inches from the floor. “Looks can be deceiving, especially in your case, Muse. You’re wasting my time.”
Right, time meant nothing to him. I slowly lifted both hands. “All I need to know is if you sent those hounds after me.”
“You think your fleeting existence occupies my thoughts? You insult me, Muse.” He didn’t look particularly insulted, just amused. I imagined some cats have that expression, right before they bite the heads off their prey.
He hadn’t approached me, so perhaps he didn’t intend to use the sword. “Is that a no?”
“Tell me who crafted these symbols about the room, and I’ll tell you the truth.”
I remembered then how Stefan had told me he wanted my help killing Val. They obviously had a history of some sort, and here I was, caught in the middle of it. “His name is Stefan.”
Val’s level expression ticked. His fingers twitched on his sword. “He helped you?”
“Now answer my question. Did you send the Hellhounds?”
“No.” He smiled, enjoying the fleeting emotion he saw skip across my face and my subsequent attempt to hide it.
Akil had sent those hounds. Nobody else was capable of summoning them. Nobody had enough power to control them. Akil had sent them. He meant to kill me. Had he set off the explosion at the workshop? The demons at the party? Even the detective? No, not him. Akil had slain him to save me… No, not to save me, to save his own honor.
Val laughed as he read the panic in my eyes. Irony dripped from that laughter. Its menace unbalanced me, and a peculiar lightness swept over me. I swayed a little, reaching for the couch. Val lunged forward as I knew he would, stealing what he thought was a moment of weakness on my part. I sprang back, snatching the kitchen knife from its snug little hiding spot, and tucked it into my jeans against my lower back.
Val slashed the sword toward me with a snarl. The kitchen knife wasn’t the most appropriate weapon against a sword, but it was all I had. He kicked over the coffee table, toppling the candle onto the floor, where it snuffed itself out.
Val immediately pulled back, realizing his mistake. With the tiny flame gone, he had no anchor to hold him there. With the summoning revoked, he could do nothing but let it happen. His human form began to dissolve before my eyes, blurring around the edges first. The white of his hair smudged against the shadows like a chalk drawing in the rain.
He peeled his lips back, those eyes as dark as thunder clouds. I’d escaped him this time, but I’d also reminded him I was still alive. If he hadn’t been trying to kill me before, he might just step up his efforts now. I saw him casually slip the sword back into his scabbard before he fixed me once more with a threat-laden stare. He didn’t need to say a word for me to know what he was thinking.
Only when every swirling speck of his image had vanished from the room did I breathe again. It took a few minutes of measured breathing to regain anything resembling composure, and it didn’t last.
The front door of the stranger’s apartment beckoned, but outside, Akil would find me.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. How was I meant to stand next to Akil and not let him see how afraid I was? Just that morning, I’d believed he cared for me. He was right. He had never given me reason to distrust him, and yet here I was, going behind his back and summoning my brother to answer my suspicions. Val hadn’t given me a name. He wouldn’t have even if I’d asked. He’d rather see me suffer than tell me the whole truth. But he’d given me enough.
Thoughts rushed through my head as I attempted to clean up the apartment, working on autopilot and trying to think of a plan. I left a note for the owner, apologizing for the mess, and left a few hundred dollars. It was all I could afford.
I had to find Stefan. He was the only person who appeared to have an interest in keeping me alive. If Akil realized what I’d done, how I’d summoned Val, I couldn’t even imagine how he’d react. He’d been less than jovial when he demanded I tell him everything Stefan had told me. Stefan had proof. Akil knew it. That must be why he’d demanded to know everything Stefan had told me.
I leaned back against the kitchen cupboards, folding my arms crossed and chewing on my bottom lip. The second I stepped out of that door, I’d be fighting for my life. I could run, I might even escape the city, but Akil would find me. I’d invited him in, and when you invite a Prince of Hell in, they don’t just get access to your home, but also your life. He would know where I was until the day I died. What an idiot I’d been.
Not all was lost though. There were ways of revoking an invitation. I’d never looked into them because I was never going to be stupid enough to invite a Prince of Hell into my life, but it could be done. Stefan seemed like the type of guy who’d know how. In fact, Stefan’s company looked mighty appealing, considering the alternative.
[The Veil 01.0] Beyond the Veil Page 9