City of Demons (Chronicles of Arcana Book 1)

by Debbie Cassidy

  Azren’s breathing had become erratic, and my pulse spiked. “He’s not a neph. He’s Shedim.”

  Silence.

  “I know you have no love for them, but, Barnaby, you have to help me. I promise I’ll explain why he’s here and all that crap soon, but right now you need to help me save him. Please.”

  A heavy sigh. “Okay, but you owe me a lengthy explanation when I get there.”

  Hope lit up my chest. “You’re coming?”

  “I will be once I’ve synthesized an antidote. I’ve been playing with a formula for a few weeks actually, ever since Subzero hit the streets. You need to keep him alive until I get there.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Subzero works by forcing the body’s core temperature down until all the organs cease to function. You need to keep him warm, bring that core temperature back up and make it stay there.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I’m on it. Just be quick.” I ended the call. “Trevor, I’m gonna need blankets, lots of them.”

  Trevor nodded and then bounded off.

  “Gilbert!”

  “Wila?” Gilbert appeared by the bed, his form hazy and agitated. “I think it’s Subzero poisoning. There have been some reports in the papers, and the symptoms match.”

  “I know. I just spoke to Barnaby. We need to keep him warm.”

  “I’ll bring up a couple of hot water bottles.” He vanished.

  I pulled Azren’s blankets up around him then headed to my room to grab my duvet. We’d bury him under blankets if that was what it took. There was no way he was dying, not on my watch.

  My throat was tight, my pulse aflutter. Azren was getting colder, his skin like marble. I clutched the phone to my ear as if it were a lifeline.

  “He’s as cold as ice, Barnaby, what the fuck do I do? We’ve got hot water bottles and blankets, and heck, I even gave him my duvet, but nothing’s working.”

  “He needs body heat, Wila,” Barnaby said calmly.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to have to strip off and get under the blankets with him. Your body heat should do the trick.”

  “Wait, what?”

  A sigh of exasperation. “Listen. If you don’t get his core temp up in the next half hour and keep it there for the next several hours, then he’s dead. You get me?”

  There was no time for modesty when there was a life at stake. “Yeah. Yeah, I get you. I’m on it.”

  “You need to strip him too. It needs to be skin on skin.”

  Oh, man.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can with an antidote. Just keep him alive.”

  Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Peeling back the layers of blanket, hands trembling, I unbuttoned his battered shirt. Just needed to get it off by rolling him onto his side. God, he was heavy.

  “Gilbert, a little help, please.”

  Between the two of us, we managed to get the shirt off. My fingers brushed velvet-soft, ice-cold skin. Dead, he felt dead. But he wasn’t. I wouldn’t let him be. The trousers were next, and yeah, I let Gilbert do most of the work there, keeping my eyes on Azren’s chest, on the bloody wound that cut across his abdomen. The bleeding had stopped now, but the skin still hadn’t begun to knit together. He was fighting, though, because that’s what he was—a fighter, a survivor. He’d have to be to live under Drako rule.

  “Should we leave the boxers on?” Gilbert asked.

  “Oh, God yes.”

  Gilbert pulled the blankets back into place, covering Azren’s bronzed torso. Kicking off my shoes, I began to strip. “I’m going to need the room, guys.”

  Gilbert retreated and Trevor padded out of the room. Taking a deep breath, I climbed into bed with Azren in only my underwear. Fuck, the man was like a block of ice, how could my body heat thaw him? Okay, so I needed to get some hugging going on without scraping at his abdomen wound. Shit, it was like cozying up to a block of ice. Friction usually helped, right? Time to rub those muscular biceps. God, he felt like one of those marble statues you found at museums.

  “Come on, big guy. You’re a fucking beast, you can fight this.”

  But what if he couldn’t? What if he died? My stomach twisted. It was fear, of course, fear of what Elora would do to me when she found out I’d gotten her pet killed. What else could it be? This was my fault. If I hadn’t mouthed off to the alpha of the Opal pack, they’d never have attacked me, and Azren would be okay. Damn my smart mouth comments, the damn wisecracks that just didn’t stop coming. And now this. It was okay when it was just my life on the line, when I was responsible just for me. Having a partner, however unwanted, sucked, because like it or not, he was my responsibility. My world was alien to him, and I’d fucked up. This is why I rode solo. This. Dammit, he had to be okay.

  My eyes burned. Fucking hell, come on, Azren. You can do this. You can’t die. You’re a bloody Shedim, a razor-toothed killing machine. Wrapping my arms around his waist and bringing my body flush up against him, I hugged him to me, willing my heat to penetrate the ice that seemed to surround him. Willing him to feel the warmth I was giving. Long minutes ticked by. Was he getting warmer? Not daring to breathe, not daring to move, I hung on to him, eyes closed, warm breath brushing against his cool skin. Wait. Not ice cold anymore. Just cool. He was heating up. It was working.

  A soft moan rose from his parted lips. His rapid heartbeat began to slow down. Oh, God. It was really working. He sighed again and then his breathing evened out. Okay. Yeah, I could do this, just needed to do the hugging thing for a while longer. For as long as it took. Vigilance was my middle name.

  Warm arms tightened around me, a muscular thigh slid between mine, and silken hair brushed my cheek. I rose out of sleep and blinked at the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows. This felt good, real good. Wait? What was this?

  My body tensed as memory flooded me. “Azren?” I tried to sit up, but the arms around me tightened, holding me in place. “I’m all right.”

  He was awake, and he was warm, and he was holding me. Naked. My instinct was to jump out of the bed, to put as much distance between us as possible, because doing the almost-naked thing when he’d been unconscious and I’d been saving his life was one thing, but doing it when he was alert and staring at me with those unfathomable green eyes was a whole new ball game. One that had the blood rushing to places it had no business visiting. But I was unable to move, trapped in his rapidly darkening gaze that flitted across my face like a hundred phantom caresses. His mouth was slightly turned down as if in contemplation, as if I was some intricate puzzle or artifact he was desperate to catalogue.

  “Hi.” My voice was a croak. “You feeling better?”

  He graced me with a slow blink. “You saved my life.” He said the words slowly, testing them, almost as if he was unsure of their validity. It wasn’t a question, but it felt like it could have been.

  “Bah, it was nothing really. I mean, I just hugged you for a while ... almost naked.” Man, my throat was dry. “I need to call Barnaby. Get you that antidote.”

  “I already took it. Your friend administered it an hour ago and then left. You were sleeping and—”

  “He wouldn’t let us wake you,” a voice piped up from the foot of the bed.

  I peered over the duvet. “Trevor? What are you doing here?”

  His beady doggy eyes narrowed. “Watching him. No way was I leaving you alone with him once he was awake.” He sniffed.

  My canine protector hopped off the bed and made for the door. “But now you’re up, I’m gonna go take a leak. Only thing about being a small dog, they come with small bladders.”

  “You have loyal friends,” Azren said musingly. “Strange but loyal friends.”

  He was looking at me in that probing way again, as if he was trying to figure something out, or put something together in his mind, and the fact that we were still lying in bed, naked limbs tangled as if we’d been doing this forever, was a hot pebble of awareness in my chest. There suddenly wasn’t enough air. There were only hi
s lips, primed and ready and close.

  “How come you didn’t drop your glamour when you were unconscious?” The random question I hadn’t really even considered popped out. “I mean, I saw you drop it when you attacked the Lupin.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted and the intense regard shifted to amusement, telling me he knew exactly what he was doing to my blood pressure.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “Emotion has a lot to do with how well I maintain my glamour. If I get excited, or angry, it takes more effort to keep it in place. I can remain in glamour when asleep, so it probably works the same for being unconscious.”

  Excited like yay, I won a prize, or excited like things are getting turgid excited? At least he wasn’t looking at me in that intense way anymore. The knot in my chest loosened a little.

  “And what’s with the glowing glyphs?”

  Confusion shadowed his features. “Glyphs?”

  A chilly shiver tickled the back of my neck just as Azren’s gaze slipped over my shoulder and every muscle in his body tensed.

  “Well, isn’t this the cozy scene.”

  There was no mistaking that drawling, lazy tone. My stomach contracted in instinctive fear at the same time as anger flared in my chest, because who the fuck did Valance think he was invading my private space like this. I was out of the bed and across the room before thinking things through, because yeah, I was in my underwear, but like hell was I going to cower in my own home.

  My hands on my naked hips, he got the full effect of my scariest glare. “This is unacceptable. You can’t just appear in my home whenever the heck you feel like it.”

  He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he raked me with his electric regard, reducing my bra and knickers to nothing, because damn if he didn’t make me feel like he could see right through the cotton of my panties. But then he was done and his attention was on Azren.

  “What’s unacceptable is a Shedim not kneeling for his future liege.”

  Huh? I glanced over my shoulder to see Azren climb out of bed. He was still unsteady on his feet. The antidote was obviously doing something because he was no longer blue and, well, unconscious, but the wound on his abdomen was only just beginning to heal. The Shedim dropped to one knee. His lips tightened, and his hand went to his stomach.

  He was hurt, dammit. There was no way he should be up and about just yet. “No, don’t do that. Get up.” I tugged on his arm, gaining no leverage. His wound was bleeding again. “Dammit, you need to heal.” I looked to Valance, whose brow had furrowed slightly. Was he fucking blind? “Hey, can’t you see he’s hurt?” My chest grew hollow, because there was no way Azren was getting up without his majesty’s say-so. I stepped back, resisting the urge to grind my teeth. “Tell him he can get up. Do it now or so help me God, I’m going to pummel the entitlement right out of you.”

  He balked and then blinked at me, his mouth parted in surprise. “How did this happen?”

  “Fucksake, can you release him, or whatever it is you need to do first, please?”

  Valance waved a dismissive hand in Azren’s direction. Azren swayed, his hand shooting out to brace himself against the bed.

  “I got you.” I grabbed his arm, helping him to his feet and back to the bed. “Do not fucking get out of this bed till I say so.”

  His jaw was tight, his eyes bright. Yeah, he was pissed. Pissed that he’d just had to jump through a hoop for Valance? From the way he spoke about the Draconi and all the bluster, I’d just assumed he accepted his role as pet, but maybe I’d misjudged him? Maybe my Shedim colleague wasn’t such a yes-man after all.

  “What happened,” Valance asked me.

  I pulled the blanket up over Azren and then picked my dress up off the floor. I was done conversing with the Draconi prince in my underwear.

  Bits all covered up, I turned to face the dragon. “We got jumped by the Opal pack and Azren took a hit and got infected with Subzero. We had to keep his core temperature up until we got an antidote into him.”

  Valance looked from Azren to me. “There is no antidote.”

  Ooops. Of course there wasn’t. Not officially. “Whatever. What matters is that he’s on the mend now.”

  And there was that flare of irritation, the whole him being here without my consent and the invasion. The fucking invasion of my private sanctuary, my home. And, yeah, he was a dragon and could probably kill me with a blink, but there was no way I could just let this slide.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, composing myself. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came for my report. You went information gathering ...”

  He really didn’t get it, did he? “So, you appear in my house without an invite or an appointment?”

  His eyes narrowed and the amiable expression slipped away. “Don’t forget who you’re speaking to, Miss Bastion. I’m not one of your clients.” He said the word as if it was a dirty one, and my hackles rose.

  “No. You’re not. You’re not my client, you’re not my boss, and you’re not a friend, so unless you have official authority from my boss, your mother, to keep tabs on me, then I suggest you piss off.” Oh, man. That felt good.

  He studied me for a long beat and then shrugged. “I don’t need official authority. I’m the fucking prince.” The curse word sounded almost cultured uttered in that relaxed tone of his. “Believe it or not, Miss Bastion, I want to help you.”

  The fight drained out of me. Standing here arguing wasn’t getting us anywhere. There were Shedim out there, probably hiding in the Underground and preparing to do goodness knew what. They knew they were being hunted now. They knew that Elora had sent someone after them. What would their next move be? Elora was obviously concerned about their existence. We needed to stop them before they put whatever plan they had into motion.

  “I suggest you cooperate and let me help you.” He looked at Azren. “It seems as if you’re going to need it.”

  He hadn’t bitten my head off over my tone, and pushing him wasn’t a good idea, but lines had to be drawn. “If you want to help, then when you come over, use the front door and wait in my office.”

  “Or I could get myself wounded and wait in your bed.” The lazy drawl was back.

  “This isn’t my bed.” Oh, man. What a lame comeback.

  He arched a brow.

  “Just ... wait in my office ... please. I’ll be down to brief you in a minute.”

  He vanished.

  I sat on the edge of the mattress. “God, I hate that he can do that. That they can do that.”

  “Not all of them can.” Azren sounded exhausted. “The myth about Draconi being able to feed off your soul merely by looking into your eyes isn’t true for them all. There are only a few that have this ability. The Drako bloodline can, and the Ignatius bloodline could. Some Draconi have special abilities and others don’t.”

  “The Ignatius bloodline?”

  “Ivan Ignatius. Elora’s predecessor and her scalemate.”

  “Okay, I have no idea what that is.”

  “Ignatius was the royal bloodline. Each royal was born with a scalemate. A dragon who would bond with them and become their other half. Through this union, they doubled in power.”

  “What? Like a mate, as in a lover?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not a lover. More than a lover, more than a soul mate. This is someone who you would share your soul and your heart with, who felt your pain and your joy.”

  “Let me get this straight. Elora killed her predecessor, so that means she killed her scalemate?”

  “She made a great sacrifice to free us. She essentially crippled herself. The pain must have been excruciating. Imagine tearing your very soul in two?”

  Elora was a dick, but hearing what she’d done to bring some semblance of peace to her people ... Man, I needed to rethink stuff.

  “Her methods may be harsh, but she keeps order,” Azren said. “Before her intervention, Shedim were being slaughtered every day in a futile war born of
prejudice and misunderstanding, all because an ambitious king sat on the throne. One who did not wish to share his world with another race. Elora ended him and ushered in a new order. She embraced the Shedim, raised us out of the ashes and gave us a purpose, a role. We guard our world from the Everdark, we protect the royal houses, and we keep order in our territory.”

  It still sounded like they’d been shafted—drafted into glorified slavery. “And do you get paid?”

  He blinked at me. “We have no use for money. Whatever we need is provided to us.”

  “What about freedom?”

  I caught a flash of defiance in his eyes again. He blinked and extinguished it. “Sacrifices must be made in the interest of equilibrium. Everyone has a role, everything has its place.” His eyelids fluttered closed.

  I patted the duvet covering his legs. “We’ll pick up this conversation later.”

  His chest rose and fell evenly as he slipped into slumber.

  Time to go face the dragon.

  14

  Trevor accosted me in the foyer. “I wouldn’t go in if I were you. Way too much testosterone in the air.” He made a choking sound. “You won’t survive.”

  “What are you talking about?” I brushed past him and headed toward the office.

  Trevor followed. “Now this I have to see.”

  The door to the office swung open to reveal Valance leaning up against the wall, arms crossed, tan forearms on display. A tight smile hovered on his lips as he faced off with the other occupant of the room.

  Taylem stood in the center of the room, his powerful frame eating up space. His T-shirt-clad back was to me, and even though his arms were held loosely at his sides, the muscles of his back were tight with tension.

  His head jerked up slightly as I entered, and he turned to face me. “You’re okay.” He pulled me into a hug, my ear to his chest. His heart beat the thunder of a thousand hooves. “There was blood outside the club. And fear. Your fear.”

  There was nothing like a Taylem hug, and my arms tightened around his waist as I breathed him in deep. My eyes pricked and the final vestiges of anxiety melted away. Tay always had that effect on me. The big guy had a calming presence that soothed my nerves every time, and being in his arms right now allowed me to accept the fact that Azren and I had gotten our arses handed to us, that we could have died. Azren could have died.