“Among other things,” he said cryptically. “I trust that all is well between you and the syraza? She is proving to be suitable to the task I set her?”
It was my turn to incline my head in a nod. “All is well. In fact she’s a very considerate roommate and is currently attempting to train me in self-defense.” I couldn’t quite hide the grimace. I wasn’t exactly a future ninja chick. We’d finally agreed that I’d simply do my best in order to buy her time to do whatever she needed to do. Then again, I realized, I didn’t do too badly against the graa. Maybe there was hope for me yet?
“Most excellent.” He gave a satisfied nod. “You need not risk wasting your questions regarding your safety, dearest,” he said. “I am presently dealing with the matter.”
I scowled, even though I’d half-expected a bullshit answer like that. A don’t-you-worry-your-pretty-head-about-this kind of thing.
“It is quite complicated,” he added in a low voice, stroking a thumb over my cheek. “I know this answer does not satisfy you.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I replied. “I really hate being kept in the dark.”
“You are a detective. A seeker of knowledge. This lack of information chafes at your very nature. But some matters cannot be directly explained or revealed, lest the peril to you increase.” He moved away from me and draped himself elegantly into the armchair by the fireplace.
An odd flush of anger swept over me. “That’s bullshit,” I said. “Oh, great, it’s for my own good that you can’t tell me anything! I’m so goddamn sick of this shit!” His eyes narrowed, and I knew I needed to shut the hell up, but I couldn’t seem to stop the words pouring out of my mouth. “I never know what the fuck is going on. I summon you, and we fuck. I’m just some kind of sextoy or something to you. Then you sneak upstairs and use my computer—” I had to take a breath then, and somehow I regained enough control of myself to clamp down on the bizarre fury. What the hell was I thinking going off on him like that?
My gut clenched as Rhyzkahl regarded me from where he sat. The leaping flames in the fireplace cast stark shadows across his beautiful features, giving him an even more dangerous and menacing appearance. Not that he needed shadows for that. He was a demonic lord, one of the most powerful creatures that I knew of and certainly the most powerful that I’d ever encountered.
So why the hell had I gone off like that?
“I…I’m sorry,” I said. I shook my head, frowned. “I didn’t mean all that.”
“I did not sneak,” he finally said.
I blinked in confusion. This wasn’t the retaliation I’d expected. “Huh?”
The demonic lord’s lips twitched ever so slightly. “Your computer. I did not sneak upstairs.”
Shit, had I asked that as a question? I hurriedly cast back to my memory of my off-balanced rant. I hadn’t planned on wasting my questions on that, since the response he’d just given me was pretty much the response I’d expected. I didn’t have any other possible suspects, and I knew that he would never in a million years lie to me—not with that demonic sense of honor ruling his words and actions. No, I decided after a few seconds of mental rummaging, I hadn’t actually asked a question. Therefore, if he was willing to keep talking, I was more than willing to continue on this tack.
“You waited until I was asleep,” I pointed out.
He lifted a perfect eyebrow. “I do not recall having to wait at all. You fell asleep rather quickly after you received your fill of pleasure.”
I flushed, even though it certainly hadn’t been the first, or last, time he’d “pleasured” me. “You could have just asked me if you could use the computer,” I said, far more sullenly than I’d meant. Fucking hell, was I PMS-ing or something?
He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug, amusement lighting his eyes, which did not make it easier for me to get my mood under control. “I was unaware that there were portions of your house that were off-limits to me,” he replied.
My scowl darkened. He was enjoying this, the jerk, and I was only making it more amusing for him by continuing to nag him about this stupid detail. I folded my arms across my chest. “I just…I have personal shit on there, y’know. It would be like you reading my diary or something. And you could have just asked. And how the hell do you know how to use a computer anyway?”
He was on his feet and in front of me holding my shoulders in the time it took me to blink. “I had need of information,” he stated, no longer looking amused. “And if I chose not to share my need for this information with you, then that is my prerogative.” His grip on my shoulders was firm, though not to the point of hurting me. Yet. I knew he was powerful enough to shatter me before I could twitch.
“You stated none of this need for privacy when we set the terms,” he continued. Then his eyes narrowed. “Think you that I could not strip all of your secrets from you in the time it takes your heart to beat thrice?”
My mouth had gone dry, but I made myself look up at him, forced myself to meet the ancient potency that simmered behind his gaze. “You don’t own me,” I stated as boldly as I could, though the tremor in my voice kind of ruined my show of strength. “I don’t serve you. The deal was that I’d summon you once a month, and you’d answer two questions for me. I’m not going to bow or grovel or…or…”
He released me and spun away, hissing what sounded like an expletive under his breath. “Have I ever demanded thus from you?” His hands tightened into fists, and he looked back at me. He was angry, but it was a different anger than I’d ever seen in him before. I’d seen him filled with the kind of fury that made me mewl in terror, and I’d seen him with a dark anger that could only precede a slaughter. But this anger was…strangely personal.
His jaw tightened. “Have I ever required obeisance from you?”
I shook my head in a jerky move. “No,” I muttered.
He lifted his hand, and I didn’t have to shift into othersight to see the power coiling into his control. Fear spasmed through me, along with the desire to flee, but before the thought could translate into action the potency wound around me, stilling me. In the next heartbeat I was on my knees before him, forced there by his will.
“I could wring such servitude from you if I wished,” he continued, voice resonating in the stone of the basement as my pulse slammed.
“Stop this,” I managed to gasp. Then my gaze was torn from him as my head bowed. “Stop it!” I said, voice shaking more with anger than fear. “I’m not going to fucking beg you to stop, if that’s what you’re waiting for. You’re being a fucking asshole!”
A second later I nearly sprawled face first as he released me. I barely caught myself on my hands in time, then I jerked my head up to see him standing with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, breathing deeply. He opened his eyes and met mine.
“And I will not force this from you,” he stated quietly. “I swear to you I will never do this to you again, unless there is some other pressing and dire need for this manner of display other than my own vanity.”
I didn’t say anything to that. I was so angry I was shaking, and I could tell that I was about to cry. I hated that. I cried when I got angry or frustrated, and that had been happening way too much lately.
He stepped to me and crouched, then pulled me to my feet and enveloped me in his arms before I could think to protest. “Forgive me,” he murmured. “That was a churlish display, and you did not deserve it. I was…an asshole.”
I almost laughed at the admission but managed to hold it back. But I did surreptitiously wipe my sniffly nose on his jacket.
“Apology accepted,” I said. “It didn’t help that I was being a bitch.” My anger was gone now, thankfully. It bugged me that I’d lost control like that. He’s not human. He could have slapped me down a lot harder.
But he hadn’t. That had been a demonic lord version of shouting back at me. In fact he’d shown incredible restraint. I sighed inwardly. Someday I would figure out this fucked up dynamic between us.
I
pulled back enough to look up at him. “I, um, find it interesting that you know how to use a computer,” I said, carefully not phrasing it as a question.
To my surprise he kissed me tenderly on the forehead. He’d been doing more of these oddly affectionate moves, which only managed to confuse the living fuck out of me. “Once summoned,” he said, “a demonic lord is able to bring another demon through to this sphere, though it is not simple and requires a great deal of effort. There is a luhrek who is gifted with matters of technology. She performed the work I required.”
He brought another demon through? Okay, that was a big ol’ whopping shocker, and I knew it showed on my face. Yet, again, there was nothing in the terms of our agreement that barred him from doing anything like that.
I could feel a simmer of anger at the edges of my mind, and I took a shaky breath. I had to keep control of it this time. I couldn’t count on him being all nice and understanding if I went mental on him again. I was safe with him only because of the oaths that bound us both. I could fool myself all I wanted about understanding the dynamic between us, but the truth was that I had no idea where I stood with him. Or where I wanted to stand with him. And what if I started seeing someone—like an actual boyfriend? If I ever decided I wanted to stop sleeping with Rhyzkahl, how would he react? Was being my lover part of a plan, or was there any spark at all of true desire to be with me? And if the latter were true…how did I feel about that?
“I want to know why you changed your look but I don’t want to waste a question on that,” I blurted. He lifted an eyebrow, but I bulled onward before he could speak. “I know this is going to seem stupid, but it’s kinda freaking me out because it makes me wonder what you’re up to. And even though I know I can’t really trust you beyond the oaths you’ve given me, I feel more comfortable around you than I feel around most humans, and in some ways I really care about you, and the thought that this whole thing is just you playing me as part of some bigger game is a pretty awful one.” I clamped my lips shut as I felt the flush rise up my neck. Shit. I’d gone mental again with the verbal diarrhea but in a different direction. Did I really just tell him that I didn’t trust him that I cared about him?
“I mean…” I started, but then trailed off. What the fuck was I supposed to say that could serve as any sort of useful damage control? I needed to simply shut the fuck up.
His expression remained inscrutable as he regarded me. “When I watched television with you I realized that it might be useful and worthwhile to more closely conform my appearance to current standards.” He paused. “You are right to be wary of me and to trust cautiously, but I will tell you that some of the decision to change my clothing was based on my observation that you found these styles…appealing. I do hope that on this, at least, you will believe me.”
I managed to give him a smile in response. I wasn’t about to tell him that his changing to please me was the part that was freaking me out.
Rhyzkahl bent his head to kiss me. I returned it, then pulled back and looked up into his face. “I don’t want to fuck today.”
He dipped his head in a slight nod. “Then we will not.”
“I mean, it’s not you at all, and you’re still crazy-hot and sexy, but I just have too many things going through my head today and—”
“Then we will not,” he gently interrupted. “There is never a need to explain or defend such a wish.”
He sure did make it hard to distrust him. The best con men always seem trustworthy, I reminded myself. I leaned my head against his chest and closed my eyes. His hand stroked over me, a warm tingle following its path.
“You like to win, don’t you?” I murmured.
“I do not care for the consequences of losing,” he said.
“Winning has consequences as well.”
“But one tends to have more control over consequences when one is the victor.”
I opened my eyes to look into his. “Do you ever lose?”
“Yes. It is how I know that I prefer to win.” An expression of regret skimmed across his face and was gone. “You have yet to ask your questions, dear one.”
I pulled away from him, moved to the table, and hitched myself up to sit on it. Rhyzkahl’s eyes were intent upon me as if he knew what I was going to ask. For that matter, it was possible that he did know. I desperately wanted to know about the summoning of Szerain. But there was another question that haunted me more.
“I know Ryan Kristoff is a demonic lord,” I said, watching him. To his credit he didn’t twitch, but the hopeful part of me thought it detected just the faintest flicker of interest. I also noted that he neither confirmed nor denied it.
“Why is he on earth, posing as a human, and with no apparent knowledge or memory of being a demonic lord?”
The air seemed to grow heavy as he regarded me. I could hear my heart thumping as I waited for his answer, any answer.
When he finally spoke his voice was low and rich, tinged with an emotion that I couldn’t process. “I am bound by oath, Kara,” he said, shocking me by the use of my name. I couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken it. It was usually “dear one” or something of that ilk. He stepped to me, let out a low sigh, and touched my cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers. “I know this frustrates you beyond measure. But I cannot answer this question. Ask another.”
Frustrated was putting it mildly. “You can’t tell me anything?” I asked, struggling to hold back my disappointment. I’d finally pinned him down and asked the damn question right, and all I got was “I am bound by oath”?
“I cannot answer this question,” he repeated.
A flare of annoyance rose. I opened my mouth to make a retort, but then I closed it and processed what he’d said. Part of my agreement with him was that, in return for summoning him no less than once a month, I could ask two questions, and he would answer them to the best of his ability. However, I’d also discovered that I had to be extremely careful about how I asked a question. If I didn’t phrase it properly, and he didn’t feel like answering it, he’d find a way to wiggle out of it. In other words, asking a yes/no question would get me a yes/no answer, and not a word more.
But he’d said that he could not answer this question, not that he couldn’t answer questions about Ryan.
I thought for a second. The demonic lord waited quietly, almost patiently as I worked out what I could ask that might give me a useful answer.
Sitting up, I took a deep breath and tried again. “What sort of offense could a demonic lord commit that might cause the other lords to strip him of his memories and exile him?”
“There is none,” Rhyzkahl stated, eyes never leaving mine. “The lords do not censure their own.”
Well, crapping hells. That didn’t make any sense. “So why…?” I stopped, shook my head. No, he wasn’t going to answer a direct question. I made myself think about the answer. Okay, the lords wouldn’t censure. So who would? Was there another level beyond even the lords?
I needed to think about that one some more. No sense wasting a question. Maybe time to go back to my other big question.
“Why was Szerain willing to be summoned by Peter Cerise and the five other summoners on the night that you were summoned by accident instead?” I was trying to be as specific as possible without knowing the exact date—not that the exact date would probably mean anything to the demonic lord.
Rhyzkahl turned away from me to face the fireplace. He stood with his hands clasped lightly behind his back, silent, but I had the impression he was gathering his thoughts. I waited, struggling to control my impatience. I had a strong feeling I’d just asked a doozy of a question.
He finally spoke.
“Because two of the summoners present were bound to him in much the same way that you are bound to me.”
Wow. I fought back the urge to pepper him with further questions. Which ones? Then why were there six summoners? How did it go so wrong? Was my grandmother sworn to Szerain? What was Szerain’s goal? What was your g
oal?
“Why did you kill them?” I blurted. “My grandmother…and the others?” I’d never known my grandmother—she was simply a name. I’d never felt any sort of connection to her, and I’d somehow managed to compartmentalize her cause of death into a category similar to poking bears with sticks. She’d been involved in something insanely dangerous, and when it had gone bad I’d somehow decided that it was tragic but not really Rhyzkahl’s fault. He’d reacted as expected, that’s all. Maybe it made me a terribly callous person, that I could have become intimate with the one who took her life, but I was a summoner. I knew the risks. Surely, so did she, and she’d accepted them. If a summoning goes badly wrong, you die. It’s worth it, though, because…
Because.…I frowned, forgetting Rhyzkahl’s presence and my unanswered question. Summoning was so incredible and satisfying. I felt clear-headed and alive and powerful after every ritual. Once I’d started summoning, I’d never once been tempted to go back to drugs. I hadn’t thought about that until now. How had I done that? Who the hell shook an addiction that easily? Right now I couldn’t imagine not being a summoner.
Was summoning an addiction? Now that I had the storage diagram I never went more than two weeks without conducting a ritual, even if it was simply a lower-level demon summoned for “practice.”
But I couldn’t ask him. The question about killing my grandmother and the others still hung in the air, and I didn’t expect him to answer it. He’d already answered two questions for me.
“It wasn’t revenge for being summoned,” I said, feeling a need to fill the silence as I worked it out. “I mean, not totally. You saw an opportunity to take away his advantage. Kill the two who were bound to him.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “It was not so simple as that,” he said. He looked toward the summoning diagram, and for an instant I could have sworn I saw agony mar his beautiful features, but it was gone before I could be sure. “I slew them for revenge,” he said, voice so low I could barely hear him. “But not for the errant summoning. I sought to hurt Szerain in the opportunity presented to me, by destroying his summoners and slaying the ones who would have supported his plans.” I was shocked to see his hands tighten into fists as anger slashed across his face. “It was the only vengeance I was allowed to take, and so I did, even though it was paltry and insufficient.” His eyes returned to mine, and the anger in them faded. “The women did not suffer in their deaths. I give you my oath on that. I simply freed their essences. They felt no pain.”
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