by Marie Harte
Teban, where are you? Why aren’t you here witnessing this miraculous spectacle?
James had coldcocked Uriel right in the mouth. Though Uriel had blocked the blue flame from singeing him with a dose of his own holy fire, damage had been done. The archangel wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. He was no longer smiling.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” James said with a smirk and winked at her.
Did he know how much she’d missed him? Part of her felt whole, while she knew something—someone—was still missing.
Several angels tackled James to the floor, and she watched as Annua and Zephon gave James one hell of a beating. Her demon took it with laughter, as if his bones weren’t breaking one by one.
“Uriel,” she said with some urgency. “I realize this amuses you, and he does deserve it, but from what Sister Sarah has mentioned, the light of true love hurts demons more than physical harm might. Might we try to enlighten James, that he might Ascend…as I’ve decided to?”
James stopped laughing. The others stopped moving.
Uriel narrowed his eyes. “You’ve decided to join us then? I should believe you…why?”
So he hadn’t fallen for her lies. Good for him. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.
“Because I mated James, and if you kill him, I’ll die too.”
His frowned turned into a delighted smile. “This is beautiful. Oh, that I hadn’t considered.”
“Uriel?” Annua asked.
“She’s mated to a demon. I’d forgotten that havoc, when mated, are tied in both life and death. Their lifeforce becomes one. So if she Ascends, he comes with her. It’s a package deal.”
James looked appalled.
The other angels gave him some space, so she hurried to help him stand.
He looked terrible, and he looked perfect. Tears filled her eyes as she stared at him. “What took you so long?” she whispered.
“Sorry, baby. Had to heal before I could move on my own again.”
And now he’d need more healing. She bit back a sigh. “Where’s Teban?”
“I don’t know.”
They both frowned, and she realized something was wrong. Really wrong.
Uriel crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot. Goodness. Even his toes were pretty. Everything about the upper realm was too much. And especially too bright. Despite the light, she felt cold, and even James’s nearness didn’t warm her as it should.
“I need Teban,” she said, her strength failing with each moment away from the lower realm and her missing mate.
“I know. Me too.” James hugged her into him and flared his blue flame. The heat of the lower realm filled him, and soon her.
“Much better.”
“But not enough,” James said, echoing what she felt.
“Yes, yes, this is all well and good. I like seeing the demon taken down a notch.” Uriel smiled. “Asael’s son. Duncan wasn’t nearly as much fun as you’ve turned out to be. Now tell me, did you really come here to trade places with her, or to try to trick your way out of a sacrifice?”
At the word sacrifice, they both looked at each other. “I don’t have enough left inside me to fight you,” James said to Uriel.
“I can tell.” Uriel looked him over critically. “If you don’t start healing soon, you might need to vacate that precious mortal form.”
“James?” Kihra worried. This wasn’t like him. She sensed no trickery here. Only a weary demon trying to keep her warm.
“It’s all right, Kihra. I did come up here to trade my life for yours.” He faced Uriel. “I won’t fight you, on this I swear by my oath.” He took a shuddering breath, the unmistakable sound of the death rattle in his chest.
To Kihra’s horror, she heard the snap of his oath bind him to his word. “James, what are you doing?”
“He’s using his brain for once.” Annua nodded. “About time, son of the damned.”
“If you want me, I’m yours.” James hugged her tighter to him, as if saying good-bye.
“No, James. You can’t.” Had he not understood she’d been lying to the angels to gain time?
“Oh, but I can. I already have.” He sagged against her, his knees buckling. Then he winked at her. “I give myself over to the angels…but you’ll have to catch me first.”
Between one breath and the next, she stood with her mate in the very circle where she’d first found him, on havoc land in the lower realm.
Strength filled the empty vessel that had been her body, but before she could thank James, the angels appeared in her world, so very out of place.
Annua and two dozen of his kind smiled at her. “You didn’t think we’d take the chance that he’d somehow steal you from us? The first thing Uriel did when we found you was tag you with a band of holy light.” He nodded at her wrist.
She pulled the offensive strand of energy from her and watched it take form as a thin line of light in the air. Then it landed on the ground, swallowed up by the dark power of the lower realm.
She glanced down at James, who lay unmoving on the ground, much as she’d first seen him not long ago. “James?”
Annua and a few of his friends laughed. “Come, Kihra. We will treat you right, and you never have to deal with this kind of scum again.”
Now filled with Kingu’s fire, her feet firmly on the ground, she turned on those who had taken her away from her lovers and prepared to show them just what the havoc had been bred to do.
Chapter Ten
Teban didn’t understand what the fuss was about. His dragon kin continued to loom over him, shaking their heads and whispering ill omens. Ranton and Jentaron wouldn’t leave his side, while Eve railed and cried and cursed the havoc to hell and back.
Even Asael had made an appearance when his brothers had taken a brief break. The intimidating fallen angel had smiled, winked directly at Teban, then disappeared as soon as he’d arrived.
Unfortunately, Teban soon understood his situation. He seemed suspended in some kind of limbo, able to see his world through his own eyes, though as if from a great distance.
“Really, Kingu, how much longer do I have to be like this?”
“Eternal, aflame, worthy?” the havoc’s creator asked.
Teban had been consumed by the lava that flowed from under him on havoc lands, and then…nothing. He’d woken to find himself and Kingu sharing a meal. They seemed to occupy his body as if it were a large, warm cave. And the only windows he could look out of happened to be his own eyes.
“I feel very small.”
“Size is nothing but perception.” Kingu was large, whether inside Teban’s body or in the lower realm. “I am pleased you believed in me when my own children would not.”
“They do,” Teban said quickly. “Everything I know of you comes from Kihra.”
“Ah, my favorite daughter.” Kingu smiled.
The havoc’s creator faded in and out of solid form. At times it—he?—appeared as a man, large of form, dark of face. He looked a lot like Zelec, with black skin and red eyes. At other times he resembled a dragon, which surprised Teban.
“Might I ask a question?”
“Of course. Your sacrifice was such that I am fully empowered, dragon prince. Ask what you like.”
“Kihra mentioned she thought the havoc were related to the succubi, because your children take sustenance through sexual congress.”
“Yes.”
“But you also seem very natural in dragon form, which I find interesting. Are you a dragon at heart? Are the havoc?”
Kingu smiled and shifted form, and once more looked like a dragon made out of pure flame. Only his eyes remained red, though not of fire.
“Have you not heard that the dragons came from the very first demons?”
Teban sighed. Eve had been correct. “I
have, but it’s not something we dragons like to think too hard about. Most demons tend to be grossly annoying. Very few think beyond simple temptation toward the bigger picture.”
“Unfortunate but accurate,” Kingu agreed. “But in any case, all beings in the lower realm originated from the thought of the One True Power.”
Teban frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You cannot, because you are not meant to. The humans consider they have but one entity. Creation is not limited to one deity. Nor is there one true heaven or hell. What we consider punishment others consider amusement.”
Kingu made a lot of sense—sometimes.
“To make it easier for you to understand, realize that you dragons are closer to realizing your full potential than any other of those races who live in this existence.”
“Do you mind if I tell my mates what you said?” That’s if I can get out of here to join them again.
“Not at all, though the demon will not believe you. He’s very arrogant.”
“I know.”
“But worthy. He too has given himself in sacrifice for my vessel, the lovely Kihra.” Kingu drew in a deep breath and let it out, and was once again a man. This time he resembled James, and the uncanny similarity disturbed the hell out of Teban.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean your lovely mates are battling the winged ones in my sacred circle. Kihra is gifting the enlightened with the joy of pain.”
“I need to go to them.”
“To her. The male, this demon, is fading. Not just from his human form, but from the Ethereal. He used too much of his power to save Kihra.”
“He can have mine,” Teban said without a thought.
“You are a very worthy sacrifice.” Kingu smiled, and he put a hand on Teban’s chest.
“Not this again,” Teban complained, prepared to feel the fires of everlasting hell once more.
“Yes, dragon. You wear my flames so well, and it scares those around you. Their fear is so wonderfully appetizing.”
“I’m just glad you don’t let the havoc eat souls anymore.” Kingu said nothing, just looked into Teban’s eyes from a place of power Teban could never understand. “Right, Kingu?”
The creator laughed. “If you say so. Now go and watch my vessel. If you are wise, you will soon understand how to share the sacrifice, that he may live in you both. Now be a good dragon and burn.”
Kingu let go of his power and surged through Teban once more.
Teban screamed as the pain devoured him whole. Fucking Kingu had a bad habit of burning not just the flesh, but the spirit as well.
When Teban could manage the agony of existing while burning alive, he stood on shaky legs, all four of them, and blinked at those who surrounded him.
“Mother night. Teban, you’re alive!” Eve ran toward him but was pulled back by Ranton.
His younger brother had tears in his eyes. “We feared you were gone, following Mother into eternal rest.”
“So she’s gone, then?” he said loudly, trying to hear himself over his crackle and pop of flame.
“She passed when she thought you gone,” Jentaron answered. “I don’t suppose you talked to her when you and Kingu shared the afterlife?”
Images flashed, those of he and Kingu conversing over a meal. Of the passing of planets and stars and worlds beyond the realms in which he moved. Of his mother’s radiant youth once more returned while she visited for a brief spell. “Come to mention it, I thought I dreamt about her having a meal with us. She was much younger, though, so I thought it something unreal.”
“Ah, good. She’s not hungry anymore. She couldn’t keep much of a meal down toward the end.” Jentaron smiled, his blue-and-silver eyes shining. “Brother, your flame is much hotter than it was, but you’re starting to burn the rock around you. I don’t suppose you could temper it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I need to find Kihra and James. Now.” So saying, he drew his wings in and lifted, and before he knew it, he darted through the air like gliding through flame. The soothing winds lifted him, faster than he’d ever flown before, until he stared down at Kihra tossing angels around like weeds from a garden. James lay on the hard rock, not moving.
Teban landed and walked toward him, aware of the heat that bled from James’s bones into the cooling rock beneath him. Magic in the sacred circle soothed and welcomed, and he cheered Kihra’s name as she tossed Annua on his sorry ass after ripping a hunk of his precious hair from his head.
She had her tiny fangs out, her claws bloody, and wore a white tunic now soiled with sand and blood as she danced over the cracked ground beneath her. That same ruptured land had reached here, and he felt heat beneath him even as he burned alive. The pain he still managed—barely. It was the joy he experienced in seeing his mates that kept him sane.
“Teban!” Kihra waved and laughed. “I was so worried. I couldn’t feel you here.” She tapped her heart before diverting a lunging angel into stabbing his brother warrior. A wide grin split her face, and he thought her the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Can you breathe on James and wake him up? He’s not moving. That’s not good.”
Taking advantage of her inattention, an angel stabbed her through her stomach, and Teban’s entire world ceased to be.
Then, still smiling, Kihra pulled herself off the blade, ignored the blood streaming from her wound and smote the angel who’d wielded it right back to heaven. She reached into the crack at her feet and took a handful of lava—the same stuff that coated him—and rubbed it over her skin. Instead of burning her flesh to ash, it healed her.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” he asked, wishing to hell he could rid himself of the fire smothering his scales.
“Oh yes. But pain is the sacrifice that keeps us alive.”
He suddenly understood. To accept Kingu was to give him part of that life, of that joy, and that energy kept him going. Trading his own immortal life for Kingu’s favorite daughter had in fact resurrected Teban. He had a feeling it would do the same for James.
Teban knelt next to his fallen mate as Kihra continued to laugh and fight those angels too stupid to flee. He heard and felt the sound of many more creatures approaching, but he focused only on James.
“Hey, demon. Wake up.”
James lay pale. Too still.
Teban shoved him with the tip of one fiery claw, and James caught fire as if he’d been doused in gasoline. Many shouts and gasps filled the air, but it was James’s inventive swearing that rang the loudest.
James bolted from the ground, running around and yelling as he tried to put out the flame searing him from the inside out.
“Relax, James. Accept your painful sacrifice, give thanks to Kingu and watch our mate kick some angelic ass.”
James stilled and stared at Teban through eyes of fire. But as Teban watched, that fire turned from red to purple to blue and stayed that way.
Tired of his every nerve being exposed, Teban shut the lid on the godlike power burning him up and sighed when blessed warm air stroked over his smoking scales, once again green, as they should be.
He leaned forward to butt his head against James’s chest and felt his mate sigh and hug him tight—as tightly as James could manage to grip in that puny demon body. “I missed you,” they said at the same time.
Then James lifted his head and nudged Teban to watch their mate fight. “Wow. Good thing I never plan to make her mad. Did you see her take Mannie’s head? And him I liked.”
The poor angel’s head rolled across the rocky ground to Teban, who blew a burst of fire over it. The head melted into the ground. “That’s a new one.” He frowned.
James frowned as well. “Your fire. It’s too hot. Like napalm, not regular fire.” James scorched the next angel that managed to cross his path. The angel glared, then raced to save his friend fr
om being decapitated by Kihra and her wicked blade.
“Your flame looks the same, that blue fire you Sinclairs are blessed with,” Teban said.
“Thank Lucifer.” James blew out a relieved breath. “So how have things been? Where the hell were you?”
Before Teban could explain, hordes of havoc and dragons circled around them and Kihra. The rest of the angels darted into the skies.
He and James shared an amused glance and watched their heavenly guests fly away. “Pussies.”
James nodded. “Idiots.”
The havoc stared at Teban in awe. Kihra, despite having defeated so many on her own, earned only a few congratulatory nods.
“You were amazing,” Teban said to her.
James agreed. “Breathtaking. I love your work with a blade.” He wiped a finger across his throat. “Obviously ‘heads will roll’ is more than an expression with you. It’s a way of life.” He snickered.
Kihra tucked her bloodied blade back into that neat place in the air, where it disappeared. Teban was going to have to ask her how she did that. Then she drew him and James close. He shrank back to human size, wanting to feel her arms all the way around him. Well, as far as her arms could go while also grabbing on to James.
“I don’t understand. Why isn’t he dead?” he heard one of Myfere’s men ask.
James pulled from Kihra and frowned. “Dead?”
Myfere nodded, his gaze full of respect as he stared at Teban. “He sacrificed himself for Kihra to Kingu. The dragon bled in fear and terror, his pain mighty while our creator swallowed him whole.” Myfere pointed to the crack in the ground, which closed as they watched.
“That is why I hurt in my heart.” Kihra’s eyes grew glassy. “You were dying.”
“Damn, Teban. You died for her, huh?” James narrowed his eyes. “I did too. So that makes us even.”
“Yeah? Well, did you feel that wake-up with the fire? That agony on you and in you? I had that for days.” Teban gave a dramatic sniff. “I win.”
“Are you shitting me?” James stepped closer, blue fire in his eyes. “I had to deal with angelic touch. Do you have any idea how awful that is?” He shuddered.