Where Demons Fear to Tread

by Stephanie Chong

  He would give her one last chance to make the right choice on her own.

  In the back garden, Nick had taken charge of the microphone, belting out an old jazz standard with the orchestra. The fool was not half bad, Julian thought. Nick might have had a career as a rock star had he not found fame on the silver screen. As the song ended, the young man jumped off the stage to raucous applause, just as he spied Julian and Serena descending the staircase.

  The angel peered at Nick beneath the twinkling lights as he approached, at the trace of white powder beneath his nostrils. “You’ve been using again,” she said flatly.

  “What else was there for me to do? My date ran off with another guy,” he said. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand, stared an accusation at Julian. He looked at Serena, gestured at the place where her missing sash ought to have been, and said flatly, “Part of your dress is gone.”

  Julian swept in front of her, blocking off their exchange.

  “How would you like to come to Las Vegas with me?” he said to Nick on an impulse. “My new club is making its debut in one week, and I’d like you to be a part of the grand opening. I need to oversee the lastminute preparations, and I’d like you to be my guest at the Hotel Lussuria.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Nick asked, eyes narrowing. His gaze darted behind Julian to the girl.

  “I’ll make it worth your while. You’ll be handsomely compensated, of course. An executive suite, free gambling chips for the tables. All the booze you can drink,” Julian said. Add to that the promise of more escorts than one man could handle and all the pure Colombian blow he could stuff up his nose, and Nick would be amenable to just about anything.

  The actor jerked his chin toward Serena. “What about her?”

  “She can come along, too,” Julian said casually, turning slightly to watch her reaction.

  She wore that adorable little scowl of hers. The heat of their kisses still stained her cheeks, and her blush intensified with her rising indignation. Angry, she was magnificent. “Not in a million years,” she ground out. “Anyway, aren’t you in the middle of filming right now, Nick?”

  “I’m a star,” he said, shooting her an irritated look. “If I want to take a week off, I can.”

  “This seems like a really bad decision. I don’t think you should go anywhere with this man. I certainly won’t,” Serena said.

  “It’s your choice,” Julian told her. “It’s a pity Nick here will have to get along without his yoga lessons for the next week.” Then he dropped the bomb. “Maybe Andrew would like to come with me, too. It might give us an opportunity to bond. And then there’s Meredith…” He let his voice trail off for effect.

  Serena gasped, her lovely blue eyes going enormously round. She was just as delectable when she was shocked as when she was angry. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Why not? The more the merrier. Perhaps you might reconsider and join us, as well, my dear?” he said.

  He summoned a pair of Gatekeepers, who brought the roommate and the brother from the corner of the garden, where they’d been detained on a thin excuse that had kept Andrew busy photographing shots of random guests. Julian caught the look of helplessness that passed between the two angels. His Gatekeepers had done their job and blocked Meredith’s intended escape.

  Julian strode up and gave the brother a hearty slap on the back. “Andrew, my good man. How have you been enjoying your evening?”

  Andrew looked stone-cold sober, which was a disappointment. The Gatekeepers had instructions to ply him with alcohol and drugs, but Meredith must’ve succeeded in preventing that much. Trust an angel to interfere with a perfectly good binge, Julian thought.

  “Fine, thanks, Julian,” Andrew said. “I think I’ve got enough images for your publicity shots.”

  “Thanks so much for your help, Andrew. Your presence here has been very much appreciated. Listen, I have a proposition for you.”

  Julian felt a touch on his arm. Serena whispered, “Wait.”

  “What’s that, my angel?” he said casually. He knew what was coming, but he tried to contain his smugness.

  “I need to speak with you alone,” she said, eyes downcast.

  “Again, my dear? Andrew, Meredith, would you excuse us for a moment?” he asked, taking her by the hand and pulling her into a far corner. The roommate glared as Julian led Serena away. But the music from the orchestra and the mounting noise of the guests was enough to drown out their conversation from the redhead’s prying ears.

  Serena turned to him. “Let Andrew leave.”

  “Now, why would I do that? Andrew can make his own choices. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to come to Vegas with me,” Julian said.

  “Let me substitute myself for Andrew. If you let him go, I’ll come to Vegas with you.”

  Julian’s heart soared, but he allowed no sign of it on his face.

  “But I need to know I’ll be safe with you,” she demanded.

  “I promise it. I swear it on my mother’s grave,” he said.

  “For all I know, you might have knifed your own mother in the back. I want your promise in writing.”

  That hurt, more than she could know. The gentle touch of his mother’s hand on his hair floated into his mind, the ghost of a memory so sweet it made him miss her, dead these long centuries. He shook the feeling away, forced himself to say lightly, “I loved my mother dearly, and of course I would never have harmed her.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Write it down or I’m not coming.”

  “Fine.” He sighed. He took a pen from the inside of his suit pocket and scribbled on a napkin from one of the cocktail trays: I, Julian Ascher, promise not to harm an angelic hair on the head of Miss Serena St. Clair during the week she has agreed to spend with me in Las Vegas. He signed it with a flourish.

  She scanned the napkin and blinked, hesitating for a moment. “I want you to promise to leave me, my family and my friends alone afterward.”

  “If you so desire, consider it done,” he said, scribbling in the extra phrase to placate her. After seven days with him, Serena’s prudish resolve would be broken, cast to the wayside. And he would have no further use for her family and friends, anyway.

  “And separate rooms,” she insisted.

  He bent again to write, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes. If he wanted to take her, he would have her, separate bedrooms or not. Her fear of him bordered on the insulting. He’d never forced a woman. He’d never had to, and he wouldn’t have to force her, either. She wanted him—he’d known that when he held her body against his and felt her submit. No, when Serena came to him, she would come willingly. More than willingly. He would make her crave his touch. Yes, he would have her writhing under him, calling out his name and crying for more. At the end of seven days, she would not want to leave him.

  “Julian?” Her voice broke him out of his reverie. “Julian, did you hear a word I just said?” She held out the paper, glaring at him with that sweet little scowl.

  “Yes, of course,” he said absently. He hadn’t heard her. He was too busy imagining her writhing bare-breasted beneath him.

  “I want you to play fair,” she said, scolding him like an angry wife and snapping him back to reality. “No lying, no cheating, no trickery while we’re together.”

  He grinned. “I may be a demon, Serena, but I’m an honorable one. My word is as good as gold.” And as malleable as gold, too.

  Oh, she was so naive. An honorable demon. Did such a being exist? Certainly, every demon had to observe the rules between angels and demons. Promises made between them must be honored, or there were dire consequences. Yes, he knew that. But even if there was such a creature as an honorable demon, he might not break the rules, but he would do his damnedest to bend them. And he had no plans to change his nature overnight. No, he thought, that would be like asking a wolf not to hunt. But since he knew she wouldn’t appreciate that sentiment, he refrained from sharing it with her.

/>   Instead, he headed back to where Andrew and Meredith stood. He clapped Andrew heavily on the shoulder, and said, “Here’s what I wanted to propose. You’ve done such a wonderful job that I’m going to double your rate. Send me the proofs and I’ll be in touch shortly. Can’t wait to see those photos. I’m off to Las Vegas for a week with my lady friend.”

  Meredith’s eyes went large and round. “But…but you can’t!”

  “It’s okay, Meredith. We’ll talk about it later,” Serena said. She started toward the doorway, gesturing for her roommate and her brother to follow her.

  Julian caught her arm. “Where do you think you’re going? You and I are leaving now.”

  She stiffened, looking toward Andrew and Meredith. “I’m going home to pack.”

  “Don’t worry about packing,” he said. “Everything you need will be provided.” He gestured to one of the staff, instructing the man to have a car brought around.

  In the doorway, Meredith hesitated, waiting for Serena.

  “Go,” Julian said to them. “She’s coming with me.”

  Serena stood by his side, the napkin with his scribbled promise dangling from her fingers. Her shoulders hunched forward and the corners of her mouth sagged as she nodded her assent. Meredith sent her a last worried look before ushering Andrew away. For a second, Serena looked so dejected that Julian felt a strange pang in his chest. It felt suspiciously like guilt. He ignored it, knowing it would eventually dissipate, as guilt always did.

  She turned to him. “I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes, with a particularly unangelic expression that he might even have described as murderous. “You get a phone call even when you’re sent to prison.”

  The sensation in his chest intensified. He ignored it. “Forget it.”

  She clutched her cell phone, glaring at him. It was all so pathetic. But he refused to feel sympathy for her. She was the one who’d started it all by invading his territory last Saturday night, trying to mess around with his business. She was the one who’d embedded herself into his consciousness like an unscratched itch. She was the one who needed to learn to accept the consequences of her choices.

  Julian reached over and took her cell phone, stuffed it in his pocket. A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. She raised her hand to swipe at it, but he caught it before she did and blotted the tear with the pad of his thumb.

  “Come now. It’s only a week. Am I really that bad?” he coaxed.

  She didn’t speak, but he suspected he already knew her answer.

  She was conspicuously silent as he led her back through the house, toward the front entrance. The party was just reaching its zenith, having mushroomed far beyond the original two hundred invited guests. People spilled out of every room, stumbling and laughing in the hallways. As Julian and Serena passed through the foyer, the Nakara caught sight of him. Apparently the creature had tired of remaining in its frozen position. As it saw him, it launched itself from its pedestal as though in protest for having been forced to endure hours of stillness. In a few flaps of its crystalline wings, it began soaring beneath the vaulted ceiling.

  The foyer erupted into chaos. Guests began to stampede for the door, screaming and pushing each other down to get to the exit. Some ducked and tried to protect themselves from the Nakara’s icy claws. As it flew, it let out a shriek that was like the sound of nails scraping down a chalkboard, but magnified through a loudspeaker. Julian shook his head at the flying monstrosity, directing it to return to its place. With a final shriek, it complied, winging back to the pedestal and settling grudgingly into place once again.

  Julian bellowed over the noise of the panicking crowd, “No need for concern, ladies and gentlemen! It’s merely a magic trick—an illusion for your entertainment!”

  When they saw the beast had returned to its pedestal and resumed its petrified stance, the guests stopped. After a dazed pause, some began clapping. The applause escalated, and people clustered around the ice sculpture, speculating about how the trick had been done.

  Serena said nothing. She glared at Julian through narrowed eyes, her lips pressed into a line.

  “Your lips don’t have their usual appeal when you flatten your mouth like that,” he said, smirking down at her.

  “Someone could have been seriously hurt,” she said tersely.

  “If there was any potential harm, it was from the humans themselves and not from the Nakara,” he said. “Most of them would gladly have crushed each other to escape the danger.”

  Stepping through the crowd, he led her out the front entrance and ushered her into the passenger seat of his waiting Maserati. For all he cared at this moment, the damned ice demon could swallow the entire houseful of screaming humans. He wrapped his hands around the cool black leather of the steering wheel, and accelerated down the driveway.

  He couldn’t remember a moment in years that he’d felt this gratified. Let the staff deal with the aftermath of the party. He was taking Serena to Vegas.

  Chapter Six

  Serena awoke alone the next morning.

  Thank heaven for small miracles, but at least there was that.

  Only a thin crack of sunlight streamed in through a gap between the heavy velvet curtains. Otherwise, it was dark in the lavish bedroom where she lay, in a bed fit for royalty, on the softest sheets she’d ever felt. Overhead, filmy white fabric hung from a massive canopy.

  Her mind scrambled for details of where she was, and how she’d gotten here.

  And it all came flooding back. The party. The kiss in the library. The three-hour drive to Vegas at ninety miles an hour. The silence between them as Julian drove. Her fear as she’d clung to the door handle despite the smoothness with which Julian handled the break-neck speed. The towering hotel, its name emblazoned in ornate letters: The Lussuria. The grand lobby with its art-deco embellishments, its elegant color scheme of gold and muted blue.

  Julian had settled her in this sumptuous hotel room and left her alone for the rest of the night. Relieved, she had bolted the door from the inside, removed her dress and promptly fallen asleep here on this haven of a bed. Into as deep a slumber as she could ever recall.

  Now, lying here in this ethereally beautiful place, the horrifying realization of what she’d done began to sink in. I’ve made a deal with a demon.

  A door swung open.

  Not the front door she’d come in through last night, but a door she had thought was a closet. Clearly, it was not a closet.

  And Julian had the key.

  He stood in the doorway, clad in a white bathrobe, the color a stunning contrast again his tanned skin. “Good morning, sunshine,” he said.

  She flung the sheet over her half-nude body, but not quite fast enough.

  His gaze slid over her, something dangerous stirring in those blue-green depths. “A very good morning, indeed,” he mused.

  While she scrambled to cover herself, he sat down on the edge of the bed, so close that she inhaled the scent of healthy male and a trace of cologne. He clasped his hands behind his head and reclined on the pillows. She struggled to move away from him, but it wasn’t easy. The king-size sheet refused to cooperate as she yanked hard to free it from the foot of the mattress where it was carefully tucked.

  “You might try the robe,” he said. He gestured to the white terrycloth bathrobe that lay folded on a divan at the foot of the bed.

  She slid awkwardly under the sheet to reach the robe and pull it on. Settled herself on the bottom corner of the bed, as far away from him as possible. “This was not part of our deal,” she snapped. “We’re supposed to have separate bedrooms.”

  He shrugged, toying with the belt of his own robe as he continued to watch her. “We do. But I never said I would stay out. Your room happens to adjoin my suite. I slept in my room last night, of course. I am an honorable demon.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, wishing he wasn�
�t quite so handsome. Or quite so close. Cinching the robe shut, she said, “You never mentioned an adjoining door.”

  “I’m still a demon, after all,” he shrugged. “What did you expect?”

  Lounging on the white sheets, he was magnificent. Six feet of tanned, athletic masculinity, displayed for her benefit. Without even looking, she could feel his half smile beckoning her. To reach out and touch him, to slip her hand beneath that soft robe. The belt was loosely tied, as easy to undo as the sash on her dress last night…. She turned her attention toward the windows instead, just for somewhere else to look. Swallowing, she said, “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Just after two in the afternoon. Time for breakfast,” he said. Then he picked up the phone and ordered room service, as nonchalantly as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be breakfasting in the middle of the day. As he spoke, his gaze raked over her. She wrapped the robe a little more tightly around herself.

  When he’d hung up the phone, he told her, “You’ll find other clothes hanging there for you in the closet near the bathroom. I took the liberty of having a personal shopper deliver a few items.”

  She didn’t want to ask when he’d had time to do so. But he was, after all, an Archdemon. He could probably materialize gold from straw if he wanted to.

  “Where’s Nick?” she said, keeping her tone deliberately sullen. She might have agreed to spend a week with Julian, but she hadn’t agreed to be pleasant.

  “Stop worrying. Nick will fly in from L.A. with Harry later today. Your little friend will join us tonight for dinner, along with my business partner. Relax, angel. You and I are going to be spending a lot of time alone together this week.”

  Alone. With Julian. And all either of them had to do was reach out an arm across the expanse of rumpled bedclothes. Her heart began a rapid palpitation. She must put distance between them, she knew. She padded across the cool marble floor to the window. Throwing open the curtains, she blinked in the sunlight as her eyes adjusted to the brightness.