Where Demons Fear to Tread

by Stephanie Chong

  “It was just a harmless prank,” the demoness purred, stretching to caress Corbin’s cheek. Her raven tresses gleamed in the dim lamplight. “It was just a little game.”

  Julian glared, wondering how he’d ever deluded himself into thinking he had once loved this wretched creature. What an idiot he’d been in his human life. “You don’t play with what belongs to me.”

  “I gave you the antivenom, didn’t I?” she said, pouting. “Stop overreacting. It was just a snake. If I had wanted to, I could have…” She paused, exchanging a covert little smile with Corbin.

  “What?” Julian demanded.

  “Nothing,” she said. “That little zoccola is tougher than she looks.”

  Slut was what she had just called Serena. It was the last straw. Julian said to Corbin, “If you don’t ask her to leave, I’ll consider it a declaration of war between us.”

  Luciana sent him a glare so icy it would have frozen hell over. She started to rise, no doubt about to launch into one of her histrionic screaming fits, when Corbin held up a placating hand. “Calm down, old friend. Who’s to say Luciana was responsible for this?” the older Archdemon said.

  Julian stared him straight in the eye. “That picnic basket originated from your kitchen. No one else would have dared tamper with anything on your turf without your permission.”

  “Let’s just let bygones be bygones,” Corbin drawled.

  “I can’t keep Serena here safely,” Julian said. “You and I have been working on the opening of this nightclub for over a year. It’s scheduled to open in five days. Luciana is using you. If you let this harlot come between us, our business partnership will be severely compromised. You’ve got to choose. Luciana or the business. You’re a smart man, Corbin. Make the right choice.”

  Julian made his way out of the suite, shaking with rage. He swallowed, trying to lubricate the dryness in his mouth. He had just delivered an ultimatum to the most powerful demon in the country. Tomorrow, he might be toiling in the pits of the underworld, back where he’d been when he’d first lost his human life.

  What the hell. It had been worth it. Serena was worth it.

  As he waited for the elevator, the door to the suite opened. Corbin came out, his face as inscrutable as ever. “Luciana will be gone in the morning,” he said in a neutral tone. He turned to go back inside, but before he did, he paused, turned back to Julian and said, “Don’t ask me for any more favors.”

  Julian slumped against the side of the elevator, relieved. Luciana would be furious, but Corbin had come through. For the first time in hours, Julian allowed himself to breathe. But his relief was short-lived. When he went back down to his own suite, Harry was slumped in an armchair, snoring noisily, and the angel was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter Eleven

  Down in his suite, Nick was pissed off. He sat hunched in front of the TV, arms crossed and feet propped up on the coffee table. The walls of the room were like a cage, penning him in.

  “Who does Julian think he is?” Nick muttered to himself, flipping through the channels.

  Stole my girl. Treats me like a child.

  Not like Corbin and Luciana. Now, they understood him. Not only that, but they understood how to live.

  An hour ago, they had offered him an entrée into their world. A way to bring his wildest dreams to life. The dreams he had never spoken aloud to anyone.

  “We can make your life magical,” Corbin had said to him, as they lunched in the penthouse suite. With its huge windows overlooking the Strip, it seemed to Nick as though the whole world lay stretched at his feet.

  Nick was no stranger to privilege. He had grown up surrounded by wealth and beauty. But most of his youth had been controlled according to the strict rules of his uptight parents. Who barely ever had a moment to pay attention to him. And when they did, it was only to disapprove.

  Corbin was different from anyone Nick had ever met. Because Corbin listened.

  “Tell me what you want,” he’d said.

  “Respect,” Nick had told him. That was what Nick wanted most. For his culture snob of a mother to watch one of his movies without wrinkling her nose in subtle distaste. For his ultra-conservative old father to watch one of his movies, period.

  The only time he’d ever gotten respect from his parents was once during prep school, the first time he’d ever been onstage. He’d played Romeo, only because the girl he’d had a crush on had been cast as Juliet. His parents hadn’t actually made the time to come see the play. But at least they’d each nodded with approval when he’d told them about it during his separate visits to them at Christmas break. That play had begun Nick’s acting career, although he had never done Shakespeare again. Afterward, the crush had died quietly. The girl had gone on to a minor career in commercials, and after graduation Nick had gone to Hollywood. But nothing he had accomplished since—neither his fame nor the money he made from his own talent—had ever been enough to earn his parents’ respect.

  Corbin had understood. He had taken Nick seriously. “You’re a man of substance, Nick. You deserve a role that will put you in the running for an Oscar. I can arrange that.”

  Nick didn’t doubt it for a second. Corbin was connected. That much was obvious.

  “Just stick with us,” the hotel owner had said coolly, sipping his cocktail. “You’ll see how easy life can be.”

  Then Nick had remembered his yoga teacher’s reaction last night, when she’d seen them all in the pool. “Serena won’t like it.”

  “What are you, some kind of six-year-old?” Luciana had said, trailing her fingers down his arm. “You don’t have to listen to her.”

  Nick had paused after that. He didn’t have to listen to her but, for some reason, he still wanted to. He still wanted her.

  “She ran off somewhere with Julian this morning,” Corbin had said coolly. “Left you behind. You’re never going to have a chance with her, unless you find some way to get rid of Julian. But don’t worry. We can help you fix that, too.”

  Before the discussion had gone any further, Julian had burst in and ruined everything.

  Julian promised me this trip would be fun. But every time I start to have fun, Julian gets in the way, Nick thought furiously. Now I’m stuck in this stupid hotel suite, and he’s with Serena. I’m gonna go nuts if I have to stay in here any longer.

  He went to open the door, desperately wanting to leave. To go back upstairs and continue his conversation with Corbin. But when he reached for the doorknob, his head started to pound. Worse than if he’d been struck by a massive hangover, worse than his most painful migraine. Don’t leave, Julian had said. That thought bounced around the inside of Nick’s head, making him back away from the door and collapse back on the sofa.

  He picked up the remote again, flipping through the channels and becoming more and more frustrated.

  Until he saw his own face flash across the screen, smeared with fake blood and sweat in a gladiator flick he’d done a few years ago. He’d never thought much about it previously. For some reason, it made his blood boil now. He hated the sight of that stupid movie, hated his whole stupid career.

  With all of his strength and pent-up rage, he drew back his arm and hurled the remote at the TV. Cracking the plasma screen with a burst of breaking plastic. The image of his face splayed into a billion tiny bars of flashing light.

  He wanted more. He wanted what Corbin had. And he wanted Serena.

  He would do anything to get what he wanted.

  Serena heard the crash inside Nick’s room, and raised her fist to knock on his door. Just before she made contact, a powerful hand closed over her wrist. Without question, she knew whose fingers stopped her. As she turned to look up at Julian, she saw the worry in his eyes. Emotions shifted across his face, worry merging into another expression, something altogether more dangerous. Something more like anger.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing down here?” Julian growled.

  She opened her mouth to shoot back an
answer, but the door opened a crack, and Nick stood there frowning. He froze as he saw them, Julian still clasping her wrist. Clearly irritated, her Assignee said, “What’s going on?”

  Relief flooded through her at the sight of him. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I just heard a loud noise coming from your room.”

  “As you can see, he’s fine,” said Julian. She wanted to look into Nick’s room to see what had been broken, but the demon started to pull her away.

  Nick’s brows snapped into a vee as he poked his head out a bit farther, peered closer at her. “What happened to you, Serena? You look like hell. Is he…?”

  “I’m fine. Just feeling a bit under the weather,” she said. Nick did not need to know what had gone on in the canyon today, nor would he ever be able to understand it.

  “Why don’t you shut the door and take a nap?” Julian said, leaving Nick no choice but to comply.

  Nick’s frown deepened, but he shut the door nonetheless.

  “You should have trusted me,” Julian whispered, close to her ear. “I told you he would be fine.” He slipped an arm beneath her shoulders, ready to hoist her into his arms.

  She pushed away from him, trying to walk on her own. “I can walk by myself.”

  Beneath her, her legs buckled traitorously.

  “You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” said the demon. “And the most foolish. What were you going to do if Nick wasn’t here? If the others really had taken him somewhere?”

  “Go down to the lobby and call Arielle,” she admitted lamely.

  His breath made a hissing sound. “You’re too damned honest for your own good. You should learn how to lie. It makes life a lot easier.”

  Ignoring her protests, he swept her into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way back to their suite. Where Harry was sitting on the ornate sofa, head in his hands. He jumped up when he saw them, springing to his feet with anxiety spread all over his face.

  “Harry, you may leave,” Julian said quietly.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” Harry said. “I never meant for her to escape. It was entirely my fault.”

  Serena chimed in, “It’s not his fault, Julian. It was my fault.”

  Julian waved a dismissive hand in Harry’s direction. “Just go.”

  Harry’s eyes went wide, but he said nothing. Serena wanted to say a few words to comfort him. She hoped he was not in trouble because of her. But she could almost see the storm clouds gathering over Julian’s head. She knew it was best to remain silent as Harry slipped out the door.

  Julian went to the minibar and poured himself a drink. Then he turned and went out onto the balcony. It was clear that he wanted to be alone, but she followed anyway.

  A muscle twitched in his cheek as he gazed out over the view, not looking at her. “Luciana’s gone. She won’t hurt you again,” he said.

  “What happened between you two?” she asked softly.

  It was the question he’d been asking himself for the past two hundred years. He exhaled a long sigh and said, “Luciana is the reason I became a demon.”

  “Oh.” It was barely a whisper, a mere puff of air with a little bit of voice that was carried away on the breeze. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I want to make you understand,” he said. More than that, he wanted to make himself understand. He pulled her inside to sit on the sofa as he started his story. “Once upon a time, there was a spoiled young English lord…”

  “You’re Lord Julian?” she interrupted.

  He half smiled. “That part of me died more than two hundred years ago. It means nothing now. But, yes. At one time, I was the Earl of Leyburn.”

  It all came pouring out. His human life history spun before him as he talked, weaving in and out of the present as the hours slipped by like fluid. Outside, the sun melted toward the horizon, the mountains a shadow in the background outside before darkness claimed the city.

  The tale of his early years and the death of his mother brought tears to Serena’s eyes, despite his best efforts to recount it in a neutral tone. He had known the story would: the loss of a parent at such young an age struck the chord of her father’s death. He continued, pushing through the pain of his adolescence, his hard-won neutrality lightening to fond remembrance as he talked about his Oxford days. He was almost grinning by the time he spoke of his Grand Tour of Europe, and finally, the joys of exploring Venice. From there, he steeled himself for what must come next.

  “It was in Venice that I first saw Luciana. She was a silk merchant’s daughter, barely seventeen the first time I saw her, sauntering along the Grand Canal on a fine summer’s day.”

  He paused to order room service, editing the story in his head as he perused the menu. There were things Serena didn’t need to know about. Things that would hurt her. Like the memory of Luciana’s dewy beauty. With her dark hair and pale emerald eyes, Luciana was the most gorgeous creature he’d seen on earth, until he’d met Serena. The day they’d met, Venice had been as hot as Hades. Luciana had looked as cool as a fresh breeze off the Adriatic. He had stopped her on the pretense of having lost his way. Luciana had kindly pointed him in the right direction. She had laughed at his poor attempts to speak Italian and had shyly spoken a few tentative words of English.

  From that day onward, Julian had conspired to meet her every day in the same spot, near the Rialto Bridge. They would stroll along the canals, conversing brokenly in two languages and laughing at each other’s linguistic mistakes. He began to bring her small gifts: flowers at first, trinkets from the market, pieces from the Murano glassblowers, lengths of Burano lace. It wasn’t long until their innocent walks progressed past flirtation, straight through the doorway of Julian’s rented rooms.

  But Serena didn’t need to know any of that, so he picked up the story where it seemed relevant. “Luciana was hell-bent on defying her parents’ wishes and marrying an English lord. When I came swaggering along at the age of twenty-two, full of naive arrogance, Luciana must have seen me as a walking target.

  “I fell immediately for her charms, and I planned to marry her, even though my father would have disowned me if I had arrived home with an Italian bride in tow. He was a moldering old man, and I knew his attitudes were wrong. I was ready to risk my inheritance for her. But somewhere deep inside me, I suspected that her love was neither as deep nor as constant as she pretended it to be. I waited for her to prove me wrong. Impatience got the better of her. She pressed me, and I resisted. All it would have taken was a modicum of loyalty on her part, a few weeks more of playing the devoted young ingenue. But that was too much for Luciana. In a fit of anger, she refused to see me. Less than a month later, I heard that she was to marry Thomas Harcourt, another unwitting English sap, who was also on his Grand Tour. Harcourt was a baron; it was then that I realized I was just an expendable sucker. To her, I was simply a title and a pocketbook. Luciana had never cared for me, and she replaced me as easily as she had found me.

  “I was shattered. Even though I had been hesitant, I had fully expected that we would marry. After the shock of her desertion wore off, I went back to England. My father’s health was in decline, and I realized it would be in my best interests to return home. I set about accomplishing some of the plans I had begun to make while I was in Venice: improving the lots of the tenants’ lives, providing for the education of the children. I lived the life of a country nobleman, shouldering the responsibilities of a benevolent lord.

  “I didn’t speak to Luciana again for almost ten years. Her name was bandied about in society. I glimpsed her a few times across crowded ballrooms, and once at a museum exhibit. It was rumored among the upper classes that she was a social climber, a ruthless gossip, and that she was cuckolding her husband with his own valet.

  “But then one day, she came to me in my town house in London. Years had passed, but she still looked like an exotic flower plucked from an Italian garden, clothed in the finery of an English baroness. But she carried no delicate floral scent
. She reeked of desperation. She was gravely discontent with her lot in life. She told me that her husband was beating her. She blamed me for her unhappy marriage. She came to me for comfort.”

  That moment was branded into his mind—Luciana, dressed in an elaborate embroidered gown of pale lilac silk, on her knees, begging for his company. A soft cashmere shawl trailed across her shoulders. She had let it slip to the floor beside her, an invitation that suggested the rest of her clothes might follow. He’d been lonely, still unmarried at thirty-two. And he had relented. Taken her to his bed. Stripped the fashionable garments from her and mounted her, without regard for her husband or for his own safety.

  He glossed over those details to spare Serena, and continued, “It was then that she asked me to help her end it. She wasn’t talking about divorce. She wanted me to kill Harcourt. Her husband was ruthless, she claimed. One day she came to me with a broken arm, sobbing because she was convinced he would soon end her life. The only thing that would stop him was death. Of course, by that time, I was a fervent man bent on goodness and justice.”

  Serena’s voice broke through the silence. “And so you killed him?”

  Julian nodded, the memory of it shaming him. He had never thought himself capable of killing a man. But he’d believed himself justified in salvaging Luciana from a life-threatening situation. He could still feel Harcourt’s blood on his hands, warm and sticky and smelling of rust. Felt the nausea rising out of his gut as he spoke of it, even two centuries later. Only one thing tempered the feeling of self-loathing the memory evoked. And that was the memory of his own lifeblood draining out of him, pooling with Harcourt’s as their lives faded away.

  “It was inevitable. We dueled over Luciana. Pistols were his weapon of choice. It was a frigid December day when he called me out. We were both excellent marksmen. We both hit our targets. Trailing blood, he crawled across the snow, over the tracks of our paces. And swore to me that he had never harmed a hair on Luciana’s head. She’d faked the proof of it—she’d sustained the injury to her arm when she’d fallen off a horse.