Deep down she thought this new fear was a small price to pay for the exhilaration of that flight.
Chapter 7
Peter could taste the wild, sweet affinity on the back of his tongue every time it was unleashed. He’d traveled across the world to this godforsaken desert before Samuel’s daughter had even met the half-daemon prince. Her blood alone had lured with a purity of call he’d never sensed from others.
She’d been sheltered from detection for years. Hidden. Kept by Ezekiel. They had never suspected. Samuel, once the mightiest daemon hunter, had allied himself with the heir to Lucifer’s throne. Such an alliance had been unexpected, as the Order of Samuel was already dismantled. Scattered to the winds. So few brothers were left to carry on Reynard’s work. That great man had been murdered by D’Arcys and Loyalists. As had most of his followers.
Peter himself had been close to giving up. But he’d remained faithful. He’d survived by selling his soul to Rogues. In that he’d also followed in Reynard’s footsteps.
And now he had hope again for the first time in years.
He traveled in a fleet of gleaming black vehicles with a group of Rogues more ruthless than any he’d known. They’d been on the trail of Samuel Santiago’s daughter for months before Michael Turov had found her for them. The second he’d touched her they had pinpointed her exact location. Together they burned with the heat of a thousand suns. Residual desire coursed through Peter with the memory of that burn. The Rogues were like a pack of hounds on her scent and he, too, panted. But the Brimstone his deal had accepted into his blood was for the Order of Samuel. With Samuel’s daughter he could rebuild what they had lost. Perhaps, in time, he could turn on the Rogue allies and purify the earth of the daemon scourge once and for all.
The Rogues could have heaven. What did he care of that far-off realm? He would rule a new order on earth. He wanted to bathe in Samuel’s daughter’s affinity, and when he no longer needed her, maybe he would bathe in her blood. All the years of powerless fury he’d suffered would be soothed.
They were close. So close. And other Rogues were close to a different prize they’d sought. Lucifer’s wings were almost within their grasp. Ezekiel would be brought to his knees. But he wouldn’t be bowing before Rogues. He would be bowing before a new order of saints. One led by Peter himself.
* * *
He hadn’t had the flame nightmare in a very long time. When it visited him with a vengeance, as if to make up for years of leaving him in peace, the vivid memory of pain seared along the tracks of his scars and woke him with the sound of his own screams. Grim was there before the sound died down and the hulking beast almost smothered him with his concern. He pressed his great hairy body against Michael’s arms as if he were putting out actual flames and not the memory of a first Brimstone burn that had almost annihilated a toddler too young to control it.
One of Michael’s first lucid memories was of his mother’s soothing song and touch. She’d held him in spite of the danger. She’d risked being burned alive in order to bring him back from the brink of combustion. Rogues had taken him to get to her and the daemon king. Adam Turov had helped Michael and his mother defeat the Rogues that had also tortured him as a child.
His stepfather also had scars from his time with the Order of Samuel. But the beautiful opera singer, Victoria D’Arcy, had helped the daemon hunter to heal. They had raised Michael together even though his biological father had been a daemon. He’d had love, stability...and the looming threat of a grandfather who wanted to bequeath him the throne of hell on his twenty-first birthday.
Thankfully he’d been sleeping outside the roadside hotel to keep watch and to keep his distance from Lily Santiago when he woke screaming. The night air helped to cool his skin, and no one saw the glow along the tracks of his scars caused by the Brimstone in his blood rising to the surface.
Lily didn’t have to touch him. Ever again. Keeping his distance did nothing. The memory of her touch was enough. He’d fallen to sleep hotter than he’d been in a very long time. Thus the dream. Thus the burn. He rose and went for his guitar for comfort. The music and the affinity his mother had bequeathed him held the Brimstone burn at bay.
Of course, the music did nothing to erase the memory of Lily’s taste on his tongue.
* * *
Sometime after midnight, Lily woke suddenly with her heart pounding. Her fists were clenched, but the only intruder in her room was a stray shaft of moonlight beaming through the slim opening between the heavy motel drapes. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken afraid from a sound sleep since she’d left the protected confines of the daemon king’s palace. She’d been hunted from the start. Rogues craved her ability to lure and hunt daemons because of the power it would give them over Loyalist enemies. But their desire to use her was at war with their more personal desire to claim her affinity for their own pleasure.
Reason to run, for sure.
But running with a half-daemon prince wasn’t exactly salvation, especially when she found herself uncomfortably close to having those same thoughts to covet and claim. She was no greedy Rogue daemon, but Michael’s Brimstone was alluring.
Michael would have been alluring if his blood was cold as ice.
Lily rose from tangled sheets that spoke of her restless dreams and tiptoed to the window. She twitched the curtain just enough to look down on the Firebird gleaming in the pale moonlight. She hadn’t expected to see Michael leaning against the hood in a familiar pose, his legs crossed at the ankle. She eased back, but he wasn’t looking up at the window where she stood. He was concentrating on the guitar in his hands.
She couldn’t hear his song. Not with her ears. But she suspected she’d woken with his playing, attuned to him in ways she couldn’t understand. He played to quiet the Brimstone in his blood. To soothe away the burn. Knowing he was as restless as she was didn’t help. He was used to controlling his burn. She was less practiced at pretending. Especially when she wasn’t at all sure the attraction between them was something they could fight.
That’s when she saw Grim. She’d been too distracted by the striking figure of a daemon prince curled around his guitar at midnight. At first she hadn’t seen the giant shadow of his constant hellhound companion. But, unlike his master, the hellhound had seen her. His snout was pointed toward the window and for a second the burning coals of Grim’s eyes met hers. He had been sitting at Michael’s feet. He rose and walked several stiff-legged paces toward the hotel. Lily heeded the warning. Her fingers slid from the curtains and she turned away from the beautiful prince playing by the light of the moon.
Her backpack was only a few steps away. She kept it close at all times. In addition to the kachinas, her father’s sword was stowed in a side pocket that served as a sheath. Only the top of its hilt protruded, but it was within easy reach should she need it. It was probably a mistake to pick up the pack and bring it with her when she climbed back into bed. She did it anyway. It wasn’t safe to stare at Michael. But there was an alternative. She’d been staring at his kachina-doll likeness her whole life.
So why did the beat of her heart kick up again when she pulled out the tiny burlap bundle to unwind it? Why did every slow revolution of the doll as she freed it feel like a risk she couldn’t afford to take?
The room was dark, illuminated only by the moon on one side and the soft glow of emergency lighting from the interior corridor on the opposite side.
She saw the doll with the pads of her fingers more than her eyes.
It was still a treasure, but it was no longer as compelling as it had been before. Now she’d seen the real warrior angel in action. She’d heard his song. She’d felt his burn. She’d tasted his perfect lips. But more than that, she’d felt his scars. The tiny carving hadn’t revealed those scars to her. She’d had to see them on the real man in real life. Something deep in his changeable eyes told her there wa
s much like the scars about him. Things the kachina doll had never revealed in spite of her familiarity with it.
She had to obey the daemon king.
But as she held the doll in her hands the smooth statue suddenly grew cool in her fingers and she trembled. The chill was unexpected. The real man could warm her if it wasn’t forbidden in so many ways. The hellhound knew her secret. But Michael was the true mystery. A daemon prince determined to run away from the throne of hell. He was scarred by his past. He fought his future. Yet he’d had the kind of familial love she’d never known.
The doll was too cold to comfortably hold and she rewrapped it, puzzled by the sudden change. What could it mean?
Ezekiel had a plan, and she was entangled in his scheme because love and gratitude bound her. She’d run away only to find that her guardian wouldn’t set her free. Whether Grim approved or not, one of her ancestors had seen the daemon prince in her future. Was he her destiny or would she be his damnation? Was the sudden chill from the doll meant as a warning?
She wanted to warn Michael. It wasn’t the Brimstone in his blood he should fear. It was her place in Ezekiel’s plan and the power she might have to overcome his resistance.
Chapter 8
It wasn’t safe for her to travel alone. She couldn’t fight off an army of Rogues with her father’s blade. She wasn’t sure how much sleep they’d managed between them, but they were up before dawn to meet at the car as they’d planned. Grim had disappeared. She blinked at shadows to determine if the hellhound was lurking near his master, but couldn’t decide if her gooseflesh was in response to the cool morning air or the beast’s stare.
“We should separate and meet at the river, but I don’t want to leave you on your own and Grim won’t cooperate,” Michael said.
Lily wouldn’t have been keen to travel alone with the hellhound anyway.
“I’ll think cold thoughts,” she promised, knowing it was a lie.
“Will you?” Michael challenged. He had placed his guitar in the back seat and he braced his hands against the top of the car on the driver’s side. Lily stood in the open door of the passenger side and met his gaze over the dusty roof. Something in his narrowed eyes spoke of tension and she dropped her eyes, but that only led her to look at his white-knuckled grip.
“Maybe you’re the one that needs to chill?” Lily suggested.
“I’m working on it. Trust me,” Michael said. He pushed away from the car and got behind the wheel in one fast, fluid motion. Lily swallowed. If this was him working on tamping down his Brimstone burn, she couldn’t imagine him letting go. Couldn’t, but did for several long moments as she tried to remember how to get into the car like a woman who wasn’t lost in thoughts that could get her killed.
Only the sudden thought that the daemon king had known exactly what he was doing when he’d thrown them together spurred her to take a deep breath and get into the car. He wanted them harried and hounded by Rogues. He wanted them drawn together. He wanted them to crave the forbidden fruit while they went for the wings.
A mantle fit for a future king.
She’d wondered what Ezekiel’s entire scheme entailed and maybe she was beginning to have an inkling of an answer. It was in the flush on her skin as she sat too close to Michael in the enclosed space. It was in the deep breath she took as she buckled her seat belt, already craving the scent of his skin, warmed from the outside by sun and from the inside by his fire.
Ezekiel was an Ancient One. He’d fallen from heaven to rule in hell. He’d battled Rogues for centuries. But he was a complex being with many facets all tilted toward strengthening his kingdom.
Michael’s reluctance as the prince and heir of the throne was well-known, but Ezekiel was determined that he would be a king. Ezekiel had ruled alone for too long. He might want more for his beloved Elizabeth’s grandson.
The idea of her royal guardian as a nearly immortal and unpredictable matchmaker caused panic to rise up in her chest.
“Hang on,” Michael said. “The sooner we get to the wings the better.”
Her body was pressed against the buttery leather by their momentum as the Firebird sped from the hotel parking lot. Her head grew light and her palms pressed against her hollow belly as her stomach dropped. Michael drove down the Arizona highway with a hound of hell literally at his bumper urging him on.
But would her task be over once they retrieved Lucifer’s wings? She was afraid that leading Michael to heaven was only the beginning of her torment.
Ezekiel had said the palace had been built for her. She was used to the temporal tricks and treats of the hell dimension, where time was amorphous and seemingly unrelated to time on earth. The palace had seemed ancient and always. Built long before she’d been born.
Just as the kachina doll had been carved before Michael was born.
Ezekiel was older than the palace. And too knowing by far.
Had he forged the deal with her father to procure her as a future queen for his reluctant heir?
* * *
Michael tried to focus on the physicality of driving the vintage sports car down the long, desert highway. It was usually a pleasure. Collecting vintage cars throughout his prolonged life had been one of Adam Turov’s hobbies. Michael had learned to love them at his stepfather’s side, just as he’d learned to help with the running of Nightingale Vineyards.
It was more convenient to travel with Grim’s ability. But driving wasn’t about convenience. It was about controlling his own momentum and direction. He liked the feel of the steering wheel in hands.
While he’d learned about the vines and his stepfather’s cars, he’d also been learning to control his Brimstone. It could be deadly. His scars proved how closely his own blood had come to taking his life.
Sitting beside Lily in the Firebird brought back memories of that first Burn. That’s why he’d had the nightmare the night before.
But he couldn’t deny there was a seductive, pleasurable edge to the heat when it rose in response to Lily’s affinity. It was a new edge. One he hadn’t had to deal with before. One that urged him to burn in spite of all the years he’d spent controlling the fire.
He looked down at the skin that showed below the cuffs of his jacket again and again. The scars were faint there, covered slightly by a fine dusting of golden brown hair, but he knew them. He had memorized their patterns for years as a meditation against losing control.
He didn’t want to lose control of his Brimstone blood ever again. But he did desire the woman beside him. As he’d never desired another woman before. It wasn’t only her affinity. Yes. That pull was powerful. His grip on the steering wheel was far tighter than it would have to be to keep the car on the road. And, yet, her affinity was only a small part of her allure.
She was determined and powerful and strong, but she was also in trouble. The instinct to protect her from hungry Rogues burned in him in ways that took him by surprise.
He needed her help to find the wings, but she needed his help to survive the Rogues who would never rest in hunting her down. He didn’t burn for Lily only because of his Brimstone blood. He burned for her because he had heard about that ceaseless hunt from his mother and aunt his whole life, but actually seeing a woman hounded and harried by Rogues set him on fire in ways that had nothing to do with his daemon blood.
He wanted to help her escape her tormentors, but he also wanted her to know he would never be one of them. He wasn’t a slave to his blood or the hunger for affinity it could cause in him if he lost control. He could sense her attraction to him. As the highway rolled by beneath them, she focused on the view outside the window, but he noticed the rise and fall of her chest, the flush on her cheeks, the fidgeting of her restless fingers. He didn’t know if it was the same for her. If it was only his Brimstone blood that called to her or the hint of affinity he’d inherited from his
mother, but whatever her reasons for desiring him...if and when they came together...it would be a conscious decision on his part. He wouldn’t lose control.
He turned to look at her when he came to that decision and she tilted her head to meet his gaze at the same moment. The connection was there. No doubt. Her affinity stoked his burn. But there were other connections as well. Her determination and strength. Her humor in the face of danger. The glint of sun on her hair, the grace in her fight, the warmth in her brown eyes. He would want her if she weren’t Samuel’s daughter. Of that he was certain. He just wasn’t sure if she’d ever believe it. She’d probably had to run and hide from hungry Rogues her whole life. But he was determined whatever they had wouldn’t be ruled by Brimstone.
* * *
They saw the black sedans parked to block the highway long before there was no turning back. Like a wavering mirage of oily obstruction, the Rogue blockade shimmered in the noonday heat.
Nevertheless, Michael didn’t turn around. He didn’t veer off into the desert sand. Her real life warrior angel gripped the gearshift and Lily made the decision to place her hand over his as he shifted down to reduce the Firebird’s speed.
He glanced from her face down to their hands.
The Rogues were following them, and others blocked their path. A touch no longer seemed to matter and yet it mattered so much she couldn’t resist. His hand was tense and warm beneath her fingers. He had freshened the tape over the pads his constant playing wouldn’t allow to heal. The vibrations of the car transferred through the gearshift and his palm to the back of his hand, then to her. The Firebird growled, its motor protesting the reduction of speed.
“We can’t fight so many,” Lily said. Dozens of daemons had exited the cars at their approach. In the rearview mirror more black vehicles came into view. Long black SUVs looking mean and lethal even with the tinted windows that hid their hungry occupants. The convoy behind them drove side-by-side three across, paying no heed to traffic laws or markings on the highway.
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