Brimstone Prince

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “My father knew Ezekiel was the only one who could keep me safe from Rogues,” Lily replied. She reached into her pocket and held the warrior angel in her hand. The doll was cold. Colder than she remembered.

  She was startled then by the sudden warmth of Victoria’s embrace. The woman came forward and wrapped her in a fierce hug and squeezed her tight against her petite frame. The scent of sweet Firebird wine enveloped her.

  “I also had a dark childhood. Don’t run away from me so quickly. I don’t blame you for what Michael must face,” Victoria said into her hair. “My anger is for Ezekiel. And for Samuel, too. This gift that’s both a blessing and a curse. It ties us to beings that would consume us with their love.”

  Tears burned the back of Lily’s eyes but she blinked them away. “Don’t run away” was different from “Run with me,” but they were both invitations she was going to have to refuse.

  “Ezekiel isn’t human. He asks too much. His gaze is always on an eternity of what-ifs that don’t take into account our finite time on earth. His love is a harsh taskmaster, Lily. Don’t let it crush you,” Victoria said.

  “I have nothing to fear from Ezekiel’s love. It’s reserved for...others, but I promise I won’t hurt Michael,” Lily said. The words came from somewhere in the bottomless pit her chest had become.

  “Don’t be so certain where Ezekiel’s affections lie. He’s an enigma. But rest assured, I’m not afraid you’ll hurt Michael. I’m afraid you’ll continue to hurt yourself,” Victoria said. She leaned back and looked down to the cold place around Lily’s pocket she must have felt during the hug. Lily pulled her hand and the warrior angel out of her pocket.

  When Victoria saw the perfect likeness of her son, she gasped. She reached to take the tiny doll from Lily’s hand, but she jerked back her fingers when she felt the icy cold.

  “It was never cold when I was a child. My ancestor carved this. Before Michael was even born. It’s getting colder and colder and I don’t know why,” Lily explained.

  “He was nothing but a cold shadow the last time I saw him. A frigid shadow that protected us after he died,” Victoria whispered. Her pupils had gone large and haunted and her skin was deathly pale. Against it, her hair was vivid even in the shadows. In spite of the cold, she touched one finger to the warrior angel’s face. “It’s a perfect likeness.”

  “When I first saw Michael, it was as if the doll I’d always treasured had come to life,” Lily said.

  Victoria looked from the warrior angel up to Lily’s face. Her eyes widened.

  “You thought this doll looked like...my son?” she asked.

  Lily nodded, confused.

  “Lily, this is Michael’s real father,” Victoria said. Her voice shook. “He was an Ancient One. He fought with Lucifer himself. He sacrificed himself to save us all when Reynard tried to hurt us. Michael is very like him, but...the wings.”

  So the little kachina she had always treasured wasn’t Michael Turov after all. He didn’t have wings. And he might choose to never wear Lucifer’s wings. She’d thought the doll was a prophecy about Michael taking the throne. She’d even thought it might mean that he was destined to be a part of her life.

  It had all been a mistake. The kind of wishful thinking a woman might fall prey to when she’d grown up in the depths of hell, longing for more.

  “He was very cold. So cold he was dangerous to touch or be near. Deadly in shadow form,” Victoria said softly. Suddenly, her attention went to the carvings on the wall. She narrowed her eyes to look into the shadows from face to face. “I lingered and loved him still even though the chill might have killed me.”

  “It’s worse if you focus on them. They become...restless,” Lily warned. She reached to place her free hand on Victoria’s arm, but the other woman continued to look at the carvings as if she was searching for something...or someone.

  “He dragged Reynard into Oblivion. Or so Kat thought. She watched them disappear in flames when the opera house burned, but I wonder...” Victoria said.

  Lily tried to stop Michael’s mother from stepping toward the carvings on the wall, but the other woman pulled away from her restraining hand. The warrior angel had taken all the warmth from her other fingers. They were numb. Suddenly, Lily wasn’t able to grasp the doll and it fell to the floor.

  She and Victoria watched the doll begin to roll inexplicably toward the wall. Faster and faster as if it was pulled by an invisible string.

  “No,” Lily said. The doll had always been her treasure, but it was no longer a comforting object. If it didn’t represent Michael, it represented a daemon she’d never known. One that had died, but somehow managed to live on as a vengeful shadow. What if he lived on still?

  “He won’t hurt us,” Victoria said. “He would never hurt me.”

  “I’m a threat to Michael. I’ve lured him back to hell with Lucifer’s wings and hell is the last place he wants to be,” Lily said. Fear blossomed in her heart, making it as cold as her hand.

  The warrior angel came to a stop against the base of the wall and then it plinked with the sound of wood on marble as the force propelling it brought it upright again on its wooden feet.

  While their attention had been fixated on the doll, an amorphous shape had begun to converge from all the leaping shadows caused by torchlight on the wall. Many shadows became one large shadow looming above them on the wall.

  “No, Michael. She’s not our enemy. She’s just a young girl, a pawn, like I was when we first met,” Victoria said.

  Wings had begun to unfurl from the shadow and the corridor had noticeably chilled. Lily shivered and her teeth clicked together. She wrapped her arms around her body and backed away. The hallway was shadowed from end to end. There was nowhere to run.

  “I won’t h-hurt him,” Lily promised. Yet still the shadow continued to grow. One of the wings had actually started to stretch out and away from the wall toward her face.

  “Michael will never forgive you if you hurt her. And neither will I,” Victoria said. She had placed herself in between the shadow’s wing tip and Lily’s face.

  Without thought, Lily reached to place her hand on Victoria’s shoulder. Through the fear, she allowed her affinity to rise. Victoria stiffened, but then she began to sing. Softly, at first, but then louder and louder Michael’s mother sang a French lullaby. Lily dug for her flute with her free hand. She brought it out and lifted it to her lips and began to play. She joined Victoria’s song.

  The hallway grew warmer. The shadow diminished. Before long, the only shadows that were left were ordinary ones cast by leaping firelight.

  Victoria’s song faded away. Lily allowed her flute to fall from her lips.

  “I loved him, once. And he loved me. As a daemon loves, you understand. Terrifying, forever, both dark and burning bright. Michael fights his Brimstone blood. And it’s right that you should try not to help Ezekiel hurt him. But please, understand, my son is a daemon prince, Lily. If you think loving Ezekiel as a daughter loves a father has been difficult you must try to understand that loving a daemon as a woman loves a man is likely to bring you pain,” Victoria said.

  She had followed Lily to warn her. But it wasn’t the warning that Lily had expected.

  Lily dropped her hand from Victoria’s shoulder and the other woman slowly moved away. She bit her lip to keep from confessing that it was too late. She was already hurt. She would carry this pain with her forever once they were parted. Or at least as long as she survived.

  Chapter 21

  Lily couldn’t face her empty rooms. There was only one place that seemed to offer enough warmth to offset the discovery that her warrior angel was a threat. She hurried up deserted stairways that led farther and farther away from guests and servants. It had been months since she’d visited this part of the palace and the hallway sconces were long cold, but she found
her way easily in the dark

  The conservatory was perched on the roof of one tower far removed from anyone who would disturb her. Ezekiel had given her the key shortly after her tenth birthday when she was old enough to come and go as she pleased. The great glass-walled arboretum was a Gothic wonder of spiderweb wrought iron and thousands of glass panels that rose into a dome high above the trees and plants below. It was tended by gardeners who always disappeared discreetly when she entered and tonight was no different. She barely caught a glimpse of a man with a bucket of tools when she turned the key and slipped inside. He vanished down a spiral staircase that led to storage rooms below.

  Warm, dry air embraced her with an artificial atmosphere completely separated from the palace. She closed the door behind her and leaned her back against it. The scent of desert flora filled her nose as she breathed deeply. But best of all, sunlight caressed her chilled cheeks.

  Ezekiel had brought a little of the Southwestern desert into the hell dimension with daemonic manipulations she didn’t understand. She supposed if Grim could travel pathways between worlds, then sunlight could as well. Within the great glass conservatory, one didn’t look out at the purple glow of the hell dimension. A soft, hazy desert sunshine bathed the glass with light.

  Now that she’d seen the actual desert, the light in the conservatory soothed her even more. It had always been a sanctuary for her, a secret garden surrounded by hell’s shadows. She tried not to think what it would be like to leave it behind for good, to know that she could never return.

  Instead, she wandered over the pathways to visit all of her favorites—the desert lilies, the climbing trumpet vines, the prickly pear cacti, the towering saguaro.

  She paused to trail her fingers along the petals of one desert lily. She was saying goodbye.

  Her heart pumped with slow, painful beats in her chest, the only noise to break the silence in the wake of her decision.

  “You left the key in the lock,” Michael said. He came around the corner of the path, startling with his sudden presence, but also with the glint of sun on the gold strands that shone in his brown hair.

  “I’m never disturbed here,” Lily said. The brass key with its stylized L and burgundy tassel had been a bauble to wrap and give to her on her birthday. After all, the gardeners came and went without the need of keys.

  Michael continued to approach and the petals of the flower Lily touched began to tremble. She tried to draw back her hand, but Michael was there before she could move. His hand covered hers on the lily’s petal.

  “You’re shaking,” he said.

  “I’m cold,” Lily said. And it was a lie. The conservatory was very warm even though the sunlight was an entire world away.

  “I’m sorry I’ve disturbed your retreat,” Michael said, guessing the real reason for her trembling fingers.

  “It was always temporary. The shadows are waiting just outside,” Lily said. She looked from his hand on hers up to his face.

  “I never knew there was a garden up here,” Michael said.

  The tension in his face and the intensity of his gaze weren’t softened by the lightness of his hand or his lowered lids. His fingers were steady, but he wasn’t unaffected by their contact. She was warmer than she’d been before. A flush suffused her skin, caused by Michael’s heat and her own rising affinity within.

  “It was a birthday present from Ezekiel,” Lily explained.

  Michael’s eyes widened in surprise and his attention left her for a moment to look up and around at the elaborate garden and engineering marvel of the greenhouse itself. He tilted his chin and sun seemed to worship his angular cheeks and the chiseled perfection of his masculine jaw.

  “He gave you the sun,” he said softly. He closed his eyes briefly and then opened them as he looked back down at her again.

  “I... I never thought of it like that,” Lily said. “Ezekiel is the king of daemons and daemons are...grand creatures. He tilts worlds based on mere whims.” She shrugged and pulled her hand out from under Michael’s. She was uncomfortable talking about her relationship with the daemon king.

  “If you say so,” Michael said. But he looked at Lily with narrowed eyes as if his mind was focusing on speculations he hadn’t pondered before.

  “I’m his ward. He made a deal with my father to protect me. That’s all,” Lily said. “Giving me this garden was easier than spending time with me and my mother.”

  “I’ve never seen so many lilies in one place,” Michael said, gesturing to the profusion of petals around them. “It’s breathtaking.”

  “That’s the affinity making you short of breath,” Lily said. Her own lungs were having trouble processing the oxygen necessary to keep her breathing normally in his presence.

  Michael allowed his fingers to trail down the lily and she watched, transfixed by his rough fingers on the delicate silk of the petals. Then she gasped when he lifted his hand to touch her face. Each ridged pad sent a thrill of response from her sensitive skin to other neglected places that longed for his caress.

  “You call to me, Lily. But I don’t think we can blame it all on the affinity,” Michael said softly. He seemed to savor the feel of her skin beneath his fingers, tracing the soft hollow of her cheek down to the edge of her lips. She breathed out, carefully trying not to move, but the exhale caused her mouth to open slightly and his attention was drawn down. He lightly touched his thumb to the swell of her lower lip and Lily inhaled sharply. She tensed as fire coursed from his touch to her entire body, igniting erogenous zones she hadn’t known she possessed.

  “It’s your Brimstone blood,” Lily said. “You can’t resist the way we’re drawn together.”

  “Can’t? I’ve controlled my burn for years. Something else draws me to you. The need to warm. To protect,” Michael said. He teased his thumb across her lip, a rhythmic, whisper-soft caress again and again. “You’re missing the fact that I don’t want to resist, Lily. Especially here where there’s no danger in indulgence.”

  He leaned down then to replace his thumb with a sudden press of his lips to hers, but he slowed immediately to carefully capture the lower lip he’d been teasing between his teeth and bathe it with his tongue. All the while he kept his eyes open and watched her reaction.

  Her knees went weak. Molten heat flowed between her legs. And the rest of her fell from a great height where she’d been trying to keep herself distant from the seductive daemon prince who challenged her every resolve.

  Michael caught her. He wrapped his arms around her and kept her on her feet, pressing her against his solid, hot body. She reached for his suit jacket and crumpled his lapels in her fists. No longer focused on staying on her feet, she only wanted him closer. He complied by deepening the kiss. She opened for him, mouth and soul. Perhaps she was saying goodbye to everything she held dear, but Michael didn’t have to know. He couldn’t know. If this was farewell, she wouldn’t hold back now.

  “I don’t want to invade your refuge, Lily. I want to be asked. This is your garden. Your palace. Your home. Invite me inside or I’ll walk away. I’ll show you just how much control I have over this damned Brimstone in my blood,” Michael said.

  He said it all against her lips and he punctuated each word with long, slow tastes of his delving tongue. She was burning from the inside out so much that she wondered how she hadn’t turned to ash and blown away. The aura of affinity was full force around their bodies and he scorched against her skin. Could he walk away? If so, he was stronger than she was. Her legs had stopped responding from the second his mouth claimed hers. But he was right. It wasn’t only affinity and Brimstone. She was hungry for Michael, the man, the daemon prince who was caught in otherworldly manipulations as she was caught.

  The man she would lose before she trapped him on the throne he’d always hated.

  “Please. Stay. This garden has always been th
e place I came to forget the world outside. We can forget together,” Lily said.

  “Already done. Every time I taste you everything else fades away,” Michael said.

  A rush of adrenaline shot to her heart, causing it to pound as he punctuated his words by lifting her off her feet. She grasped his shoulders, but didn’t protest when he sat her on the edge of a raised stone wall that enclosed the beds of desert lilies. Not even when he joined her and pressed her back to crush the flowers beneath their combined weight. She didn’t mind the springy earth beneath her or the prickles of the greenery. The mashed petals released a sweet, fresh scent that enveloped them. The scent combined with the hint of smoke that always lingered on Michael’s skin when his Brimstone heat had risen in response to her touch.

  Michael shrugged out of his jacket and spread it beneath her head and shoulders when she lifted to accommodate the gesture. She noticed he took extra care around her arms even though they no longer pained her. Then he looked down as if he found her laid back on the tuxedo and crushed flowers a compelling vision framed by the pale blush of her rumpled silk gown.

  He had a halo of sunshine around his hair and his face was in shadow. But she could still see the familiar sharp angles of his cheek and jaw. She reached up to touch the side of his face. He stilled beneath her fingers, drawing in a breath and holding it. The kachina might have been a likeness of his real father, but he was still her warrior angel. He would be forever, even when they were apart.

  “Not a very soft bed,” he said.

  “It’s perfect,” Lily argued.

  “Your burns?” he asked.

  “Sybil helped me. They’re almost healed,” Lily said.

  She could see shadows shift over his eyes as her words reminded him of his burns and how Sybil had tried to help him long ago, but he won the war against bad memories for once.

  His eyes cleared and he reached for the fastening ties of her overskirt. He slowly began to manipulate the knots that held them together. His attention stayed on her face as she breathed in with every tug of the strings he pulled and softly released each gasp as the ties loosened. Until her hand caressed from his face to the opening of his shirt and pressed against the heated skin of his neck; then his eyes closed and he hissed in a sharp inhalation of reaction.