Hardest Fall (Dominion series)

by Juliette Cross

  I pounded harder, until I had the raw blade complete. Uncorking the bottle of ether—the electric-green substance found on the lowest level of hell in a poisonous pool in Erebus—I poured a thin line along both the sword’s outer edges, then recorked it. What was so perfect about this hellish toxin was that it called the damned right back to its source. It would kill the lifeforce of angelkind, but then they’d just putter off to the House of Souls. Paradise. But the damned? They’d be sent straight to the underworld. Hell was like Alice in Wonderland on acid. Endless black forests where one could get lost for centuries, fields of ghosts who’d forgotten their mortal selves, demon castles with babbling, nonsensical creatures that had sharp teeth and carried barbed whips. And the cold, bleak darkness. I shivered, shaking off those thoughts. My job was just to make the weapons. I had nothing to do with which place my blades sent their victims.

  I started to hammer in the ether, fusing the molten steel with the supernatural poison. Green sparks spit up as I fell into a meditative groove, pounding the steel, relishing the heat and the way the metal formed perfectly under my hands.

  For some time, I shaped and hammered and molded till there was nothing left but to quench the blade in the vat of oil next to my furnace. The hissing sizzle gurgled with bubbles of green. I set the blade aside for finishing, needing a break, my arm muscles sore from the work. Sitting on my stool and wiping the sweat from my face and neck, I let the sweet afterburn wash over me while Svrcina’s melody filled my shop. Her ethereal voice pierced me with a sharp sting.

  Xander. Still swirling in my mind. Haunting me for three days. Why did he have to be so idealistic and heroic and handsome and just so fucking perfect, but still so beautifully flawed? He was all the things I once admired and longed for when I was a seraph, but with all the sinful wickedness I longed for as a demoness.

  That mouth.

  That kiss.

  That look he gave me when I walked off the stage. And he knew. He fucking knew. Yes, I’d been trying to paint my world black for centuries. Ever since that fateful day I’d stood in the imperial box of the Roman emperor Diocletian and watched my beloved Abram and his family sing their way to their bloody deaths in the Colosseum.

  And with one word, Xander refuted everything I wanted. Just, no. That was all, and my heart heard him, defying all I’d ever wanted.

  Svrcina sang about being an island and her love being the ocean, the metaphor hitting me so hard I paused and wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. Staring at the burning candle on my worktable, needing that eucalyptus scent to calm my agitated nerves, I tried to narrow in on the source of my frayed nerves.

  I might’ve given up centuries ago, walling myself in my little world of metalwork, but my seraph song had never left me, always longing to sing again. She was the essence of who I was. No matter that I’d given up on the world. On hope. My angel was still there, whispering to me in small, subtle ways. Like when I’d healed and helped Dommiel. But she was screaming at me now, stirring up emotions that had long been dead. What had happened?

  Xander had happened. I’d not just healed his hand or arm. I’d healed his heart. And he was…good. He was so fucking good on the inside. The pull to fall into his arms and his bed and, yes, even his heart, was beyond alluring. To be wrapped in that hypnotic man while he called out my name. My true name.

  My camera sensor sounded to warn me of a visitor as someone crossed the outer threshold. Pulse leaping at the thought it might be him, I tossed the towel on the workbench and rushed to the monitors. My stomach dropped. It wasn’t Xander.

  Strolling into the main warehouse, I met Rook and ten of his priests as they entered, fanning wide. This time, Simian was with him, strolling in casually with his insane Joker smile. I crossed my arms and leaned back against the work table I left out to show weapons to new customers. Right now, it was empty.

  “There she is,” crooned Rook, long black hair falling down his shoulders, his hands casually in the pockets of his dark slacks. His fitted button-down gray shirt had a sheen to it. This was unusual attire for him. More formal. Leather and chains replaced by silk and Armani. “How is our magic metalworker?”

  “Fine.”

  Rook nodded toward the open doorway to my workshop, where heat poured from within. “Good to see you’re working.”

  “I’m always working. Why are you here?”

  Simian’s grin dropped as he made a sound of disgust then sneered at me. His abrupt mood changes required meds and lifelong therapy. Too bad he’d prefer to flay humans alive rather than seek a psychiatrist.

  “Don’t play coy, Bone. We want to see the torque.”

  Though I didn’t flinch a muscle, my heart hammered faster. “What are you talking about?” I directed my question to Rook. “You said I had two weeks.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Rook sidled closer, grasping one of the thin braids falling at my temple and sliding his hand down, letting his fingers linger at the bottom. The back of his hand brushed my breast as if on accident. But it was no accident. “We just want to see your progress.”

  Clearing my throat, I shifted over, his hand falling away from my hair. “I haven’t gotten started just yet.”

  Simian’s eerie laughter echoed in the large room. His black gaze found his brother. “Seems like your Bone is playing you for a fool.”

  “No, I had another—”

  Venom in Rook’s voice. “I paid you to work on my commission alone.” Black swamped his eyes entirely. The spidery veins at his temples and outer jaw pulsed, sliding forward onto his cheeks.

  “I know, but—”

  “Out!”

  The red priests slithered out the door while Simian grinned fiendishly at me. With a wink and an air-kiss, he sauntered out, chuckling darkly.

  I hated that asshole.

  Then Rook had a tight grip on the loose braids falling down my back. “I thought we had a deal.”

  “We do,” I gritted out, gripping his biceps as he pushed me against the table with his body. He’d always handled me roughly, even when we were amorous. That wasn’t enough to make me fear him. He needed me. “It takes more time than you think.”

  “You haven’t even started.”

  “I’ve been thinking of the design…how to withstand the essence.”

  I wasn’t entirely lying. It would take a unique design to hold powerful essence and not break in the quench.

  “And where is this design?” Fist tightening against my scalp. “Show me.”

  “It’s in here, Rook.” I tapped my temple.

  His cold-stone expression cracked, but the smile he gave me slid down my spine like an icy blade.

  “Oh, Bone.”

  “I’m telling you the—”

  Suddenly, he twisted my body around and slammed my chest down on the table, pressing my cheek into the hard wood. My palms slapped flat on the top. He bent over me, his fist still in my hair, his mouth at my ear, his cock—quite hard—against my ass.

  “Don’t try to play me,” he growled.

  “I wouldn’t, Rook. How could I possibly get away with it?”

  “That’s right. You wouldn’t.”

  “Come back in two weeks.”

  “You mean eleven days. You’ve wasted three.”

  “I haven’t wasted them. Thinking about and creating the design is as important as the forge.”

  He skimmed his pale hand up my arm, flattening it over my mine, lacing our fingers. I cringed, but didn’t dare let him know it.

  “Yes, Bone. You’ve always been so creative,” he nuzzled my ear. “I remember.” He rolled his pelvis in a sinuous circle against my ass. “Do you remember this?”

  “Rook. Those days are over.”

  He bit my earlobe and blew out a serrated breath. “I remember taking you like this.” He seemed not to hear me, lost down insane memory lane. “I remember how you screamed with pleasure.” He unlaced his hand from mine and skimmed down the side of my body to grip my hip, squee
zing. “How you begged me to fuck you harder.” He opened his mouth on my neck, and I felt fangs.

  “Don’t, Rook,” I warned. “Or I’ll not forge a fucking thing for you. No matter how many drakuls you drop in my lap.”

  That wasn’t a threat. That was a promise, and he knew it. If he drank my blood, then he could track me anywhere. He could also inject his essence inside me and possess me. He knew how independent I was. I would never go for that shit. I never let him bite me when we were lovers. I sure as hell wasn’t going to allow it now.

  He retracted his fangs and licked my neck instead, groaning.

  “Rook. Listen to me. We are over.”

  “So you say.”

  With one last hard grind against me, he lifted off, pulling me by the hair to a standing position and twisting me around to face him. I wanted to stab him in the face. But here and now, with Simian and their minions just outside the door, that would get me a one-way ticket into Erebus. Even if I could somehow reach the blade in my boot before he snapped my neck. I wasn’t ready for eternal damnation. Not yet.

  He cupped my face gently, which made me flinch more than his rough handling. His black claws were extended, his monster hovering on the edge. Stroking his thumb over my mouth, he asked, steel in his words, “And have you shared my commission with anyone?”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Seriously, Rook. How many friends and allies do you see hanging about here in my shop?”

  He swiveled his head sideways then back to me. “You always were a solitary creature. I love that about you.”

  Of course, he did. Because someone who is alone is easier to control. I realized that too far into my unfortunate affair with him. But at least I learned from that mistake.

  He smiled and leaned closer, closing his fingers around my throat, letting his thumb prick deep before he dragged it across my pulse, nearly breaking the skin. He watched his claw, surely seeing a welt rising. I refused to show a tremor of emotion.

  “If you betray me, my sweet. You’ll regret it.”

  With a feather-soft kiss to my lips, the tip of his tongue tasting me, he pulled back. “Eleven days, sweetheart.”

  Then he was gone.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I was afraid of something. It had been far too long. But there were two things that had me trembling to the marrow of my bones. One, I’d officially pitted myself against a lethal, sadistic demon prince by allying with the hunter. For now it was clear to me I had finally taken his side. Two, Rook still wanted me. And Rook always got what he wanted.

  Not this time.

  Rushing back to my inner sanctum, I watched him on the monitor leaving the outside entrance, then punched the button that bolted the solid steel door. My external cameras showed Rook smiling back before sifting away with Simian and his priests.

  Shit.

  Not all of them. Two skulked in the shadows of the alley across the street.

  Rook was having me watched now. The anger he’d shown when I told him I hadn’t started on his little project was an overreaction. Not like him. Simian was the hothead who cut people into pieces for looking at him sideways. Rook wasn’t. He was the calm before the storm, holding his rage in check and biding his time. For when he got his revenge, you never saw him coming. But today, his beast skimmed just under his skin, pushing him with some sort of immediacy.

  What was this damn torque for? To control someone, yes. But who? Why was Rook losing his control because of it?

  Striding to my walk-in closet with clothes on one side, my personal weapons on the other, I pulled down my X-harness of finger-daggers, each one double-laced with ether. Finding my knee-high boots with sheaths sewn into them on the inner and outer seams, I zipped them up and loaded them with my serrated Scottish dirks. Finally buckling my gun belt, I holstered my Beretta 92 and grabbed two extra cartridges. Pulling on my brown leather jacket, I shut everything down, tamped down the furnace, and set my outer door to shut, lock, and bolt automatically. I’d not have time to do it myself. Then, I headed through the outer basement hallway to the exit.

  The ward boundary I needed to cross before sifting was approximately ten yards from the steel door. I could make it. I had to because I sure as shit didn’t want one of those asshats grabbing me and following me through the Void. Or trying to bring me to Rook to explain myself. Always better to make up a lie and ask forgiveness later.

  I breathed deep, in and out. One…two…three.

  Launching open the door, I sprinted across the pavement, night fog swirling. The priests shrieked hideously, their red eyes glowing as they vanished into smoke. The split second it took them to re-emerge, I’d crossed the ward boundary. They landed a foot from me, reaching out as I flipped them off with both hands and zipped into the Void.

  My laughter echoed in the gray gloom of the in-between of time and space. I popped out in the same spot where Xander had taken me to visit the Twelver compound the first time. I smiled, genuinely happy, and was shocked to find myself feeling this way just from dodging two of Rook’s priests.

  I’d chosen to come here, knowing that even if I went straight to Xander’s condo, I had no way of signaling him that I was there on his rooftop. Truth be told, my pride wouldn’t allow me to go straight to him. He hadn’t tried to reach out since that night. The night I’d told him to give up on me. Apparently, he had.

  A prick of pain squeezed below my sternum. Shaking it off, I assured myself this was the best way of contacting him without appearing too…too what? Eager? Desperate? Well, I was feeling those emotions. But it was because Rook had put me on edge. It had nothing to do with not hearing a word from Xander in three days. Or his heeded my warning by backing off. Because that’s what I’d wanted, and he’d given it to me. Right?

  I was such an idiot.

  Edging toward the corner of the building, where I knew the Twelvers would spot me, even in the dark of night, I held my hands up and stepped out of the shadows and into the street. I didn’t see anyone standing on the bank rooftop in the distance. Interesting.

  Walking the three blocks to the school, I was surprised not to see or sense anyone at all. As I edged toward the wards that should’ve surrounded the school, I felt…nothing. None of the zing of electricity along my skin that was typical when I neared wards. I crossed into the schoolyard without resistance. The wards had been removed. Odd. The basement entrance was chained shut with no sign of life inside.

  Oh, right. I’d completely forgotten that Uriel had wanted to move them. I marched back across the empty yard, realizing I might as well go straight to Xander, as much as the idea rankled, when the very distinctive sound of clanging swords echoed off to the left.

  Slinking close to the wall of the buildings, where shadows lingered, no light but the blur of the moon behind diaphanous clouds, I edged closer till the fighters came into view. Dead center of the street, the female hunter, George’s woman Kat, fought with swords in both hands as two demons launched at her from opposite directions. Her platinum braid swung in the air as she defended from two sides, whirling and parrying with seemingly no effort at all.

  The demons were black-clad, blond-haired, red-eyed, and fierce fighters. The taller one with longer hair swiveled out of reach of her sword with swift, deft movements. His blade was quite beautiful. A long, thin saber, slightly curved with no hilt, the blade a sharp extension of his arm. A shashka. A Russian blade. I’d know it anywhere. I’d forged a few of my own. Then the demon spoke and confirmed my suspicions.

  “Come now, Domina,” he said with a salacious grin, his Russian accent thick. “Let’s stop with the foreplay and find a bed to finish this fight.”

  Kat whirled as the second one crept in, thinking he’d catch her off guard. No luck. At her swift thrust and muttered words of expulsion, the creature burst into ash and cinders, his damned soul sent to a dark place in the netherworld. Rather than show fear, the taller Russian demon laughed, circling her with long strides.

  Kat sheathed one of her swords, aiming t
he other at Blondie. “Ready to join your friend?”

  “He wasn’t my friend, Domina.” His smile darkened to something feral. “I’d hoped I might enjoy some of the attentions you once bestowed on a certain demon prince.”

  Kat coughed out a bark of laughter. “Do you mean the one who was wiped into oblivion, never to be heard from again?”

  The blond glanced left, then right, as if looking for someone. “I don’t see your slayer.”

  “That’s because you’re looking in the wrong direction.” George emerged from the shadowy alcove right behind the blond, an expression of pure rage tightening the lines of his cheek and jaw. I’d not seen that look on the stoic demon hunter before.

  The demon swept his blade out with a quick bow and sifted away. Then George had Kat in his arms, holding her close, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. I almost didn’t want to interrupt, but this was a fortuitous meeting I couldn’t pass up.

  Stepping onto the street, I cleared my throat. They swiveled in unison. Kat’s sword was at the ready. I held up my hands in surrender.

  “Just me.”

  “Bone.” George smiled.

  So did Kat, sheathing her blade. “Good to see you.”

  Still strange that they welcomed me. I wasn’t one of them. Not really. “And you.” I sidled closer, glancing around, nervous there might be other demons nearby. “I needed to talk with you all and see if you had an update.”

  “We’re headed back to Thornton Hall now.” George surveyed the area with hawkish wariness. “Best get out of here before more of Vladek’s men show up.”

  With a heavy sigh, Kat nodded. “The sooner, the better.”

  She sifted away first, then George and I followed. I’d been to Thornton Hall several times now, with the days Dommiel stayed there over his recovery and when Xander had brought me here. Even so, I always felt like an intruder. I zipped out of the Void at the gates, where they were waiting. Kat held out her hand to walk me through the wards. George went ahead up the gravel drive.

  “Thank you.”