“What have you done to her?” I trembled with the knowledge that I’d been missing a key element all along. Even as I watched Thomas round the desk with sensual grace, I knew, deep down, I’d been terribly wrong all along…about him.
He stepped up to Kat and gently cupped her chin in his hands, lifting her gaze to his. Tears streamed down her cheeks, fear choking her silent.
“Hello, my darling Katherine.” He brushed the pad of his thumb along her quivering lower lip. “I’ve missed you so.”
“What the fuck are you doing!” I reached out to snatch Thomas away from her, only to have him shoot out his arm and grab me, viper swift.
With a jarring snap, I stood in the cold rain, watching the entrance of Jude’s home in the French Quarter. I saw the memory through Thomas’s eyes. Someone walked up the pavement—Danté, gold locks slick against his head. He shook himself as he strode toward the alcove, transforming into the likeness of Jude. It was the day he’d bitten and marked me. Why hadn’t Thomas saved me that day? His memory drained away into another…
I was at the masquerade, watching the masked dancers twirl across the ballroom floor, that asshole Nathaniel leading Mindy in a waltz, her pretty head tossed back in laughter. Through his eyes, I saw myself weaving toward the far side of the ballroom. A tall figure wearing a black mask slipped his arm around my waist from behind and pulled me into a private chamber behind a red velvet curtain…
His next memory…standing in the shadow of woods, I saw a giant beast of a dragon blowing streams of fire at George. Glastonbury Abbey. The clanging of swords sounded behind him where Jude and Bellock were engaged in a heated battle. My true self was flattened to the wall of the abbey’s cathedral, where lower demons crept closer. Thomas was there and hadn’t come to my aid then either…
Gone again into another memory. I strode into the dark corridor of the opera house—the Phantom and Christine screaming their love for each other in song. I saw my true self meet him there. The urgent yearning to take what was his drove him mad with violent need until his lips were on mine. These were all the thoughts of Thomas…or so I believed, until the last memory filtered in from so very long ago…
I stood in a room of stone and walked past a canopied bed to meet the beautiful, naked woman chained to my wall. My wall. The woman lifted her head with imploring eyes.
“Please,” she begged. Despair marked every line of her face, yet lust still burned in her eyes.
“You are so fond of that word, my lovely slave.” I lifted her by the thighs, her wrist chains rattling. “One more time, then.” She moaned as I shoved inside her slick body with a powerful thrust…
“No!” I jerked so violently from the memory I stumbled back against the office wall. The truth slapped me so hard, I couldn’t breathe.
Thomas stared in serene calm, knowing the truth had finally dawned. “No…not Thomas,” I whispered.
“No,” he said with a dip of the chin.
“Damas.” I exhaled his name on a hiss.
“Yes, Genevieve.” He spread his arms. “I am Damas.”
“But—how… I don’t understand… Thomas—”
“You did have a guardian angel named Thomas. Once upon a time.”
Yes, Jude had discovered he’d stopped reporting to his superiors about ten years ago. Ten years ago, when my mother died. My mother who had been a Vessel.
“You killed my real guardian angel,” I said in disbelief.
“He’s not truly dead. I don’t have the gift of destruction as you do. But he is still somewhere in the bowels of Acheron.”
“You fed my guardian angel to a soul eater?”
How? How had I been lured in by this heinous creature with a face of marble and a heart of stone?
“He wouldn’t have protected you from the likes of my brothers. Bamal was lurking around your mother, but I knew”—he stepped forward with, heaven forbid, adoration in his glass-green eyes—“I knew you were special. I didn’t lie, Genevieve. I’ve watched you all your life, kept vigil when others might’ve let you come to harm. But then that damned friend of yours had to take you to Tartarus for your twentieth birthday. Of all places and of all birthdays. It was as if—”
He bit off whatever he was going to say, so I finished the thought for him.
“It was as if fate wanted me there.”
His mask hardened, washed with a grim light.
I smiled. “That’s because it was fate. The Flamma of Light wanted me to meet Jude. Fate guided me to where a true guardian would find me. Where I’d meet a man who would become more than my protector.”
He tapped his fingers in an agitated fashion against his pants leg, smeared with black blood from Dommiel, who still hung on the wall in utter silence.
“I can’t believe you jeopardized yourself to save that filthy beast from the underworld.”
“Of course you can’t, Thomas…” I smiled bitterly at my slip of the tongue. “I mean, Damas. You couldn’t fathom sacrificing yourself, possibly even your own life, for the one you loved.”
“I would do it for you, Genevieve.”
“Cut the shit, Damas. King of Deception. Master of Lies. I’ve been hearing about you from the start of all this, and never had I imagined that I’d fall prey to you. That I’d already fallen prey to you.” I laughed at myself. “I thought I was too smart, too strong.”
He stepped forward, closing the distance between us. I didn’t care. The closer he came, the more easily I could kill him.
“But you weren’t. And you know why? Because we were meant to be, as I’ve always told you. I’ve protected you, because I knew one day you’d become this remarkable woman that you are. You were the partner I was meant to have—an equal in power and beauty. I do love you.”
“And I thought your brother, Danté, was delusional.”
“My brother,” he said with a derogatory sneer. “He knew nothing of love. Only selfish gain and violent lust.”
“Yes. And you never prevented him from taking me. Yet you say you love me.”
“The hunter had already inserted himself in your life,” he said with a shrug, as if that answered everything.
“You’re afraid of him.”
“Afraid? No, dear heart.”
He spoke with conviction but there was an edge of doubt I didn’t miss. He moved within a foot of me, lifting his hand and brushing the backs of his knuckles along my cheek. His signature slammed against mine—chilling cold, dark night. Though once his touch held some allure, now I felt only disgust, shame and hatred. His otherworldly eyes traced the lines of my face, falling to my lips as always. He was mad if he thought to kiss me.
Another realization hit me like a bomb. The opal pendant. I remembered him looking at me just that way the night Kat and I went to that bar in the bayou to find Bleed. He’d held my opal in his hand and had admired it. But that wasn’t what he was doing at all.
“You injected your essence into my necklace, the one I lost that night.” No need to elaborate on which night. The one where I’d woken up from a dream and realized I was making a terrible mistake. “Oh my God. It was the essence all along. My necklace. I wore it everywhere. And you were in my head.”
He’d also filled my nights, my dreams, seducing me there. Even while I loved only Jude during the daytime, Damas haunted me by night. His spawn had been infecting me. I wore it that night of the play. The violent need to let him kiss me, and more, had beaten within my breast so fiercely, there was nothing I wouldn’t have done that night.
My VS had slapped me awake, and I’d taken us through the Void. My necklace had broken free, then we landed in the park… “I couldn’t understand how I’d let myself go so far. When the truth is…you were controlling me all along.”
His fingertips slid into my hair as he cupped my cheek. “You wanted me, sweetheart. You always wanted me. The essence simply tipped the scales so that you didn’t have to feel damned human guilt over letting go. I can give you that freedom again. I can make all
your fantasies come true.” He drew closer, his body brushing against mine.
I placed my hand over his cupping my cheek. He smiled, and for a brief second, I remembered how I’d felt once as the object of his affection, as the reason for the heart-stopping smile of Thomas, my guardian angel. It was all a lie. All of it.
I curled my fingers around his hand and called my VS to the forefront, chanting in a repeated whisper, “Flamma intus, flamma intus, flamma intus.”
His serene expression contorted to fury, then fear as my VS channeled through my body down my arm, hand, fingers and into him. Black veins webbed across his perfect porcelain face and lit up with the brilliance of a burning star.
He jerked free of me with a cry and staggered back, his lit-up veins fading back behind the pretty mask.
I stalked forward. “You will die for what you did to me, to Jude, to Kat, to every poor soul who had the misfortune of being led astray by you.”
The truth hit home. He spun and leapt in one bound toward Bleed.
“No!” I lurched forward and grabbed Kat, afraid he’d try to take her.
In a flash of ice-cold wind, Damas took his minion and disappeared. Kat crumpled onto all fours, heaving with desperate sobs. I dropped to my knees and pulled her into my arms, letting her cry out all her anger and fear.
“It’s okay. Next time, I will kill him. And now he knows it.”
“George,” she whispered. “Please take me to George.”
“Vessel,” came Dommiel’s raspy call.
I stood and rushed to Dommiel while Kat pulled herself together. Staring at the daggers piercing his body and holding him in place against the wall, I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.
“This will hurt,” I said with regret.
“No more than I am already.”
The vacant eye socket was a ghastly sight. I focused on the task at hand and pulled out the daggers pierced through his ankles first, then his left wrist, then his right. He rolled into a ball on the floor, chest heaving.
“Dommiel, why would he do this to you? What had you done?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he gasped out, curling his injured arms against his chest. “I helped you get into Lethe’s realm. I’m branded a traitor now.” He turned his face into the floor, avoiding the sight of me.
He’d helped me, and I’d not only saved Jude, but I’d killed one of the seven demon princes. News had traveled, and those responsible were sought out and punished. I had no idea how they figured out it was Dommiel, but my St. George medal lying on the desk was proof enough.
“Kat. I can’t leave him here. He has no protection.”
She didn’t tell me I was crazy and that we didn’t protect demons. Dommiel and I shared a blood bond. I couldn’t leave him alone. The next demon who found him would finish him off and take over as lord of New Orleans. He was injured and alone, ripe for the picking by the next predator who came along. And we were guardians of the defenseless.
Having regained her composure, though her eyes were red-rimmed, Kat came around and squatted next to him. “Give me your hand,” she said to the wounded and bleeding demon. Without looking at her, he reached out his one hand, the hooked arm still tucked by his middle. Kat reached out her other hand to me. “George. He will know what to do.”
We sifted onto the lovely, clean street in Chelsea, hauling a bloody, battered demon up the moonlit steps. Within a minute, we were up the elevator and entering George’s posh seven-thousand-square-foot flat overlooking the Thames. Dommiel’s knees buckled, and we gently lowered him to the sleek parquet wood floor.
“What in the bloody hell?” George rushed from the bedroom wing, wearing only a pair of gray boxer briefs, his chestnut hair in more disarray than normal. George always hid his chiseled body beneath fine, tailored clothes, but he definitely had a body built for battle.
“It was Damas,” I said, holding Dommiel’s head as he coughed up black blood.
George grew rigid at the name.
“He did this to Dommiel for helping me. I couldn’t leave him.”
George knelt at Dommiel’s side. “Move, Genevieve. Both of you, back away.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, fearing the anger hardening George’s expression.
“I’m going to bring him to someone who can help him.” George lifted him and threw him over his shoulder. I had no idea how strong he truly was.
All the while, Kat leaned against the wall and watched George, saying nothing, despair reeking from her.
George walked toward the exit. He’d have to get outside his own wards to sift.
“Don’t you want to put some clothes on?” asked Kat.
“It’s dark enough, and he lives alone,” was his terse reply.
The door slammed shut. Kat pushed herself off the wall and walked into the den, then sank onto the sleek gray sofa with her head in her hands. I followed, adrenaline still pumping hard at the crushing realization that I’d put my trust in the hands of a demon prince. Of course he used me to send Jude to hell. I was such a fool.
“Stop beating yourself up,” said Kat, watching me pace the floor in front of her.
“Why should I? I was the one to put Jude’s life in danger, and now…now I know if he never comes back to me, it will certainly be my own stupidity to blame.”
“Damas knows how to beguile better than any of them. He studied you. He knew what to do, what to say to lure you into his web. Just as he did with me.”
I paced to the wall of windows overlooking the Thames, which rippled under the starry night. “And now he wants revenge.” Against Dommiel for helping me save Jude. And certainly against me. Oh no! I spun to Kat. “He’ll want revenge against me, Kat. My dad! Mindy!”
I rushed across the den. Kat caught my arm. “No. Wait, Gen.”
The door slammed. George reentered, black blood smeared on his arms and bare chest. “What now?”
“Damas will go after my dad next. Maybe even Mindy. I have to go to them.”
He halted me with a hand in the air and swept his cell from the charger on the marble countertop. He texted a message, then set the phone down.
“Alexander and Tarquin will be here soon. I’ll assign them guardian detail to your father and friend.”
“But I can’t let them—”
“Can’t let them what? Put their lives in danger? It’s what we do. Tarquin and Alexander are fitter for the job than you are, as you’ll only make a prime target of yourself. Besides, you can’t guard both at once, and Jude needs you by his side.”
I leaned over, hands on my knees, catching my breath, not having realized I was near hyperventilating with fear.
“Calm down,” said Kat, rubbing my back. “George is right.”
An opening and slamming of George’s door. I stood upright as the fierce, hard warrior, Tarquin, stepped into the room with Xander following, dressed in a black-on-gray tuxedo.
“You rang?” asked Xander in his casual tone. “Oh, we’re having a party and no one told me.”
“You’re a bit overdressed,” teased Kat, having shed her earlier anguish.
“It seems George is a bit underdressed. Ladies, I believe he has the right idea. Shall we shed some of these clothes together for a real party?”
“No time for this,” snapped George. “Damas is on the prowl.”
Both Tarquin and Xander straightened with tension at the sound of his name. Xander’s playful expression vanished at once.
“Who was his target?” asked Tarquin, his rough voice matching the rugged exterior.
“A demon in New Orleans, the one who helped Genevieve retrieve Jude from Lethe’s realm. We believe he will strike at her loved ones next. Alexander, you will guard her father. Tarquin, you will guard her best friend and roommate. There are wards in place, but neither of these individuals knows of the reality around them.”
The reality that demons were lurking and on the hunt…for me, and possibly for them because of who I am and what I’ve done.
>
“You’ll need to be discreet. Come,” said George, “I’ll provide you the details so you can be on your way.”
As Tarquin passed, I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Thank you. For doing this for me. I can’t thank you enough.”
The man of stone dipped his chin. “It is our duty to protect the innocent. No need to thank me.” He walked on.
Xander paused before me and lifted my hand, brushing a quick kiss across my knuckles, all masculine grace and finesse. “Never fear, lady. We will watch out for them. We are all in this together. The burden cannot fall to one person alone.”
He was right. For the briefest of moments, my heart lightened for the fact that I was not alone—that we were not alone.
“Jude.” I walked toward the door and stopped by Kat. “He’s alone. I need to get back.” I hugged her tight. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for…for him.”
I wished she hadn’t had to encounter Damas again, after all she’d been through with him. Kat pulled away, her gaze finding George in the kitchen talking in hushed tones to the demon hunters who would now play guardian to Dad and Mindy.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. All my fear and guilt is mine alone.”
“But you don’t have to bear it alone,” I said, squeezing her hand. “George loves you, you know.”
Her sharp green eyes swiveled to me. A sad smile quirked her mouth. “I know.”
I left with a new weight hanging heavy on my shoulders. I wondered if I’d ever be able to shed the monumental guilt from my heart, now that I’d brought Damas front and center, back between George and Kat. Too weary to think about it anymore, I turned away from thoughts of the evil prince who’d ruined so many lives and thought instead about the man who put my heart at peace.
Even though Jude had not yet wakened from his deep sleep, hope wouldn’t allow me to let go. And never would.
Chapter Fifteen
I’d taken a hot shower after returning from George’s penthouse in Chelsea. I never did ask where he’d taken Dommiel. He and Jude knew all kinds of sentinels, typically monks, who were healers and messengers for the Flamma of Light. I couldn’t get the vision out of my head of that moment when George laid eyes on Kat and I told him that Thomas, my alleged guardian angel, was in fact Damas and we’d encountered him at Dommiel’s club. I’d never seen that expression of blinding fear and fury warring on a man’s face. No, that wasn’t true. I’d seen Jude look very much the same the night he’d saved me from Danté.
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