“I’m going to go pay for a few more hours,” he said, and I released a silent sigh of relief. “We need time to figure this out.”
I opened my mouth to say something—thank you, don’t go, come back, I don’t want to be alone—any and all of those. But instead of speaking, I shrugged and hugged my arms closer. He paused by the door then gave me the kind of over-the-shoulder look that carried with it a glimmer of power, a knowing, hungry look. Then he was gone. The door clicked closed behind him, and I wondered if what I’d seen was real or just what I’d wanted to see.
I looked down at the hand he’d held and rubbed my fingers together, still feeling the remnants of his elemental touch. He knew all about being demon, and I didn’t know a damn thing about being that part of me. I’d never needed to. I was unprepared for the real world and dangerously naïve when it came to the dangers coiled inside me. Torrent could help me, and I needed it. I might never have needed help more.
Did that make me vulnerable?
Demons lied. Demons manipulated.
Was I letting the fact Torrent appeared to care cloud my judgment? I had the proof of what he was in my back pocket. He had enough sway and power to get Allard hot under the collar. He had enough presence to work my demon into a frenzy—those damned wings—and now he was using human wiles to win me over. Or was it genuine? I didn’t know. I had nothing to compare his behavior to. The Institute hadn’t taught me human or demon social skills.
I was way out of my depth and alone in this, the real world. Not an Institute cell, not the maze, not the endless trials and fights to survive. This real world, the one outside my Institute prison, wasn’t what I’d expected.
Smoke wisped in the corner of my gaze. I whirled away from the window where shadows peeled through the seals. No natural air current moved like that. The smoke poured to the floor and swirled on the spot. I bumped against the bed and considered scooting around it and out the door, but the hypnotic smoke pulled my thoughts inside the mini storm. A body of darkness moved. Too late, I realized the swirl of smoke and air formed the outline of a man.
He came forward, moving like shadows, not quite there. The only indication he was real was the gritty burn in my eyes. Demon.
He stopped. Briefly, I blinked into a moment of perfect clarity. Naked black muscles gleamed beneath the pitiful light. His eyes were clouded white, no irises. Air, my limited thoughts provided. He moved like air. In motion again, moving sideways, his form was there and gone again, mist and whispers until he stopped, closer this time. The bunched bone structure of his wings trailed behind his broad shoulders and down his back, sparse without their feathers.
He smiled suddenly, and white teeth flashed against the black. “I am quite partial to half bloods.” His cloudy eyes narrowed.
The caged prince. Oh.
I stumbled backward, scrambled over the bed, tumbled off the opposite side, and dashed for the door, but in a blur, he was there, black and smothering as night. With a demon hiss, I yanked my element to me, enough to throw it all at him—
And stopped.
He wasn’t like Allard. Power rolled off the Prince in delicious, deadly waves—a deep, netherworldly background throb of power, like the heartbeat of a being larger than this room, larger than LA. He could crush me without lifting a finger. And he wouldn’t hesitate to do exactly that if I drew my ice against him.
He had to be way over six feet tall. His smooth, bare chest, powerful thighs, and impressive other parts screamed masculine prowess. He stalked forward, his stride as powerful as the rest of him. I bumped into a bedside cabinet, backpedaling, but still he came. Then he sank a startlingly warm hand down my top. I froze, indignation stalling in my throat.
He plucked the feather free of my bra. “This, I believe, is mine.” He grinned, tugging on an old scar that ran from his bottom lip, over his chin, and down his neck.
Something he’d said hit me. Partial to half bloods. Maybe the killing would come later, after he’d torn strips off me. The Institute files said demons ate half bloods in the netherworld.
The door rattled. The prince swirled in a storm of black and gray. I darted around him, escape so close, heart pounding its way up my throat. A wing whacked me in the chest, tossing me clean off my feet against the bed. I shoved up on my elbows and had a spectacular view of the prince’s bare rear while he pinned Torrent to the wall. Torrent didn’t struggle. He’d fallen into his submissive stance and averted his gaze as any demon should.
“Mm…color me intrigued,” the prince purred. “I came seeking one and find two.”
We weren’t getting out of this alive. Princes didn’t care for half bloods. They didn’t care for anything. He’d kill us for entertainment, to pass the time. How had he even found us?
The feather.
“We had a deal,” I said, bright and clear with no indication of the human fear rattling through my bones.
The prince twisted at the waist and threw his clouded gaze over his shoulder. Light spilled down the musculature of his back, carving around lean muscles. His body declared a savage, ageless beauty, like he’d been cut from midnight itself. I’d never seen anything so beautiful or so terrifying.
“Do you like what you see, little girl?”
“I…” I flicked my gaze to his clouded eyes, squinting against the painful burn of his full glare. “We had a deal,” I repeated, this time like I might have some means to back up my bravado.
“Did we?”
“The feather?”
He dropped Torrent and stepped back. His wings spread. The ridges crowded against the ceiling. He didn’t seem to notice or care that he was filling every inch of available space.
He’d blocked the way to the door, but there was always the window behind me. Torrent backed that way, clearly thinking the same.
“Ah, the feather?” He raised a brow at Torrent, freezing him on the spot, before sliding those pupil-less eyes back to me. “You suggested that should you assist in my escape, I would be bound to protect you and yours?”
“Yes.” So he had heard every word in the Fairhaven basement. I wasn’t sure if that was more comforting or less.
He looked at me, and I felt him measuring me, weighing my worth. “You failed to realize, little half blood nymph, I was never trapped, rendering your deal—” his teeth flashed—“null.”
“But the cage—”
With a flick of his fingers, my protest was discarded. “The glyphs provided ample shelter while the fallout settled.”
He wasn’t trapped. He’d never been trapped.
He was hiding.
My gut dropped while my mind raced. “I saw you at the ascension. You were chained.” Not trapped. Waiting.
He lifted his chin and studied me like someone studying a bug, debating whether to let the insect live or pull its legs off, one by one. “Azazel was fed pertinent information so that I might regain the power I’d lost.” The prince had used Allard’s ambition for his own reasons? “And now we have our very own court, somewhat diminished and uneven in power, but a Court nonetheless. Quite marvelous, don’t you agree?” He flashed a blinding smile at Torrent, who wisely didn’t reply or react. His element rippled, low and ready, but cool and unthreatening.
“Then why give me the feather?”
The prince flicked his wrist again, producing the same glossy black feather between a finger and thumb. He presented it to me in a brief flourish. “A gift. Why else?”
A gift from a Prince of Hell? I recoiled.
“Tuck my gift back between your breasts. I rather enjoyed it there.” Would it offend him if I didn’t take it? Probably. He was already starting to lose his smile, and I really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of all that power. My demon shifted, stretching her awareness close to the surface, eager to wallow in his element.
All the princes were gone, but not this one. He’d been hiding all this time. What did that make him? Shrewd and cunning.
I pushed off the bed and slowly, carefully
, got to my feet. Feeling tiny under his gaze, I reached out and took the feather, wondering about the slight widening of his eyes. The feather clearly wasn’t just any feather. Demons don’t do gifts. Allard bought me with his pre-Fall trinkets. Was this prince attempting to do the same?
As he’d suggested, I tucked the feather back in my bra. The velvety edges briefly tickled. His resulting smile was a sly, sideways promise.
“Now then, little icy nymph. While you familiarize yourself with your new status, it’s been a terribly long time since I was last in Los Angeles. Some demons did not take kindly to my exploits. Such a terrible shame they’re no longer able to cross the veil and stop me.” He said that in a tone that was as far from regret as you could get.
“Why are you here?” I chanced asking. Anything I learned here could prove invaluable later.
“Call it curiosity.” He lifted a finger and waited for my reaction. I blinked, unsure what he was about to do. His outline blurred and swirled again, but this time, when he sharpened back into focus, his wings had gone. He wore a magenta shirt and black tailored pants.
He caught the shirt collar between his fingers and thumbs and rolled his shoulders, shrugging the clothes into place. “How do I look?” He cracked a smile so devastating it could have stopped traffic.
My mouth fell open.
“I know.” He sighed dramatically. “Naked is far more impressive. Why anyone would not want to look upon my spectacular male vessel is beyond comprehension. Humans are sensitive with their social etiquettes and countless laws.” His brilliant smile grew and turned devilish. “There will be plenty of time for nudity.” He clapped his hands together, making both Torrent and me jump. “Let’s start at the beginning. My name is Li’el.” He spread his hands and briefly inclined his head. He’d changed from a terrifying force of nature to charming Englishman in the space of a few minutes. “I have many names, some more infamous than others. And naturally, I am the Prince of Pride. While I did not need your assistance, little girl, the thought was appreciated.” He gestured at my chest—probably at the feather close to my heart. “Think of me as your guardian. A guardian angel, if you will.” His lips moved, trapping a laugh, but the humor escaped into his clouded eyes.
Angel? There were no angels. Just demons. Clever demons, pretty demons, demons with burned wings, featherless, but they were all sly, manipulative power-hungry demons.
“Perhaps you should sit, little half blood, before you swoon. It’s been several years since I’ve had a human female swoon in my presence. Go right ahead. I’ll watch.”
Swoon? What? “I’m not—”
“Be careful with Azazel.” This, Li’el directed at Torrent, and his tone had once again turned on a dime, deepening with caution. “You have both ascended, despite the inconsistencies. You will gain strength from your brethren. A Dark Court is a delicate balance.” He trailed off. His cloudy eyes swirled, as though his focus was far away. And then, in a blink, the smile was back, as bright as ever. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He inclined his head and cracked the joints in his neck. When he next spoke, his accent had morphed into cocky American. His demeanor shifted too, loosening his shoulders into a relaxed slouch. He tucked a hand into his pants pocket. “I need to go stretch my wings, fuck until I can’t see straight, and start several riots in my name.” His smile stretched. “It’s been too long.”
In a blink, he was gone, leaving a brief swirl of black dust behind.
I stared at the settling dust, wondering if any of what I’d just seen and heard was real. One second, he was smoke, then demon, then American. I’d never seen a demon look or behave as he had. Li’el had acted as though he took pride in the human male form. He relished in it. Demons didn’t do human. Pride. The accents, the words, the gift. I touched my hand to my chest. The feather was still there, still real.
“What just happened? Was the Prince of Pride just here, with the wings, and the…everything else?” Torrent looked at me, his expression as muddled as mine. “Did we just get played by a Prince of Hell?”
“Us? No. But I think Allard may have.”
“Are we just going to let Pride go?”
I blinked. “Any ideas how to stop him?”
Torrent frowned at the same spot, now completely empty. Li’el hadn’t left a trace. Nothing to mark the presence of one of the Seven. “Okay, so we can’t deal with Pride right now, but we do have to go back to Fairhaven.”
I locked my jaw. Hand holding aside, I still had a demon in me whose sole purpose for living seemed to be destroying Allard. “If I go back, I’ll try and kill Allard. It would end…badly.”
“Then give him what he wants until we have the answers we need. Control it.”
“Control it?” I laughed a shrill, sudden bark. “Oh, control it? Why didn’t I think of that? You don’t seem to understand. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done. The demon in me, it doesn’t care about anything but bloodshed. It’s been conditioned to kill other demons. No exceptions. That is controlled.”
Torrent looked at me out of the corner of his eye, clearly wanting to say more. Maybe he wondered why I hadn’t killed him, why I’d saved him outside the precinct. He’d forgotten I had PC34A in me then. Now, I didn’t. Now, I had unbridled demon thoughts running rampant around my head, and he really did not want to know what those thoughts were telling me to do with him and then to him in some very graphic and imaginative ways. The only thing that had saved him so far was his submissive stance. But that was changing. The challenge in his eyes and in the set of his shoulders wasn’t helping. Maybe it was the ascension, or maybe his submissive routine was a very thorough ruse. He’d admitted he was very good at delivering on expectations. Was I just seeing what I’d expected to see?
If he attacked, I’d counter. Just the thought of it buzzed through my veins. I wanted him to make his move. Anything would be better than the nervous energy rattling through my bones.
“You’ve always had that drug in your veins?” he asked, tightly.
“More or less.” Not in the netherworld, but I did not want to start that conversation here, while the tension ramped up all over again.
“What are you running from? Allard, or something else?”
I stiffened. “I’m not running.”
“So why are we still here? We need to go back. The answers are at Fairhaven.”
“The Institute—”
“The Institute would have sealed off what they could and retreated. There are too many demons in that hotel for them to attempt anything else.” He scowled at me like this was all somehow my fault. “Running away isn’t going to solve anything. Your brother might still be there. I thought this whole thing was about getting your beloved brother back?”
I gritted my teeth. We had to go back I knew it. But I didn’t like it.
“We go back,” he said. “Or I’ll call Allard and tell him exactly where you are. Sound familiar?”
The defiance in his eyes told me he’d do it. Maybe he had already. Had he paid for more hours, or was that a lie? A warning growl bubbled up my throat, and his upper lip twitched in response, likely wanting to curl into a snarl. Demon.
I yanked back on the runaway thoughts and forced my gaze to slide away—not down, not that, but level—and toward the door. “Is Allard on his way here?”
“No. I was going to call him. It would have convinced him I’m thoroughly his…” Torrent’s snarl turned into a knowing sideways smile. “But I’m not the one made of ice.”
I winced a little inside. His words shouldn’t have hurt. Why did what he think mattered? He was just another owned half blood. Another demon.
But that wasn’t exactly true. He’d changed since the Fall. He was different from the demon in the picture tucked into my back pocket. Whatever happened, we were tied—bonded by the ascension. I couldn’t run without knowing what that meant.
“Fine.” I’d go into Fairhaven. Get Del out, no matter what. Get my answers, and I’d never see Allard, Torre
nt, or Fairhaven again. I’d get my brother back, and it would just be me and him, like always. Nothing else mattered, not even friends.
Chapter 22
Eyes glowed in the purple near dark of the nw-zone. The occasional growl drifted to us on a hot, bitter-tasting breeze, but the lesser didn’t attack. I’d caught Torrent’s eye, wondering if he was thinking the same as me. The lessers should have been all over our human scent like a pack of wolves on a wounded deer. Did that mean we were less human? Hopefully, Allard would have the answer.
We’d dropped by the rotting carcass of the spiny-rhino armatae demon, so I could rip one of its barbed spines free. I’d wrapped the spike in a sheet of newspaper and tucked it against my back. When Torrent had asked what it was for, I’d told him insurance. He hadn’t asked again. He hadn’t said a lot since we’d started back toward Fairhaven.
The sun threatened to rise as we the approached Fairhaven. The hole in the side of the building still gaped, and a new blue and white flashing cordon sealed off the street from any human stupid enough to wander near the pier. The cool morning crept across the beach, sweeping the majority of the demons back into their favorite shadowy corners. I pushed out a little of my touch, reaching for any sign of my brother, but either he wasn’t here or Allard had locked him up again. Or maybe he’s hiding—a rogue thought attacked—like the prince was. I dismissed it, refusing to give doubt its purchase.
The plan was simple: walk back in like we wanted to be here, like we were grateful for Allard’s ascension and what it had done to us. In Torrent’s words, Give Allard exactly what he wants. It meant I had to play the obedient pet long enough to convince Allard to let me get close to Del, and then we’d both be gone from Fairhaven, from LA, for good.
We strode into the hotel grounds, and almost immediately, the pull of power snapped through me, as though we’d crossed an invisible threshold. That hadn’t been there before. Torrent’s stride faltered. He’d felt it too. We shared a knowing glance. His lips turned down, and his doubts showed on his face. I nodded once, even as fear plucked at my bravery. If we’d changed and Fairhaven had changed, was Allard more powerful too? We continued toward the foyer, one step in front of the other. Going back wasn’t an option.
Chaos Rises: A Veil World Urban Fantasy Page 20