“When you look at me like that,” he drawled, his voice gravel with desire reheating all over again, “I can’t remember what was so important that we dragged ourselves from bed.”
Lily blinked her stare from him and swatted his thigh lightly. “My explanations just became a whole lot shorter.”
A lazy grin smelted the ridges and crevices of his face, smoothing the harsh, rugged lines into a devastating, dramatic sculpture. “Then best you begin, sweetling, and I’ll hold you to that promise.”
Lily sucked in a breathless sigh and pushed herself up into the closest chair.
“It was rather simple, really, once we’d put our heads together, and Neco and Ana unravelled all the details.” Her gaze swept the room as she spoke. “You see, the demon Flavith scented Raimlas’ blood in Greyston and from there we assumed that was true of mine, too.”
“It wasn’t?” asked Armand.
She shook her head. “We knew Duncan had kept two demons captive in the dungeon, Raimlas and Gorgon, but if he drained blood from Raimlas to use on the Cragloden children, then why not Gorgon’s blood as well? And then there was something Agares let drop. She told me I’d made new allies from old enemies. Initially, I presumed she meant me and Kelan, as in Raimlas and a McAllister. But she’d scented Greyston’s demon blood, and it made more sense, after we’d figured it out, of course, that the two King demons would be enemies.”
“You were given Gorgon’s blood?” Kelan clarified.
“But I only realised that when we interrogated Duncan’s memory box,” she said. “I asked Ana for all conversations that involved Agares and we found the answer almost at once.”
Ana broke into the explanation, repeating the revealing snippet. “Raimlas said: At least I haven’t sullied my Kingdom with a third tier tramp. Gorgon replied: You cannot deny, Agares is magnificent.”
“From what I’d seen of Agares,” Lily continued, “she clearly believed I was her long lost demon lover, and that couldn’t have been Raimlas, not from that snippet we heard.”
Kelan leant forward, setting his empty cup on the table. He beckoned to Armand and the bottle of whiskey as he spoke. “What about the rest? How did you seal the tear?”
“The demon Flavith,” Greyston said. “She told me I’d been missing for so long, Raimlas that is, that below was rife with rumours that I was truly gone, my essence vanished.”
“Agares said something similar to me,” Lily added. “She said I’d been gone so long, that she thought I was truly gone. Given what Agares had hinted at, that demons could be eternally ended, we wondered if maybe Raimlas and Gorgon had been dead all this time.”
“The veil would have closed immediately on Gorgon’s death,” Archibald said.
Kelan shook his head. “Demon essence has parasitic properties. The portion attached to a living organism can coexist as a separate entity after the demon has been banished or, as it now appears, eternally ended.” He paused to accept the glass of whiskey Armand brought over. “That’s why my uncle decided to infuse demon blood into humans instead of the celludrones, as he’d originally intended.”
“My blood kept the veil open,” Lily said, her chin nudged defensively as she set her gaze on Archibald. She didn’t like it, any more than he did, but there it was, the truth.
“And if your blood hadn’t,” Kelan ground out, pulling Lily’s eyes to him, “the veil might have closed, trapping God knows how many demons topside. There’s a reason, Lily, why I refused to seal the Cairngorm Tear until we were sure.”
Her defiance melted with a small smile.
Kelan sat back in his chair, squared a leg, the glass cradled in his hands. His gaze swerved between her and Greyston. “What about that thing you two did with your arms, and that cut. How did that seal the tear?”
“When the blood of two King or Queen demons mingles,” Greyston said, “they both cease to exist. Probably some unnatural law of nature to prevent them killing each other off, but it worked damned fine into our plans.”
“Agares indicated that she’d need another King demon if she were to eternally end Gorgon,” Lily explained fully. “But yet again, Duncan’s memory box provided the answer. He thought the second demon he’d captured was Gamgos. If he’d extracted the dual truths from the demons when he’d banished them, he would’ve learnt that the second demon’s name was Gorgon. And I couldn’t imagine a man as invested in science and experiments as Duncan McAllister not performing the ritual and extracting the truths.”
“You suspected he hadn’t banished them at all.”
“I asked Ana to describe the final moments of the demons before they were ‘banished.’ Apparently Duncan needed to wound the demons, with Cairngorm ore blades, to incapacitate them while he drew their blood. During one such occasion, he used the same blade on both in a single session, and Raimlas and Gorgon stopped existing the moment their blood touched.”
“I’ve been through all Duncan’s notes,” Armand said. “That is an enormous discovery to not write down.”
“He likely didn’t know he’d killed them,” she told him. “But yes, even if he thought mingling blood was an alternative banishing method, he would have noted it. I can only imagine some of his research was lost in the gas fire that destroyed the original Cragloden Castle.”
And that was it.
She stood and rolled her shoulders, her eyes drawn to Greyston, to the slow, roguish grin charming his handsome face. His brown eyes warmed on her, as always, but now there was an extra depth, new beginnings and irreversible peace in his silent words to her.
We’re done.
Well and truly done with Duncan McAllister’s experiments and demons and tainted blood and end of the worlds.
“We’re done,” she said softly.
She’d already checked her demon glass. The fog of her canvas, the soundless lullaby that shifted inside her like a foreign piece of her soul hacked off, it was all gone.
It was early evening, more than twenty-four hours since Greyston had last rewound time, and he’d confirmed it, too. The dark pool he’d reached into to grab memories was no longer there.
They were free.
Beside him, Georgina stretched and yawned theatrically. “I know it’s disgustingly early, darling, but I’m absolutely exhausted. Will you excuse me?”
“Most certainly not.” Greyston’s grin devolved into downright wolfish as he slid Georgina from his lap and came up with her. “A nursemaid cannot retire before the patient. It’s against the rules.”
Her eyes shone into his with the blue promise of a summer’s day. “I thought you didn’t need a nursemaid.”
“I don’t,” he said, swooping an arm around her with one last glance around the room on their way out.
Kelan sipped on his whiskey, his eyes on Lily, the trace of amusement at their antics fading bit by bit the longer he looked. Raw, primal hunger hooded his lids. Love, sweet and gentle, softened his face.
“Hold that thought,” she said, hurrying over to Armand. One more thing, and then she was done.
“Ana told me her primary directive is protecting me,” she said to him. “Is that a command you can override?”
“Would you want me to?”
“Most definitely, and I warrant Greyston would say the same for Neco.”
“And what do you propose I replace that directive with?”
“Happiness!”
“That, unfortunately, I cannot do, Lady Lily,” he said. “Happiness is an emotion, not a command I can programme into anyone.”
“Then don’t replace it with anything.” Her gaze washed over the couple in question, less attentive of Archibald now that the man’s stiffness had finally crumpled. “Let them find their own path. I can’t imagine it will lead them anywhere but to happiness.”
“If it were possible,” Armand mused, “I’d fashion those two human hearts.”
“That would be superfluous.” She turned a smile on him. “Don’t you know, they already possess the finest hearts. Their hearts simply
pump memories instead of blood.”
Armand’s mouth curved into the suggestion of a smile. “You may be right.”
She took his hand between hers for a moment, returning a full-blown smile of thanks before she turned back to Kelan.
Her husband was on his feet, his patience long since run out. He cocked his head, running a hand through his coal-black silky hair with the arrogant grace of a fallen angel. His other hand came out, calling her to him. The tempest storm in his eyes was satin-soft, cast in iron and flared in sin.
Lily went, her gaze sinking into him as her blood turned slumberous with desire and love and the promise of forever.
The Dark Matters Quartet Page 92