Darkest Before Dawn (12 page)

Finally, his eyes softened. He searched my face and with a sigh, planted a chaste kiss on my lips, and encircled me in his arms. The superheated lust we’d summoned dispersed. Seconds ticked on. Our panting breaths slowed, and our bodies cooled. The rapid beat of his heart corralled my runaway thoughts.

“I can’t trust you.” Humanity clipped my voice. I was back in the room and in control. But damn, he smelled divine: hot spices, sex and cinnamon. I drew in a deep breath and savored him because this wasn’t happening again. He was my drug. An addiction. If I let him, he’d destroy me, and it was my choice to make.

He swallowed and stroked my hair back from my face, expression surprisingly calm. “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t think I can ever trust you.”

“In which case, you had better become accustomed to sharing your soul with Damien.” He peeled himself away from me. The sudden absence of heat released a wave of shivers through my body. He bent and scooped his shirt off the floor, gaze skipping to me as I watched him. He shrugged it over his shoulders, leaving it gaping, and gave me the raised eyebrow and wicked smile that sprinkled lust through my veins all over again. He knew the effect he had on me. Was there a Prince of Temptation? It should have been him. I slumped against the wall, cold but defiant. Akil raked a hand through his hair, eyes hardening. “The spirit which forms the soul can be changed, shaped, molded. Souls are akin to chaos in that respect. Make no mistake, your owner will destroy yours.” He ruffled his hair, let his hand drop, and sucked in a wavering breath. “Your stubbornness will be your downfall.”

“It’s my choice to make.” At least I didn’t sound like I was about to collapse, even if I couldn’t quite move away from the wall just yet.

Akil weighed my words. His smile had gone. While he buttoned up his shirt, I watched shadows gather into a frown on his face. “We have a half blood to find.”

I nodded but couldn’t find my voice until it occurred to me what had just happened. Ryder’s words came back to haunt me. I did too much looking with my eyes, and Akil was made to seduce and manipulate. What had Akil told me once? His vessel was a trap, designed to lure and consume. The trembling of his formidable muscles, his sculpted masculinity, how impossibly perfect he appeared to be: it was an act. Even now, as a tiny bead of perspiration trailed idly over his rippled abs while his fingers worked the buttons closed. Every part of him was fake. Akil had played the ‘nice’ card in a bid to get me to submit to him.

My smile masked the downward tilt of my lips. “Oh, you’re good.”

He lifted his head, and his eyes narrowed, cutting me a scathing glance. “You must have me confused with another sociopathic demon.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. All of this…” I flicked my hand. “The Prince Charming act... Mister Nice. You were screwing with my head.” Yeah, it made sense now.
Butter me up with some truths, and then royally screw me over
. I lifted my chin and glared at him. “I thought we were beyond that crap. I guess I was wrong. You’re still a lying son-of-a-bitch. You’re not worth it.”

Rage burned so quickly through his dark eyes that a blast of heat warmed my skin for a few seconds. A muscle jumped in his jaw. I’d clearly offended him, and my conviction stuttered.

“I’ve killed demons for lesser words, Muse.” He turned and stalked toward the bedroom door.

Oh yeah, my words had hurt him. Well, that was unexpected. If he hadn’t instigated the charming act to manipulate me, what had it all been about? Why was he being nice? I raked a hand through my hair. Nice I couldn’t figure out. Nice disarmed me unlike anything else. Had he waltzed in here, all brutal orders and demands, I wouldn’t have been surprised, and I’d have slapped him down much earlier. But he hadn’t. Sure, he’d tricked his way into my apartment, but for him, that was par for the course. Something must have rattled him enough to bring him to me with answers on his lips.

I pushed away from the wall. “Akil, what happened in the netherworld? You were hurt. I didn’t imagine that.”

He stopped in the doorway, one hand resting on the jamb. He didn’t look back. “Levi captured and tortured me for information on Dawn’s whereabouts.”

Just how powerful was Levi if he could reduce Akil to a bloody mess? “Did you tell him you gave her to me?” I asked quietly.

Akil’s shoulders twitched. He chuckled, awakening the vestiges of desire tingling beneath my skin. “No. It takes a great deal more than physical pain to manipulate me.”

“I lost Dawn anyway. You were tortured for nothing.”

“On the contrary, I learned a great deal about Leviathan. Previously, I relied on Carol-Anne’s ego to get what I wanted. I invited her to my apartment, feigning intrigue in her half-blood pet. Unfortunately, that didn’t end well for her.” Akil tilted his head and lifted his dark eyes to me. “Your brother took Dawn. As the custodian of half bloods, he will have returned her to Levi. And I know exactly where to find Leviathan.” He paused, a thoughtful expression lightening his face. “Life really was quite tedious when the princes were forbidden to challenge one another.” He didn’t appear beaten. If anything, he made the fact he’d been tortured sound like foreplay.

It occurred to me that I’d been fooled by a bleeding Akil, as no doubt had Levi. “How did you get away?”

A wicked smile played on his lips, revealing sharp teeth. “You make the same mistake he did, assuming I was tortured under duress. Levi underestimates my abilities.” His gaze told me never to screw him over, that he was the biggest, baddest, most manipulative demon out there. I believed him. And I’d just denied him a chunk of my soul.

I smiled right back.

A
kil broke
the lock on the door into The Voodoo Lounge and gave it a brisk shove, almost taking it off at the hinges. I followed him inside the empty club. Within a few strides, a void of darkness swallowed me. I had a sense of space. Quiet yawned wide. I quickly spilled some of my element through me. My vision shimmered. Monochrome grays and black molded into the ghostly shapes of the bar and dance floors.

Akil’s eyes glowed red in the dark. I liked to think of myself immune to most demon appearances, but still I flinched a little. Lacy wouldn’t have been so quick to let him sign her chest had she seen that look.
Who needs horns and a tail when you’ve fire in your eyes?

I trailed along behind him. He knew exactly where to go. During his torture he’d learned that Levi’s lair overlaid The Voodoo Lounge. The netherworld exists in the same space as our world, just not in the same realm. The veil acts like tracing paper. The hard pencil lines on one side—our landscape—scores through to the other side, creating a similar imprint. Related but different twin worlds. Boston is a barren, half-burned dead forest in the netherworld, but the landscape follows the same contours. Those points of reference don’t change. Nobody had mapped exactly what locations in our world matched the netherworld’s. Demons don’t care for maps, and nothing human (besides a few half bloods) could skip through the veil to accurately survey the netherworld.

One of the back rooms in The Voodoo Lounge served as an entrance to Levi’s personal warren—Akil’s word. At the Lounge, Levi, the Prince of Envy had always been close. Just a veil away. We were about to hop through the veil and take a discreet look around for Dawn. I suspected there might be an element of revenge involved. Levi had taken Akil to his warren to torture him. Now Akil wanted back in on his own terms. But as long as we found Dawn, Akil could do whatever he wanted to Levi. I wouldn’t hang around to watch.

“Are you going to tell me how cozy you and Carol-Anne got?” Despite whispering, my voice echoed through the empty club.

“Ah, you found her body. I suppose that means the Institute people were crawling all over my apartment.”

“Yes. They didn’t discover anything.”

“Of course they didn’t. Did you think I’d leave my financial accounts and plans for world domination where prying eyes could see them?”

I stumbled, alarmed, until he slowed and tossed a grin over his shoulder. Right. World domination. He was joking, wasn’t he? “Were you sleeping with her?” I asked, determined to get a straight answer before he turned away.

He faced me, still smiling. “Why should it matter if I was sexually involved with Carol-Anne? I don’t believe you and I are in a relationship, or are you about to correct me?”

This was awkward. I shifted from one foot to the other and wandered my gaze away. “Obviously, we’re not.”

His chuckle promptly stopped me from further inserting my foot into my mouth. “I wasn’t, nor have I ever, been involved with Carol-Anne. I’d like to think you credit me with more intelligence and better taste.”

I swallowed to try to moisten my suddenly dry throat. A change of subject was in order. “Detective Coleman called me when her body was discovered. He thinks I’m in cahoots with you.”

“He’s not the only one.” Akil continued to stride across the dance floors, gait confident and shoulders proud.

He missed my eye-roll. “I’m not here for you. You think everything’s about you. I’m doing this for Dawn.”

“That is an important distinction.”

Was he laughing at me again? I closed the distance between us as we hurried down the back hallway. Closed doors flanked either side of us. “Who else thinks I’m working with you?”

“They all believe you’re working
for
me. Levi. Valenti. The entire netherworld. Although, perhaps not your father. Most demons—including the princes—are ignorant of the significance...” He hesitated a breath. “And Stefan.”

Stefan’s name on his lips drove an icicle through my heart, as I suspected he knew it would. He was right. Stefan did think I was in bed with Akil. I let it go. Now was not the time. “What significance?”

“Can we have this discussion another time?”

“No, you always say that when I’m getting too close to the truth. And there may not be another time. You’re slippery.” He stopped so abruptly I walked right into him and almost fell over myself.

He turned. “Slippery?” Amber swirled in his eyes. In the dark hallway in the empty club, he did the whole demon-bad-ass look a little too well.

Raking my hand through my hair, I recovered from falling over him. “Yeah, y’know... Difficult. Tricksy. I want my answers now before you disappear or volunteer for torturing again. How did you come back from that all flawless and...” I cleared my throat. “Er—y’know—pretty.” I didn’t want to admit how mind-numbingly sexy he was. Admitting I found him attractive felt too much like handing him a small victory. I crossed my arms. “When you were wounded a few months ago, I had to reach through the veil for the power to heal you.”

His eyes widened at the memory. He liked it. “You think I’m
pretty
?” he asked carefully.

Now I was smiling. Some words just didn’t sound right coming from him. I made a mental note to coerce him into saying obscure words like fluffy... or marshmallow. I snickered.

“Is our situation amusing, Muse? We’re about to break into the Prince of Envy’s warren, and you’re giggling like a child.”

“I’m sorry.” I coughed and shook myself. “I’m just enjoying this mutual ground I seem to be on with you.” It did feel good, though, poking a tiger with a stick.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and peered down at me as I tried to wipe the smile off my face. Once I’d regained my composure, he said, “I’ve been... different since you shared your element with me above Boston gardens.”

“Different?” The way he said that one word, savoring it, rolling it across his tongue, it was a good different. “Are you going to elaborate?”

“No. What do you mean by mutual ground, Muse?”

Hello, warning-tone. I’d touched a nerve. I eyed him the same way he scrutinized me. I’d been afraid of Akil for the majority of my human existence. Afraid, in awe of, bewildered by. But now, I wasn’t the cowering half blood afraid of Akil’s shadow. I hadn’t been since I’d drained him, and I would never be again. It was exhilarating, empowering, and I wondered if this was what freedom felt like. Or was it something far more seductive... like power?

A smile broke across Akil’s face as he clearly read my thoughts in my expression. “And therein rests the significance I spoke of.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” He opened the door.

A wall of water hit me square in the chest, blasted over my head, and slammed me against the wall. I thrust an arm out, searching for Akil’s reaching hand, missed, and gasped before the torrent of water tore me away from him and flushed me down the hall.

I
coughed
, spluttered saltwater from my lungs, and lifted my head out of the puddle I appeared to be laying in. My hair clung to my face, obscuring my vision. I blinked. Green eyes the size of headlights glared at me through steel bars.

I yelped and scurried back. Pain sliced up my back, wrenching out another cry. I was caged on all sides, above and below. I couldn’t stand, couldn’t stretch my arms out without bumping the razor wire-wrapped bars. My demon reared up, but the second her intention to ride through me became clear, something rammed her back down and pinned her to the back of my mind with as much mental precision as a pin through a butterfly.

I snarled and clenched my fists against my temples. “Get out of my head!”

Wet laughter bubbled around the empty dance floor outside my cage.

I snapped my head up and glared through wet bangs at Leviathan. He filled the space between floor and ceiling with his serpentine bulk. A scaled tail coiled around my cage and disappeared down the hallway from which I’d been flushed. His huge upper-body resembled a human’s insomuch as he had arms and a chest, but his head was all green-scaled sea-serpent, and those eyes pierced the gloom, spotlighting me in an emerald glow. I could never mistake the wet, sickly, touch of his mind inside mine.

His slick green snout snuffled at the bars. A forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. I flinched away. Leaden pressure pulled at my arms. For a moment, I ignored it, more concerned with the demon the size of a school bus eyeing me up for lunch. But then I realized my hands appeared to move away from me of their own accord.
What the hell?
It felt like waking in the night with a numb limb. Commands left my mind, but my arms didn’t obey. They stretched out. I watched, sickened and horrified, as I reached out and closed my hands around the steel bars of my cage. Snatches of pain twinged up my arms. The razor wire bit into flesh. Blood streamed over the back of my hands, down my arms, and dripped from my elbows, but I couldn’t let go. My knuckles whitened.

Leviathan’s vast serpent body sashayed, which I took to be an expression of pleasure.

“Get the fuck out of me!”

I heaved my body back. My arms snapped taut, but my hands refused to let go. Images started to pile into my mind. I couldn’t stop them. This was my so-called talent.
Make her bleed; Make her read.
I could see the past in metal, any metal, but for it to work, I had to seal the link with my own blood. I jolted as though hit with an electric current.

A limp little girl cowered in the same space as me. So tiny. Her wet ringlets matted against her head. She trembled, whimpered, and clutched her rabbit against her chest. I recognized her tatty dress and mismatched socks.

Dawn.

My well-maintained reservoir of rage boiled dry inside me. I screamed at Leviathan with everything I had, but when the bellow broke over me and boomed from my throat, it didn’t sound like any scream I’d voiced before. It was a pure, unfiltered, demonic roar of fury.

Leviathan’s grip on my mind and body relaxed. He rippled back, body and tail undulating like waves on the ocean. He finally shook his demon away and stood before me in his human suit. Clad in snug fitting leather and interlocking steel plates, he was dressed for battle. He bristled with daggers and swords. A braid of auburn hair fell to his thighs and twitched like a cat’s tail. His eyes glowed green. Haughty cheekbones pulled his lips into thin lines. He should have been handsome, but something in his perfection screamed alien, and my human senses recoiled.

Breathing hard with the sound of my own demon scream still ringing around us, I plucked my hands free off the razor wire. He was out of my body for now. I seethed so much that the water I crouched in simmered where it lapped against my clothes. Oh, I’d kill him—once I figured out how to summon my demon before he could pin her down again. He was so going on my revenge list.

“Greetings, half blood. You have gained power, I see. Asmodeus will be pleased.”

“Asmodeus can go fuck himself.” My demon lent my voice a throaty resonance, adding a threatening weight to my words, even if it was all bluster. I didn’t take well to being caged. It felt too familiar, and if the memories bubbling to the surface of my simmering thoughts were anything to go by, anger was all I had to protect myself from my past.
Demons do so like their cages.

Levi’s thin lips twitched like eels. “Passionate too, and yet to look at, you’re rather unremarkable. Physically and mentally fragile. Riddled with insecurity... However, I am beginning to understand why my courtly brethren have taken it upon themselves to take an interest in you. You were quite efficient dispatching the hunters I sent after Mammon and the lesser demons I subsequently sent for you. You obviously have hidden talents. Half bloods are quite the puzzle. I do so enjoy tempering your kind.”

“You want to temper me? Let me out this cage, and we’ll dance.” He almost seemed to be considering it. “What? Asmodeus won’t allow it? Are you his pet now? Aren’t you meant to be a prince? You wanna talk about judging books by their covers? Did you take fashion tips from Legolas? You’re all trussed up in leathers and blades, and yet I’ve not seen anything to imply you’re an awe-inspiring Prince of Hell. From my humble cage, you look like a fantasy freak trying too hard.”

Levi stalked closer and crouched in front of the bars, leathers creaking. He draped his long arms over his knees and cocked his head. A double-eyelid flickered across his eyes. He unashamedly raked his gaze all over me, and I felt the touch of it as though he rode his hands across my skin. It turned my stomach.

I spat excess saliva at his feet. “Coward. You couldn’t handle me outside these bars. You’re afraid of a lowly half blood, not even a full de—”

His hand shot through the bars and clamped around my throat, jerking me against the side of the cage. Razors cut into my cheek, my chin, neck, shoulder. If I could summon my demon, I’d tear open the veil and boil the water from his veins. But she was still strung up like a sacrifice inside my mind. She thrashed, but his mental grip held firm.

He shoved me back and watched me gasp air with no trace of emotion on his face. “If you were mine, I would take great pleasure in crushing your spirit.” His double eyelids flickered again.

“But I’m not yours...” I wheezed, rubbing at my throat. “You really live up to your name, huh. Envious much?”

He straightened his lithe body. A shimmer of power washed over him, leaving him female. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. What did he think he was going to accomplish by wearing a woman suit? She was just as unnaturally stunning, all wrapped up in leather and steel, like something out of Tolkien.

“Where is the young half blood?” she asked, siren-voice pitched high enough to rattle my skull.

I dabbed at the blood trickling down my cheek. “I don’t know. I thought you had her. Wasn’t that what all the blood-on-metal crap was about?”

“I did have her. I kept her in that very cage. My subject Carol-Anne was her guardian. Mammon wove a net of lies to entrap my subject and stole my half blood from me. He has quite the penchant for half bloods, it would seem. Carol-Anne should have expected as much from the Prince of Greed. She failed me and suffered the consequences. Her quick death was generous of me.”

Levi killed Carol-Anne. It wasn’t Akil? I hissed as saltwater washed over the cuts on my hands. The water level was rising. I searched around the gloomy dance floor. Where was Akil? Water dribbled in through various cracks in the walls and around closed doors. I hated water, having almost drowned twice. Plus, my demon didn’t play well with water elementals.

I tried to maintain my bravado even as I shivered in my flooded cage. “I thought you princes couldn’t meddle in each other’s business, some sort of mutual agreement not to piss each other off.”

She-vi smiled a dazzling smile. “When it is convenient. The old rules are rarely upheld. Titles are shifting. Battlements are crumbling. Laws are worthless when those who uphold them also break them. Mammon is an opportunistic hunter. Do you deny it, Mammon?”

Akil peeled from the shadows behind Levi like a wraith. Now that he’d revealed himself, I could sense his familiar warmth in the air. He moved with predatory grace, head dipped, eyes up and locked on me.

“This gift of yours is quite the feisty half blood,” She-vi crooned.

I hissed at Akil. “Bastard.” I wasn’t surprised. I’d completely given up being surprised when Akil screwed me over.

He stopped beside She-vi, not blinking, barely moving. His dark eyes narrowed by the smallest of margins. His lips tightened, and his shoulders bowed. I’d have to have been blind to miss the obvious disappointment. He seemed to catch himself revealing too much and shook his head, rebuilding the stoic mask. He straightened his shoulders and turned to Levi. “Contrary to what you both believe, I didn’t bring Muse here for you. My last visit to your warren was somewhat... restricted.” He smiled, his teeth too white, their tips sharper than normal. “You will not be taking Muse anywhere. I advise you release her from the cage before we have ourselves a disagreement.”

She-vi looked at him sharply. “Do you dare deny Asmodeus his blood-spawn?” She laughed. “Oh, but you are so weak, Mammon. You think to challenge me for that?” She waggled a finger dismissively in my direction. “She is uncontrollable, virtually worthless, and infected by a degenerate demon by way of an infusion. Have you not tired of her by now? Your alliance with this half blood is foolhardy.”

She-vi was either too proud or too blinded by her misconceptions about Akil to recognize his reserved posture for what it really was. I’d spent enough time with him to know his stillness was a prelude to an attack. Like a cat ready to pounce, he had her locked in his amber-fringed sights. While she ranted about how pathetic I was and how stupid he was, he studied her weaknesses. How could she not see it? I didn’t get a chance to follow that trail of thought. Ice tugged at my fingers. Its greedy touch burned my skin. I plucked my hand free and looked down. Delicate threads of ice spiraled around the bars of my cage. I puffed out a breath. It plumed in front of my face. She-vi’s fluidic voice echoed around the dance floor as a thin layer of ice crusted across the top of the rising water. It fractured and refroze almost as regularly as my own breathing. As it refroze, it thickened.

I shifted onto my knees and peered through the steel bars at the shadows. If Levi had unpinned my demon, I could have reached out with all my senses, but all I had was my human skillset, which in the gloom, was practically useless.

Akil and Levi were too engrossed in discussions to notice the ice crawling up the walls. Akil’s smile had turned smug. He’d bowed his head, eyebrow arched. She-vi had a few scarce moments to reel in her attitude before he would clamp a hand around her throat and lay down some demon badass. A large part of me wanted to watch, but the ice continued to build. I twisted around, wincing as my clothes snagged on the razor wire. Spider webs of hoarfrost trailed from the lights. Icicles lengthened. Surely the two princes would notice.

They did. But it was too late.

I saw Stefan at the same time as Levi and Akil noticed him emerging from the shadows. Blue-eyes ablaze, red-leather coat sparkling with ice, he wasn’t all demon, but wasn’t far from it. Levi hissed a warning. The club exploded in ice. The world warped from liquid shadows to brittle, ice-white sculptures. In a fraction of a second, a shock of frost dashed across the walls, devoured the ceilings, washed over the bar, entombing both princes in crystal.

The bars of my cage shattered. Fragments of jagged steel blasted me. I hunkered down, curling into myself, sure the ice would consume me next.

“Muse...”

I lifted my head. Stefan held out a hand, his expression bleak and eyes fierce. This was it. The moment he’d finish what he started at the George Washington statue months ago. My parasite clenched around my heart, mimicking fear. Then Stefan smiled his crooked, wise-ass smile, and I let out a relieved breath. He was still Stefan. Not yet fully demon. I closed my hand around his. The chilling touch of ice wrapped around my wrist and threaded its way up my forearm.

He tugged me effortlessly to my feet. “C’mon... They won’t stay frozen for long.”

Akil and Levi resembled sculptures, one the striking representation of modern man, the other a warrior-woman—both frozen in the midst of a heated discussion. And both would be baying for blood once they thawed out. Streamlets of water cleaved valleys through Akil’s sculpture. I’d wager you couldn’t keep a fire demon frozen for long. Stefan slowed as we passed them. I couldn’t quite see the expression on his face, but I heard his snarl.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” I whispered, hoping to distract him. Stefan and Akil had a history. They’d spent years battling in the netherworld. Demon to demon. There were a million reasons why Akil should suffer, and only two reasons he shouldn’t. I needed him to free me of my demon hitchhiker. But more alarmingly, the thought of seeing him hurt knotted my insides with fear.

Stefan glanced back at my question and grinned. “Hell, yeah.” His lust-for-life smile almost had me sobbing with relief. He really was Stefan. Stefan the Enforcer. The protector. The red coat, the swagger—he was back, just as he should be.

We burst from the Lounge into the night to find Stefan’s gleaming Dodge parked half on the curb. I ducked inside the car. “They won’t let this go.”

In the driver’s seat, Stefan gunned the engine, rammed the car into gear, planted the throttle, and swung away from the club, all in the space of about two seconds. “Let them come.”

Coming from anyone else, that taunt might have been all bark and no bite, but there was nothing fake about the wildness in his eyes. Shit, he wanted the princes to come for him. I fumbled with the seatbelt. The last time I’d been in a car with Stefan, his driving had nearly killed me. Granted, we were being chased by Hellhounds at the time. I wasn’t sure whether I’d prefer to be chased by the hounds or Princes of Hell.

“How’d you find me?”