Devil May Care (8 page)

I dragged the sickly sweet air through my teeth, trying to breathe in the soup of elements in the swollen air. Blackened skin layered over my human flesh. Obsidian claws tipped my coal black fingers. My clothes were gone, stripped by the harsh onslaught of elements in the netherworld. I was demon, and I was home.

I flung my wing out and tried to sit up. Damien yanked on the chain around my neck and drove a knee into my spine, leaning all of his weight onto me. My trembling arms gave out, and I collapsed under the weight of him. The chain links clinked tighter… tighter…

“You are mine, Muse.” His voice, harsh and heavy, bored into my skull and emptied out the horrors I’d worked to keep hidden. My memories spilled out of their unlocked box. Everything he’d done, the pain he’d wrought, the agony of an existence among demons, it all came rushing out in a surge of unfiltered emotion.

I desperately summoned my element from the alien world around me, tearing it up from the earth. I mentally reached for the veil, knowing another world of power lay just beyond: the human world. I could summon it all and blast Damien into fragments of smoldering flesh, but the chain tightened, and my thoughts muddied. I tried to reach out in hope, clawing at the pieces of my mind, to ram them back into place, but the darkness came, and my element retreated. The chain pulled tighter. Damien’s growls rumbled. Tremors reverberated through his knee embedded in my back. He bowed forward and pressed his cool face against mine. “It has been too long,” he said, and the blissful embrace of darkness overcame me once more.

W
ood-smoke
and the smell of damp earth tickled my nose. I sneezed and jolted fully awake. Fear tried to spur me into action, but as I attempted to sit up, pins and needles shivered down my arms. My wrists were bound behind me. I rolled onto my back, crushing my one tattered wing awkwardly beneath me. Stone walls on all four sides penned me in. A closed timber door seemed to be the only way in and out. Above, I saw the moss-covered underside of a thatched roof. I was in some sort of hut.

Netherworld air encircled me. It filled my lungs and embraced my demon body. The air I dragged through my teeth strummed with frequencies beyond human interpretation. Power. Chaos.
Home.
A fire smoldered in a grate at the opposite end of the hut. I sensed its familiar warmth reaching out to me even though the fire had died down.

I sat up and became acutely aware of my demon appearance. My skin had burned to black. Ash dusted from my flesh, like the wood ash crumbling in the grate. Embers twitched beneath my skin. My veins pulsed like rivulets of lava. If I’d been in any doubt about my new location, my all-over demon transformation provided all the proof I needed. Bubbling panic threatened to spill from my lips. Crude, maniacal laughter rang like bells in my head. If I let it, the madness would consume me. I’d curl into a ball and succumb. I’d beaten this before. I could do it again. Stronger. Faster. More powerful. I had the tools I needed. I could do this. I had to do this.

If Damien doesn’t get me, Val will.

No, no, I couldn’t think like that. Thoughts of my brother wouldn’t help. Damien was unlikely to tell anyone he had me. Not yet. Val would not yet realize I was back on home soil. Would Akil know? Surely not. A Prince of Hell must have other things to worry about. But what if he knew? He’d want revenge. He’d want a lot of things. He’d have to pick a number and get in line.

Dammit. I could do this. If I could just slip out of the restraints around my wrists... I called to the fire in the grate. The tiny flames licked higher, tasting the air, answering my summons. Focusing my will on the brackets holding my wrists, I pooled the heat there and tugged, but they didn’t break.

Muttering a curse, I twisted my joined wrists around my side to get a good look at them. The shackles had been cut and shaped from a hardwood. They should have combusted when I’d focused on them. On closer inspection, I could see why that hadn’t happened. A string of curiously swirling symbols entwined the cuffs, symbols similar to those adorning the walls outside the Institute. They prevented elemental magic from crossing them. Great, if you wanted to hide a building from demons or tie one up in your hut.

Plan B. I clambered onto unsteady feet and staggered toward the door. Turning sideways so I could reach the wooden latch with my hands, I flicked it open and bumped my shoulder against it, shoving it open. The netherworld vista spread in front of me like an elaborate canvas of dark surrealism. The perpetual half-light muddied my adjusting eyes. Hues of purple and black swirled and mingled like bruises on a beaten landscape. A vast forest carpeted a bank of hills to the right of the hut. On the opposite side of the valley, the forest had been scorched, leaving the trees naked, black and brittle, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching toward the sky. In the distance where the valley cut scored through, a bulbous moon hugged the shimmering surface of an ink-black ocean.

I’d forgotten how devastatingly beautiful the netherworld was.

A hollow baying rolled up the valley. My skin prickled, and my heart hammered faster. I’d heard those hounds before. I shrank back into the warmth of the hut and clicked the latch down. Shutting the door and ignoring the fact I had a realm of demons out to get me didn’t make it any less real. I would need an ally and fast if I had any hope of surviving. I padded bare foot back into the relative safety of the hut and tried to search my memory for something I could use.

The last time I’d been in the netherworld Akil, better known as Mammon the Prince of Greed, had taken me under his wing. He’d taught me how to summon my element, and with that knowledge, I’d killed Damien. Turns out that part had been a lie. No surprise, given Akil’s penchant for bending the truth. For all I knew, they’d planned it that way.

Disgust turned my stomach. Could Akil have deliberately misled me about Damien’s demise? Surely even Akil couldn’t fake revulsion as keen as his for Damien. He had despised my owner. When I’d wanted to hurt Akil, I’d compared him to Damien and watched the infallible Prince lose his cool. That kind of hatred can’t be manufactured. But things had changed. I’d crossed Akil. Could he be helping Damien? I shook the thought away and with it the fear of what a partnership between the two of them could accomplish. I thought I’d known Akil once. I’d been wrong, wrong about a lot of things it seemed.

Damien would be back soon. He wouldn’t risk leaving me for long. I could run. It was tempting, although I was just as likely to be picked off by any number of the horrors lurking outside the hut as I was to be killed by Damien inside it. Until I got the cuffs off, I couldn’t protect myself, and even then the chances were slim. One problem at a time. First, the cuffs. I’d need a weapon to pry them off.

The hut had a stool in one corner, two bowls by the fireplace, two hand carved spoons, and a misshapen jug on the floor beside a bed of straw. The only thing I could use was the fire itself, but even if I could plunge my hands into the flame, it probably wouldn’t burn the cuffs, because of those damn symbols. Worth a shot though.

I tried to angle myself so I could dip my hands into the flame. It took a bit of maneuvering, especially with my single wing pulled against my back. I needn’t have bothered. The fire just licked at me like an eager puppy, its affection useless. I growled my frustration. Damien would be back soon, and his idea of a reunion was not going to be pleasant. I shivered. Ashes dislodged from my wing and dusted the earth. Okay, if I couldn’t get the cuffs off myself, then my only other option was to get Damien to release them. To do that, I’d need to lie.

I crouched down in front of the fire. I’d lied to a Prince of Hell once. It hadn’t been easy, and I didn’t exactly succeed, but it could be done. I had my ways of using those around me, just as I’d been used. Sex and lies. I didn’t like to do it. It reminded me of what I was: a demon’s property, something to be used and discarded. I’d been raised to believe I was chattel. Why should it hurt? Or perhaps I was kidding myself. My time away from the netherworld had taught me much. Self-worth was one of those lessons.

Lying to Akil would be easier than manipulating my owner. Damien terrified me on a primal, gut wrenching, bowel loosening level. I’d be lucky if I could look him in the eyes without collapsing in a quivering wreck at his feet. You can’t argue with terror. It robs you of all control, snatching coherent thought right out of your body, so you become an animal fuelled by instinct alone, and if those instincts tell you to drop and roll, you do it. I’d have loved to have bravery at my disposal, but it wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t heroic, just a half-blood pet, bought and sold among demons until one tired of me enough to put me out of my misery. Sure, I’d had my eyes opened to the truth in the past six months, but that didn’t change the fact I’d happily scream obscenities at Akil, or shoot a Hellhound between the eyes, instead of standing up to Damien.

But I had beaten him once before.

When I thought I’d killed him, I’d had Akil standing right behind me. I’d failed. Damien was still alive, and I technically belonged to him. I clicked my sharp teeth together as a nervous purr vibrated through me. The more I went over my options, the faster my heart fluttered. Things were different now. I wasn’t the same half-blood Damien had sliced a wing from. I wasn’t the same woman either. Fifteen years. Ten with Akil and five on my own. I’d escaped. I’d moved on. I’d lived, but Damien had the power to tear it all down around me.

Whispering voices plucked me from my rapid descent into fear. A particular voice, to be exact. Whispers fluttered about my head. Were they real? I cocked my head to the side and listened.

“Muse, Charlie Henderson, friend: I invite you to share this place and time with me...”
The voice quietened and almost disappeared completely, but I’d heard enough to recognize Ryder’s drawl. Only he could summon a demon and still make it sound as though he was reading from the back page of a newspaper.

I closed my eyes, reaching out with my senses.

“
I summon Muse, Charlotte Henderson, friend... Damien’s chattel.”

That last inclusion sunk a hook into my gut and wrenched me from the netherworld, dragging me back through a blur and depositing my sense of self opposite Ryder. He glared back at me behind a dancing candle flame. The image sputtered. Colors snapped. I lifted my hand and realized, with an oddly detached thought, that I could see through my skin. I wasn’t really with Ryder. Physically, I sat huddled in front of the fire in Damien’s hut, hands tied behind my back, but the summoning had worked enough to tug my consciousness into Ryder’s time and place.

I smelled gun oil and blood, and breathed the scent of Ryder into me. I could almost taste him. All demon, I drank him in with all my senses. The man looking back at me had old eyes, an old soul. I heard his drumming heartbeat and measured breathing, but his exterior appeared gravely calm. It’s not every day you summon a friend and look her demon-self in the eyes.

It takes spilled blood and intent to summon a demon. The little flame held the key to anchoring me in the human realm, but the hold was fragile and could be snuffed out at any time.

Ryder leaned closer to the flame. “We’re doin’ everythin’ we can to get you, even some shit I never thought Adam would agree to. Hold on, Muse.”

My gaze darted around, expecting to see others. I couldn’t see beyond the confines of the candlelight. Darkness loomed, waiting to suck me back in. “Hurry,” I breathed. The candle puffed out. The summoning failed. The link broke, and I was slammed back into the netherworld with all the finesse of a sledgehammer.

I doubled over by the fire in the hut and tried to control my short, sharp breaths. My vision swam, and my head throbbed. Half-human, I wasn’t made for metaphysical mind-jumps into different realms.

The touch of
his
gaze crawled like spiders legs across my flesh.

Terror drained reason from my mind. Fire fizzled beneath my skin. Superheated dust shivered from my flesh. I pulled my torn wing against my back and folded it around my side as though it might protect me. I hunkered down and heard pitiful whimpers tumbling from my lips. The dreadful mewing wouldn’t stop. Sweat vaporized. Shame trembled through me. I had wronged him in the most terrible way possible, and I deserved to be punished. Sickened by my own disgusting behavior, I dug my claws into the palms of my hands, deliberately cutting myself. I deserved the pain. My head swirled with rage, fear, and shock. The surge of emotions poisoned all rational thought, turning my strengths against me, rendering me weak and pathetic.

At the sound of his rumbling laughter, salty tears boiled on my cheeks. I could only hope that he’d kill me now. A quick death would be a blessing. The invasive touch of his element slid over me. Fingers of air glided over my shoulders and down my back. I clamped my eyes shut and strained to control the trembling. He made a sound, like a dismissive snort. His element slid carefully, purposely, down my thigh, probing, reacquainting, and then wound around my one remaining wing, slipping beneath it to my chest. He stamped a foot, and a whimper slithered from my lips. Finally, after seconds-minutes-hours, he uncoiled his elemental tendrils from around me, so that I could at least breathe again.

“It has been too long.” His voice grated against my brittle state of mind as he injected the words into my thoughts. He had a gruff accent that I’d not noticed before. My time away from him, from everything, had afforded me the chance to forget. Now that luxury was over. This was a time for remembering who and what he was. I pressed myself against the ground, hoping the earth might open up and gulp me down.

When I finally found the courage to lift my eyes, I saw him standing tall, filling the space between floor and ceiling. His muscles quivered like the flanks of a horse. Every inch of him dripped demon masculinity, but he was more animal than man. Noticing my attention to his bunched, leathery wings, he flexed them a little, lifting a gust of wind that blasted through the hut and spluttered the fire in the grate. I was built for speed, but he was every inch a beast of strength. Bulging veins snaked down his taut arms. His shark-gray skin didn’t glisten as it should and after blinking to refocus, I could see why. His flesh was mottled, its once smooth surface dulled by scarring—the unmistakable curdling of healed burns.

My lips parted. I’d done that to him, and the scars weren’t minor. In the firelight, I noticed how they curled up one leg and around his waist. Although he hadn’t fully opened his wings, I saw the shadows dancing on their uneven surface. I tried to swallow, but my throat clamped closed.

He won’t let me live.

When I flicked my nervous glances over his face, his glowering expression slammed the realization home; I wasn’t getting out of this alive. Whatever Ryder had planned, he’d better do it fast.

Damien rushed me. He scooped a huge hand around my neck and thrust me back against the stone wall, pinning me there with a possessive roar. Jaw clamped closed, I turned my head away, not wanting to see the fury knotting his features.

“Thank you for your parting gift.” He licked the air with a forked tongue and then dragged its moist leathery touch up my cheek, lapping at the remnants of my tears.

“I didn’t...” I choked and wheezed, unable to draw enough breath to form words.

His nostrils flared. He breathed in my scent, lips quivering in snarl. “Humans die so easily. You, I can make last. I know you.” He slid his free hand around my waist and leaned his crushing weight against me. “I know how to break you.” His storm-grey eyes filled my vision. “And I know how to make it last an eternity.”