The Demon's Song (17 page)

“Same hotel and everything?” she asked.

“No. I’ve been coming back here on and off for a while to chill out when I get a chance.
I like this place better.”

“Okay. Not arguing.” He’d never mentioned coming down here. Go figure. Sofia looked
around again, and when she inhaled, she could smell the sea. It was a warm night,
too, the ocean-kissed air like a taste of summer after a few months in the cold. She
shivered, but with pleasure. When she turned back to look at Phenex, he was watching
her hungrily. The intensity in his eyes, though it quickly vanished, confused her
as much as it pleased her.

“What is this about, Phenex?” She said it with a smile, but at the risk of spoiling
it, she needed to know.

“I owe you some sunshine. This place will have it in spades in a few hours.” He paused,
and actually looked a little embarrassed. “You look like you need it. I should have
noticed. Maybe I could use it, too. What do you say?”

What could she say? It wasn’t what she’d asked for…but it was something she desperately
needed. And for once, Phenex hadn’t had to ask or be told. He had simply gone ahead
and given this to her. It was far more than she’d expected. It felt like, finally,
some movement forward.

The pleasure Sofia felt was impossible to deny, even if it turned out to be foolish.

“Anything I would say would be an understatement, so we’ll go with yes,” she said.
But when Phenex reached for her, she held up a hand. “One condition,” she said, and
his expression was immediately wary. “Sing for me tonight. Please. You haven’t sung
just for me since the first night we were in Terra Noctem. You know you have a beautiful
voice. This will only be perfect if you share it with me.”

He looked relieved, then got a wicked gleam in his eye.

“What?”

“I’ll go one better. Sit tight,” he said. As she watched, he sprang from the bed and
took a running leap out the balcony doors and over the railing. If it had been anyone
else, Sofia would have been terrified that she had a suicide on her hands. As it was,
she just wondered what he’d flown off to get.

Five minutes later he was back, carrying what looked like a very nice acoustic guitar,
black, the twin of the one the vampires had smashed.

“I got lucky,” Phenex said, looking in that moment like a young boy who’d gotten away
with something. “This is where I got the last one. Looks like they still carry the
model.”

Sofia eyed him. “Are you planning on returning it?”

He snorted. “No.” But when she just stared at him, he relented. “Hellfire. I’ll send
them a check, Sofia. It won’t turn my wings white, but if it’ll make you happy…”

“It will,” she said, getting up from the bed. She went to him, took the guitar from
his hand, and laid it gently down on the small couch in the sitting area. Phenex watched
her, a bemused expression on his face.

“What are you doing?”

She gave him a wicked look of her own.

“You made me happy. Now it’s your turn.”

Chapter Twenty

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, just as the sky had begun to glow faintly
with the promise of sunrise, Sofia opened her eyes to find Phenex gone.

She had a moment of pure panic, a sudden certainty that he’d left her here, alone,
that he’d vanished someplace and she’d never see him again. Then she heard the sound,
a strange and beautiful crooning that was like nothing she’d ever heard. It vibrated,
crystalline, through the air, rising and falling, shimmering in a way she had never
heard an instrument or voice do.

Sofia sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, then grabbed one of the
robes that had been laid out for them. She put it on and tiptoed toward the balcony.
It had to be Phenex…but it didn’t really sound like him, either. Only the emotion
behind the song was the same.

When she finally stood where she could see him, her breath stilled in her throat.

She had seen the other Fallen in their other forms, whether shifting for her amusement
or simply for expediency in going somewhere. But never Phenex. The mythical creature
he was named for had remained hidden, despite her gentle prodding. Until now.

He was perched on the railing, a bird roughly the size of a peacock, with a long,
luxuriant tail. But where the peacock was beautiful, Phenex made it look like nothing
more than a pigeon. He was glorious, his feathers all the shades of flame, from bright
siren red to darkest crimson, and all of it edged in hottest gold. Though it was dark,
he glowed like fire itself, his light shifting and changing as he spread his wings
to the night and the dawn. And he sang.

What poured from his throat was a song of such heartbreaking beauty that Sofia was
weeping silently before she was even aware she was doing it. In that song, wild and
gorgeous and strange, she heard every heartbreak, every hope that had belonged to
him. She could hear loneliness and loss, and so much regret. It took her breath away.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, mesmerized, utterly silent. Phenex sang
until she thought his heart would break—and any creature who could sing like this
had a heart, no matter what he might say. And then, as the dawn began to paint the
sky pink and gold above the ocean, his song changed.

As Phenex trumpeted his joy, Sofia realized that she wasn’t the only one who wanted
to live in the sun.

He sent a final note ringing out across the water, then flapped his wings in a shower
of flame until there was nothing of the bird left. Only the man without wings, almost
human, staring out at the horizon.

Sofia hesitated. She’d always let him be when she’d heard him playing at night, but
this felt different. Or maybe she just wanted it to be different. Either way, she
slipped silently up behind him and slid her arms around his waist. He didn’t startle,
just stood. He was actually sad, she realized. An emotion she had never felt from
him before.

It had such depth that she felt it as her own.

“Why?” she asked softly, resting her cheek against his back. “Why would someone like
you ever feel so much sadness?”

Phenex didn’t say anything for a long time, watching the sun make its way into the
sky and turn the waves gold. Finally, though, he spoke, and with a raw honesty that
was new from him. There was no sarcasm, no anger. Just the truth.

“It hurt,” he said, “to give your kind beautiful things and then watch them focus
on destruction. Themselves. Others. Or sometimes just the beauty itself. I was supposed
to be calm, detached. To focus on what I was made for, and let the humans do as they
would. I could only inspire them, they said. Not save them. And certainly not from
themselves. But I tried. I tried to save peasants. I tried to turn the hearts of kings.
For every triumph, though, there were terrible losses. And so much of the music just…vanished.
I stopped wanting to help them. I started wanting to hurt them the way they had hurt
me. And one day, when an exceptional young musician lay dead, his unfinished masterpiece
stolen by a rival, I put down my instruments. I walked away without another word.
Everything hurt. How could it hurt any worse? So I tried to escape it. I fell.”

It was the most he’d ever told her about himself, about what had driven him to become
what he was. And the strange thing was, she wasn’t surprised that the Angel of Song
had cared more deeply for humanity than most. But it had made him that much more bitter
when he’d finally turned his face away.

Sofia pressed a kiss to Phenex’s bare back.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I stopped being sorry a long time ago,” he replied, so still. “But it’s all coming
back. That, the joy, everything. I didn’t know it was all still in there. I didn’t
know I could still sing about it. It’s been a long time since I was the Phoenix, Sofia.
I didn’t want to take that form and not be able to use the voice that came with it.
But I can. I woke up and just knew. The song came back.”

She didn’t know what to say to him, how to respond to the pure wonder in his voice.
So she simply held him silently and let his joy warm her. He’d lost so much in his
Fall, Sofia realized. More than she could have guessed.

And she loved him.

The realization sank in slowly, then opened like some rare bloom in the early morning
sun. As broken and difficult as he was, as much as she’d warned herself against it,
she’d fallen hard and fast. She loved him, with every bit of her heart. It rose and
fell within her, bittersweet joy accompanied by a dull ache that she worried she wouldn’t
be able to banish. Because she was well aware that loving Phenex was no guarantee
of keeping him…or if truly having him as her own was even possible.

She closed her eyes, breathed him in.

“It’s you,” she heard him say, and he turned in her arms to face her. It stunned her
to see the unshed tears glittering in his eyes, making them reflections of the morning
ocean beyond. In that instant, he was ethereally beautiful, neither human nor demon,
but a vision of what Sofia knew he had once been. What she realized he could be again.

That was the moment she knew that no matter how much she loved him, she wouldn’t be
able to hold him. He was eternal. She was just the blink of an eye. And she couldn’t
embrace the darkness to change that, because eventually, it would kill parts of her
she would never be able to get back.

Then it was Sofia’s eyes that stung and burned. Rather than let him see, she pulled
him into a fierce kiss, trying to tell him without words everything she wanted to
say.

Phenex responded instantly to her kiss. He slid his hands into her hair, cradling
the back of her head while he teased her, tasted her until Sofia could feel nothing
but him, his touch, his presence wrapped around her.

When he’d kissed her so thoroughly that Sofia’s knees were shaking, Phenex lifted
her, carrying her to the bed where he lay her down. She shed the robe quickly, and
Phenex covered her, his heated skin against hers provoking a shock of pleasure that
had her arching into him. She slid her hands down his back, feeling the muscles bunch
and shift as skin gave way to feathers, his wings emerging to stretch around them.
They were impossibly soft, Sofia thought, stroking her hand over the arch of one wing,
loving the way it made Phenex shudder.

When he opened his eyes and looked down at her, she saw something different in his
gaze. Something that, if she wasn’t careful, might spark hope that this angel, fallen
though he was, could ever be for her.

Then he slid into her, filling her, and began to move. Their eyes locked, and Sofia
savored the way he reacted to every thrust, every gentle drag of her fingernails over
sensitive skin. He moved faster, and Sofia slid her hands to his hips, the bunch and
flex of his muscles stoking the heat at her core ever higher.

“I want you from behind,” he growled, fangs flashing as he pumped into her. “I want
my teeth in you, Sofia. Let me take you. Let me…”

He withdrew just long enough for her to rise to her knees, turn, and grip the headboard.
When he entered her again, this time with a hard, swift thrust, Sofia gave a low moan
and tightened her grip on the wood.

“Yes,” was all she could tell him, because she wanted him. Wanted everything. “Yes.”

He rode her mercilessly, and she bucked back against him as his fingers dug into her
hips, setting a frantic rhythm that had her tightening around him, readying for the
blinding climax she knew he would give her. Phenex dropped his mouth to her shoulder
and began to suckle at the sensitive skin at the base of her neck. At the same time,
he slipped one hand between her legs and sent shock waves curling through her, intensifying
the sensation of every wild thrust. His teeth scraped against her skin, promising
a joining unlike any she might have imagined. Better.

“Do it,” she hissed, hanging on tightly to the headboard as he thrust into her. She
tipped her head back and to the side to allow him access, to offer herself.

When Phenex sank his teeth in, there was only the briefest burst of pain, followed
by a pleasure so intense that Sofia shouted his name. The orgasm was shattering, and
she could do nothing but let it take her where it would. Phenex slammed into her all
the way to the hilt and found his own release with a wild snarl. He poured himself
into her with a shudder, finally pulling Sofia to the bed and collapsing, curling
himself around her.

Sofia tucked her feet between his, hearing nothing but the sound of her own galloping
heart. She could almost feel Phenex inside her still, hear his wild, sad song echoing
in her veins. Her eyes slipped shut as her body went limp, utterly spent.

“Phenex,” she murmured, leaving the words she really wanted to say unspoken.

But when she slept, she dreamed of him.

…

Phenex couldn’t bring himself to wake her until midday.

He hadn’t slept so much as he’d rested, enjoying the sound of the waves, the cry of
the gulls outside, and the scent, everywhere, of the sea.

This was his place. Every time he came here, it was harder to drag himself back underground,
into the endless night of Terra Noctem. His wounds were healing, incredibly. He hadn’t
thought it possible. But between the slow reemergence of his emotions and, now, the
return of his Phoenix song, it was impossible to deny. He felt different. Better.

Actually, right now, with Sofia curled into him, he felt pretty damn good.

After all these centuries of darkness, something had changed. All the restlessness
and anger he’d felt were vanishing. It was Sofia. Somehow, she had made the difference.
And earlier, when he’d finally sunk his fangs into her, joining them so closely he’d
felt her heart beat in time with his…nothing Gadreel had said did the experience justice.

He had a sneaking suspicion that was because Gadreel’s experience hadn’t been as good.

Phenex dipped his head to nuzzle at Sofia’s neck, where his bite mark was still visible.
Mine
, he thought, smugly satisfied. Maybe Terra Noctem would move closer to a beach this
time, giving him more opportunities to steal Sofia away.

Doubt began to prick at him almost immediately.

Her parents. Her job. Her life.

“No,” he growled against her skin. However she was making him feel, there was plenty
of the demon still in him. He would have what he wanted.

Yeah, you were doing that before, and she was exhausted and unhappy. But look what
happened when you thought about her first. Look what you gained.

Phenex struggled with that simple truth. Because there was a flip side to that. More
gained meant more to lose.

Sofia stirred in his arms, distracting him from his darkening thoughts. “Mmm?” she
asked, not even opening her eyes.

“Nothing,” he said, beginning to kiss her neck again. “We have to get back.”

“Mmm.” It became an unhappy sound. She opened her eyes, pale green gleaming like sea
glass. “Why do we have to go? I’m off work. I thought we were here for the sunshine.”

“We were. We are, I just…there’s a lot to do.” He paused, then just came out with
it. “Terra Noctem is moving. Friday. We Fallen have to protect it on the way out.”

If she hadn’t been awake before, she was now. “What?”

Quickly, he explained the situation to her. By the time he finished, she was sitting
up and staring into the distance, an oddly blank look on her face.

“So this was kind of a last hurrah. I had a feeling.” Her smile was pained when she
glanced at him. “I guess it was better that you didn’t tell me last night. I might
not have come, and I’m glad I did, regardless.”

Phenex frowned as he realized what she meant. “No! No, Sofia, I’m not trying to say
good-bye to you. I didn’t plan coming out here. When I saw you last night, I realized
how much everything was dragging on you. This seemed like a fix, at least right then.
Was it a bad idea?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. In the light, her skin looked gold-dusted, her eyes
luminous even though she’d just woken up. She
had
needed this. Out of Terra Noctem, she’d already started to thrive again.

Pleasure and guilt stirred, mixed into something unpleasant. She could thrive in the
vampire city, too, he told himself. With some changes.

Phenex slid his fingers beneath Sofia’s chin and took a deep breath. “I want you to
come with me. Wherever it is.”

“You…you do?” He loved putting the light back in her eyes. He just wished there was
less wariness there along with it. What could she be worrying about? He took care
of what was his. He always had.

“I do. We have a good thing, Sofia. I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t looking for it,
but we do. I don’t want to toss it just because we’ve got magical city problems.”

Her smile was slow and warm…but still, cautious. He didn’t understand.

“I agree,” she said. “Completely. We do have a good thing. But—”

“You can do whatever you want to the house in Terra Noctem,” Phenex said, anxious
to get the details worked out now that she’d agreed. The relief he felt was incredible.
“I’ll get you out of there as often as I can. I know it’s different, but you’ll get
used to it. I did. I—”