“Damn straight.” Heather swiveled on the ball of one foot to face the so-called Celestial Seven.
They stood Fallen-tall and proud in front of the arched, brazier-lit entry leading into the Royal Aerie. But only five—three males and two females in flowing gowns, silken kilts, veils, simple torques, and—in one case—what sure as hell looked like a priest’s white collar and black, leather-belted cassock.
Adrenaline pumped through Heather’s veins, flooding her mind with a diamond-edged focus and crystal awareness. Her gaze ticked across each Celestial face, noting details in a split-second.
Celestial One: Gold wings, hair a cap of tight black curls, ebony skin etched with graceful, gold-inked glyphs, gold light fades from his eyes, revealing irises the dark purple-black of ripe plums; his full lips twist into a calculating smile; a purple kilt flecked with silver stars is double-belted at his muscular waist.
Celestial Two: Deep red wings, a spill of winter-wheat pale hair, honey-colored eyes, the brooding face of a Romantic poet; a Highlander’s belted blue plaid tartan falls to his knees above black leather boots, a silver torque twists around his throat.
Celestial Three: Black wings, a veil of shifting aurora borealis color drapes her from head to shoulders, hiding her features except for the black cherry-red tendrils of hair snaking and twisting from beneath the veil; a burgundy gown clings to her curves, its corseted bodice providing a display shelf for her smooth and rounded cleavage.
Celestial Four: White wings; glossy chocolate-brown hair cascades to her shoulders in long curls; golden-brown skin, proud nose, eyes black as the night and glittering with gold flecks; her flawless complexion, bee-stung lips, and voluptuous figure in its demure flowing silver and pale blue gown a Renaissance artist’s wet dream.
Celestial Five: No visible wings, olive-skinned, short black hair curls against his temples, introspective summer evening–blue eyes above a straight Roman nose, he wears a priest’s collar and cassock, a beaded rosary wrapped around the knuckles of one hand.
All radiated a cool poise, their body language one of anticipation and curiosity as their gazes caressed Dante, lingering on his pale face, tracing the length of his hard body.
Seeing lust flare in more than one pair of moonlight-sparked eyes, a cold smile touched Heather’s lips. If they think he’s a just a plaything to tumble between the sheets, they’re going to be in for one helluva rude surprise.
Celestial One suddenly dipped one gold wing tip and song rang into the air, a beautiful hundredfold song pealing and harmonizing like cathedral bells, loud enough to fill the night. Each joyous crystalline note resonated through the air.
“Shit. Too goddamned many . . . “
Fear curled through Heather at the strain and desperation edging Dante’s voice. He stood, head bowed, fists clenched, body coiled and muscles trembling, and she realized that he was hearing the song inside as well, not just with his ears—and not just as a single choir. She suspected that each individual voice was a mental hammer battering against his shields.
Shoving her Browning into a pocket in her trench coat, Heather stepped in front of him and cupped his burning, blood-smeared face between her hands. “You’re not alone,” she whispered, looking into his dazed gold-and-blue-flame eyes. “Let me in, so I can help. I don’t give a damn about the pain.”
“I know you don’t, chйrie, all heart and steel, you,” Dante murmured. “But not yet. Not until this headache’s gone. I ain’t sharing it. It’s too . . . hungry.”
“Sharing might make it easier to bear.”
“Not this. I ain’t letting it have you.” Lowering his head, Dante grazed his fevered lips against Heather’s before gently pulling free of her hands. “I’m gonna tell ’em all to back the fuck off, so keep close, d’accord?”
“Ditto, Baptiste.” Squaring her shoulders, Heather turned around once more.
Dante’s song stabbed into the air in response, a scorching and defiant aria aflame with power that challenged the symphonic greeting, demanded space. Refused to play games. Each exquisite note of his song, dark and savage and heartbreaking, pierced Heather to the core. He was making a stand, but the ledge was crumbling beneath his feet.
I think he’s had all he can take, doll . . .
And as Heather scanned the attractive faces of the five not-turned-to-stone members of the Seven, their expressions enthralled, eyes gleaming with captured moonlight, hungry and confident, and fixed on Dante, a dark realization threaded through her: they knew Dante was teetering on the edge too, about to lose his balance.
About to fall.
All he needed was a nudge. And they planned to supply it.
Heather slipped her hands into the pockets of her trench. Not if she could help it. Her fingers found the smooth shape of the morphine-filled syringe in one pocket, the Browning’s grip in the other. She would do whatever was necessary to protect him.
Even from his own damaged psyche.
The choir’s chiming and crystalline song trailed away as Dante’s fierce aria claimed the night. A woman’s reverent voice lifted into the air, husky and trembling, “Holy, holy, holy. The Maker’s song shapes us all.”
A soft chorus of “Amen” trailed her words.
Celestial Four sashayed forward, her silver and blue gown rippling like water over her rounded curves. A smile graced her lips. She stopped a cautious yard or so from Dante. She flicked a glance at Heather, then away, dismissing her.
“Quiet the song, young creawdwr, and douse the fire,” she said, her voice a rich, warm curl of caramel. “I am Astarte and, speaking for all of Gehenna, I am pleased to welcome you home, Dante.”
“I only dropped in to do a prison-pit snatch-and-grab, jolie,” Dante said, his song still pulsing molten into the night. Blue flames licked out from around his fingers. “This ain’t home, and I ain’t staying.”
11
A PROMISE IN BLOOD AND FIRE
GEHENNA
THE ROYAL AERIE
The Night of March 27–28
EROS’S HAIR RIPPLED AS though caught in a breeze as he and the other members of the Seven faced the creawdwr, but the night held still, the thick smoke-and-saffron reek of Uriel’s extinguished wheel blanketing the motionless air.
Power, wild and deadly and barely controlled, pulsated from the creawdwr—Dante, according to the Morningstar and Gabriel—crackled like lightning through the air. Pain fragmented his golden aura with jagged red lines, exhaustion smudged it nearly black. Blood trickled from his nose, blood he smeared across his white skin with absent-minded swipes of his sleeve.
Not mad, this young and untrained creawdwr, not yet, despite Gabriel’s incensed and bitter claims. But hurting intensely. And striding the abyss’s crumbling edge.
The lovely little redhead with the tantalizing curves Eros had only caught glimpses of from beneath her wretched black trench coat had soothed Dante with a touch, a kiss, and a few murmured words. Heat had shimmered between them, sparked white-hot.
Eros had found himself wishing their kiss would continue, deepen. Found himself wishing to move closer for a better look, drawn like an arrow to an apple.
It seemed Gabriel had spoken the truth—the creawdwr had bonded a mortal. Another dangerous impossibility.
And at Dante’s left shoulder stood Samael—wait, he now calls himself Lucille or Lucifer or some such thing, Lucien, that’s it!—pale, drained of strength, the wounds created by the hooks still visible on his chest, but his back straight, his taloned hands resting easy at his sides.
Meeting Eros’s gaze, Lucien nodded, a contemptuous smile curling his lips.
A smile Eros returned along with a slow wink. Doing well for an aingeal who’d been blood-spelled and hanging from hooks just minutes before.
How was it that the slayer of one creawdwr should father the next? Eros shook his head. Given Dante’s blunt words to Astarte, his rejection of her welcome, Eros had no doubt Lucien had poisoned his son’s mind against the Elohim.
&nbs
p; We must cleanse Dante of that poison.
The aingeals and nephilim thronging the terrace kept a healthy distance from Dante and his burning hands, from the fire smoldering in his eyes. They backed up to the balustrade, some taking to the air, wings snapping loud as canvas sails in the silence. But most stared, stunned by his words.
This ain’t home, and I ain’t staying.
And why should he? The mortal world was the only one Dante had ever known.
Thanks to Lucien.
This creawdwr was not what any of them had expected or even imagined. A Maker of mixed bloodlines—both pure and powerful—Fallen and True Blood. A Maker born and raised in the mortal world. Shaped by it. He was an impossibility. A dangerous impossibility. No one knew what he was capable of; within moments of his arrival in Gehenna, he’d managed to both disgrace and humiliate Gabriel.
Eros wondered how much longer Gabriel would rule the Elohim now that he’d been violently rejected by the creawdwr.
Dante’s crimson-edged black wings flared behind him, wings unlike any Eros had ever seen before. Starlight glimmered like ice along the designs—twisting ivy-like loops and delicate spirals—etched into their blue and purple undersides. His autumn scent—burning leaves and November frost—spiced the air.
Gabriel had claimed that the Maker’s wings had just been born, ripping free through the boy’s back shortly after he’d arrived in Gehenna. After he’d torn into Gabriel’s throat and feasted like a wild thing on his blood.
A wild thing, yes. But the creawdwr was also a heart-stopping, lust-fueling, thought-stealing beauty. Pale moonlight skimmed the steel ring of the collar buckled around Dante’s throat, glinted from the hoops rimming his ears, the rings on his flame-spiked thumbs and fingers.
Bewitching.
Eros’s gaze raked over the creawdwr’s lean, coiled length, drinking in his wing-shredded and bloodied mesh-sleeved T-shirt, low-slung leather pants and boots, his moonlight-radiant white skin, his mouth made for kissing, his hard-muscled body meant for all manner of pleasurable things, the black hair intended to entangle grasping fingers. Eros felt himself stir beneath his kilt.
he sent to Morrigan, casting her a sidelong glance.
Morrigan fingered the edge of her ever-shifting veil, and Eros wondered which face she currently wore beneath it. Her attention was riveted on the creawdwr and the flummoxed Astarte.
she sent,
Morrigan sighed. Her usual disdain percolated through her thought. But Eros wasn’t fooled. He smelled the musky pheromones thickening her brine, blood, and molten steel scent.
Eros agreed.
Astarte glanced at Eros from beneath dark lashes, expression perplexed as she fumbled for a reply to Dante’s unexpected response to her welcome.
Folding his arms over his chest, Eros shook his head. He couldn’t help but smile at Astarte’s unaccustomed speechlessness. Her boast to him—only ten minutes old—already proven false, her wager lost.
According to Gabriel, the Maker’s just a child.
A True Blood child, one born to violence and quick with his fangs.
He’s also Elohim. With Elohim instincts. So I shall accomplish what Gabriel obviously failed to do and charm him.
Oh, I’m sure he’ll find sinking his fangs into your throat and drinking you dry quite charming indeed.
Prick. I’ll have this mixed blood boy laughing and drinking with me within five minutes of meeting. I’ll have him bonded in five more.
“Gehenna is your home. Your rightful place is here with us, little creawdwr,” Astarte finally managed, regaining her composure. She offered Dante a warm, reassuring smile.
“You’re wrong about the rightful place bullshit. Just so we’re clear, my life is my own. I don’t answer to any of you.” Dante’s gaze shifted from Astarte and swept across each of them—a dark and violent promise in his kohl-rimmed eyes.
“Of course not,” Astarte soothed. “We only wish to help you, guide you.”
“To the fucking Chaos Seat, yeah? No thanks. Ain’t interested.”
Astarte stared, momentarily speechless again. Eros couldn’t really blame her. No creawdwr before had ever spurned the Chaos Seat, the power-focusing marble throne from which a Maker wove chaos into ordered life.
Of course, this creawdwr was unlike any other.
“And let me fill you in on something else in case that dick Gabriel forgot to mention it. You ain’t binding me. Not now. Not ever.”
A choked snort drew Eros’s attention to the ivy-laced balustrade. His white-winged back turned to the terrace, the Morningstar’s shoulders and wing tips shook with suppressed laughter, one taloned hand braced against the balcony.
The muscles in Eros’s shoulders pulled tight. Knotted. The Morningstar was playing them for fools. And succeeding. Frustration burned like acid through his guts.
Uriel sent, darting a barbed glance at the Morningstar, his lips compressed into a thin, disapproving line.
Eros pointed out.
Uriel agreed, his expression souring.
“Bind you?” Astarte questioned. She shook her head, her curls sweeping in dark twists against her shoulders. “No one can bind you against your will, nor would anyone wish to.”
Lucien leaned in and murmured into his son’s ear in a low voice, but not so low that Eros couldn’t catch his words—as Lucien had no doubt intended: “Not true.”
Cocking his weight onto one hip, a dark smile tilted Dante’s lips, pooled deep in his eyes. Coiled. Pissed. All fangs and venom and lethal intent. “Menteuse,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on Astarte.
French, with an unusual accent—Cajun, perhaps?—but the word’s meaning was clear: Liar.
Daggering an icicle gaze at Lucien before returning her attention to Dante, Astarte shook her head again. “No one can bind you against your will,” she repeated, each word a clear, ringing bell. “But you must be bonded, your sanity anchored by two calon-cyfaill—bondmates. Otherwise the creu tвn, the creation fire, will sear away your tethers to reality and—”
Dante snorted. “Trust me, the reality-untethering qualities of the creu tвn is the least of my worries. I’m bonded to Heather, so c’est bon.”
Lucien stared at Dante, shock blanking his face. His lips compressed into a grim line. Interesting, Eros mused. He had no idea that his son had bonded the lovely redhead.
“No, not good.” Astarte said. “You need two. And a mortal bond is worthless.”
“Worthless, huh? Fuck you.” Dante glanced at the redhead—at Heather—standing beside him. “We’re done here. Let’s go, catin.”
“Right behind you.” Heather slipped a hand into her trench’s right pocket, pulling her gun free. She held it with practiced ease down at her side.
Not just a bedroom toy, Dante’s delicious little mortal, given her gun and protective stance, her adrenaline-cocked muscles and the taut line of her jaw.
As Dante started forward, Heather at his side, Astarte blocked his path, panic rippling across her fa
ce, flecking her eyes with gold. “No, stay, please,” she urged breathlessly. “Rooms have been prepared for you and your . . . cydymaith . . . a warm bath to soothe your wings, blood to ease your hunger . . .” Without thinking, she grabbed the creawdwr’s forearm.
Staring at Dante’s glowing hands, Eros sucked in a breath.
Dante glanced at her hand. “Only gonna tell you once. Don’t touch me.”
All color drained from Astarte’s face. She looked down. Reflected blue light flickered in her eyes. She yanked her hand away from Dante’s arm as though the hot embered coals of the pit burned beneath his skin.
“Of course,” she stammered. Sweat glistened on her forehead. Looking faint, she stepped aside.
Dante walked past her and up to the loose line Eros, Morrigan, Uriel, and Janus had formed in front of the palace’s arched threshold. Braziers at either side of the entry snapped sparks and the sharp smell of myrrh and cedar into the night.
Just as Eros was about to ease forward and intercept the sexy little creawdwr, Uriel’s hand clamped onto Eros’s shoulder. Electric pain arrowed down his arm to his fingers. Uriel squeezed once, a not-so-gentle warning, then shoved past him and planted himself in front of Dante.
Fire flared in Dante’s eyes, his body tensed. But he halted, the redhead on one side, Lucien on the other.
“It sounds as though you’ve been misled about our intentions,” Uriel said, his voice a rolling rumble of thunder. “We’ve been waiting for you for thousands of years. In no way would we ever harm you. Our duty is to educate you, train you in your duties—”
Dante frowned. “My duties? Fuck that. Ain’t got no duty but to friends—” He paused and glanced at Lucien, then added, “And family.”
Eros tilted his head, pondering the relief that had flickered quick as lightning across Lucien’s face when the word family had slipped from Dante’s lips. Interesting. Despite the fact that his son had broken into another world to find him, Lucien had apparently harbored doubts about their relationship. Eros carefully filed that tidbit of information away for later examination.