Lucinda, Darkly Page 7

  Nico would have liked to have served her. He would serve her now, in what little time remained. And if the Darkness was merciful, it would be little time, and not drawn out and protracted as Mona SiGuri usually liked. Surely not with this dangerous demon huntress she dared hold captive. But then, Mona SiGuri had not always proved herself prudent or wise, and this demon was a small female, not a tall, frightening male. And beautiful, unfortunately. More so than the Queen.

  Mona SiGuri liked to ruin beautiful things. To destroy them slowly, painfully.

  He gave an inner sigh as the demon beside him finally stirred. The crowd watching them stirred as well—sullen injured warriors angry at being bested by a woman, demon though she was; quiet, subdued females who were glad it was not them looking so lovely . . . and the object of the Queen’s petty ire tonight. A keen collective anticipation thrummed the air as if to silently say: Alas, the show begins.

  How much of it the demon felt and was aware of was hard to say as she lifted her head and looked unerringly to the nearest blood source—him, strung up naked and bleeding beside her.

  Nico hung suspended from chains, with his toes barely touching the ground. Just enough to brush it, to feel the whisper of solid earth beneath him, but not enough to help bear any of his weight, so that the full burden of his bulky mass was heavy upon both of his arms, ensuring that damage was done, or rather redone. His mending arm had rebroken beneath the strain.

  Whenever his left arm muscles bulged, whenever he tried to ease some of the agonizing weight with his uninjured arm, the whip sang through the air and cut into his flesh. He was neatly patterned with raw lash marks down his front, back, and sides. Fully tenderized, ready to eat, with waves of enticing pain perfuming the air along with his blood. A silver-braided whip had been used, ensuring that the wounds would not heal so quickly, if at all. Not before he died, that is, beneath the demon’s fangs, which were growing frighteningly long and sharp before their eyes. But that was not why everyone gasped. Not because of her teeth. Most of them had fangs in their other form. No, what was so shocking and disturbing was the way her face morphed a little, bones shifting, broadening, thickening, forehead bulging, like something pushing beneath it, wanting to come out. And the way her eyes suddenly burned red with flickering flames. Like the fiery hunger that must be consuming her . . . because they had bled her nearly dry. They’d sliced open her wrists and let the blood run in a trickling stream into the earth to weaken her and drive her into bloodlust.

  With startling suddenness, the demon jerked against the chains, peculiar black ones, not silver. But the chains held, and all of them—even Nico—breathed a sigh of relief.

  He would serve her in whatever way he could, even if it was as a one-time meal. And yet, even so determined, he could not keep his heart from beating faster in apprehension as he watched her—demon changing. Her skin rippled as bones moved beneath her flesh. But she was too weak, her blood and her power too little. The eerie morphing subsided and she remained as she was, caught in the beginning of change, unable to complete it.

  Mona SiGuri’s disdainful voice sliced through the air. “Foolish Nico. Bold but never too bright. You ran, turned rogue. And then you chose her, this demon, over me. Let your fate be an example to all of what such unwise choices lead to.”

  “I still choose her over you,” Nico said. “Even when she hunted me, she showed me more compassion and care than you ever gave me as my Queen.”

  The stunned silence was broken by the crack of Mona SiGuri’s hand against Nico’s face, whipping his head back with the force of the blow. Then as if that were not retaliation enough, she snatched the whip out of the guard’s hand and struck Nico full in the face with it. Silver braided leather lashed through the air and sliced open the left side of his face, dispersing the smell of more blood into the air.

  A deep echoing growl spilled out like ominous thunder from the demon huntress’s throat, making the Queen fall back a step before catching herself.

  “Look at you,” Mona SiGuri sneered, regaining her composure, “more animal than woman.” She turned and shot a poisonous look at Nico. “So be it. Enjoy your chosen fate. Loosen her chains.” She stepped back from him. They all did as a guard freed up ten more feet of chain then quickly darted out of reach himself.

  Slowly, carefully, like a sinuous snake gathering itself to strike, the demon advanced step by careful step, chains rattling, until she stood swaying before him. Saliva glistened from her fangs, and hunger, ravenous hunger, burned red and hot in her eyes. Sweat dampened her face, darkening strands of her flaxen hair, and the obvious restraint she exercised not to pounce on Nico made her visibly tremble. Her arms came up and around him, and he felt and heard her inch-long nails sink into the thick post behind him. She looked up, found his eyes. And as he stared down into the red wildness of hers, into that half-morphed, beastly face, he still found his words true. He did choose her.

  “It’s all right, milady. I offer my blood freely.”

  She shuddered against him in their near embrace, and closed her eyes for a second, her fangs a kiss away from his neck. She pulled back and caught his eyes with her own.

  “Be still. Be at peace,” she said, and he felt a whisper of compulsion push at him. But she was too weak; it was not enough to make him submit. Nico did that of his own free will. Her effort to try and make it easier for him, though, melted his heart and made him truly hers—body, mind, and soul. He bent his throat down to her, relaxed into her bite. Welcomed the small stinging pain as her teeth pierced him, as she drank him down fiercely and urgently. And pushed something in turn into him—pleasure like nothing he had ever felt before. Like warm bursting sunlight. Like heavenly ambrosia. It came spilling into him in an overwhelming wash of sensation that flashed over him, filled him up with aching quickness. Exploded out from him in almost painful ecstasy. In waves of powerful release. In a burst of blinding light called forth from his body. In cries of shuddering satisfaction.

  It must not have been quite the show Queen Mona SiGuri intended. “Enough,” she cried.

  He felt the demon release him, lap his neck gently one last time. A final taste of him as his light faded and absorbed back into him.

  When she spoke, her voice rumbled deep and full like the sound of echoing thunder. “Yes. It is enough.”

  She pulled her nails out of the wooden post, and Nico felt the air between them stir and swell with power, with a sudden wash of energy that rippled over him. Before his eyes, he watched, felt her change.

  Nails thickened and darkened, pushed out of her fingertips until they were great hooking claws half a foot long. It was one of the first things to change, though not the most impressive. Her face completed the transformation it had started, her forehead shifting, becoming wider, thicker, coarser, jutting out. Her body swelled, too, in width and length, with thickening bones, with dense rippling muscles, with towering height. Growing from a stature no taller than his chin to way over his head. Buttons popped, though a few strategic ones held. Her clothes tore, ripping along the seams, and not only cloth gave way. With a stretching groan, the dark metal shackles broke apart beneath the dense, growing flesh, falling away from her wrists and ankles. And she became demon unleashed.

  Women screamed. Men ran away while a handful stayed behind to guard their Queen. With easy strength and almost no effort, the demon beast ripped down Nico’s silver chains. Mercifully, she still held the broken ends of the chain up and gently lowered his numbed arms down instead of letting them drop. Even so, searing pain screamed from his broken arm at the movement of it and at the blood rushing back into it. The weight of the shackles still encircling his wrists with their dangling links was excruciating, and spots whitened his vision. Desperately he fought off the whirling faintness. Too much pain, too much blood loss.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m not going to be much use to you in this fight.”

  Those terrifying fangs lifted up into what he interpreted as a grin. “Just stay behind m
e,” she rumbled.

  “Talon!” Mona SiGuri screamed, and her sinister creature came running, a thing small and thin, the color of darkness, his head too large for the short slender body, his black hair bound back in a long plaited braid. An unearthly creature like the demon, with no heartbeat and no breath. He was slim, graceful, and weak but for that formidable cry, and of so delicate a build that you could not tell if he was male or female at first. But Nico knew what he was—a boy becoming a man.

  Talon opened his mouth and emitted that loud echolating cry. But the demon was prepared for it this time. She shielded herself and Nico, and he felt the force of it pass them by.

  “Again!” Mona SiGuri cried. “Hit them again.”

  “Enough.” This time it was the demon that said it. Stretching her hand out, she circled her long taloned fingers.

  Talon gasped . . . or tried to. He seemed unable to draw breath.

  “Come here, little flower,” purred the demon. “You’re just what I need.”

  Against his will, Talon came, his jerky legs propelling him forward, unable to resist the compulsion in that voice.

  “Stop her, attack her! Make her bleed!” Mona SiGuri commanded. And her poor men obeyed. Silver knives flew through the air. Had Nico not been there, she could have dodged them easily, but he was obediently behind her, protected by her immense mass. She didn’t move.

  He felt a push of power, and the blades were deflecting to the right, whistling by harmlessly. Two warriors, his former brethren, Karpon and Joffrey, leaped for her from opposite sides, their swords drawn. She pushed Nico back with a gentle nudge and her claws sliced up in a quick, singular motion. The swords flew into the air in a gush of blood with the two warrior’s severed hands still attached to them. Screams tore from the maimed men’s throats. A downward swipe of those great claws, and those horrified cries became rattled, broken sounds as Karpon and Joffrey landed in crumpled heaps across from where they had launched, their chests torn asunder.

  But it was her back side—his area—that proved her weak spot. A third warrior, stealthy and silent Timor, came at her from behind with sword in hand, and glee in his eyes. With the demon’s attention occupied by the other two, and Nico injured and unarmed, his Monère strength dampened by the silver manacles, rendering him only human strong, Timor had, in essence, a clear unhindered shot of her. That is, if he discounted Nico, which he clearly did. But after spending a great deal of time with humans these past few weeks, Nico had a greater appreciation of their strength. And his determination . . . well, his determination was still Monère strong, silver chains notwithstanding. Or in this case, hopefully, withstanding.

  Amidst the tumult of blood and the maimed warriors’ cries of pain, Timor sprung into the air and attacked, his sword slashing down, aiming for the demon’s neck. Leaping up, Nico met him in flight, and metal rang against metal as the sword struck Nico’s silver shackles and cut into the flesh of his hands. But that sting was like nothing compared to the overwhelming pain that burst through him as his good arm—and his broken one—absorbed the full force of the powerful blow, and deflected it. Gripped in agony, utterly frozen by it, Nico could do nothing against the dagger Timor drew with his other hand. Could only look into the eyes of his former brother as Timor plunged the knife into his belly. Not a killing blow, but an eviscerating one. One that crumpled him to the ground, soundless.

  METAL STRIKING METAL rang loud in my ears behind me. And the call of pain, such terrible pain, rang just as loudly. I whirled, and in that slow way time had of stretching out during a fight, I saw my rogue, the man I had claimed, the man I had tried to protect—Nico—fall to the ground, blood blossoming from his belly like a liquid flower. I saw the bloody, guilty dagger clasped in the attacker’s hand, the sword he swung at me. And rage . . . hot scalding rage . . . boiled up within me and slipped free. A cry, a roar, a shock wave of sound and energy and power burst from me and trembled the air, widening the warrior’s eyes in primal fear—his last expression, as I stopped playing nice. In quick succession, I severed his arm holding the sword, the hand holding the dagger, and then his head.

  The body parts fell away, metal struck the ground, and cool light, the moon’s vital energy, flowed free from the beheaded warrior . . . and into me as I drank it down. Flesh melted into ashes, puffing the air, dusting the ground. Ashes and empty clothes all that remained of him.

  “What did you do to Timor?”

  It was the Queen’s voice. She asked not on how he had departed—ashes and light was how Monères died—but at what I had done to the filtering essence of him.

  I turned eyes to her that I knew were aglow with the vitality I had just taken in, and answered her. “I drank him down. His light, his last essence.”

  Bewilderment and fear was in Mona SiGuri’s eyes, and in the eyes of the men about her. “What does that mean?” she demanded.

  “That he will not be demon dead. That he simply is no more.”

  Sharp indrawn breaths sounded upon the dawning realization: no chance of afterlife in that other realm. Simply no more. Something they had not known a demon could do to them. A harsh judgment I had passed and knowingly carried out. And though the woman before me was not entirely to blame—that was mine—she had precipitated things, started events rolling that had led to this.

  Mona SiGuri opened her mouth, her face twisted ugly with fear, loathing, and most disturbing of all, determination. I knew that she opened her mouth to shout another command to attack, to kill more of her men. And I could not allow that. I circled my hand again and gently closed my fist. Mona SiGuri’s cry, “Get—” was abruptly cut off.

  She dropped to the ground, her hands gripping her throat as her men backed away from her, fearful that what was happening to her might spread to them. Her mouth opened and closed in a parody of speech but no further sound came. Just a trickle of blood. And then, a long immeasurable moment later, sounds of choking.

  “What did you do?” Nico asked from the ground, his voice weak.

  I knelt beside him. All that I saw in his eyes was the desire to know. No trembling fear, no abhorrence—the usual expressions one had when gazing into my demon beast face. And because he had asked it, I answered the question that all wondered. “I crushed her throat. Shut her up.”

  “Oh.”Il

  He bled still, a pool of redness spilling from his abdomen, darkening the earth. I pressed the back of my hand against the wound, putting pressure there to stop the bleeding, and looked around for assistance. A group of warriors stood indecisively ringed about their Queen. One moved forward to lift her from the ground. “Don’t touch her,” I snarled, and he leaped back away from her.

  “You. Bring your healer here, quickly!” I snapped. The warrior’s eyes, the one who had tried to help his Queen, met my flickering red ones, and he hastily left to do my bidding.

  It was a stalemate for now, the guards fearing me too much to attack but unable to depart the battlefield because of their fallen Queen, whom I allowed none to touch.

  A silent struggle drew my attention back to prey I had almost forgotten. My little black flower was fighting the mental bonds I had wrapped him in. Bonds that were weakening as my power waned. Because even though I had taken in energy, from many sources, I had expended much of it shifting into my demon beast form, and had wasted a great deal more in the hot spilling rage that had poured recklessly out of me.

  “Ah, Talon. Thank you for reminding me.” Rising from Nico’s side, I went to the creature that should not have existed here, and saw, this close, the slight broadness of its shoulders, the wider hands, the subtle features upon its face proclaiming its gender—male.

  The creature struggled, eyes wild, fighting to open his mouth, to break free. When he was unable to, he shrank down into his short self, cowering. The Queen grew agitated as well, shaking her head wildly as I approached Talon. Her hands lifted to point, to gesture. With a thought, I banded those irritating hands down by her side.

  I turned my atte
ntion full upon what awaited me, and knelt by the trembling creature, lightly pushing his head to the side, stretching out his neck. He whimpered, his eyes wide and panicked, making piteous sounds of fright.

  “Hush,” I said. “One sip, I will be gentle,” and bit down.

  The taste of Talon’s blood was not sweet but wild. Like something soaring through the wind, diving down from the sky. It shot through me and spread like white lightning, like Hell’s own sweet warmth, punching me with a rush of power. Filling me with energy so splendidly abundant that some of it spilled out from me in momentary waste before I clamped down on it.

  Drawing back, I licked the blood from my lips, and inclined my head to the dark creature. “A true flower of darkness. My thanks.”

  Lifting him into my arms, I carried him back and set him down beside Nico. Crouching beside my fallen warrior, I hooked my talons through the silver manacles still obscenely shackling his wrists and, with a tug, broke them apart and tossed them away. A flash of movement and the sound of rushing feet drew my attention back to the others. I watched as the healer, a dark-eyed brunette garbed in a maroon robe denoting her vocation, rushed toward the Queen. The warrior who had fetched her followed behind.

  “No, Healer,” I said, my voice gratingly harsh. “Here, first.”

  The healer hesitated, looked down at her Queen. The low growl trickling from my throat helped change her mind. She hastened toward us, and I retreated and let her minister to Nico.

  Life was different from death in many ways, and the way we healed was one of them. We might dwell in heat, but the few demons that had the gift healed with a cool power. The cold-blooded Monères, however, healed with vibrating warmth.

  I felt a slow steady trickle of energy flow from the healer’s hands. Watched it slowly close Nico’s belly wound, knitting torn flesh together, miraculously making it whole once more.

  With that done, the healer rose to attend to her Queen.

  “His arm,” I said, stopping her. Frustrated, she sank back down, and though she was unhappy to be delayed, to have her triage so disordered by me, her hands were gentle as she settled them over Nico’s grotesquely swollen and bruised arm.