Lucinda, Darkly Page 8

  She sent her power out, seeking and searching, sinking down beneath the skin to repair bone, to absorb the spilled blood and ease fluid out of the injured tissues back into the bloodstream.

  As I watched her work, I attended to my own wounds. Calling forth my energy, an abundance of it now, I spilled it down my right hand to the forefinger, focusing it into the pointy tip of my talon until it glowed a dark amber red, like fire shining through honeyed glass. I ran it along my slashed wrist. Heat sizzled, and the stench of burned flesh filled the air, drawing all eyes to me. Not healing, but it stopped the leaking of my blood, burned closed the wound. I flowed power down into my left hand, and seared my other wrist.

  Her task finished, the healer gazed at me, her eyes wide, her brow dampened with perspiration from her efforts.

  “My thanks for your service, Healer. You may go to your Queen, but before you leave us, I would ask for your robe.”

  Without hesitation, the healer shrugged off the requested piece of clothing. Wearing just her undergarments, she rose and, as quickly as her tired legs could take her, made her way to her Queen.

  “Is the robe for me?” Nico asked. He sat up with a silly grin, as if the freedom from pain was a euphoric drug.

  “No, for me. Later.” His grin disappeared with my next question. “Who cut me?”

  “Ezekiel did,” Nico replied slowly, carefully. “But he did so on Mona SiGuri’s order.”

  “And my blood. Did it all spill into the ground?”

  “Yes, all of it.”

  “Then do not fear, I will not kill him. Not if he obeys me.” In a deep booming voice, I called him forth. “Ezekiel, step forward.”

  All eyes swung to a man built like a big bull, with thick arms and barreled chest, his long brown hair secured back in a braid.

  “Ah,” I purred in deep, rumbling satisfaction. “The same warrior that whipped you.”

  “Also at his Queen’s order,” Nico said.

  “So noted, although you are much more forgiving than I. Come to me, Ezekiel.” My fangs flashed sharp and pointy. “Or I shall come to you.”

  The threat propelled him to me of his own shaky volition.

  “Strip. Give Nico your clothes and daggers.”

  He did so hastily, tossing pants, shirt, boots, and weapons to his former captive, then turned to leave. I stopped him. “Not yet.” My eyes must have flashed red again because he took a step back and would have run had I not froze him immobile. “Not until you repay my spilt blood with some of your own,” I rumbled.

  Grasping Ezekiel’s long braid, I stretched out his neck, no longer gentle, no longer kind. I bit down viciously into his thick neck, plunged the claws of my left hand into his hip, and gulped fiercely, feeding from him without restraint, without care. Not giving him pleasure, oh no, but the other side of the coin. He writhed with agony, with lashing pain, as if his flesh was being ripped from him, piece by piece, with an invisible whip. And I fed on that too, drank it down along with the blood.

  When I had drained him almost dry, when his blood had lessened to a mere trickle down my throat, when most of the energy had left his body, and his cries had turned weak and hoarse, I tossed him away. And my eyes locked with Mona SiGuri’s.

  She had been healed, could talk now, but did not open her mouth. Was too frightened to draw notice to herself. But my attention had found her anyway.

  “Who brought Talon to you?” I asked.

  The frightened Queen was readily forthcoming. “A demon called Horace,” she said, not that it helped me much. It was a common name among both the Monère and demon dead.

  “Describe him.”

  She did so, and that, too, was as generic as the name she had supplied: dark hair and eyes, of average height and build, no distinguishing marks.

  “When?” I demanded. “When did he bring Talon to you?”

  “Six and twenty years ago as an infant.”

  The information staggered me, made me reassess everything. “And he has been with you all this time?”

  “I have kept him by my side all these years,” she confirmed.

  “When did you last see your demon?”

  She hesitated for a moment, thinking. Impatiently, I took a menacing step toward her.

  “Two full moons ago,” she said hastily. “He comes here only once or twice a year.”

  “To drink Talon’s blood?”

  “Yes.”

  And she had known what his blood would do to me because it had done the same thing to the other demon. And she had allowed that blood rape to occur for over twenty-six years. What other things had she learned of our kind? I wondered, but in the aggressive state I was in, I dared not stay to find out.

  “I will leave you now,” I told her, “because if I question you anymore, I may kill you.”

  She stayed silent, her dark eyes brimming with relief.

  “Other guardians will come to question you and your men. You will answer them truthfully or what I did to Timor and to Ezekiel will be as nothing to what they do to you. And the hurting will not stop, not even if we allow you to make the transition to demon dead. Do you understand?”

  She nodded her head jerkily.

  “Come,” I said, extending a clawed hand to Nico. He wrapped his hand around my much larger one and pulled himself up. The borrowed clothes hung loosely upon him, but the boots seemed to fit well enough.

  “You, too, Talon,” I said, and released the bonds holding the black creature. “I’m taking you home.”

  The words surprised Talon. Stopped him when he would have fled. “Home?” he said, his voice a surprisingly light melodious sound. “Where is that?”

  “Did you not guess yet?”

  The creature shook his head.

  “In another realm,” I said. “In Hell.”

  NINE

  WITH A PULSE of power—so much amazing power singing through me—I returned back to my demon self. Bones shifted and rearranged. Flesh grew smaller, and talons slid back in, moving beneath the skin. My massive height shrunk down until my torn clothes fit once more, although much looser. Airy rags now.

  Donning the maroon robe—not for modesty’s sake but so that I wouldn’t attract undue attention on the highway—I swung into the car. Talon and Nico were already inside. I started the car under the hostile eyes of watching Monère, but none dared stop us. Nay, they were most eager for us to go, even though I was leaving with more than I had brought in. I marveled at how that had so unexpectedly come to be, and glanced at my black, unearthly young passenger. He was curled up, shivering, in the right backseat, farthest away from me. Nico sat in the passenger seat beside me.

  “Buckle up,” I said as we sped bumpily down the dirt road.

  “Why?” asked Nico with the Monère’s typical cavalier attitude toward safety.

  “What?” Talon said simultaneously, perplexed over what I had asked him to do.

  Impatience and anger flared hot within me at being questioned—partly my nature, but mostly from the excessive energy roaring through me, riding me. I clamped down tightly on it, on the urge to strike out, physically and with words.

  “I meant put on your safety belt,” I replied in as even a tone as I could manage as we wound down the mountainside, doing my best to appear calm and normal. “So that the police do not stop us. It is their human law. Nico will show you how to pull the strap across and secure it on the opposite side, Talon.”

  Nico twisted around to help Talon do as I requested, then secured his own safety belt.

  “Have you never ridden in a car before, Talon?” I asked.

  “No,” Talon said softly, miserably, his arms curled tightly around himself, his body shaking with tremors.

  “Are you cold?” My question came out harsher than I intended, making Talon flinch and shiver even more.

  “I am always cold.”

  “Does it become dangerous for you?”

  “In what way?”

  “Do you ever begin to ghost?”

&nbs
p; Bewilderment shone in those dark eyes. “What is that?”

  “Your flesh thins, lightens. Becomes clear enough to see through.”

  “No.” A brief pause, then he asked, “Will that happen to me now?”

  “You have been here for over twenty-six years. Correct?”

  “Yes. Since I was a babe.”

  “Then, no. If you have existed here that long, it will not happen now.”

  “She said that it would,” Talon said softly, as if we would all know who she was. “That I would slowly fade into nothingness if I left this place.”

  “Who? Mona SiGuri?”

  He nodded.

  “She holds no control over your existence, nor does this place hold any special sway over your being. That miracle comes from your own power.”

  My words surprised him. “What do you mean, power? I am not strong.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Far from it.”

  “You are a creature taken from another realm. You should not have existed in this one for more than a sennight, not without returning to Hell to replenish your energy.”

  “I have never left this mountain,” he said. “You must be mistaken; I could not have come from Hell then.”

  “I am not mistaken. You are Floradëur. A flower of darkness.”

  “Floradëur. Is that what I am?” Talon said with a little catch in his voice. “Are there others like me?”

  “There are many others like you down in Hell.”

  “Nico?” He looked askance at the only thing familiar to him now, his unspoken question hanging in the air: Does she tell the truth?

  “All that she has promised, she has done so far,” Nico said. “I believe her words hold truth, and that she acts with honor.”

  My turn to laugh bitterly. For anger to flare hotly again. “Honor? When I hunted you, captured you, hurt you, and returned you to that bitch Queen?”

  “All that,” Nico said, oddly cheerful. “And then you saved me. My own demon princess riding to the rescue.”

  I turned to him with angry startlement. But it softened into amusement at sight of that silly grin creasing the corners of his mouth. He’d been joking. He did not really know who I was.

  “You acted foolishly, hurting yourself trying to protect me,” I admonished. “You should have warned me of Timor’s presence and let me take care of it.”

  “I didn’t want to distract your attention away from the other two warriors you were battling.”

  “I could have handled three just as easily.”

  His cheeriness dimmed. “Ah, then I was indeed foolish in not warning you.”

  I shrugged. Amended brusquely, “You exercised your best judgment at the time. You did well.”

  “Did I?” he asked, that silly smile back on his face.

  “Yeah, you did, with what limited knowledge you had. But I require better of you in the future. I shall expect you to protect yourself as well as me next time. It angered me that you were hurt, and an angry demon is not a good thing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Nico agreed, the memory of what I had done to Timor reflected in his eyes. “I will do better next time. Thank you for letting me know what you expect of me as your guard. Or perhaps I am being presumptuous again. Perhaps you claimed me with some other role in mind.” His voice grew caressingly softer, deeper.

  The look I shot him was sharp and penetratingly deep.

  “My, what a suspicious look you have on your face,” Nico murmured with that cheerful, affable mood he’d been in ever since our escape.

  “Are you feeling yourself?” I asked.

  “Should I feel like anybody else?” he asked, smiling.

  “Perhaps a better question to ask is: how do you feel?”

  “Weak, tired, almost giddy with relief. But that is not what you are seeking. What do you wish to know, my lady?”

  Not “milady,” the proper address of respect. But “my lady.” Two distinct words that Nico clearly savored, and I could not correct him. I had claimed him. But the obvious satisfaction he took in those words puzzled me. And worried me.

  “Are you attracted to me?” I asked bluntly as we sped along the deserted country road. No other cars followed in pursuit, no birds winged overhead in the dark night sky. I detected no Monère presence other than the one sitting beside me.

  “Yes,” Nico said. “Very much so.”

  “Oh, no. You are demon struck.” Worry and regret was bitter on my tongue. And anger at myself flashed hot and harsh within me. My eyes must have burned red, because the easy smile on Nico’s lips completely disappeared.

  “I should have given you pain instead of pleasure,” I said. “I filled you too quickly, with too much in my hasty need. Now you burn for more of that same pleasure.”

  “More would be nice,” Nico said with serious consideration. “But this time I would wish to give you pleasure as well as receive it.”

  “Give me pleasure, not just receive it,” I repeated, vast relief pouring through me. “Then you are not demon struck as I feared.”

  “What is demon struck?”

  “Becoming addicted to the pleasure we can give, obsessed with it. Willing to do anything to experience it once more. We cannot predict who it will afflict.”

  “Well I’d certainly like to experience it once more; it was wondrous, if a bit intense. But that desire is not the compulsive need you are describing,” Nico said, then asked wistfully, “What is your name?”

  “Lucinda.”

  Nico took a moment to absorb it, to relish it in his mind before asking, “My lady. What role would you have me play in your life?”

  “I’m dead, darling. Or did you not notice?”

  Some hot flare of emotion brightened his eyes for a moment, lightening the color to pewter gray. “In your existence then. What role did you have in mind for me when you claimed me?”

  My eyes slid away from his. Turned back to fix on the road before me. “There is another warrior,” I told him. “A rogue that may belong to me.”

  “Another rogue,” he murmured. “And may belong? You have not claimed him?”

  “Not yet.”

  Nico waited, but no further words were forthcoming. “And,” he prompted. “Do you intend to claim him? Does he wish to be yours?”

  “He said that he would wait for me as long as he could. But others hunt him—humans. He may have left already. If so, then your role as companion, Monère brother, and guard to him and his young Mixed Blood ward will not be necessary. If that is the case, then you can return to your human harem and reside in my territory under my protection for as long as you desire.”

  “In your territory, but not under your roof.” He smiled ruefully. “So if this other rogue is not there waiting for us, you intend to toss me coldly back to the humans.”

  “The three attentive female arms you left behind did not seem cold. Indeed, not. Nor did you seem bereft among them, though I cannot conceive of any pleasure you might have received from them.”

  “I gave them pleasure, and I received pleasure in giving it to them. It felt good to touch, and to be held in turn, appreciated.”

  Sentiments I would not have understood a few days ago, but now I did.

  “Very well, if that is your condition for keeping me,” Nico continued with a mocking smile, “then let us hasten with all speed to this other rogue. That is our destination, is it not?”

  “Yes, Massachusetts.”

  “Where is this Massachusetts?” Talon asked from the backseat.

  “About three nights driving distance,” Nico replied.

  “I don’t have three days to waste,” I said. Leaning over, I retrieved a cell phone from the glove compartment.

  “How many days do you have?” Nico asked, watching me power on the phone with a sharp press of nail.

  “Only one day before I have to return to my realm.”

  “From what you said to Talon, it seemed as though you could stay in this realm for up to a week. A sennight.”

  “Normally.
But my situation is not normal now. Not with Talon’s blood singing in my veins.”

  “I don’t understand. You obviously gained more power, more energy from drinking from him. It almost seems to spill from you now.”

  So much for thinking they wouldn’t notice how revved up I was.

  “Yeah, but it comes with a price. When the moon next rises, the effect will wear off. My energy will be almost fully depleted, and I will fall into a stupor that will last for an equal length of time as this energy boosts me now. I must be back in my realm before that happens.”

  “Or else what, you die?”

  “You mean, die again,” I said with dark humor. “But, yes, to your question. I will die, and this time it would be final.”

  “All right,” Nico said, taking a breath. “So you return to your realm now, and come back when you have recovered.”

  “No time,” I said. “We go there now.”

  “How do you propose to compress a three-day journey to less than one?” he asked.

  “We fly.”

  “My other form does not have wings,” Nico said regrettably.

  “Neither does mine, as you saw. Metal wings,” I said, delicately tapping out a number on the cell phone with the pointy tip of my nail. “We’re going to catch a ride on a private jet.”

  TEN

  WE ARGUED THE entire time it took to drive to the small county airstrip. Or rather, Nico did.

  Go now, he urged. Take Talon and return to Hell. He would go fetch this Monère rogue.

  No, I replied for the third time. Stefan might flee if he sensed another warrior’s presence, and I might never find him again—my greatest fear and the reason for my urgency. If I lost him now in this land full of millions of people, it would be a miracle if our paths ever crossed again.

  Nico tried another route. There were plenty of other rogues, he cajoled. Him, for instance, and many others like him who would be most grateful to serve me, to belong to me.

  Ignoring the total unlikelihood of that, I told him that it was Stefan I wanted.