Demon's Kiss (18 page)

Ciarran clenched his gloved fist, anger swirling up like a dust storm, choking out all else. He had asked himself that question every day for twenty years. “Why waste energy thinking about it? I can’t go back and choose a different path.”

“No shit. And there is no way to know if the outcome would be any better, is there?” Dain asked, no longer mocking, his gaze intent. “In every war battles are won and lost. Paths determined. Sides chosen.”

“What’s with you tonight? Why are you trying to mess with my head? We chose our sides an eternity past,” Ciarran said softly. They had chosen to protect mankind, to guard the wall, to maintain the separation of the realms. To honor the
Pact
.

“And in such choices are great enmities fueled, hatreds bred. Mistakes entrenched.”

Enmity. Hate. Ciarran almost laughed. Dain could have no concept of the depth, the dark cold pit of such emotions. But Ciarran knew. They were the treasured delicacies his demon craved, the food that stoked its strength. “What exactly is your point? You’re talking in riddles, Dain.”

“I’ve been told it’s an annoying habit.” Dain studied him for a moment, then smiled thinly. He moved, his shoulder brushing Ciarran’s as he strode past, and a white mist swirled from the ground, bright against the dark contrast of his clothing. The mist twined about his feet, his calves, his thighs, working higher and higher. An illusion, Ciarran knew. Though Dain’s single perfect weapon was the staff he wielded with such expertise, illusion was his preferred magic. He was ever the showman, ever the magician.

Dain cast a last, hard glance over his shoulder. “In such choices are mortal enemies made.”

Mortal enemies and traitors. Tension ratcheted through Ciarran as he studied his friend’s back. The mist thickened, obscuring Dain’s form, leaving him a dark wisp in a white cloud.

“Do you practice being an enigma?” Ciarran snarled, though he didn’t expect an answer as he watched Dain disappear in the fog.

“A rhetorical question?” The sound of an amused voice made Ciarran turn, and he came face-to-face with the Ancient. He was dressed in clothing that was loose and comfortable, simple garments that had neither style nor determined shape, just layers of soft, dark material hanging on a slim frame. His hair was so light it looked white in the candle’s dim glow, tied back and hanging in a single plait to his waist. His face was smooth, unlined, so fair as to be almost feminine. His eyes were a pale blue, rimmed in navy, the effect truly startling.

“Ancient.” Ciarran reeled in the surge of temper that Dain had called, and inclined his head, a mark of respect but not subservience. Among the Compact of Sorcerers, the Ancient was the oldest by far, the most experienced, likely the most powerful, though none had ever tested his limits.

The other man gestured to the pillows that littered the floor beside the low table. “Sit, Ciarran. Please,” he said, his voice a quiet huff of sound, laced with steel, commanding attention and respect.

Ciarran lowered himself to the pillow, waiting as the Ancient did the same. He studied his mentor, noticing no changes. How many years since they had seen one another? More than a decade.

For a time, after the demon had first settled inside of him, Ciarran had sought the Ancient’s counsel, searching for answers and for a way to be free. Until he had come to understand that he could never be free, could never rid himself of the dark torment, the dark enticement that gnawed at the deepest limits of his power. The demon would not be displaced. It was a parasite that dwelled within him, fed from him, truly a part of him, and the best he could hope to do was to wall it off, keep it chained.

He was as much a prisoner of the demon as it was of his will and his alloy glove and his tattooed wards. There was little doubt in Ciarran’s mind that someday the captive might well become the captor.

He would fight until he knew he could fight no more. And then he would seek the Ancient to put an end to the demon before it did true harm. Only one way to succeed in that. Inevitable. The time would come, in the near or distant future, when the Ancient would terminate Ciarran. There was no other way that he could see this ending. The Ancient would excise the demon seed, and Ciarran would die.

But not tonight.

Blowing out a slow breath, Ciarran rocked back, forcing his body to relax. “Time has led me full circle, back to the role of protector that I fulfilled two decades past. The girl. Clea Masters. Somehow, she’s not human. She has magic. Power.”

“Ah.” The Ancient studied him, his expression serene, but something flickered in his eyes. “Great power over
you
.”

There it was, sliced deep and laid bare. “She draws my magic like I’m a milk shake with a big goddamned straw. How the hell is that possible?”

“Unusual, but not impossible.”

Ciarran jumped on that. “It’s happened before? A human made sorcerer?”

“She was never human.” The Ancient leaned closer, his words coming low and intense. “She is an anomaly, a sorcerer born to two of mortal creation.” He shrugged and leaned back. “Somewhere in their ancestry there must be sorcerer blood in both her maternal and paternal trees.”

“I have to keep her safe.”

“What you have to do is keep her as far from you as can be arranged.”

The Ancient’s pronouncement sawed at Ciarran’s control, made him feel an inexplicable desperation, a raw anguish at the thought of Clea leaving him. He shook his head. “She’s the target of
hybrids,
of demons. She can’t be left unprotected.”

“Yet her proximity leaves
you
unprotected.”

Ciarran opened his mouth to protest, but the Ancient met his gaze, and something in his eyes stopped Ciarran cold. “Give her into the care of another, Ciarran. For the good of all.”

For the good of all. Except Clea. He couldn’t risk it, couldn’t trust another to keep her safe. She was
his
. His to protect.

His to love.

Christe
. He couldn’t have these thoughts, these emotions. Not now. Not with so much at stake. Ruthlessly, he shoved his feelings aside.

“There is a traitor among us,” Ciarran said flatly, feeling the bitter taste of the words on his tongue. “Which means I don’t trust anyone to guard her.”

The news brought no change of expression, and the Ancient watched him calmly, listening as Ciarran summarized his experience with the demon-keeper from the Blue Bay Motel, his meeting with Darqun and Javier, even his odd discomfort with Dain. But Ciarran said nothing of Asag. He could not name a reason for his omission other than shame at having failed to terminate Asag decades past, and again tonight.

Hubris, perhaps.

The Ancient nodded. “And so you would keep the girl with you, by your side, where she poses the greatest threat to your power, your purpose, even your immortality.”

“I would keep her safe.” Forever. For always. He couldn’t stomach the thought of demon claws touching her, demon stink marking her. His blood, his pain, even his life were forfeits he was willing to pay. The irony was not lost on him.
He
had touched her, marked her. And what was he if not part demon? “The demons want her. She’s the conduit. She’s the key, and she’s packing more power than she ever did as a small child.”

“She is filled with your magic,” the Ancient pointed out. “Enough to tear the wall asunder and let a great outpouring of demons into the realm of man.”

“Yeah.” Her magic was his, and what the hell was he supposed to do about that?

“Take her to the gate, to the breach that was made years past. Use her power to better seal the void.”

The idea was a startling one but not without merit. Use the key to strengthen the lock. “Your suggestion has value,” Ciarran mused.

“Better still, give her into the keeping of another to do the deed. Perhaps Javier. Or Dain.”

Like a switch opening a gate, the suggestion sent a cold, greasy slither of darkness weaving through him, and Ciarran snarled as he thought of letting Clea go into another’s care. The risk was far too great. He narrowed his gaze, his jaw tight. “And if one of them is the traitor?”

“Whom do you suspect, Ciarran?”

“I suspect no one.” Ciarran clenched his fist, modulated his tone. “And everyone.”

“The demon is strong inside you. I feel it.” The Ancient’s voice was low, soothing. “Does it tempt you, Ciarran? The darkness? The power?”

Ciarran took a slow breath, the memory of dark magic a succulent lure. He thought of the black blades, the killing mist, such tools and such strength, obtained by loosing the beast just a little. What if the chains were cut, the darkness freed to glide thick and oily through his veins, to feed his magic and feed
on
it, and turn it into something foreign, something far greater than it had ever been?

“I am a light sorcerer,” he said. The assertion was fast and forced, and it circumvented the question.

“Yes. With a light sorcerer’s limitations. But the demon seed tempts you, cajoles you. Whispers and promises.” The Ancient rested his long, tapered fingers on the edge of the table. Perfect serenity. “Are they empty, those promises, or do they hold some measure of truth?”

Ciarran realized he was drumming his own fingers on the smooth surface in a slow, steady rhythm. He disliked this turn of things, disliked the possibilities, the lure, the temptation. And yet he liked it all very much. What was the Ancient implying? That he should embrace the darkness?

“In knowledge is truth. In knowledge is power. Do not spurn that which is foreign simply because you fear it,” the Ancient said. Reaching out, he laid his finger on Ciarran’s arm, on the sutured wound. There was heat and a sharp twist of pain; then the gash was healed.

“You are wise to suspect no one, and everyone, Ciarran D’Arbois.” The Ancient’s lips curved in a faint smile, and again, something indecipherable flickered in his gaze. “You are less wise in your lack of acceptance of yourself.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Disappointed that he hadn’t crawled in next to her. Grateful that he’d given her some space to catch her breath. Freaked out by the fact that she was enthralled by a man who wasn’t exactly human and by the bizarre and incredible implication that somehow she was no longer exactly human, either.

What did it mean to be what Ciarran was? To wield magic and power and filaments of light—she shuddered—and, yes, to wield darkness?

She was afraid, amazed, staggered by the changes wrought in her life. Her emotions were stretched to the point of tearing, and questions were cycling through her thoughts at a crazy rate. They’d been there last night before she’d fallen asleep, and she’d woken up to their wild cacophony this morning. During a long, hot, amazing shower with twenty-odd jets hitting her from varied angles and music videos playing on the plasma screen on the side wall, she’d managed to soothe her body but not her restless mind. The answers she came up with only made her more confused.

When she was done, all clean and dry, wrapped in the biggest, softest bath sheet she’d ever seen, she’d checked the bra and panties she’d washed in the sink the previous night. They were still damp, which had meant going commando. She’d gone rooting through Ciarran’s closet in the hopes of finding something to wear. Oh, the guilty pleasure of that. Of running her hands over his Italian silk shirts, of catching a glimpse of the vain part of him that drove him to have endless pairs of expensive jeans and khakis and dress pants and shoes and boots and jackets. . . . Everything in his closet could be on the cover of a men’s fashion magazine.

And everything was far too big to be of much use to her.

Then her search-and-rescue mission had yielded something that was wearable, if not exactly a perfect fit: a black cotton T-shirt that she tied at the waist and a pair of sweatpants. If she pulled the drawstring as tight as it could possibly go, the pants managed to do a slow slide down her hips, catching there and sliding no farther. Which was a good thing, given her lack of underwear.

Natural shyness might have kept her holed up in Ciarran’s bedroom for eternity, but she was hungry. Starving, actually.

Now, as she continued down the hall, drawn by a steady
clack
that sounded like drumsticks knocked together, her every thought revolved around Ciarran. Where had he slept last night? Had he slept at all?

The bedsheets had smelled like him, clean and a little spicy, the scent of his skin haunting her as she had drifted off to sleep. She’d wanted him. Wanted to go and find him.

But, man, she was his weakness, his Achilles’ heel, sucking the life out him. Literally. He’d admitted it. How the heck was she supposed to come to terms with that?

She should leave. Go. Her presence was dangerous to him, and she couldn’t bear that. Problem was, the thought of leaving him, of not seeing him, not being near him, made her feel a deep ache, as though she were ramming a blunt blade through her gut.

Steady, rhythmic, the sound of clacking grew louder now, and she followed it to the end of the hallway. The corridor ended in a vast open space with polished wood floors and a high cathedral ceiling. There was no furniture, but there were two men. Huge men. As tall as Ciarran. Muscled. Wielding long, narrow swords in an intricate series of moves.

She glanced down. Beside her on the floor were two neatly aligned pairs of shoes. Very large shoes.

Clea hesitated, something tugging at her memory. Okay, yeah. She had it. In high school, a friend had taken karate. She remembered that the students didn’t enter the dojo wearing shoes. So this must be some sort of martial art. It bore no resemblance to any she had ever seen, but, hey, she was definitely no expert.

The clacking ceased abruptly, the two men stopping midlunge and turning to face her. Her breath caught as she stared at them. And they stared at her.

“Clea Masters.” The one on the left inclined his head in greeting. He seemed to know her, though she had no recollection of ever having seen him before. And, oh, she would have remembered.

He was gorgeous.
Brown
hardly seemed the right word to describe the color of his hair, so rich and thick, shimmering with countless highlights, hanging in a straight sheet to his square chin. He had the kind of hair that would look perfect no matter what, even first thing in the morning, the kind of hair that couldn’t hold a tangle if it tried. Raking a hand through the honey brown strands, he pulled them back from his forehead. His eyes were dark, and as he smiled, a dimple appeared in each cheek. A boyish detail in that ruggedly handsome face, but underneath his charm, she sensed that he was no boy.

As he studied her, his eyes narrowed; then his smile faded, his expression turning to one of bemusement. A slow hiss of air escaped him.

Clea took a step back, suddenly feeling oddly defensive, as though this stranger had looked inside her and somehow found her to be something other than he had expected.

“I am Darqun.” He gestured at the second man, who was staring at her like she was a two-headed calf. “And that’s Javier.”

Javier was equally imposing, his build lean and fit, his hair so dark and shiny it looked black. Blue eyes studied her from beneath straight brows, and his eyelashes were so long and thick she could hardly believe they were real. Still, he looked anything but feminine, the stubble that shaded his jaw and the thin mouth giving him a rough, dangerous look.

“Hi.” Okay. That was eloquent. But they were just so . . . overwhelming. She looked back and forth between Darqun and Javier. God. Send them out in public with Ciarran, and they’d create a riot.

Javier continued to study her, his expression quizzical, as though there was something he couldn’t quite figure out. She shot him a tentative smile, before shifting her gaze to Darqun. He looked positively forbidding.

“Kumdo.” Ciarran’s voice, a low rasp close to her ear. The sound made her heart stop, then start pounding again with a solid, thumping rhythm as she turned to look at him.

He was here. Beside her. She could feel the heat of his body and the sizzle of his magic. Something shifted in the shielded center of her heart, behind the wall of competence and reserve she had erected so long ago. Her chest tightened, and she felt like her throat was blocked, her lungs starved of air.

Her pathology classes hadn’t covered this, but it was no huge stretch to figure out what was wrong with her. She wasn’t just enthralled by Ciarran. Wasn’t just attracted to him.

She was falling for him. Falling hard. For his kindness and his generosity, and, yeah, for the steely edge. He was so hard, so tough, a solid wall between her and anything that might come after her. She’d always dreamed of being safe, and when she was with him, she felt safe. She was falling for the way he believed in her, the way he seemed to think she was strong enough to be his match, to take all comers. Like he had faith in her.

God. This couldn’t be happening to her. A bolt of terror shot through her. Everyone she loved died. And now, here she was, half in love with a sorcerer, who, if he had a single molecule of intellect, would stay the hell away from her before she stole every last shred of his power.

She threatened everything he was.

She was his poison.

And she wanted him with every shred of her being.

Confusion surged inside her. She’d just been getting her balance, finding her way in life. And now this. A cataclysmic event.

She almost laughed, but only because it beat crying.

“The sport they practice,” Ciarran said. “Kumdo. Some call it
kendo
. An ancient Asian form of swordplay. Japanese. Korean.” He jutted his chin toward the two men. “They like it for the discipline. The exercise. The synchronicity of movement.”

Yes. She could see that. Their movements had been a warrior’s dance, every step perfect, every thrust and parry timed and choreographed. A blow to the head, to the body, to the wrist. And each blow stopped by an equally timed block.

They weren’t practicing now. Instead, they were just standing there, their swords dangling by their sides.

Darqun was watching her still, and the look in his dark eyes made her shiver.

“It’s all right, Clea. These are my . . .” Ciarran hesitated for a second, then continued. “My brothers. My comrades of the Compact of Sorcerers.”

At Ciarran’s words, Darqun raised a brow, and she wondered if he disapproved of Ciarran’s sharing that much information with her. He continued to study her, his expression coldly forbidding and oddly intent, as though he wanted to see inside her, to know her secrets. Moving a step closer to Ciarran, Clea felt the comforting bulk of his arm press against her shoulder and the less comforting sizzle of magic arc and swell between them. With a sigh, she stepped off, cutting the connection.

Darqun made a small gesture, so subtle that she might have missed it if she hadn’t already been feeling a little weirded out by his focused stare. As though in response to an attack, power coiled inside her, tight, angry. She gasped, pressed her forearm against her stomach, battling a hot twist of pain on the inside and something else from the outside. An
intrusion
. Like something foreign was trying to get inside her.

Her lids flipped up, and her gaze clashed with Darqun’s. He was doing something to her, from way across the room, something she didn’t like.

Without thinking, she lashed out, with her heart, with her mind, with the pain and heat that coiled inside her, willing the magic to do as she bid. A hard kick of power flared bright and knocked the sword from Darqun’s hand, sending it arcing through the air, end over end, until it smacked against the far wall.

Her heart was pounding, and she felt ill, a sick swirl of nausea writhing in the pit of her stomach.

“He tried to get
inside
me,” she whispered. She’d felt it, felt him, Darqun, in her mind.

With a snarl, Ciarran stepped in front of her, his body glowing gold and light, and she jerked back, away from him, away from contact because she knew what harm she could do, knew the threat she posed. He’d protect her, even against a man he considered a brother and even at the risk she would draw his magic.

God, what a mess. She needed to fix it, make it better, only she had no idea how. It wasn’t anything like the sort of coping she’d done throughout her life. Nothing like getting a job to pay the bills, or sleeping less to fit everything in, or cooking a meal for the homeless. How did one go about fixing a tormented sorcerer and the resident darkness in his soul?

By leaving so she didn’t kill him with good intentions.

“Leash your power, Dar.” Ciarran’s voice was pitched low, laced with both warning and regret. “I have no desire to leash it for you.”

“My apologies. I meant no offense.” Darqun looked directly at Clea and shook his head, as though stymied by some particularly difficult conundrum. “I was taken by surprise.”

She watched him cautiously, disinclined to accept his apology, and so she said nothing. The way he was looking at her, at Ciarran, the wary amazement in his eyes, wasn’t quite right. And there was something else she sensed, something threatening. The whole situation was making her horribly uneasy.

“I had not expected to feel . . .” His sentence trailed away, unfinished, and he transferred his attention to Ciarran once more. “You have taken her to apprentice, without benefit of the Compact’s approval, without sanction of the Ancient?”

“Whoa.” Javier backed up a step, clearly appalled. “You did
what
?”

Oh, man. Whatever they were talking about was not good. And it was about her. Which made it doubly not good.

“I have been to see the Ancient,” Ciarran said, and she had the distinct feeling that there was a whole lot he
wasn’t
saying.

“And he gave you sanction to take her to apprentice?” Darqun’s tone was laced with incredulity.

“I did not
take
her to apprentice. She just
is
.” Ciarran blew out a breath. “She took herself.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Darqun snarled. “She has no wards, no limits, and she’s got enough frigging power to give Jav here a good run for his money. Which makes no sense, because she’s
human
. What the hell is going on here?”

“Leave it alone, Darqun,” Ciarran growled.

“I’m learning to control it,” Clea said evenly, stepping between them. “Umm . . . the power, I mean . . . not the being human . . .”

They were talking over her, around her, as though she weren’t there. She hated that. And she hated the fear generated by what Darqun was saying. No limits. No wards. She was not a hundred percent sure what he meant, but she got the gist, and it made her feel a little like a nuclear warhead with no safety switch.

Darqun raised a brow and glanced at the sword she’d knocked from his hand, then back at her, his expression incredulous. She refused to be cowed. She
was
controlling it, or, if not controlling it, at least not losing control as she had in her kitchen the previous morning when she’d knocked chairs and coffee cups around, doing little more than making a terrible mess.