Dominic (24 page)

An understanding of precisely what the demons intended dawned. They believed that as long as they control ed him, they were safe. Now that

they’d rendered him harmless, they would no longer seek to kil him.

Instead they would keep Emma, Rose, and him locked away here and attempt al manner of possible reproductive combinations over time, hoping

to achieve the production of another Chosen One they could command. A process that would no doubt be unpleasant for the three of them but which

would not achieve the results the demons desired.

Dominic arched a brow, concealing his thoughts. “And if I refuse?”

A sharp claw flicked in Emma’s direction. “I’l try her on, then, and we’l see if my seed wil grow the child you wil not sow.”

Dominic lunged toward the demon, snarling furiously, but the chains he wore yanked him back. Emma let out a sharp shriek that devolved into

more coughs, and Kurr scuttled out into the hal .

Returning to Emma’s side, Dominic held her and rubbed a hand over her back, stil keeping watch on their enemy who was now just outside the

alcove, conversing with his cohorts.

“What do they want? Tel me!” she gasped.

“Rosetta. And more like her. They expect us to mate here in this room. Repeatedly. Producing more—” His brows slammed together as his eyes

dropped to her bel y. His hand reached toward it, hovering over her flat abdomen but not touching.

“You’re with child,” he said. It was a flat, resigned statement that revealed none of the turbulent mix of emotions he was experiencing.

She caught his eyes. Nodded.

“It’s mine.”

“Yes.”

A fraught silence passed. “What—no questions? No recriminations?”

“I didn’t understand what happened last night—how it happened. But I wanted it. I want you.” She closed her eyes, her face turning to parchment.

“I’m feeling a bit faint.”

“Gods, Emma.” He took her shoulders in both his hands, lifting her close, and she gripped his wrists, covering the manacles. “You’ve picked a hel

of a time to—”

Sudden, absolute blackness came as a large, opaque net of some sort was cast over him. He’d al owed himself to be caught off guard. Emma

snatched at him, cal ing his name, trying to hold on to him. Amid the clank of chains and the discordant voices of his assailants, his muffled words to her

doubtlessly went unheard. Within minutes he found himself trussed and carried off.

Outside he was thrown to the temple’s marble steps, where he rol ed and bumped his way down al nine of them. When he landed at the bottom,

he began to fight clear of the fabric that cloaked him. Above him at the exterior facade of the temple, the demon lord was preparing to seal the

impenetrable bronze gates.

“Wait! No!” Dominic stomped up the first few stairs, tripping over the chains stil clamped to his manacles.

“You may go for the amulet. But the other two stay,” Kurr calmly informed him. “If you attempt a rescue, the mother dies. You have one week to

return yourself and the amulet to us.”

With that, the immense bronze doors clanged, shutting him out.

Every instinct urged him to storm the temple in an attempt to rescue Emma and Rose. Yet he would not win a fight against so many.

And because he had no idea where the amulet was, it seemed Emma would die within the week, either by the hand of the demons or by this

world’s slow poisoning of her.

He’d never felt this helpless in his life. This was what love had done to him. Given him a weakness. And a reason to live.

Wagering everything on the veracity of what the Facilitator had told him, he gathered the chains and slung them around himself so they wouldn’t

drag the ground, praying he was making the right decision.

Then he turned and loped for the gate.

25

A
n hour later, Emma waited on the palet with Rose nursing at her breast. She was consumed with worry over what had they done with Dominic and what

would happen to her child if she died. She had to escape—to go home and summon help.

She drew in a shaky breath that rattled in her chest, wil ing herself not to cough. Night had fal en, and most of the demons had left her and the

temple, presumably to feed. Only one guard had been posted at the cel door, and he was eyeing the Else World servant who’d been sent to see to her

and Rose’s needs, as if he planned to make a meal of her once she’d completed her tasks.

“In what direction does the gate lie?” Emma whispered to the servant when she ventured near.

“To the west, Signora, though its magic can be seen hovering in the sky from any distance. We don’t hide our gate as you do in your world,” she

replied in subdued, broken Italian. Her frightened eyes darted to the demon. “You should’ve stayed there. You’l die here soon enough. We al wil .”

Growing impatient, the demon came closer, growling. After checking Emma’s restraints, he ushered the servant from the cel . When they’d gone,

Emma unfolded the fingers of the hand in her lap and stared at the object she’d stolen from one of Kurr’s bracelets.

A key.

Wrapped in her handkerchief.

Though the square of linen had once been white and appeared to have been repeatedly laundered, it was threadbare and stained. When they’d

wrested Dominic from the room, she’d been holding his wrists and had inadvertently pul ed it from his glove in her efforts to keep him with her.

She ran the pad of a finger over her embroidered initials. Four weeks ago, he’d secretly taken this—this memento. For that’s what it must be.

He’d kept it close al this time as if by doing so, he’d also sought to keep her close.

This sweet, precious knowledge lent her strength when she most needed it, for al was quiet in the temple now. It was time.

Tucking the handkerchief in her pocket, she poked the key into one manacle and then the other. With muted, rusty screeches, they opened, and

she shook them off. Though this world had made her il , it also seemed to have magnified the miniscule amount of magic she possessed, transforming it

into a marginal y useful talent. Al owing her to manipulate certain objects. Al owing her to filch the key from Kurr.

A horrible shriek sounded from somewhere in the temple, and Emma jumped from the pal et with Rose in her arms, her heart pounding. The

servant. She was being attacked.

Dashing from the alcove, she found the mammoth bronze doors at the front of the temple with little trouble, but they appeared to be an

insurmountable obstacle. With Rose in the crook of one arm, she attempted to lift the enormous latch with her other hand. It easily held against her puny

efforts.

The sounds of ripping flesh and cracking bone echoed off the temple wal s, making her fingers tremble. Setting Rose at her feet, she pressed both

palms flat over the latch, concentrating, desperately summoning whatever magic she possessed. Long, terrifying moments later, she watched in

amazement as it released and the door flew open. Grabbing Rose, she hastily departed the temple.

As she’d been told, an aura of magic swam in the westward distance, indicating the location of the gate. Though she saw no one, the sounds of

mayhem were everywhere. Demons.

She hurried down the steps and headed toward safety. Home.

A half hour later, yet another coughing fit struck her, and she put a hand out, resting against a trunk of a tree. Rose was crying. Emma herself was

exhausted, sick. Scarcely able to draw air into her lungs. If not for the child she carried in her arms and that in her bel y, she would have given up then and

there. With a murmur of reassurance to Rose, she roused herself and moved on.

Sometime later, when she drew closer to the gate, she was fel ed to her knees by another racking cough. This time, it drew unwanted attention.

Dozens of demons who had gathered near the gate’s entrance now turned her way, their jaws and chests splattered with the blood of their hapless

victims.

They came close, shadowing her, surrounding her. Claws snagged her bodice, ripped her skirts. Reached for Rose.

“No!” she wailed, holding on to her child as best she could. Knowing al was lost. That she’d failed Rose. Would never see her family again. Or

Dominic.

“Dominic.”

Then, as if in a dream, everything began to change before her eyes!

She and Rose were unhanded. Looking disoriented, the demons began jerking and moaning. As their movements grew even more

uncoordinated, they began stumbling and bumping into one another and then fal ing to their knees.

Scarcely able to credit her good fortune, Emma gathered Rose close and escaped them. The gate swam in her clouded vision, just ahead, only a

hundred feet or so away now.

Behind her, the demons turned to wraiths, writhing on the ground. And then in groups of two, then five, then by the dozens, they crumbled to

nothingness, their evil dissipating as if it had never been.

Somehow she managed to make it to the cave she sought and drag herself through its tunnel and then through the gate itself. This time, if its

magic stung her, she was too il to notice it.

And then she was through, and she and Rose were fal ing into Dominic’s arms on the other side.

And she was breathing in the fresh, sweet, life-giving air of her own world.

“I have them,” Dominic told Nicholas and Lyon. Not expecting the brothers to entrust Emma and Rose to his care, he was surprised when they only

nodded and continued through the gate to determine the state of things in Else World.

The chains he wore and encounters with demons had slowed him, and it had taken far too long to reach the gate. Having learned of Rose’s il ness

from the servants and been unable to find Emma, her family had concluded she must’ve gone to him in Else World.

Therefore, two of the three Satyr lords had already been in the cavern when he’d arrived, preparing to cross over to search for Emma while Raine

remained behind to protect the rest of the family and the estate. They had helped Dominic cross in this direction, whereupon he’d quickly informed them

of the Facilitator’s demise and his shocking revelations, and of Emma’s whereabouts.

He’d been attempting to resign himself to the agonizing task of waiting while they ventured into his world. And then Emma had come bursting

through, and now she lay across his lap. Cuddled in his arms. Safe.

“I’l take Rose to the
castello,
” said Jane, who’d accompanied her husband to the brink of the gate. “I cal ed a physician to see to them when they

arrived, just in case. You’l bring Emma?”

At Dominic’s nod, Jane took the fussing child from her sister’s lax arms and made to go. Hesitating, she turned back to him and lay a hand on his

shoulder. “Thank you. For—” Her voice broke with emotion. “For everything.” Then she and Rose were gone.

Emma’s eyes opened, and her lips curved into that gentle smile that so fascinated him.

His heart surged at the love in her eyes. Never having seen that particular emotion directed his way by anyone before, it took him a moment to

recognize it for what it was.

“How are you feeling?” he asked gruffly.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Love. She loved him. With that single word, she was tel ing him he could have her in his arms every night. In his life every day. That he could be a

father to Rose and to their unborn child. That he could work her land, tend its ancient grapevines, bringing forth life instead of death.

Not waiting for a response, she sat up within his embrace, looking almost miraculously recovered. “I heard what you told Nicholas and Lyon. I can

attest to the fact that your absence from your world seems to have had the beneficial effect you desired. It fel ed the demons and al owed me safe

passage.” Laying her head on his shoulder, she gazed up at him. “But now that it’s no longer safe for you to reside in your land, wil you come home with

me? Stay here with us?”

When he stil didn’t reply, she turned teasing. “You’l have little choice, I’m afraid, now that Jane has accepted you. Nicholas gives her anything she

desires, so if she wishes you to remain here…I warn you he’s a formidable force.”

With every fiber of his being, Dominic wanted to agree to her proposal, but life had taught him not to trust. To take nothing for granted.

He lifted his gloved hand, forcing her to acknowledge it. When he spoke, his voice was rough and low. “I wil always carry this evil within me. It’s

part of me.”

She curved a soft palm to his cheek, shushing him. “Only a good, strong man would carry such a burden to keep his people safe. A lesser man

would have released the pain of it and left those who depended on him to fend for themselves. To die.”

Tugging at the laces of his glove, she held his eyes as she slowly unfettered that most despicable part of him. Beneath the threaded leather, the

skin of his hand was pale, unused to light, sensitive. Untouched by anyone save himself for his entire adult life. She brushed her fingers over its back, and

he moaned at the sensual thril it sent through him, his eyelids drooping to half mast.

Turning his hand, she studied the pool of silver at the center of his palm. Then she cupped his hand in both of hers and brought it closer.

“Emma.” His voice was tortured, wary, choked with suppressed emotion.

Her breath came, warm and sweet upon the mirror, heating it, misting it. His pulse tripped erratical y, and his entire body tightened in rejection, not

wanting to subject her goodness to his vileness. Yet craving her acceptance. Craving what she would do.

Her lips touched him then, butterfly light. Caressing the hard, cold surface of his palm.

And at her kiss, something wounded in him was mended. Something frigid was melted. Evil was defeated by love.