I moved to the next one. The room was pitched in darkness, and though I could see nothing, I sensed something there. I shuddered and moved on to the third. Another vast room with Gothic ceilings and ribbed vaulting canopied a throne. This one had no carpet at all centered down the hall, and there was only one throne—tall and wide, carved of deep mahogany wood with a pointed arch at the head. Black velvet draped behind the dais where the throne stood. Though less ostentatious, this was definitely for royalty.
“Throne rooms.”
My head swiveled to each doorway. Six of them. Six princes, brothers of Danté. The seventh throne room would be in this castle somewhere.
“Yes, my sweet,” said a bitter, cold voice behind me.
I spun to see Danté in the doorway. Smeared with black blood on his chest and a dripping gash on his face, he darkened the door like the demon prince he was. The wound on his face festered in a red welt and didn’t seem to be healing. My VS power. While my VS had been mostly blocked by my foul murder, smothering what light she normally gave me, she’d still come forward when I summoned.
My pulse staggered a beat as Danté moved into the room. I glanced at the entrance to the throne room right next to me. Danté chuckled.
“If you think to find mercy or sanctuary with one of my brothers, you’re sadly mistaken. I will show you far more mercy than they ever would. When I’m done. Step through one of those doors and find out for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Don’t panic. Stand your ground.
“No more games.”
His voice was an ice blade cutting the air. He wound black wire around his fists, pulling the wire taut and snapping it in a loud crack. I jumped. He smiled a monstrous smile—all serrated teeth, promising pain.
“Do not fear, Genevieve. I have no plans to strangle you. But, oh, darling, I will bind you.” He sauntered casually into the room, making his way carefully closer, red eyes piercing the dark. “I will teach you to behave, my sweet. It may take a few days, weeks, months, perhaps, but you will learn obedience. Willful fillies must be broken by their master’s hand. It will only hurt a little. Now come to me.”
“I will never give in to you.
Never!
”
“We’ll see about that.”
I was against the wall, shaking from terror and rage. My hand holding the dagger trembled, but I held it aloft. He was out of his freaking mind if he thought I’d let him bind me willingly. He came closer, not even trying to hide the menace in his eyes.
A ghastly, high-pitched shriek pierced the castle walls in an explosion of anguish and agonizing woe. My dagger clattered to the floor as I pressed my hands over my ears, sound sucking from the room. Danté swiveled.
“Cocytus. What’s that bitch doing here?”
That was the last I heard as a string of curses spilled from Danté’s mouth. Evaporation of all sound but the shriek of cold-blooded despair screamed through the halls, coming closer. Something close to fear skittered across my captor’s immaculate face. Well, no longer immaculate with the angry gash searing one side.
Cocytus. The River of Lamentation. Soul-eater of woe. She came closer still. I could hardly stand it, a deep sorrow creeping into my bones. Danté threw down the black wire he carried and started for the door when she swept into the room, floating above him. Banshee-like in a tattered gray cloak, wisps of cloth billowing, framing a grisly white face with black, black eyes, she screamed again, spreading skeleton arms wide. I collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down my face from the painful pressure of despair.
Danté approached, drawing his arm back. I have no idea what he was about to do, because she cried out again. Her jaw yawned grotesquely, until I saw fire burning in the cavernous gulf. Her mouth gaped unnaturally wide. Something crawled over her tongue. In a millisecond, a man spilled out and landed on his feet. An aura of flame burned him into an entire being of fire. Flames arched behind him, forming a blaze of huge wings as he drew a massive claymore from the scabbard strapped to his back.
Jude.
Danté took a giant step back and stared. Jude circled, his muscles rigid and taut. Cocytus floated, undulating in the corner like a spider spinning a web, but there was no web. She stopped shrieking, watching with ink-black eyes—a spindly predator awaiting her meal.
Flames of light simmered and rippled around Jude as he circled his prey, who’d straightened himself in an arrogant stance, gesturing wildly. Jude’s back was to me, but as he moved, his head swiveled in my direction.
I gasped. In Jude’s dark gaze, I saw only death. It was all for him, for Danté. An all-consuming fury intent on its prize.
Danté said something to Jude. The vacuum of sound eased. I heard sporadic words—
luscious…inevitable…like her…so sweet
. Jude’s aura of fire licked brightly as he clasped the claymore with both hands, his knuckles stretched white, centering the blade upright. He spoke to Danté. Though I couldn’t hear the words, I read them on lips I knew so well, now tight with promise.
For Genevieve.
The massive sword swung around in a wide arc, cutting the air in a long sweep, cleanly slicing off Danté’s head, which bounced twice and rolled across the floor, hitting the wall. Cold gray eyes widened in shock. The head’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy, gasping for air. Danté’s body fell to its knees, black blood dripping down chest and back. But Jude wasn’t through. Rage blazed fiercely in a flaming halo of red, orange and gold, framing his lithe body, taut with strain on the edge of triumph. He plunged the claymore straight through the decapitated body. Rather than pull the sword straight back out, Jude ripped upward through chest and neck, his mouth open in a soundless scream.
The fiery blaze dimmed with his victorious stroke. Jude walked to the wall, picked up Danté’s head by the hair and tossed it in the air toward Cocytus as if he were simply lobbing a ball. She opened her mouth and gulped the head like a bird swallowing a worm. I should’ve been sickened, but I wasn’t. I felt something entirely different as Cocytus leaned over the rest of her gruesome meal and Jude sheathed his sword, stalking in long strides toward me, something desperate in his eyes. I leapt into his arms.
He gripped me with such vicious need, I lost my breath and nearly fainted. I nuzzled my face into his neck, breathing in the safety and smell of Jude. His steel armor of protection clamped on to me. I didn’t even need that. Being in his arms was enough. He held me and held me and held me, his lips on the top of my head, his arms a vise of possession.
Cocytus shrieked softly, sated, floating out of the room and away to wherever soul-collectors went. Sound came back to the room. I could hear my own breathing coming fast. Jude’s too.
“Are you okay? Did he…?” he breathed into my hair.
I pulled back.
“No,” I said, knowing what he was asking. “I’m okay. I’m all right.”
He stared down with such intensity, I thought he meant to melt me on the spot.
“Oh, Jude. Your eyes.”
A cloud of obsidian, sparking with flinty gold, gazed down on me.
“A small price to save you.”
I ached, thinking of what it must’ve been like in the belly of Cocytus, what despairing souls must’ve rubbed their dark essence onto him.
He grabbed my hand with an iron grip. “Come. I can’t sift within these walls. Let’s get out of here.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
As soon as we were in the hall, Jude lifted me into his arms. I could easily walk but wasn’t arguing with him. A man on a mission—protection of his woman foremost in his mind—he found the stairs easily, walking straight down, glancing warily in case one of Danté’s slaves attempted to stop us. I’d love to see them try.
I clasped my hands behind his neck, feeling the elation of safety in Jude’s arms. My eyes slid shut, reveling in the warmth spreading inside. A few more steps and we sifted. The Void didn’t bother me this time. Nothing bothered me at this point.
When I opened my eyes, we were in Jude’s living room. He sat on his overstuffed armchair with me securely on his lap. He positioned me upright then pulled off his shirt. What?
“Lift up your arms.”
In no mood to argue, I did. He pulled the black nightgown over my hips and up over my head. I was extremely grateful I’d decided to wear a strapless bra with my dress tonight. Though not a prude, I was certainly too modest to go topless. Jude then slipped his shirt over my head. As I put my arms into the sleeves, he hauled his arm back to throw the gown.
“Wait!”
I used the gown to wipe the black blood spatter along his neck and cheek, then handed it back to him. He threw the balled-up gown across the room into his mantel-less fireplace, where it immediately ignited in flames. I reminded myself to ask about his power to start fires later. Right now, I really didn’t care.
He pulled me close. I braced one hand on the top of the Celtic cross that stood strong up to the hollow of his throat. That hard edge of anxiety and fury was fading now that he knew I was truly safe. Still, he didn’t seem ready to let me go. His eyes were so fixed on mine, I couldn’t breathe. An emotion deeper than anything I’d ever felt washed through me, bone-deep. When he spoke, the words struck me dumb.
“I was in the midst of battling Bamal’s men when I felt a tremor of danger. Something foul pierced my soul. I thought Bamal or some other evil had shown up on the scene. Then I knew…it was you. I felt you. My heart felt you. My heart felt yours.” His warm hand cupped my cheek. “I’m so sorry. By the time I sifted, you were gone.”
“Hush. You weren’t too late.” Our lips met. A soft, tender kiss. “I’m here.” Another kiss. “I’m safe.”
“
Mon coeur,
” he whispered against my lips, stroking. Gentle caresses. Soft. Comforting.
He’d never spoken to me in his native tongue. He had kept his childhood in France locked away from me. But now, he was opening that door of secrets. Slowly.
“Mon coeur,” he breathed again, eyes imploring, wanting, needing.
I nodded, kissed him more deeply, whispering, “Yes.”
And my heart was his.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It had been ten years since my last confession. I’d given up on the idea of forgiveness when my mother abandoned me through suicide. But today, I’d needed it. Jude refused to let me turn myself in or try to explain to the police that Nathaniel’s death was self-defense. Rather than argue with that steel-willed man, I ignored the fact that George surreptitiously made Nathaniel’s body fall into the bayou. Not very saintly behavior if you ask me. While Kat propped Mindy up near the patio, George had given Mindy a persuasion cast, which conveniently made her think she drank too much and split her dress falling down the garden steps.
The only thing I could think to do to rid myself of the guilt was go to confession. For the most part, it had. Even now, as I walked away from the confessional, I could feel the cloud wrapped around my VS start to dissipate, letting the moon-brightness shine through. I touched my fingers to the opal at my neck as I stepped up to the candle votives at the entrance.
I dropped a dollar in the offertory and lit a candle on the row of soft-burning candles beneath Mary’s statue. I knelt and remembered my mother, feeling more tender than ever toward the woman who loved me and left me.
Kat had returned to New York, needing to do some serious surveillance on Bamal. While I missed her, I knew she was only a sift away. George returned to wherever he lived.
I discovered that negotiations with Bamal’s demons revealed little. The three high demons were supposed to deliver me alive to the demon prince of New York. Great. We get rid of Danté, and now this one. But Bamal wasn’t Danté. He had other motives. Kat thought it had something to do with the prophecy. Of course, Kat thought everything had something to do with the prophecy.
I crossed myself and walked out of St. Louis Cathedral into Jackson Square. Jude’s tall figure faced away from me on the other side of the wrought-iron fence in the garden. I ambled past the art vendors spread out on the pavement and stepped through the gate. Jude was talking to someone.
The man he spoke to was tall with light brown hair, wearing casual gray slacks and a crisp white shirt. Average in appearance except for an indefinable glow. No one seemed to notice, but my VS went crazy as I sidled closer, pumping out a beacon of recognition. Though I didn’t know him, my VS recognized him.
“But, is this…” Jude stammered.
Jude never stammered.
“Is she—”
“My dear friend,” said the glowing man, “I do believe you already know the answer to that question.”
With a beaming smile that was both compassionate and enigmatic, he nodded and walked past Jude. The man stopped right in front of me, peering down with impossibly green eyes. Okay, better than average in appearance. I stood corrected. By now, I’d become accustomed to my VS picking up on a signature sense in the Flamma I encountered. The man standing before me exuded a suffused power so great I felt that if I could breathe it in, my chest would burst.
“Good day, Genevieve,” he said with a nod in a deep, melodious voice. “Do take care of yourself, won’t you?”
I blinked rapidly. All I could do was nod in agreement as he exited the garden and disappeared into the crowds of Jackson Square.
Jude stepped up beside me.
“He was an angel, wasn’t he?” I said more than asked.
“Archangel. His name is Uriel, the creator of our kind.”
“What?” I looked up at Jude as he linked his fingers with mine. “I thought that was George.”
“No. George was commissioned, shall we say, to serve as our leader, our trainer. But Uriel, he’s the one who makes us what we are.”
There was a bittersweet tone in his voice, mixed with fervent gratitude. He blinked, and the spell was broken. He peered down at me with a classic, mischievous Jude grin, planting a quick kiss on my hand. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too. Where shall we go?”
I glanced around the square, thinking of the dozens of famous restaurants within walking distance.
“My place.”
“Jude, you can’t cook,” I said, watching his lips curl. “Can you?”
“Genevieve, do not attempt to penetrate the mystery that is me. You will never know all my secrets.”
Playful Jude.
“Well, I’ll definitely discover whether you’re a good or a bad cook.”
“Mmm,” he mused. “Do you like strawberries and whipped cream?” he asked, pulling me along the side street toward Dauphine.
“That’s dessert, not lunch.”
“So it is. I like dessert.”
His eyes skimmed from my eyes to my lips. He kept me close as we walked along. Even in broad daylight, he watched the shadows. The shadows of Danté’s lair still lingered in my mind, but I no longer had nightmares.
Jude had once told me he’d gladly go to hell for me. He went twice. He even traveled in the bowels of a Collector, mingling with condemned souls and staining his own in order to save me.
And save me, he did. In so many ways.
No matter the darkness in his eyes. No matter the secret sins in his heart. No matter the stains on his soul. I vowed one day I would save him too.