“Tell me something. Has he made any requests, asked any favors of you?”
“No, yes, I mean, no favors, not really.”
We veered into the Quarter. He sped faster through the streets, nearly clipping a cab at the next turn.
“Clarify.”
“He hasn’t asked me any favors.” He only begged me to consider him as a lover.
Jude’s aura of flame flared with his temper.
“What’s really going on between you and this fucking guardian?” He laid on the horn, careening around a jaywalker. The guy leapt onto the curb before Jude ran him over. I squirmed in my seat.
“Nothing! Nothing is going on.” Not anymore. That one taste of sin and the resulting ton of guilt now weighing me down was enough to quell any budding infatuation.
“You’re lying.”
Shit!
I couldn’t tell him. The very idea made acid burn in my gut. Time to switch the tables, though this topic was just as distasteful.
“He accused you of something terrible.”
“I’m sure he did.” Jude’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, his hands white-knuckled, his arms flexed and tense. “Tell me.”
“He said that…that you were a murderer.”
Banking a hard left, Jude zipped down Dauphines, squeezed into a spot in front of his house and turned off the car. Rather than give me a scornful look and protest such an accusation, he leaned his head back against the headrest, staring straight ahead. All the fire seemed to die right out of him with one long exhalation of breath.
“What else did he say?” Resignation and weariness leaked into his voice.
“Nothing.” I angled my body to face him, wrapping my arms around myself. “He offered to give me the details, but I told him I’d rather hear it from you.” True, though actually, he’d offered to
show
me the details through a vision. “Is it true?” Jude felt far away, closing himself off to me with cold determination. “Please talk to me.”
The gas streetlamps on either side of the alcove leading into his home flickered with warmth like fireflies in a mason jar. A couple strolled arm in arm past the car. The woman tossed her head back and laughed. He scooped her into his arms and planted a heated kiss on her lips before setting her down. She twined her fingers through his, then they meandered down Dauphines toward Jackson Square. The happy couple and Jude’s punishing silence had my stomach twisted into a knot. Finally, he spoke, still gazing ahead as if the world before him didn’t exist at all.
“Did Kat ever tell you how Dominus Daemonum are made?”
I went very still, hardly believing he was offering up something I thought he’d never tell me. “No.”
“You actually guessed it once, though I doubt you ever realized it.” I didn’t speak a word, didn’t move, urging him to go on with silent encouragement. “To become a Master of Demons, you must have committed a heinous murder, an unforgiveable sin, and you must be mortally wounded on the verge of death.” He clutched the car keys in his fist, the other hand still on the wheel. “You must also have a split soul.”
“A split soul?” I whispered, not wanting to interrupt but also needing to know what he meant.
“Half in the world of Light and half in the world of Darkness.” His upper body grew rigid, tightening with the memory haunting him now. “When you’re on death’s door, an agent of Flamma, one from each world, will show up to take you where you’re meant to go. But if your soul is split, riding the fence, agents from both worlds show up to give you an option.”
“An option. Like to go to heaven or hell?”
“Precisely.”
“And so…you committed a murder—”
“Murders,” he corrected with cold finality.
“And Uriel showed up. And another agent, a demon.”
“Damas,” he clarified. “Actually, he’d been there all along and I hadn’t even known it.” He snorted a bitter laugh. “But there’s a price to pay if you die with a mortal sin on your hands, one so dark that absolution is impossible, an unreachable fantasy. If your soul is too black, smothered by hatred and evil, then you simply go to hell and become a demon for the underworld. But if your soul is split as you’re dying with the sin of murder fresh on your hands, then you may get another chance. Damas offered me unlimited power and immortality as an angel hunter, to continue on my path of darkness and kill to my heart’s content. Uriel offered me life as a demon hunter, paying for my sin by expelling those doing evil against humanity. In my state”—he paused, deep grooves creasing his brow, the memory haunting him with cold brutality—“I nearly chose to go with Damas.”
I gasped, not believing he’d ever be brought so low as to do such a thing, or that he’d ever confess to me that he nearly became a creature of the Dark, like Bellock. “But something inside me wept for what I’d done. You see, I’d sought revenge against Danté for what he’d done to my mother, my father, what he’d taken from me. In yielding to blind hatred, I’d lost myself. I’d nearly lost my soul. So I died to my former self, let go of my humanity, and took up the sword against the Dark, willingly accepting their black sins to rub off and tarnish my soul and torture my mind with every demon I expelled back to hell.” Tearing himself from the distant past, he turned toward me, his face hooded in shadow. “I won’t lie to you, Genevieve. Ever. I deserve to pay my penance, hunting demonkind for all eternity for my sins. And I do it, gladly. But I can’t live in the past. Don’t ask me to go back there.”
I shook my head, my heart sticking at his promise that he’d never lie to me. Feeling like a liar, a betrayer, myself. Guilt weighed me down. I wanted to forgive him.
“No. You don’t have to tell me anymore.” It was true. He had murdered with hatred rooted deep in his soul, as Thomas had told me. Though I didn’t have a clear picture of exactly what he’d done, I couldn’t ask him anymore, couldn’t force him to relive the pain one moment longer. My heart clenched at the agony marring his face, coloring his expression with profound regret.
A moment later, he seemed to shake off his stormy past, shifting and opening the car door. “Let’s get inside.”
I opened the door and headed toward the alcove leading into his courtyard. He stopped me under the glowing streetlamp, pulling me into a fierce embrace. Face close to mine, he read the empathy I held in my eyes for him, for the pain he’d suffered all these years. Without a word of warning, he descended, his lips sealing to mine, his tongue sliding inside my mouth, devouring me. With a deep moan, I curved into him, my body responding to his touch as if he owned me. He hardened; I softened. His hand fisted in my hair, tugging my head back, arching my neck. He nipped and sucked along my neck, the stubble on his jaw rubbing a rough line over sensitive skin. I shivered, curling my fingers into the leather of his jacket.
“Jude,” I whispered.
I slid one of my hands under his T-shirt, feeling the hard ridges of his abdomen, flexing under my feathery touch. He tightened further as my hand roamed down to his jeans. He groaned. God, I wanted him. His mouth found mine again, his aura of flame back with a vengeance, licking around us, igniting us into a blaze of need.
He lifted me into the shadowed alcove and pinned me to the wall. Pushing his shirt up higher, I let my nails drag across his pectoral to his abdomen. His hands cupped my behind and lifted me onto my toes, his hard shaft pressing to my core. I whimpered. He slanted his mouth over mine, consuming every moan I uttered.
Then he froze. A jolt to my writhing senses, my body quivering for more.
Slowly, he pulled his lips from mine, our breaths coming hard and fast. I could see little, the light from the gas lamp showing his rigid profile. I thought I’d done something wrong, but he turned his head toward the courtyard, listening. The wrought-iron gate, which should’ve been locked, stood ajar. Through the haze of lust, my VS finally registered a warning.
A dark presence moved in the shadowed garden a few feet away.
Chapter Eighteen
Still pressed to the alcove wall, Jude lowered my body—slow and silent. Bending over, he pulled the longest, widest knife I’d ever seen from a concealed sheath in his boot. Not surprising. He gestured for me to stay put without a sound, edging forward.
Jude’s home had been cast in strong protective spells. I wondered if that extended to the courtyard and what it meant if a demonic Flamma was able to break through them. For there definitely was something foul lurking within, but it didn’t resonate on my VS like a demon.
Jude moved with stealth, squeezing through the opening without touching the gate. I crept closer to peer through the bars. Two lanterns lit the courtyard path to the door, leaving the rest in shadows.
The signature was subtle at first, growing stronger by the second. Dank, moldy earth mingled with smoke and ash. A deep snuff like that of a heavy, wild animal came from somewhere in the enclosure.
Jude held his knife ready. The halo of fire that often manifested when he cast out demons outlined his body, lighting the dim garden with an orange glow. The trickling of water in the fountain was the only sound we heard. Jude crept closer to the tall brush along the brick wall enclosure. I stepped just inside, not daring to go any farther.
Another snuff of aggression. Right behind me. I whirled. The beast stepped from the shadows, and my stomach dropped. A creature born of nightmares that stood three feet taller than me.
A black, tusklike horn—shining like bone—protruded from between serpentine yellow eyes. His mouth hung agape, revealing finger-long canines extending from the bottom of its snout. Long muscular arms hung at its side, sharpened black claws tipping its thick hands. Its body—hulking and disturbingly humanlike—made me think of minotaurs from mythology, one-horned rather than two. Except this wasn’t a myth; this was an eight-foot-tall nightmare with razor-sharp teeth staring me dead in the face as if it recognized me.
“Don’t move,” said Jude behind me, calm and steady.
I still couldn’t breathe. The creature held my gaze and snuffed again, gray smoke puffing around its fanged snout, before purposely stepping around me toward Jude. I’d become accustomed to fighting, or rather running, for my life whenever a demon popped on the scene. But this thing had no interest in me. His target was Jude. This wasn’t a demon either. This must be a fury, the strongest of the three types of demon spawn. Titans were dragon-like, all brawn. And while this creature was certainly formidable in size, its sheer presence pulsed against my VS, warning me he was more dangerous than the behemoth George had fought back at Glastonbury Abbey.
I backed to the brick wall. A jagged growl rolled from the beast as it tucked its head low, snout to chest, aiming the tusk directly at Jude. It charged. Jude ducked, sliced out with his knife and rolled away. The creature yowled. Black blood oozed from a gash on the fury’s thigh right below the tattered tunic it wore.
Jude circled behind the fountain of Eros and Psyche. The passionate lovers entwined in a loving embrace—standing between Jude and the deadly creature. Jude’s halo of fire grew brighter, a sign he was juicing up for a killer blow. The beast swiped out with an angry paw, breaking off the sculpture of Eros and Psyche, knocking it to the pavement into shattered pieces. Snorting more smoke into the air, the beast grew impatient, hulking faster around the fractured fountain. Jude leapt forward, planting one foot on the fountain lip, and launched himself into the air toward the creature, knife swinging. The fury swiped out again with a deadly paw. Before it met its target, Jude sliced toward its neck, sinking in and arcing upward.
“Flamma intus!” Jude yelled, calling on his power. A clap of sound and light.
Crack!
The tip of the beast’s horn snapped off. The fury bellowed a low-pitched howl, its massive clawed hand knocking Jude back onto the broken fountain. I heard the air squeeze out of Jude’s lungs as he rolled onto the pavement, his knife falling free with a clatter.
“Jude!”
A guttural growl, more menacing than the first, emanated again from the beast as he loped forward for the kill. Jude was too slow getting up.
“No!”
Without thinking, I leapt forward and grabbed Jude’s arm at the same moment the fury’s claws raked through the air toward Jude’s face. They hit nothing, because a split second later, we were sifting through the Void. Jude’s body nearly pulled free of me. I yanked hard on his arm and grabbed his T-shirt with the other, picturing my apartment and sifting us there. Only my third sift, yet it felt innate to me, a natural compulsion my Vessel Sense responded to automatically.
We fell ungracefully with a thunk next to my bed, Jude sprawled on top of me. A faint light filtered through my sheer blue curtains from the street. I clutched him, one hand fisted in his T-shirt. Predator still, he didn’t bother to move an inch, his heavy weight keeping me pinned beneath him. His darkening gaze made me wish we weren’t so close, horror sinking in with what I’d just revealed in my actions.
“How”—his voice low and fierce—“do you have the power to sift?”
In the past months, I’d seen many sides of Jude. The warrior. The tyrant. The protector. Yet, none of them made my blood run cold like the black-eyed hunter hovering over me now. I’d thought of a million ways to say this whenever the time came, but everything fled from me. Every logical, defendable, reasonable way to explain my new gift escaped me like leaves on the wind. When I finally spoke, I could only manage one word, one name, thick on my tongue.
“Thomas.”
Jude’s expression hardened to stone, his thoughts unreadable. A corner of his mouth lifted into a cold smile. Bracing both hands on either side of my body, he slowly pushed himself off me and rose. His weight gone felt like abandonment. I scooted myself into a sitting position, my back against the bed, breathing hard from the terror of the fury but more from the fuming man staring out my bedroom window.
I cleared my throat. “I was going to tell you.”
“I’m sure you were.”
Fear scattered my thoughts as I tried to find the words that would break through the icy glacier Jude quickly erected between us. I could almost feel layer upon layer of barriers building with every passing second. Unlike me, he had plenty of words to say.
“I’m going to take a leap here and say that your angel…Thomas…decided to tell you about my past after he gave you the kiss of power.”
I lifted myself off the floor to the edge of my bed. Jude walked to the lamp on my bedside table and flicked it on, facing me with steely intent. He wanted to see the truth in my eyes. Or the lies. I stiffened my spine.
“Yes. He did.”
“I’m not quite sure how he was privileged to know of my making, but that’s one thing I intend to find out as well. Better yet, I’d like to meet him myself and ask him.”
My stomach twisted into a knot at the thought. What a disaster that would be. “I, I don’t have a way of reaching him. And he never comes around when I’m with you.”
Jude scoffed. “Not surprising. I have the distinct impression he doesn’t want to meet me face-to-face.” His sardonic lilt cut like a blade. I remained still under his intense scrutiny. “That was quite a kiss of power he gave you, wasn’t it?” he asked with sickening self-assurance.
“But, Jude, I did the same with George, and it was nothing. You were okay with me getting the power I needed to protect myself.”
Jude smiled. An icy shiver pinged up my spine. “Yes. But this was different. Quite different, I’m sure.” I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore and stared down at my hands wringing together in my lap. “Look at me, Genevieve.”
When he commanded me with such force, I couldn’t disobey. I met his dark gaze again.
“How long has Thomas been offering you the power to sift?”
“Well. It was…” I opened my mouth to speak, thinking Thomas had first offered on the plane to New York, but no, it had been from the beginning. The first time I met him, he mentioned the need for me to sift to escape my enemies. “He talked about it since the first time we met.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jude said in an arrogant huff. His hands rested casually on his hips, but the taut, flexed muscles across his chest and shoulders spoke of the tension coiling in his body. “He’s been planning to seduce you from the start.”
“What? No! He—” Wait. Had he? His animosity toward Jude was clear. Was it because Jude had taken the place he wanted for himself?
“Yes. He has. And apparently, he’s done a fine job.”
“No. He hasn’t, he didn’t…seduce me.”
Jude measured my responses—body gestures, facial expressions, everything—using his innate lie-detector skills to perceive any dishonesty. I trembled where I sat.
“The interesting thing is that I’d asked you to be cautious and to not allow yourself to be alone with him until we spoke again.” He angled his head with another assessing glance. “I’m presuming that you were alone with him when this
exchange
of power occurred.”
I nodded, unable to speak, a lump forming in my throat.
“So you disregarded my request.” We both knew it wasn’t a request. “The kiss of power is a seductive thing, Genevieve.” His voice dipped and rolled, all velvety and lush. He strolled forward, his body moving with sinuous grace, and stopped in front of me. Using one finger, he tipped my chin to look straight up into his eyes. “He did more than kiss you, didn’t he?” Tears pooling, I gave a stiff nod. His words were low and soft, so contradictory to the emotion simmering in his eyes. “Did he fuck you?”
“No!” The tears spilled. My voice broke. “I’d never do that.”
“But he got a good taste. Enough to think you’d abandon me and take him instead. Correct?”
I swatted his hand away, and stormed around him to the window. “Yes!” A sob escaped. I sucked it in and kept quiet, unwilling to lose it entirely.
“I see.” Quiet, cold words.
I spun around. “But Jude, I told him I only wanted you.” The tears came unbidden now, shame flaring heat up my chest and neck. “It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry.”
I walked toward him, my hand outstretched. He took a step away.
“No.”
Twisting my hands in nervous agitation, I begged him to listen. “Jude, please…”
He strode toward the door. “I’ll make sure your door is bolted and stay on watch outside tonight.” Acting as if nothing had happened, as if my world wasn’t crumbling to dust this very second, he added, “I’m not sure why or how a fury ended up at my home, but we’ll meet with George tomorrow to discuss it.”
“Jude!” He turned at the door, his face a mask of indifference, though his lips compressed into a tight line. “Jude,” I said softer, “I love you.”
I’d never said the words before. Neither had he. We both just…knew. Now he acted as if it didn’t matter. Hell, he acted as if it wasn’t true.
The cold melted from his façade, revealing for a moment the man who owned my heart and made me want to beat myself senseless for the unforgiveable betrayal I’d committed against him.
“Words, Genevieve.” He smiled with such sadness, my heart cracked. “They mean nothing next to your actions. It is what we do that defines who we are and where our devotion truly lies.”
Then I was alone. And I’d never felt more so in my entire godforsaken life.