Sweet Ruin (23 page)

“You attacked me with all your might to protect him. You must really care for him.”

Confusion. “Of course I do.”

Rune shot to his feet, starting to pace. “Who is he? What is he?”

She tried to follow his movements, but the effort was grueling.
What is Thad?
She didn’t know. Was he like Jo?

Thad was good. “He’s the best man I know.” Her voice sounded more and more distant.

“In our wager, you were able to resist me because you wanted to get back to him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Won’t tell me his species? Then what is he to you?”

Everything. “I’d die for him.” Her words were slurring.

Black forked out over Rune’s eyes. “You love him?”

“Whaa?” Silly question. “More than anything.”

Rune sank down on the side of the bed again. Just as abruptly, he rose. He dipped his hand into his pocket, rolling something there over and over. The trinket? “You love him so much you drank from me? Then you gave me your body for a night? How would he feel to know you can’t get enough of my forbidden blood?”

What did that have to do with anything? “You wouldn’t understand.”

As she slipped back into sleep, he muttered, “I understand the demon in me demands his due. I’m off to service a harem of nymphs.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

R
une’s head pounded, his ears ringing.

Josephine had used him, sighing his name and coming on his tongue. She’d given him his first real kiss. But her reactions had been feigned so she could return to the one she loved.

Loved. She’d given her heart away. Lore females didn’t do that lightly.
And I’d actually been worried about her getting attached to me?

The night she’d fouled his shot, she’d been dressed like a man-eater—because she’d known she was going to see Thad. The body Rune had lost himself in belonged to someone else.

He pinched his temples. He’d planned to go to the tree nymphs’ covey, but couldn’t quite bring himself to leave. His headache worsened, and an unfamiliar, churning aggression filled him. Damn it, that night with her had meant something to him.

Shared breaths, discovery, barriers broken.
It’d been different; it’d been
more
. How much had been real for her?

He
did the using. Artifice was
his
specialty. He gritted his fangs, pacing the room. He craved angry sex, a good hate fuck. He wanted to hurt Josephine.
Needed
to.

He could return to New Orleans and take down her male. From his ever-present quiver, Rune pulled a gray arrow. The eraser, they called it. A shot to the chest with this one, and there’d be too many pieces to find.

The demon in him whispered,
Do it. Then piss on his grave marker.

The fey in him said,
She’s too young to know what love is. She’s too young for you! Just
think
about this and calm yourself.

She might have a man, but Rune would keep her from him. He couldn’t allow a security risk like her to be freed—

One of the symbols on his arm began to glow and tingle. An alert. Someone had tripped his perimeter wards.
A trespasser in my sanctuary
.

He pictured Josephine—small and helpless in his bed. The demon in him commanded
protect.
Fangs bared, he unslung his bow, then traced to the observatory. His scowl deepened. He had a
guest
.

Sian was drinking from a flask, gazing down at an orgy, his customary war ax sheathed at his side.

By way of greeting, Rune said, “How did you find this place? And trace past my ward?” He shouldered his bow once more.

Sian cleared his throat. “You concealed your knowledge of this location, but when I read your mind, I uncovered enough.” The demon’s striking face was stamped with fatigue, his intense green eyes bloodshot.

How long did he have before his appearance started changing? With his twin’s death, Sian had become the King of Pandemonia and all Hells—which meant he would transform from one of the most physically faultless males in the worlds into his own most monstrous state.

Sian offered his flask. “Brew?” The favored libation of demons.

Rune found the taste harsh, but as a lad, he’d drunk it just to have more in common with demons. The habit had stuck. From his pocket, he retrieved his own flask.

He raised it and took a generous swig. “What are you doing here?” Would Sian scent Josephine on him? How would Rune explain that he smelled of only
one
female? “You could have contacted me.” His wrist tattoo was dark. “Now is not a good time.”

“You must have a thousand nymphs in need.”

Rune corrected him: “A thousand and one.”
Soon.
He’d gone two nights without release, holding vigil for a female who didn’t want him. Two nights abstaining!
That
was why he was conflicted. Rune wasn’t the only one. “You look like hell, demon.”

“Soon to be literally,” Sian said in a bitter tone. “I’m now the king of it and must fit the part.”

Rune had nothing but sympathy for Sian. He loathed change, had been altered so many times during his life, he refused to be ever again. “How long do you have?”

Sian didn’t respond to that, his focus on a racy scene below—a demoness with three males inside her. “Gods, I will miss the attentions of desirable females. They flock to me now. Anon, they will gaze upon me with horror.”

There was only one cure for a demon like him, and it was so implausible, Rune had little hope for his friend. “Will you resemble Goürlav?” Sian’s twin had been a giant with green skin and slitted yellow eyes, considered repulsive by most.

Curt shake of his head. “Already I sense different changes. I’ll be my own brand of monster.” He drank again. “I asked around about my brother, couldn’t understand why he would enter a contest for a kingdom. He already had the demonarchy of Pandemonia.”

The source world of all demons. “Then why’d he do it?”

“Also up for grabs was a queen, a sorceress who’d volunteered to be won.” Sian met Rune’s gaze. “Don’t you see? He craved a willing wife and could see no other way to get one.” Sian took a long swig from his flask, then stared down at it. “The spectators of that contest considered him a monster, when all he wanted was a companion. Soon, I’ll be the one who’s hideous and yearning. How amused
she
would be about this.”

“The fey girl? With different colored eyes.”

Sian glanced up. “We have so few mysteries among all of us.”

“Was she your mate?”

“I never attempted her, so I can’t know for certain,” he answered. “But I had a strong sense she was mine.”

“You once said she was treacherous.”

“As duplicitous as she was lovely.” Sian rubbed his head, a gesture he often did—a telling one. A full-blood hell demon like him should sport sleek black horns, but his had been shorn when he was too young to regenerate them. Even after so long, he felt their absence. Like phantom limbs.

A predatory and defensive feature, horns were also sexual organs, sensitive to the touch. Amputation would be a nightmare.

“I would give anything for vengeance.” Sian turned up his flask, draining it, then swiped his sleeve over his mouth. “Let’s think not on the past. I’ve come to call you to battle.”

Even better than a covey visit! “Against?”

“The Ice Demonarchy. They’ve been making sacrifices to old deities, attempting to wake them.”

Idiots. They had no idea what they were doing. The Møriør ran into this sometimes, were old enough to have personally encountered most of those gods before they’d slept. The ice demons played with powers more evil than the Møriør could dream of being.

Was Nïx steering that faction as part of her Vertas army? If so, she was steering them straight into an apocalypse. Yet she would blame the Møriør and Orion?

Few knew a fundamental truth about the Møriør: The Bringers of Doom didn’t
cause
the apocalypse; they
heralded
it.

Sian pocketed his empty flask and stood. “I traveled to that realm ages ago. I know our meeting place.”

“Then let’s be off.” Rune grabbed one of his brawny shoulders, and the King of Hells transported them to the frozen reaches of the ice demons, landing atop a snow-covered shelf.

Chill winds gusted. A waxing moon illuminated lines of warriors below them, stretching all the way to the horizon.

Darach, Blace, and Allixta were already on the ledge, along with the witch’s familiar. Curses’ whiskers were frozen white.

Darach appeared on the verge of turning, his eyes as blue as the glaciers all around them.

Blace looked as impassive as ever. One would never know he prepared to enter the fray.

Rune glanced from Blace to Darach. Had either coveted a female to distraction? Wondered if she might be his mate?

Had either been used by someone he’d desired?

“Oh, it’s the baneblood,” Allixta said as she fought to keep her hat on against the winds. “The assassin who can’t take out a single Val . . .” She trailed off when Rune rested an arrow against his lips, eyes narrowed with threat.

Silence, witch, or die this night.
He might be crazed enough to do it.

Though her palms glowed with defensive magicks, she turned away from his challenge. Smart girl.

Blace told them, “We don’t know who’s listening in these rocky crags. Speak silently.” They often communicated telepathically in the presence of others.
—The Valkyrie has eluded you, Rune?—

—For only so long, vampire. I have this well in hand.—

Blace raised a brow. —
Then why are you in such turmoil?—

Did the vampire recognize that so well in others because he rarely felt it?

—If I am, it’ll be short lived.—
Rune would celebrate this victory with an entire covey of nymphs.

Blace drew his sword, then turned to Sian.
—You don’t have any hesitation about killing your own kind?—
Was the vampire getting soft in his old age?

Sian readied his war ax.
—The
Møriør
are my own kind.—

Exactly Rune’s thoughts! Sian knew where his loyalty lay. Why had Rune allowed Josephine to live after she’d taken his blood?

Because she makes me weak.
He’d risked his standing among the Møriør for a female who didn’t even want him.

His alliance meant everything. Rune focused his gaze at the battalions of demon warriors below. Every one of those males was bent on defeating Rune’s brethren. On stealing victory from their grasp.

Stealing the triumph I’ve enjoyed since joining the Møriør.

Allixta asked,
—This army was given a chance to surrender?—

—We
always
give them that chance.—
Sian twirled his ax.
—Let’s get this over with.—

Rune nodded.
—Good warring, Møriør.—
As he awaited Blace, Darach, and Sian’s charge, Rune’s thoughts turned to a memory from long ago.

He’d been target practicing in Perdishian’s training yard, growing more and more frustrated. In the distance, Kolossós, one of the first to join Orion, had been having some fit or another, so the ground—and Rune’s target—had quaked.

Orion had appeared beside Rune. “How fares this, archer?”

“I don’t understand why I can’t take up a sword and leave this bow to another.” He’d pointed an arrow at Blace, sparring with Sian. “The vampire is teaching me.”

If Rune mastered swordplay, then he could fight his half brother Saetthan on equal footing. Saetthan carried the sword of their ancestors, a weapon passed down through generations. The ancient metal had been forged in the fires of a world being born: Titania, the second of the three great fey realms.

Saetthan was rightly proud of that weapon. But then, he’d always enjoyed lording over Rune anything he’d inherited as the legitimate Sylvan heir.

Orion had said, “Could you match Blace’s talents? Become our swordsman?”

Rune showed promise. But he could never be better than Blace.

Just then Uthyr had soared overhead, unleashing a stream of fire. The gigantic dragon had flown into the flames, warming and cleaning his scales. Yet another fantastically powerful Møriør.

Orion had gazed up with his fathomless eyes, musing, “Why not take up fire breathing?”

Rune had scowled. Already he’d felt as if he didn’t belong here. Blace was the oldest vampire, filled with the wisdom of ages. Sian was the prince of hells, son to the first demon, and a second generation Møriør after his sire had died.

Rune? A killer from the shadows and a whore.

“Just as the Møriør are limbs of one entity, that bow must become a part of you.” Strolling on, Orion had said, “Remove the leathers from your hands.”

His archery guards? Rune had called, “My fingertips will be shredded.”

Without turning back, Orion had spoken into his mind.
—Did you think to become the Archer without pain?—

Rune roused from his memory when Sian gave his fearsome roar.

Battle on.

Sian and Blace began tearing through that army’s ranks with little resistance. Rune loosed strategic arrows to cover the two, though they had no need of help. From the icy forest beyond, Darach howled, fresh on the trail of something.