Page 2

Chapter 2

M ari tried to surge to her feet, but Dohal easily held her next to him with a hand on her hip. “Let me go. We can’t just leave him alone if that’s what’s happening right now.”

“It is a decision he must make on his own, bavi.” He lowered his voice. “Enough choices have been taken from him already. This one can only be his.”

That brought her to stillness with a start. Tears welled in her eyes. “It just seems horribly unfair that he’s alone.”

“He knows I am here. And I do not intend to leave until he has made his choice.”

“And if he decides not to live?”

“I will see that his end is painless.” There was a note of such profound sadness in his voice that she clutched him tighter.

She had to try three times before she managed to ask what was on her mind with a shaking voice, “When did you decide to live?”

“The day you called for my help against the incubus.” He drew in a deep breath and sighed. “The first time I saw you in the flesh and knew that you were real and not some fevered hallucination that I had invented in my prison of isolation and anguish.”

With a sob, she pressed her face into him. How close had she come to never knowing him at all? Her heart ached for him. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Of course you did not.” A soothing sound something like a purr rumbled through her. “And I would never have told you if not for this, because the knowledge that you hold my life in your hands is not something you should be burdened with.”

“Oh…no…” She lost all semblance of control over herself and ugly cried into his chest, because she understood exactly what he wasn’t saying.

Then he dropped his head and confirmed her fears in a soft murmur that cut her right to her soul, “I will not outlive you for long, little rabbit.”

Her life would be so perilously short compared to his, at best measured in decades rather than eons. He’d only just tasted freedom, and now it would be ripped away from him much too soon because she was the thing that had given him a reason to live. The weight of that unfairness crushed her.

She wailed as her magic wrapped around him, desperate for him to take the words back, even while she knew he would not. There had to be something she could do. There had to be .

The door across from them opened. Luis stood there, emaciated and exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. He spoke in a language she couldn’t understand, a strange combination of whispers and growls.

Dohal answered in the same tongue, and they stared at each other for a long while.

“You are the angel who came to me in the darkness,” Luis said finally in English.

It took a moment to realize that now he was talking to her, and she raised her head, eyes bleary. “I healed you, yes.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Mari blinked at him. “You were in pain, and I wanted to help.”

Luis shook his head. “I mean you shouldn’t have been able to. Those wounds were mortal, inflicted by the only thing that could harm me on this realm. That was how they kept me bound.”

Dohal said something in that other language they shared. A light of understanding lit Luis’s face. He crossed the hallway to them slowly and painfully and then dropped to his knees in front of Mari.

The goddess rushed forward, taking over her hands to cup his face. Her magic poured into him, pulled from somewhere Mari couldn’t fathom. He looked better by the second, strength returning to his body and color returning to his skin.

Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I thought you were gone,” Luis whispered reverently. He buried his face in her lap as sobs shook his shoulders.

Distantly, Mari realized she could understand him now, though he wasn’t speaking in English anymore, but in that other language that felt ancient.

“I survived,” the goddess said with her voice, the shape of the words feeling strange on her tongue. She stroked a careful hand over Luis’s head. “Thanks to you. I was passed down through the generations until I was awakened in this one by the ignorance of an incubus and his schemes to outlive his destiny.”

Mari had so many questions. Was it her mother or her father that had sheltered the goddess? Who and what exactly was her father? How had she been awakened? What were her intentions now? But if the goddess could hear her, she wasn’t inclined to answer.

“Have you made your choice, darling?” the goddess murmured to Luis, fingers carding through his black hair.

He looked up at her, his dark eyes alive for the first time. “My life has always been yours to command.”

She tsked gently. “I would not order you to live. I am not as vain as that. The choice must be yours.”

He clutched the fabric of her robe as he gazed up into her face, his expression passing from consideration to decision in a few moments. “The scars I bear are not enough to keep me from your side.”

The goddess smiled. Her hands glowed with golden magic that Mari couldn’t feel at all—something far beyond her. The last of the fatigue and injury seemed to melt away from Luis. She smoothed her thumbs over his sharp cheekbones. “You are as restored as I can make you. The rest is up to him.” She turned her head to regard Dohal.

He smiled with a slow curling of his lips. “Of course.” He stood and pulled Luis to his feet, towering over him, but in a way that spoke of comradery rather than intimidation. “What they stole from you can never be replaced. But the strength it took for you to withstand it, that is yours, and no one can ever take it from you.”

Dohal pulled him into a hug. The marks that had been etched into his skin shone red, glowing from within rather than seared into him. It was haunting and beautiful. His magic churned through the hallway, wrapping both Luis and Mari in warmth. The goddess drifted back to wherever she slept, handing control back to Mari with what felt like satisfaction and understanding.

Mari watched as Dohal and Luis disappeared into Luis’s room a short while later, talking quietly in that language that Mari once again no longer understood. Dohal smiled at her as he closed the door. Whatever Luis had to share was only for the ears of someone who might understand the pain he had endured. Moments later, the room was wrapped in a soundproof shield that no creature in the house had a prayer of getting through.

She pulled her feet up onto the bench under her and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall. Taking a deep breath, she reached out for the wards with her magic. It was much easier now that her power had been restored closer to its normal levels. She realized that she had been wrong before, the wards were not the same.

The echoes of Dohal’s magic spiderwebbed through the structure, shining and distinct. That's what had brought Pricilla here to the hall, no doubt, tracing those lines back to him. The wards had been intended to siphon magic to him, feeding him so that his inherent ability could protect the city and those within it. Freeing him from the cell he’d been imprisoned in had shattered those ties. She had felt them rip away, but he had found a way to forge new ones somehow. She had no idea what that meant.

Someone cleared their throat nearby, and she opened her eyes. Somehow Rio had moved down the hallway without a sound carrying a tray overflowing with food.

“I was going to check in on Tristan. Kima said she put them in the suite at the end of the hall so he would be near Greta, but they haven’t come out for any food today.”

Hellhounds had voracious appetites, and if they hadn’t even come out for food, something might well be wrong. Mari pushed to her feet. “I’ll come with.”

“You found Dohal?” he asked, as they walked down the hall together. He carried the heavily laden tray with no trouble.

“Yeah, he’s in with Luis. How did you know?”

He offered her an easy smile when she shot him a quizzical look. “I can smell him on you.”

“He’s a dragon, I guess.”

His eyebrows rose. “Wow. I guess that’s why he smells like a campfire.”

“Does he?”

“He does to me.” They arrived at the door at the end of the hall and Mari knocked.

The man that answered the door was tall and broad, his skin a warm mahogany tone. Only one of the twins had a tightly trimmed goatee—Clarion.

“Clar,” Rio said with a nod of greeting. “How is he?”

“He hasn’t woken up yet. We’re taking turns lying with him.” He looked over the tray of food and a ravenous look came over his face, followed quickly by indecision.

“I can check up on him if you like,” Mari offered. “Healing-wise, I mean.”

After a few more seconds of consideration, he stepped back, opening the door. The suite within was lavishly appointed in the blue and gold color scheme her father had so favored, with ornate furnishings and expensive works of art. She tried to block that out as she entered. Rio set the tray down on a low table.

Clarion led her to the bedroom and opened the door silently. Inside, it was very dim. Halcyon laid on the bed facing the other occupant, who Mari had only seen briefly the night before—the phoenix who had been Rio’s best friend, Tristan.

Tristan was blond and lovely even in his repose, with strong features and the physique of a fighter. Halcyon rested with one hand over Tristan’s heart and his face tucked into Tristan’s shoulder.

Mari crossed the room slowly, while Rio waited at the door. Clarion shadowed her as she approached, clearly not trusting her. She sat lightly on the opposite side of the bed from where Halcyon lay. His eyes glowed menacingly red as he watched her every movement for any threat to his mate.

She knew a little about how mated hellhounds behaved—viciously protective and loyal. But she had to keep in mind that these two had had their mating instincts thwarted for months. Just another facet of the casual cruelty that Vincent had doled out before she had ended him.

She reached for Tristan’s hand slowly, pausing when a tickle of a growl emanated from Halcyon, and only continuing when he quieted again. He was warm to the touch, but not in a way that spoke of infection. It was probably just his nature as a phoenix to run a little hot. She let her magic move gently through him, trying not to disturb him.

“He doesn’t have any wounds that I can feel, and he’s not in any pain.” She didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, or that there was any toxin remaining in his body. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have said he was just asleep.

“He feels empty,” Halcyon said, his voice rough.

She glanced toward Clarion for an explanation.

“We should be able to feel something from him because of the mating bond, but there’s nothing.”

“Well, chances are the bond never had a chance to form properly,” Rio said from the doorway. “You weren’t allowed to touch him, right?”

Clarion nodded. “Vincent kept him locked away from us. He was dangled like a treat. We were only able to even see him when we did something worth rewarding, and we were never allowed to touch him at all.”

Rio frowned in sympathy. Those months had to have been so difficult for the two of them. “So, in addition to whatever the drugging was doing to him, the bond was never properly settled.”

“I think he just needs time,” Mari said, after the silence in the room grew heavy. She looked between the hellhounds, wishing there was something more she could do. The memory of what the goddess had said to Luis lingered. “His body is healed, but his heart isn’t. Only the two of you can do that part.”

“Just keep holding him,” Rio said, as she got up and crossed the room to him. “And eat something. I’ll come back to pick up the tray in a bit.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and walked her out of the suite.