Page 1 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

CHAPTER ONE

A METALLICclick roused Pitch from the depths of heavy slumber. He fought back a dart of panic, one that always came with waking in a room shrouded in rich shadows.

He blinked into the quiet dark, his thoughts racing against a rush of fear. This wasnotthe asylum. They had escaped the Fulbourn.

Nor was this Arcadia. He hadnotreturned to the blackness of the abaddon.

He was safe, for now.

Pitch lay in a stranger’s bed in a modest country house somewhere in the eastern sprawl of the British Isles. The home belonged to an acquaintance of Nancy and Ada, a gentleman who was very conveniently abroad, with no plans for a return in the foreseeable future. Old Bess had approved of the location, suitably isolated in the countryside, and set about forming it into a Sanctuary. One that would not, preferably, collapse in on them and present them with an array of horrors.

Pitch released his lip from between the clasp of teeth, relaxing a little beneath the weight of the bedcovers. It was near on a week since the debacle of the Fulbourn. Since Edward had spoken of the Holy One. Since the lieutenant, a purebred, had cast divine magick.

Pitch’s throat squeezed.

Fuck.

It was so very unlike him to be…afraid…thisafraid. But then, he’d had no reason to be so unsure of himself before. He was the spawn of a daemon king. He was Dominion. He was created to destroy the enemies of Arcadia.

But that was before he’d been handled by a Seraphim.

Breathe, gods damn it.

Breathe.

With a few measured inhales, the tightness of his muscles eased, as focusing on his breath, like Silas so often espoused, worked its gentle magick.

Pitch steered his thoughts away from the Fulbourn.

Edward was still unconscious. The man was seriously unwell, despite Sybilla’s care. The toll of the Fulbourn, and the pendant watch, had fallen hard upon him. And Pitch, rather ungraciously, relished the fact. For now, he could remain in a happy no-man’s-land between what had occurred and what was to come. A land where the turbulence of the wildness, for once, did not find him. There had been scant sign of that unbridled power since Edward’s touch in the collapsing asylum had subdued the beast, as Pitch’s flames sought to burst into uncontrollable wildfire.

The Fulbourn had been a nightmare of a place. Pitch did not understand so much of what had happened in that labyrinth. And was not sure he wished to.

Perhaps he’d experienced a madness there. Everyone else in the infernal place certainly had. Perhaps he’d not heard Seraphiel’s voice at all, nor seen the angel’s familiar intolerance in elements of Edward’s behaviour. Perhaps the lieutenant, theprophet, might never wake up and Pitch would never need to learn what the fuck all this meant.

He could just stay here and ignore Lalassu and Sanu when the Lady finally deemed it safe enough to send them. It was not as though anyone knew where to ride off to. The location of Seraphiel’s Sanctuary was known to Edward alone, and Edward was dribbling and thrashing in his sleep right now.

Pitch would stay here, quite happily.

Once he’d thinned out the number of residents, of course. This Sanctuary was far too overcrowded. Silas and his privates could stay, but Pitch would evict Nancy and Ada at once.

In the rush to secure a hiding place, and Silas stubborn in regard to the security of Tilly and her mothers after their involvement in the Fulbourn, Old Bess and Mr Ahari had agreed they were safest here in the immediate aftermath. But a week later, they were still damned here.

Pitch was driven to distraction by Tilly and her obsession with bringing him trinkets. He’d stepped on more piles of rubbish than he cared to count. And with the Fulbourn having left him bone-weary and unable to sleep a full night through, having his feet stabbed by Tilly’s latest assortment of found items– everything from saplings to hairbrushes– whenever he stepped from his bed or armchair was testing the limits of his barely-existent patience. Gods forbid if he left the amber earring on a dresser or tried to hide it in a drawer. Tilly had cried –cried, for crying out loud– when she’d found it down the crease of a couch cushion two days ago. A right bloody fuss that had Silas’s face bunch with concern, and seen Pitch do something ridiculous in order to stop the flow of tears. He’d pierced the earring’s pointed clasp through his right earlobe, there and then, ignoring the sting of such a penetration.

‘There. I shan’t lose it again.’ He’d glared at the snivelling child. ‘Happy?’

The smile that shone from her had made his chest feel odd.

Pitch slipped his fingers between the pillow and his ear, touching at the earring that had seen him and Silas found at the Fulbourn, when even the ankou’s hound had been fooled into believing they were not hidden in its depths.

It was six days since he’d woken upon the window seat downstairs, feeling rather the worse for wear, only to find himself perking up, in all ways, when the ankou suggested they bathe together.

Six days since Silas’s attempt at bravery in the shallow waters of a copper tub had gone horribly awry. What should have been a luxurious, well-deserved descent into debauchery began rather less outstandingly. Silas’s bone-deep fear of being submerged, even with one of his heads still above the surface and a naked daemon between his legs, had proved too much.

Pitch might have been gravely insulted that his cock didn’t provide a suitable distraction had he not known how set-fast this fear of Silas’s truly was. He knew how valiantly the ankou fought to get himself into that tub, and how utterly mortified he was when at last he had to admit defeat and clamber out in haste, his body shaking, his legs too weak to hold him as the fear, the old and burdensome fear of the water, overruled all else. It left him an apologetic, near-to-tears mess upon the pale yellow Savonnerie carpet.

Pitch sighed into his feather-stuffed pillow. He had not trusted himself to find the right words to soothe. So instead he did what he knew himself best at, and the blow job he bestowed upon Silas had replaced one type of trembling for another.