I surfaced, lying on my side against chill, slick marble. Warm sunlight striped my cheek. I’d been out a long time.
Hot iron bands clamped around my shoulders, lifted me. “Dante.” Japhrimel’s voice, ragged and rough as it had only been once or twice before. “Are you hurt? Dante?”
I made a shapeless sound, limp in his hands. My head lolled. Power flooded me, roaring through my veins like wine, flushing my fingers with heat and chasing away the awful, sluggish cold. I cried out, my hand coming up reflexively. Steel fell chiming as Japhrimel twisted my wrist. He was so much stronger than me, I could feel the gentleness in his fingers as well. So restrained, careful not to hurt me. “Easy, hedaira. I am with you.”
“They called to me.” My teeth began to chatter. The chill of Death had worked its way up past my elbows, past my knees, turning flesh into insensate marble. How long had I been away, on the bridge between here and the well of souls? “Japhrimel?” My voice cracked, a child’s whisper instead of a woman’s.
“Who did this?” He pulled me into his arms, heat closing around me, his bare chest against mine. My back was brushed with softness—he had opened his wings and pulled me in. I shivered, my teeth chattering, more Power burned down my spine from his touch, warmth pulsing out from the mark on my shoulder. “What were you doing?” He didn’t shout—it was merely a murmur—but the furniture in the room groaned slightly as his voice stroked the air. It didn’t sound like my voice, the tone of throaty invitation. No, Japhrimel’s voice loaded itself with razorblades, the cold numbness of a sharp cut on deadened skin.
“The g-g-gods c-c-called—” My teeth eased their chattering. He was warm, scorching, and he was here. “Down for a long time. Gods. Where were you?”
He surged to his feet, carrying me. I felt the harsh material of his jeans against my hip, heard the clicking of bootheels as he carried me to the bed and sank down, cradling me. My sword rang softly, lying on the floor.
Japhrimel held me curled against him like a child, warmth soaking into my skin. “What were you thinking? What did you do?”
It had been a long time since I’d felt the cold of Death creeping up fingers and toes, sinking into my bones. “You were gone.” I couldn’t keep the petulant tone out of my voice, like a spoiled child with a hoarse, grown-up voice. “Where were you?”
“You’re cold.” He sounded thoughtful, rubbing his chin against my temple, golden skin sliding against mine, a hot trickle of delight spilling up my back. “It seems I cannot leave for even a moment without you doing yourself some mischief. Stay still.”
But I was struggling free of him. “You left me. Where were you? What did you do? Where were you?”
“Stay still.” He grabbed my wrist, but I twisted and he let me go, my skin sliding free of steel-strong fingers. I arched away, but he had my other wrist locked, an instinctive movement. It didn’t hurt me—he avoided pressing on a nerve point or locking the rest of my arm, but it effectively halted me, making me gasp. “Just for a moment, be still. I will explain.”
“I don’t want explanation,” I lied, and pushed at him with my free hand. “Let go.”
“Not until you hear me. I did not want to leave you, but a summons from Hell is not ignored. I could not put it off any longer.”
My heart thudded up under my collarbone, and I tasted copper. “What are you talking about? Let go!”
“If you do not listen I will make you listen. We have no time for games, hedaira, though I would gladly play any game you could devise. But the Prince has called.”
The words didn’t mean anything for the first few seconds, like all truly terrible news. Most of the fight went out of me. I slumped, and Japhrimel’s arm tightened. He released the wristlock and I shook my hand out, my head coming to rest on his shoulder. He pulled me closer, his wings brushing softly against my shoulder and calf. It was incredibly intimate. I knew enough, now, to know that a winged demon—those of the Greater Flight that had wings, at least—did not suffer those wings to be touched, or open them for anything other than flight or mating.
Lucky me. Lucky, lucky me. Dear gods, did he just say what I think he said?
“Do you hear me?” he whispered into my hair. “The Prince has called, hedaira.”
I have been unable to contact him in the usual manner. Lucifer’s voice purred through my head. That had been during the hunt for Kellerman Lourdes and Mirovitch, the Prince of Hell sticking his elegant nose into my life again. In the mad scramble of events afterwards, I’d forgotten all about it. Psychic rape and the death of one of your closest friends can do that to you.
Japhrimel was telling me that life was about to get very interesting again. I raised my head, hair falling in my eyes, and looked at him.
His mouth was a tight line, shadows of strain around his dark eyes, a terrible sheen of something that could be sadness laid over the human depths I thought I knew.
My hands shook. It had taken a long time for me to stop seeing Mirovitch’s jowly face printed against the inside of my eyelids, a long time before the aftermath of facing down my childhood demons of Rigger Hall faded to a nightmare echo.
It still wasn’t finished. My entire body chilled, remembering the ka’s ectoplasm shoving its way down my throat and up my nose, in my ears, trying to shred through the material of my jeans while Mirovitch’s spectral fingers squirmed like maggots inside my brain, raping my memories. The only thing that saved me was my stubborn refusal to give in, my determination to strike back and end the terror for everyone else.
That, and the Fallen demon who held me, who had stopped the ka from killing me. Who had searched until he found me, and burned my childhood nightmares to the ground simply because I asked.
I looked at Japhrimel. The morning sunlight didn’t reach the bed, but reflected golden light was kind to his high balanced cheekbones and thin mouth. A terrible, paranoid thought surfaced, and I opened my big mouth. “You’re leaving me?” I whispered. “I… I thought—”
His eyes sparked green. “You know I would not leave you.”
It was too late. I’d already said it, already thought it. “If the Prince of Hell told you to, you might,” I shot back, struggling free of his arms, my feet smacking the floor. He let me go. I scooped up the fallen scabbard and made it to my sword, steel innocent and shining in the rectangle of sunlight from the window. Scooped up my blade and slid it home, seating it with a click. “What is it this time? He wants you back, you just go running like a good little demon, is that it? What does he want?”
My shoulder flared, a tugging against the mark branded into my flesh. I ignored it.
“You misunderstand, my curious.” Japhrimel’s voice was terribly, ironically flat. “The one the Prince seeks audience with is you.”