Eternal Demon: Mark of the Vampire (12 page)

The young demon licked her lips, looking as though she wanted to cry. “Our father has taken them home.”

“My
balas
is in the Underworld?” Erion raged, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Yes,” Levia uttered on a cry.

Hellen faced him, blocked her sister from his snarl. “What is this thing you deem so valuable?” she demanded. “This . . .
balas
?”

“A child,” Levia answered.

Hellen gasped.
No. Gods, no
. It wasn’t possible.
Why would Cruen take a—?
Her eyes snapped up to lock with Erion’s.

“The
balas
is . . .” she began.

“My child,” he told her.

Wave upon wave of despair rushed at her from his gaze, and for the first time since they’d met, Hellen saw what he had been masking all along under the guise of anger, lust, fear, and frustration.

The crippling pain of a missing child.

“Y
ou hav
e a child?”

Erion’s jaw was so tight, his teeth pressed so firmly together, that no words, no answer to the female’s query, would pass through his lips. He’d never felt such epic rage, and the control he’d been relatively adept at wielding over the past several years had all but dissolved.

Still blocking her sister from his verbal wrath, Hellen looked at him as though she’d never truly seen him before. This demon female who had manipulated him, lied to him, now seemed to hold pity within her gaze.

He didn’t want it.

The only thing he wanted was answers.

“That was the boy you and the servant spoke of,” she said, her green eyes thoughtful, intelligent, as she mentally reviewed the past several days.

“Yes,” he ground out, moving toward her.

She inched back, pushing her sister with her toward the door. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He laughed softly, scenting fear in the room. “So you could feign your concern?”

“No.” She shook her head with emphatic denial. “I wouldn’t have pretended anything if I’d known a child’s life was involved.”

He stopped a few feet away, his nostrils flaring. “How magnanimous. It is good to know you have a moral code for some things.”

She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t pretend you are some pious renegade, Erion,” she said with venom. “You also took an innocent who didn’t belong to you.”

“I did what I had to do to bring the
balas
home.”

“We all did what we felt we had to do,” she said. “Whatever it took to bring about our goals, be it a child back to his father, freedom to be with the male of our choosing . . .” She raised one auburn brow. “But choices have consequences; good, bad, regret, pleasure. In that, we are all the same.”

Erion’s lip curled. He hated the rationality of her words. Fine. Agreed. He was no better than any of them.

But Ladd—he was better than all of them.

As she sensed his mood changing, his ire shifting into something thoughtful, Hellen’s eyes softened and she asked, “Why did Cruen take him?”

He hesitated telling her. She may have looked genuinely concerned, but as he’d come to know, her expressions could not be trusted. He decided to skim the surface only. “He wanted a trade as well. Something I refused to give him.”

“What?”

Erion shook his head. It was all she needed to know, all that was safe to offer her. “We waste time with questions. How do I get to this Underworld?”

“You don’t.”

He lowered his head and growled at her.

Her sister whimpered beside the door, and behind him, Raine’s breathing quickened. But Erion didn’t care. No matter what Hellen had said, what truth lay bare in her words, all the wrong he’d done to get to the right, he would have his boy returned.

And then the female did something most unexpected, something that made Erion’s entire being jolt with electricity: she reached out and took his hand.

Startled, he glared down at her pale fingers wrapping around his large hand, the thumb unable to reach its four other digits.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“You can’t get into the Underworld,” she said. “Not without an escort.”

“Oh, Hellen, no!” the sister shrieked.

“This isn’t wise,” Raine offered behind them, his tone thick with fear.

Erion locked on to the strong, level gaze of the female he knew he couldn’t trust—but wanted to so desperately, he ached with it.

“What are you saying, demon girl?” he said, his tone a soft, deadly thread.

She ran her thumb over the top of his hand and offered him a weak smile. “I will take you into Hell, Erion.”

•   •   •

Synjon shoved the male who got in his way and continued down the street. He heard the human bark out an irritated response, and grinned.
Yes, come after me, you wee shite bastard. Try to get an apology out of me, maybe teach me some manners.

I have a terrible thirst.

“I can hear you.”

Grinning, Synjon flashed another passerby his fangs.

“What the hell are you doing, Syn?” Alexander said with irritation as they moved down East 27th Street. “You’re drawing attention to yourself.”

“Do I look as if I care, mate?” he ground out.

“If you wish to provoke a fight tonight, I will return to my home and my mate, mate.”

“Go on, then,” Synjon replied, growling at a particularly lovely human female who winked at him as she passed. “I’ll follow that female back to her apartment, and you can spend the evening looking for your bullocks. No doubt your Impure mate has hidden them from you.”

With a foul snarl, Alexander jerked out in front of Syn, blocking his way. “You tempt me,
paven
. But I won’t use my fists street side. I’ll haul your needling ass into one of those alleys, drop you into a puddle of fresh piss, and teach you what happens when you speak of my mate.”

Synjon hit him with a look of mock confusion. “Is this show of brawn for your female or for your balls, then?”

As the city moved around them, neon and sirens and conflicting scents, the pair remained locked in a battle of wills. Alexander looked ready to attack, nearly did before he was distracted by the squeal of a human child crossing the street with his mother.

He backed up a foot, shaking his head slowly, warily at Syn. “You’ve changed.”

“Have I?”

“You were always a bit of an arrogant asshole like Luca, but now . . . you’ve turned into something far worse.”

“An honorary Roman brother?”

“A bully.”

Synjon’s gaze didn’t falter, and his ire didn’t pique. His insides were coated with ice and steel. Precious little managed to get through. “You know,” he began, “I think this visit to your contact’s club might be a wasted effort. Perhaps I am going about finding Cruen the wrong way.”

“What does that mean?”

Synjon watched Alexander, watched a muscle below his eye and just above his facial brands twitch.

“The
paven
is smart,” Syn said, his tone even, deadly calm. “When he wants something or someone, he builds a trap for it. Like with the
balas
, Ladd. He took something you all love.”

Another twitch.

What is this?
Synjon’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps we should be looking for the one thing that Cruen loves.”

“That
paven
is incapable of love,” Alexander said with a shrug. “Forget it.”

Synjon narrowed his eyes. “Why do I feel as though you aren’t really trying to help me, Alex?”

The Roman brother shrugged again, his face a cool, composed mask now. “Trust issues, apparently.”

“And why would that be?”

Alexander sniffed, then spoke inside the male’s head.
“Oh, Synjon Wise. You have no idea how much I’m trying to help you
.
”

Then he turned and continued down the street.

•   •   •

Hellen weaved in and around the headstones, her hand still clasping Erion’s, with Levia making her way on the left. Hellen didn’t know if this was going to end well, if all that she had worked for, sacrificed for, would come to pass now that she was taking this intruder into her father’s territory. But she did know it was the right thing. There was a child in the Underworld, held by her father—who, incidentally, didn’t possess an ounce of either sympathy or empathy—and before anything else was ironed out, she would make certain he was released.

Erion’s child.

She still couldn’t believe it. Not that he had given life, but that he had gone so far to preserve it and bring it home.

She felt a pull in her chest. It was hard to understand unselfish acts such as that. After all, Abbadon’s care for her return wasn’t out of love but out of greed for furthering his domination on the world, on its population.

“We have been here once before,” Erion remarked as they stopped before the familiar headstone. He turned to look at her. “You were about to step into fire.”

Hellen nodded. “The flame is a portal.”

“Our gateway to Hell,” he said.

“He saw the flame?” Levia exclaimed, her voice rising above the whisper she’d held on to since the furnishings shop.

Hellen answered them both, her gaze returning to the headstone that had yet to blaze with blue fire. “Only a being of demon blood can see it. It is our way home.”

“Our way into the Underworld,” Erion corrected with ill-disguised menace.

Hellen didn’t bristle at his ferocity. She merely shrugged and stated simply, “No matter what comes from there, what comes out of there, what is done there, it is my home.”

Erion fell silent for a moment; then she heard him release a weighty breath.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

She turned and looked up into his extraordinary face. “Helping you?”

He nodded, his eyes searching hers almost violently.

She bit her lip, then swiped her tongue over the indentation.
The boy,
she wanted to say.
I want to help you find your son.
But the truth felt far too intimate, too rife with a passion she didn’t understand or want to claim, to utter aloud.

“It will help us both,” she said at last. “You want to get to the boy, and I must get home, get to . . .”

“Cruen,” he finished for her. Nostrils flared, lips thinned, he lifted his head and looked around the place of death, of long-term rest. “I still have a difficult time believing that you love that male.”

“I don’t love him.”

Hellen flinched at the words that had slipped from her mouth unbidden.
Fool
.
Stupid fool
. What was wrong with her that her normally impenetrable common sense continued to lapse? She saw that Levia was staring at her, gaping—Erion too, but his eyes were filled with confusion.

“It is a bond between families,” she explained quickly. “Between powers.”

“You do not love him?” Erion said.

“No, but—”

“You do not want him?” he pressed, his confusion fading into something far more worrisome.

Was that satisfaction she noted in his diamond eyes?

Before anything more could be said or questioned, a burst of blue fire erupted from the ground a few feet away. It rose high into the air, then settled into a gentle blaze next to the headstone. All eyes followed its heat.

“Are you ready, demon?” Hellen asked him, gripping his hand tightly.

He nodded at her.

“I cannot detect it within him,” Levia said, her gaze running over his face. “He is a demon? Living aboveground? Really and truly, sister?”

“Let us hope so,” she replied. “Otherwise he’ll burn up like a rogue the moment we step into the portal.”

Hellen grabbed for Levia’s hand too, and all three of them jumped into the fire.

E
rion hadn’t bu
rned.

In fact, for ten seconds he wondered if he’d been sent home to his castle in France, and more specifically to the dungeon. The room he was in looked exactly like the one he had kept Hellen in. Circular stone walls, a small window beyond the staircase, and he was certain that if he turned around he would see doors leading into three dank, dusty rooms.

He ventured to move, to turn, but he was virtually immobile, held to the stone wall at his back by the very shackles he’d used on the demon female.

It was his dungeon—and yet it was not. His nostrils spread and he inhaled deeply. Empty, fragranceless air.

“Comfortable, I hope.”

No, he was definitely not at home. This was the Underworld, and the thing that had just materialized in the room and was floating toward him with commanding purpose was something out of a nightmare. Over ten feet tall with scaly, thin skin the color of blood and eyes the color of snow, Hellen’s father came to stand within a foot of him. He was a terrifying creature, a true devil demon, and as much as Erion wanted to attack and kill him, there was another part of him that pinged to life. For in some bizarre and unholy way, he belonged to this creature.

“I am Abbadon,” the male said, his voice nearly painful on the ears, like steel grinding against steel. “Ruler of the Underworld.”

“So the Devil has a name?” Erion said calmly, covertly pressing against his bindings, testing them. They were impenetrable.

“And you are Erion.” Abbadon looked him over, inspected him. “So this is what we get when we put vampire and demon together.”

“No. This is what we get.” Erion opened his mouth, flashed his razor-sharp fangs.

The demon’s lip curled. “I don’t like it.”

“Good. Then release me.” Erion refused to feel fear, trepidation, or curiosity about the one who had given life to all demons. It was too much power to grant this asshole.

Abbadon moved closer, his neck working from side to side like a snake, as he studied Erion. “Show me your demon, Male.”

“Show me the
balas
,” Erion returned.

The male laughed. “Caring for one’s offspring is not a trait of your demon side. I guarantee you.”

With such an admonition, Erion could not help but feel sorry for Hellen, having had
that
as a father. Maybe Cruen wasn’t the worst parent a child could have . . . He sniffed with disgust. Maybe he and Hellen had more in common than just the demon running through them.

“You will get nothing from me until you tell me where my
balas
is,” Erion informed him, relaxing against his bindings in a show of ease.

“Your
balas
,” Abbadon repeated with censure. “My daughters care for him. For now.” His face split into a terrible grin. “The little demon fought like a hell dog on our journey here. If I didn’t find some respect in his temper, I may have been tempted to kill him.”

All pretense of calm and ease disintegrated, and Erion roared. Oh, this bastard was begging for it, for his demon blood to spill, for it to run like rancid oil all over the stone floor.

Abbadon laughed, brushed his long, scaly fingertips across Erion’s face. “There it is. A fine beast you have. The kind of brutal strength and feral spirit I enjoy.”

“Fuck you,” Erion snarled.

The demon clucked his forked tongue. “Not me. I need a foothold on the Earth, but if that was not the case, I might be tempted to let you fuck Hellen. Alas, she has been promised to your savior.”

The Demon King’s callous, contemptible words sent a tornado of fury through Erion. He could no longer pretend to be cavalier. That the male could speak in such a way of his daughter, his blood. There was nothing Erion wanted more than to extinguish him right then and there.

“I want the boy and a one-way ticket back upstairs,” he said, his tone dripping with contempt. “Your daughter is no concern of mine.”

It took all Erion’s will to force out the words. Especially after hearing how her father spoke of her, her future. But he had to think of Ladd first. Hellen had wanted to return home—she’d wanted to return to Cruen.

The strange, scaly ridge that represented Abbadon’s brow line had lifted a fraction and he was studying Erion. “You did not think her so uninteresting when you were between her legs, Male.”

Erion stilled, his entire body ringing with the blow he’d just been dealt. Clearly, the demon knew about Erion’s dungeon and that something had happened between him and Hellen. But how? Had he sent someone to spy? Had he interviewed Erion’s staff? No . . . Neither of those theories felt plausible. He could have rescued her if he’d been inside the castle.

Another thought snaked through his mind, one that made his guts twist, made him want to spill the blood of another member of the Demon King’s family.

Hellen.

Had she told her father? Had she complained about Erion’s savage treatment? Had she bragged about what she’d done with him—what she’d gotten him to do?

Erion sniffed the odorless air. His ire at the idea was only quashed by the fair play reasoning in it. He had stolen an innocent too. Hellen. Could he truly blame her for running home to Daddy and telling him everything? Even if the father in question cared so little for her?

Abbadon was studying him again, an ugly grin playing about his lips. “Yes, I know it all.” His grin widened, showing off his thin, pinprick teeth. “Be glad you didn’t take her virginity, demon beast. I would have most happily killed the boy . . . after he had watched you die first, of course.”

Erion pushed back the horror in that threat. He wouldn’t think of Ladd as anything but alive and well. “What do you want?” he asked in a deadly voice.

All humor melted from Abbadon’s expression. “You took something that didn’t belong to you.”

“As did you,” Erion reminded him. “As did Cruen.”

“Cruen has received punishment.”

What did that mean?
Erion wondered. Was Cruen dead? Was that part of his nightmare over?

“And you?” Erion said, his gaze locking with the Devil. “What punishment have you been given?”

Abbadon hissed, a sound that resembled a dozen snakes attacking their prey. “An asinine query. Who would dare to punish me?”

“Release me, and I would be more than happy to show you,” Erion returned with a thick strain of his own venom.

“Oh, I will release you. Just in time for the festivities.”

“No, thanks.”

Abbadon’s voice lowered. “You will be my guest of honor at the celebration, demon beast, or you will be leaving Hell with a bag of bones over your shoulder.” He eased back from Erion, his nostrils flaring with delight. “A child’s bones, licked clean.”

With a guttural battle cry, Erion dove at him, but didn’t get far. “You touch that
balas
, and I will never let you rest for as long as you live.”

“I would look forward to seeing you try.” He raked Erion with his gaze. “I will need to praise Cruen on his creation. Perhaps you
are
a worthy sample of our worlds’ fusing.”

Erion wasn’t interested in bullshit compliments. “When can I see the boy?”

“Tomorrow eve you will be my honored guest,” Abbadon said, ignoring the query. “To witness my creation: the first child of hell conceived.”

“The only child I care about is my own.”

“And you will see him.” Abbadon smiled. “After that glorious event.”

“Can’t wait,” Erion said through gritted teeth.

Abbadon turned to go, though he continued to speak. “Have you no curiosity as to who will be joined together before you, both in union and in body?”

“No.” Erion sounded bored. Live sex held no interest for him, but he’d watch, wait. He wanted the boy out without a scratch on him. He wanted to take him home. Wanted him away from this kind of evil, a mad demon who would sell his daughter off to—

Erion’s head came up and his fangs descended.

Fuck, no.

No!

Abbadon turned, caught the look on Erion’s face, and laughed. “It is a good thing you don’t care for my daughter, or this would be a true punishment indeed.”

With that, the Demon King evaporated, leaving behind the only scent Erion had caught since he’d been in the Underworld. It was a scent he felt a kinship toward, a scent he would pull into his nostrils, his lungs, and get drunk on.

Misery.

To get Ladd back he would have to witness Hellen not only being bound to Cruen, but having sex with him.

His eyes closed, and he pulled that misery into his lungs to fill himself completely.

There was nothing for it but to accept fate. He would watch. He would endure anything to get to Ladd. He was a good father.

•   •   •

“Alexander Roman. What are you doing here?”

Alex granted his friend and the mother of his true mate a sharp smile as he ascended the porch steps of her cottage.

Celestine Donohue no longer lived in her quaint house in Minnesota. After her run-in with the Order over her son Gray’s mating with the
mutore
, Dillon, Cellie had moved into a secure house in the Impure
credenti
. There weren’t many who knew of her change of address, and she wished to keep it that way.

“Is it Sara?” she asked, pushing forward in her chair. “The
balas
? Are they all right?”

“Sara’s fine,” Alexander assured her. He dropped into a chair beside her. “Her
swell
is progressing perfectly.”

Relief colored her pale cheeks. “Thank goodness. She is coming to see me at the end of the week. When I saw you, I—”

“Cellie.”

“What?”

“We need to talk.”

“Something
has
happened. Did they find the boy? Ladd?”

“No. Not yet.” His eyes connected with hers and held. “Cruen still holds him.”

The quick flicker of fear would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know her as Alex did. After all, they had run from their
credenti
together long ago. She had cared for him, mothered him, and he had protected her. As he wanted to do now.

“Then what is it?” she said, concern holding her expression now.

“I never wanted to speak of this again,” he said, knowing his tone bordered on disgust. “I wanted to forget what I knew, what I saw. What I believed. But that’s become impossible.”

Her face had turned ashen. “Alexander . . . please don’t . . .”

“The painting Lucian and I saw at Cruen’s hideout—”

“You told Sara and Gray.”

“No. As I said, I never wanted to have to say anything.”

“Then don’t.” Her eyes implored him. “My children and I are in such a good place. They know about their pasts now. They don’t need any more grand waves knocking them down.”

It had been only a week or so ago when he’d listened to Celestine reveal her past to Sara and Gray, and tell them about their father, Jeremy, and his work leading the Impure Resistance and how he’d returned home a changed man. She’d told them how she and Jeremy had kept them hidden from the Order by feeding them blood. That they’d done all of this to keep them safe.

It had been nearly the entire truth.

“Alex, please,” she begged, taking his hands in hers. “That was a mistake, a few nights of foolishness in that mad
paven
’s bed.” She shook her head, her voice cracking as she continued. “It was over so long ago it matters not. There is no reason they need to know about a mistake that doesn’t affect them—that has nothing to do with them.”

“Even if it granted them a sibling?”

She closed her eyes, let her head drop to her chest. “There is no sibling.”

“I saw the picture of you in
swell
over the
paven
’s mantelpiece, Cellie.”

“Oh, gods, Alex. This is so cruel.” Her voice broke. “She didn’t live. The
balas
didn’t live.”

“How do you know?”

Her eyes, heavy with tears, lifted to him. “How do I know? Why do you torment me with something so painful? It is unnecessary.”

She reminded him so much of Sara in that moment. “I’m sorry, Cellie, but I don’t think it is.”

“Alex, the
balas
I gave birth to never even took a breath.” Her own breath hitched.

He hated to press on—shit, he hated the whole vile subject—but it couldn’t be helped anymore.

“After you gave birth, did you see the
balas
at every moment?”

She dropped his hands, and before his eyes, Celestine Donohue broke. Tears streamed down her face and she began to shake. She gripped the porch railing with one hand and pointed her index finger accusingly with the other. “Why . . . why would you torment me in this way?” She moaned softly. “I have only ever wanted to forget that day—that hellish day when I had to say good-bye . . .”

Her words, her pain, were like nails being driven into his skin, one tear after the next. But Alexander couldn’t relent. If there was even the remotest possibility . . .

“Cellie,” he said, his voice a mere whisper. “Was Cruen beside you when you birthed the child?”

“Yes!” she shouted, then covered her face with her hands.

“Then you can never be sure of anything.”

“Alex . . .” she whimpered.

This was his mate’s mother, his friend. He stood and gathered her in his arms. She let him; cried softly on his shoulder.

“Cellie, I must know,” he whispered. “Did you see the
balas
given over to the sun?”

He felt Celestine grow rigid against him. Then she pulled back. “No.” Her eyes clouded as if she’d just remembered something she’d wanted more than anything to forget. “Cruen didn’t want me to suffer that. After I named her, he took her from me.”

Alexander’s chest tightened. “You named her.”

Cellie nodded. “Petra.” Her eyes lowered. “After Cruen’s mother.”

•   •   •

Seated at her black stone desk inside the bedchamber that had been hers for as long as she could remember, Hellen uncapped another vial and drank deep. Once again, the familiar coolness of the draft hit her tongue and slithered down her throat in a race to get to all the bits and pieces it had once protected. It was truly the long-awaited thunderstorm in an eternity of field fires, and she smiled in appreciation as she drained the second vial.