Golden Stair (15 page)

As all incubi inevitably do, he’d fallen in love—and in the grand tradition of demons everywhere, he’d done it in the most inconvenient way possible.

Peace came with admitting his situation. He strode to the foot of the tower with more serenity than he’d felt in a long time. He even found himself smiling as he stared up at the balcony, already imagining Ivy’s expressive face. The air was quiet and still, with no sound coming from inside the tower. Adonis cleared his throat, unable to resist.

“Ivy, sweet Ivy, let down your hair!”

Surprise lifted his eyebrows as the golden braid appeared almost instantly, falling down like a silken cord from the heavens. It was as if she’d been waiting for him, standing right there with her braid at the ready. A grin lit his face and some of the tension seeped from his shoulders. Perhaps she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her. He looked up, wanting to see her golden eyes twinkling with reproachful mirth.

Nothing.

Odd. He’d expected Ivy to speak to him first, perhaps shout at him a little for staying away so long. It wasn’t like the fiery maiden to pass up an opportunity to taunt him. Intrigued, he grasped her braid, shocked even further when she began hauling him up.

Guilt bit him at the rush of relief that caressed his body in waves. Truth be told, he hadn’t been too certain that he’d be able to climb on his own. With the anticipation of being able to see Ivy, he felt better, but a week without sex had taxed him to his limits. The physical exertion of climbing would have been a challenge. Stirring up as much of his former zest as possible as he climbed over the edge of the balcony, he opened his mouth to offer an apology for his absence.

He never managed a word. He had a brief glimpse of an old woman, her grey hair in wild disarray and her eyes drowning black pits. She flew at him with outstretched arms and before he could react, she gave him a vicious shove over the balcony. He hit the ledge and went over in one smooth motion. Shouted words in an ancient tongue followed him as he fell and suddenly a thousand points of pain erupted in his body at once. Cracking wood echoed around him as thorn-tipped braches broke his fall and sent him spinning into a chaotic mess of blood and agony. He bellowed as the thorns dragged across his face, slicing over his eyes and plunging him into darkness. Hot liquid ran down his face and a small part of his brain registered that his eyes had been ravaged and left in ruins.

Pain burned over his flesh in sharp, burning lines as he struggled to get out of the brambles. Splintered wood ran jagged teeth over his arms and legs, biting down on his clothing and refusing to let go. The sound of rending cloth rasped against his ears and the bitter scent of blood taunted his nostrils. Disoriented and full of enough rage to set something on fire with his will alone, he let the pain spur him on until he finally stumbled free. He collapsed onto soft grass, the cool blades a feeble balm to his bloody flesh. He crouched on all fours, struggling to breathe, each intake of air a fresh wave of agony.

A litany of ancient words floated to him on the wind, getting louder with each syllable. The same voice that had screamed at him—Ivy’s mother, the witch, no doubt—was approaching, weaving some sort of spell.

Magic cracked over him like a whip, and Adonis roared in pain as his flesh seized. He reared up only to freeze with his back arched, every muscle in his body stiffened like solid stone. He couldn’t breathe to speak, couldn’t move to strike out. Panic seared his chest even as he fought to push his claws out, to reach for the witch trying to smother him in her grasp. Then suddenly the spell ended, dropping him to the ground where he collapsed like a freshly slaughtered deer.

“You could have had any woman in the kingdom,” the witch’s voice croaked. “You will pay for taking Ivy from me. That body you hold on to so vigorously will be your tomb, demon. You are well and truly bound now and when that flesh dies, your precious astral spirit will perish with it. Go on, blunder about if you will. You will never leave this valley—and you will never see Ivy again!”

Her words echoed around his head, stirring up fear and horror the likes of which he’d never known. He didn’t know enough about magic to know exactly what she’d done, if it could be undone. It didn’t matter, not now, not yet. First he had to get away.

Adonis gritted his teeth, forcing himself to hold onto what little power he had left. The urge to strike out at the witch was strong, but that wasn’t what was important now. Even if he could hit her while blinded, she was right, he’d never make it home. And the hesitation spell she’d laced over the valley would keep anyone from finding him, even if they searched. He would have no choice but to wait for someone else to fall into it by accident—a near impossibility. Unless he could call in a favor.

He forced himself to wait, bearing the spine-tingling sensation of his blood seeping out of his body from a thousand cuts. Footsteps trailed off in the distance, he assumed the witch abandoning him to his fate. Cursing the loss of his sight, he had no choice but to wait and hope she had really gone. When he was reasonably sure he was alone, the last sounds of the witch’s enraged footsteps having long fallen away, he raised a shaking hand to the small vial tied to a lock of his hair, hidden at the nape of his neck. He released it from its bonds and brought the ampoule around in front of him. After uncorking it, he raised it to his lips. The coppery scent of blood wafted past his nose and he exhaled into the bottle, infusing it with his essence.

“Kirill,” he whispered. “Kirill, Prince of Dacia, son of Afon, by blood I summon you.”

The snap of magic in the air nearly sent him to the ground in relief. It had been a sphinx’s age since he’d used summoning magic, and he hadn’t been certain he had enough kick in him left to pull it off. He sagged, barely remembering to cork the vial and replace it under his hair. If the witch came back, there would be little he could do to defend himself, but he owed it to Kirill not to leave his blood out there lying around for someone else to take advantage of.

It seemed like an eternity until the cooling air told him the sun was setting. Adonis controlled his breathing, trying to stay as calm as he could to keep his heart rate down. His essence filled the body he inhabited and it was significantly stronger than the average human, but he could still bleed out. The witch’s claim rang in his head like the tolling of death bells. If she spoke the truth, his life would end with the death of this body. It would all truly be over.

“For the love of Perun, what happened to you?”

Adonis cried out with relief. He struggled to get an arm under his body to push himself up, wincing when he toppled over on the first attempt. It took another two attempts before he managed to prop himself up on his forearms and raise his face to the spot Kirill’s voice was coming from. A hiss of breath told him Kirill had noticed his eyes.

“I met the mother,” Adonis joked feebly.

“Wonderful,” Kirill muttered, disgust thick in his voice. “You’ve jumped into the wrong bed, haven’t you?”

“Kirill, this is no time to be cruel, the man is covered in blood for goodness sakes!”

“Irina,” Adonis called out, never so grateful to hear the dulcet tones of the rusalka’s voice as he was in that moment. “Thank the gods you’re here.” Adonis struggled to stand, grateful when someone lifted his arm and helped steady him. Judging by the softness of the shoulder, he guessed Irina. The growl from Kirill was a good indicator as well.

“Kirill, Adonis is blind, or didn’t you notice the bodily fluids staining his tunic? This is hardly the time to be possessive,” Irina chastised her husband.

“He’s hurt because he followed his—”

“For once, that is actually not the case,” Adonis interrupted. Now that some of the initial giddiness of his rescue was wearing off, reality was setting in. Tension sprang back to life in his body with a vengeance, setting every one of the thousands of cuts on fire as if acid were raining down on him from the sky. Adonis ignored the pain, groping about to try and grab Irina by the shoulders. “Ivy! She might still be in the tower! She could be hurt.”

“You mean that tower there, covered from base to tip with brambles as thick as my arm?” Kirill questioned.

Adonis clutched his stomach and stumbled against Irina. “May the gods have mercy on us. She’s sealed her in.” He spun around, groping for the wall of the tower, determined to climb the thorns if he had to. “We have to get her out of there.”

In his haste, he struck out too vigorously. A thick thorn plunged into his palm and a fresh, warm gush of blood trickled down to his fingers. Adonis shrugged it off, his pain receptors too overloaded to bother with another injury. He raised his hands back to the tower. Someone grabbed his arm, jerking him back before he could reach the insidious barrier.

“Adonis,” Irina’s musical voice pressed, “don’t be a fool. You’re hurt, we need to get you healed before you go trying to climb any tower walls.”

“I won’t leave her,” Adonis insisted, resisting the urge to rip his arm from Irina’s grasp. The rusalka had been nothing but kind to him, he didn’t want to hurt her. But he wouldn’t let her stop him either, not when Ivy could be trapped and alone.

“Fine, fine, we’ll go up and see if she’s in there,” Irina soothed, gently easing him backward.

“You say ‘we,’ but you really mean me,” Kirill muttered.

“Yes, I do, now get up there.”

Adonis’ stomach twisted into knots as he faced the last direction he’d heard Kirill’s voice come from.

“Kirill, please. Help me.” In that moment he would have given his right arm to be able to see the vampire’s face. He needed to know what Kirill was thinking, needed to see if Adonis’ situation was affecting the Dacian royal.

There was a rustling of clothing, the clinking of metal, and then silence.

“What’s going on?” Adonis groped around for Irina, seeking her soothing presence. “Kirill?”

“Kirill turned himself to mist. He’s going to get into the tower to look for your friend,” Irina assured him, rubbing his back in small, calming circles.

Adonis raised his eyebrows, wincing as the blood that had started to dry cracked. “I didn’t know he could do that.”

Irina chuckled. “He hates it. He can’t take his clothes or his weapons with him. Just between you and me, it’s the only way to really disarm him if you want him to go somewhere with no blades or magic items.”

Any other time, Adonis would have laughed along with Irina, perhaps made some sort of joke about Kirill’s tongue being the sharpest weapon he possessed, but he was too distracted. His pulse thudded so hard in his throat that it gagged him with every beat. The anticipation of what Kirill was going to find in that tower was just too much, even for him.

“My love, did you find her?” Irina called out a few moments later, as if sensing Adonis’ fraying nerves.

“No. There is no one in there, only some smashed paintings and broken mirrors.”

The ground smashed into Adonis’ knees as he collapsed. “This is all my fault,” he said numbly. “I never should have left her alone so long. The necromancer didn’t know what he was talking about, for all I know my little fast probably just pissed Aphrodite off. She probably saw Ivy as a threat, was afraid I’d break my oath. Now Ivy’s gone, and it’s my fault.”

Adonis was vaguely aware he was rambling, but he didn’t care. Vertigo swirled him around until the earth against his bloody knees was his only way of knowing he hadn’t fallen off the face of the world.

“Did you say necromancer?” Kirill demanded.

“Kirill, not now!” Irina’s voice boomed like the shout of an angry deity. A delicate hand on the back of his neck drew Adonis’ attention and he lifted his head. “Adonis, you’re coming home with us. We’re going to get you healed up and then we’ll find your friend.”

It was a lovely promise, but Adonis couldn’t quite bring his hopes up to meet it. Still, he didn’t argue when Kirill and Irina pulled him to his feet, letting him lean on them as they lurched away from the tower.

After a moment, he felt Irina shift.

“Adonis, what happened?” she asked softly.

Adonis blinked, gasping at the searing pain that radiated out from his eye sockets. He stumbled, grateful when Kirill tensed against him, holding Adonis more firmly against his body. Desperate for anything to take his mind off the pain of his ravaged face, he turned to face Irina.

“I found this tower by accident. There was a girl…” Images of Ivy filled his head and he couldn’t for the life of him think of an adjective that would do her justice. He sighed. “Her mother forced her to stay here, put a hesitation spell on the valley to keep people away and told Ivy all these scary stories to keep her from leaving. Before I took her on a short flight, Ivy’d never left this place.” He tripped over his own feet as the ground seemed to heave violently below him. Irina and Kirill both fought to keep him upright and he let his head sag miserably. “I knew I should stay away from her, but I just couldn’t. You know me, curiosity and the cat. Before I knew it, it was too late. She’d developed feelings for me and I…”