Her Demon Prince (Forbidden Fantasy) (19 page)

"I had worse when Envy
snatched me. It wasn’t as rough this time."

"Gets easier."

The prince's body was so
battered, so raw and helpless, her heart cried out for him. Although every
nerve ending screamed at her to rest, she crawled next to Agrat, determined to
hold him close until she could give him aid. Her prince had taken on an army to
save her; his normally swarthy face was ashen, his eyes glazed and his
breathing still lacked rhythm. Terror gripped her that he might die. Everything
the prince had told her about
their
past was true. The
sense of wonder that they'd had a son together filled her heart with amazement
and she wanted to share it with him. He couldn't die. He couldn't.

"Let me help you."
She felt Daniel's strong arms enclose and lift her onto a
fold-out
chair next to Agrat.

"Thank you," she
said.

"I hope your presence
will revive him," Daniel said, a frown creasing his brow. "All he
thinks of is you. All he talks about is you." He strode away and in a
moment he returned with two glasses of liquid, one of which he set on a coffee
table next to Agrat and the other he held to her lips.

Managing to take it in shaking
hands she sipped it gratefully. Although the liquid had the crystal clear look
of water, it was sweet and thirst quenching, revitalizing her as she gulped it
down. "Where are we?"

"Cassiel's and my beach
house in Hawaii. I couldn't hide you in an angelic dimension. Your body is
human. Anyway, the wards are locked. You would disintegrate. The healing Kahuna
energy here is magical so that even humans can feel it and come to the islands
to revive. We're shielded here on sacred land away from the main island. Demon
energy, the evil kind, can't penetrate it. Cass and I like coming down here
when we're not in the angelic dimension."

"What happened?" she
asked Daniel, nodding at Agrat. She set her glass down on the coffee table
nearby and took Agrat's hand in hers. His palm was covered in dried blood, but
she didn't care. She'd do whatever it took to get him well again.

"Major stomach wound.
Demon knife. I think the blade was poisonous."

"Demon poison?" How
could she deal with that?

"Serious shit."

"How can I get it out of
his system?"

"If we can get him to
drink, Cass's water will help clear the demon poison from the inside."
Daniel reached over, picked up the full glass and handed it to her. "Wet
his lips. Get it in."

Phoebe dipped her fingers in
the liquid and traced her fingertips along his bottom lip. "Take it, my
darling," she murmured. She didn't want to be without him, she thought,
her heart thumping with misery.

Agrat shifted and groaned at
her touch.

She could feel tears welling
in her eyes. "He's barely conscious. I've never seen him so
helpless."

"Lightning roasted him.
He's fully charged, but his energy flow is faulty. He fought furiously, but his
energy balls weren't releasing. I hope you can fix him. Wish Cass was here. He
has healing powers." Daniel's answer came out fast and staccato and Phoebe
realized how deeply worried he was.

Anxiety that Cassiel's cure
might not work bore down on her. "Both Galaden and Agrat say my presence
is restorative, whatever that means. They think there's something else in my
ancestry, but I have to say, this is all new to me. I don't know how to cure
sickness. I only have basic first aid skills."

"Goddess power,"
Daniel said.

"So I'm told. If I hadn't
seen Agrat heal in front of my eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. Mind you, I
still can't get my head around the fact I have a son who is three thousand
years older than I am." She dipped her fingers into the glass again and
dripped drops of it into the prince's mouth.

Agrat swallowed, but didn't
open his eyes.

The sides of Daniel's mouth
turned up slightly. "That's because you don't have the memories I have. We
all mended faster when you were my mother in your past life. Kicked in properly
after you turned twenty-five in human years. A few hours with you tending us
and we'd be fixed and back out fighting alongside Galaden again."

"Glad I was such a good
mom," she said dryly. She wondered how he felt about her being his mother.
The whole concept was surreal. Daniel was so much older than she was yet he
looked about twenty to her twenty-four years. "This must be the first time
you've met your father. The old king turned him to stone before you were
born."

"The prince kicks ass,
doesn't he? He liked the way I fought." Daniel strode toward the kitchen
and returned with a washcloth, basin and towel. "The prince is too weak to
bathe. You've
gotta
get this demon blood splatter off
him. It's filth. Poison. It'll seep in through his skin and give him
nightmares, make him lose all hope. Use this water and refill it from the urn.
It's Cassiel's brew. Very healing. Same as the stuff you're drinking." He
rinsed the cloth and handed it to her.

"It works. All the
vertigo's gone now."

"You won't be disturbed
unless Galaden gets the location out of Cass, which is why I've gotta get over
there. Cass is strong but Galaden is an old being and he won't be able to hold
out against him forever."

Phoebe took the cloth and
forced herself to a standing position, delighted her head didn't swirl and her
legs seemed steady. "Wait a minute. What are you going to do?"

"Told you. I've
gotta
get back to Cassiel. I've left him alone with
Galaden."

"They've gone to see
Rachael!" How could she have forgotten her best friend? "Cassiel
promised to take him to her. She's dying," Phoebe said, her voice rising
with alarm.

"Not if Cass has anything
to do with it. She's his mother. He'll be bound by blood to save her. Dammit,
Princess, he has to. She's the only one who'll have any real influence over
Galaden now."

"Do you think Galaden
will return her life-force?" The thought of Rachael lying there at the
mercy of Galaden sickened her. What if he strengthened himself further by
taking the last of Rachael's
life-force
?

"He always spoke of
Rachael with love when I was a child. It's hard to know with Galaden. He's more
remote than ever before. Guess he's spent too long hiding out in the wasteland
dimensions, where the suicides hang out."

Phoebe winced at the thought.
"Why did he do that? Why didn't he join you and Cassiel?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed and his
head tilted as he sought to explain. "The angelic dimensions have wards
which are locked. Galaden can't go there and he didn't want to return to his
mother's kin. Cass carries enough goodness and light to be accepted."

"He's Rachael's child
from her past life," Phoebe said, thoughtfully.

"I'm only admitted to the
lower dimensions thanks to my human side, so Cass and I hang out there
together, whereas Galaden's spent thousands of years alone. I mean, seriously,
I wouldn't give him a hug now and he raised me. Rachael's the only one he
really loves."

Phoebe thought of Agrat's
description of the state he'd found Rachael in. "I'm not convinced of
that. He's sucked her dry of her
life-force
. I don't
call that love. Please help Rachael. Don't let him hurt her."

Daniel walked over to her, put
his arm around her. "I'll do everything I can."

"Thank you. I can't tell
you how relieved I am to have you on my side. Knowing you're here gives me
hope." A son. Her son. She put her hand on his. An overwhelming sense of
gratitude flooded her. Thanks to Daniel, Agrat was alive.

He gave her shoulder a
squeeze. "When you lived with us as a family in your past life, things
were stable. Galaden was stable. Sometimes he was even happy. When you passed
on into the spirit world, everything went to pieces."

"What do you mean?"

"Galaden lost his
humanity," Daniel said, his face grim. "I'm glad you weren't there to
see it. The whole kingdom fell apart."

"He terrifies me."
Phoebe shuddered just thinking of the cool, unfeeling angel and the horror he'd
wrought on her. She looked over at Agrat and put her hand on his brow. He was
scorching. She dipped the cloth in the basin, rinsed it out and washed his
face, savoring the familiar planes and angles. "I want my peaceful life
back, but I want Agrat in it. This hideous vendetta has to stop. You and
Cassiel have to find a way. Please, I'm begging you."

"I'll try. I promise,
I'll try. The trouble is Galaden has a dark side and it's like I don't even
know him anymore. He never harmed a hair on your head when I was young. Now
he's determined to…well, you know." Daniel shook his head. "I don't
know where his real loyalties lie. There's too much of his mother in him. You know
who her father is, don't you?"

Phoebe paused. "No.
Actually I don't." She had a feeling she didn't want to know the answer.

"Lucifer." With
that, he vanished leaving her on her own.

Just the name
sent her heart banging to her throat and it was more than she could bear to
think about. Now that she knew fallen angels were real, even the name terrified
her. Instead, she decided to focus on what she could do: bathe Agrat using
Cassiel's angel healing water. The water sparkled in the bowl, luminous and
wholesome. She prayed that it would heal Agrat as she soaked the cloth in the
water. "Please wake up. I need you. Now that I've found you, I don't want
to lose you. I remember what we were together, what we are together and what we
can have."

She could smell
sweet herbs mixed with fresh rainfall on the cloth as she washed his face, her
fingers grazing the fine skin around his almond eyes, the curve of his hooked
nose and petulant mouth. She'd kissed that mouth when he'd been happy and she
wanted to see that expression on his face again, not the wounded melancholy of
one man fighting against the world.

She washed
around the creases of his neck and the hollow at his throat where she longed to
kiss. "Wake up, my love. I want you back. I can't bear seeing you like
this."

A groan met her
words.

She leaned
forward. Could he hear her? His breathing settled into a rhythmic flow but his
eyes remained closed. "Listen to me. I love you. Come back to me. Dammit,
Agrat, I've gone through so much with you, I don't know what's up or down, but
I do know that I need you in my life. I don't feel whole without you."

She rinsed the
cloth in the basin and wrung it out. Daniel had told her to get the demon crap
off the prince and she'd better hop to it. There was a long slicing wound that
went from the prince's nipple to his abdomen but it wasn't deep. The wound on
his stomach had ceased to bleed but it remained open and had blackened around
the edges. Having finished with his face and neck, she focused on cleansing his
torso, her hand moving over the ridged
muscles which
tensed as she touched him.

He was reacting
to her washing him.

"Please
come back to me. Please wake," she said, with increasing desperation.

Cautiously, she
dabbed at where the knife had entered his stomach, using liberal amounts of the
healing water in the hope that it would help close the wound.

Agrat groaned
and his body twisted. Sweat beaded on his brow, his muscles tensed until his
whole body began to tremble. His back arched and his mouth opened as if in a
silent scream.

"It's hurting
you," she said out loud, feeling tears well in her eyes. Pain. It appeared
to be reverberating through his body. Her heart was going thump, thump, thump
in her chest and she was struggling to see through the sheen of tears. She
blinked and they rolled down her cheeks.

When she rinsed
the cloth, she saw the fabric had not only discolored where it had touched the
injury, it had started to smolder, a sulfurous stink coming off the material.

She rose, picked
up the nearly empty basin and ran to the kitchen, threw the cloth and the
remains of the water into the sink. The cloth exploded into flame, black and
evil smelling. Poison! It was taking over Agrat. She flung open the kitchen
door, which led to the outside of the house, to let the fumes out then refilled
the basin from the urn and grabbed a fresh cloth from the kitchen counter. It
sickened her to think that this man, her man, had this festering evil in his
system.

She had to
cleanse him.

Striding back,
careful not to slop the liquid over the sides of the bowl, she entered the
lounge area to see Agrat's whole body arch and stiffen. "Agrat!" Oh
good God in heaven, what was happening to him? Was he dying? This was like
nothing she'd ever seen. "I'll get this poison off you," she said, forcing
herself
to work faster.

His strong hands
had taken a battering. There were cuts and blood and defensive wounds right up
his forearms where he'd blocked whatever had come at him. Her stomach turned
with the thought that he had done this to defend her. She sloshed water over
his arm, trying to cleanse as much of it as she could. Grabbing his hand, she
forced it down into the basin, soaking the blood off. She couldn't bear to
think of any demon filth remaining on him. Not a speck. Although he called
himself an elemental demon, Phoebe was convinced that there was nothing demonic
about Agrat. He was a good man.