Immortal Fire (10 page)

Chapter Seventeen

In Kai’s mind, even her hair hurt
along with every muscle in her body.
Brenton
was most
certainly evil to the core. Kai didn’t think there was anything else to learn
or master in her arsenal of demon powers. She must be almost as skilled as
Ove
by now. And she missed Donovan, more than she wanted
to.

On a rare break, she strolled
with Mitzi in
Brenton’s
garden at the side of his
property. She couldn’t imagine a man like him enjoying flowers, but maybe deep
inside he was no different than
she was, wanting
to
live the life of a human.

And what was she going to do
about Donovan. Her feelings were even stronger in the light of day now that she
was away from his bed. She had thought her mind would clear, and she could make
a rational decision regarding him, but that seemed impossible.

“I don’t know, Mitzi.” Kai sighed
and stared up at the sky as if it held her answers. Yeah right, for something
like her, a
demoness
? “He makes me feel . . .”

“Loved?” Mitzi offered.

Kai laughed. “Unhinged.”

“I would give anything to have
love
like that.” Mitzi sighed. She strolled over to a
flower, plucked it, sniffed it and tossed it away. Kai frowned. She had always
thought everyone was wrong about the citizens of the underworld being
inherently evil. Mitzi wasn’t, but what if she was wrong?

“I thought you didn’t care about
love, Mitzi. I’ve never seen you pursue a man.”

The girl shrugged. “That’s
because I want only an immortal, and you wanted a human. Now you’ve fallen in
love with an immortal. I hope this doesn’t mean I will fall for a human.” She
shuddered.

Kai laughed. “What about
Brenton
. He wants you.”

“He wants to torment me. Besides
that, I’m terrified of him. Have you seen how huge he is?” She pointed down,
indicating
Brenton’s
cock. Kai bit her lip to keep
from chuckling again. If Mitzi had noticed, maybe she was more attracted than
she liked to admit to herself.

Kai led her to a bench, and they
sat down. The warmth of the sun was invigorating. Kai hated autumn and winter,
for obvious reasons. Mitzi shifted and leaped onto Kai’s lap. Kai scratched her
behind the ears. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I mean, I just believed
Donovan when he said
Ove
wants to use me, to open me
up for attack so he can force me into the underworld. And then I go haring off
to be trained to beat
Ove
at his game. What if it’s
all untrue?”

Mitzi mewled.

“Yeah, he did call off Bevin. Or
someone could have . . .” She gasped and sat forward. “You don’t think someone
banished Bevin, do you? No.” She sat back. “If that were true,
Ove
would have known that too and sent a new guard. I hate
this. I don’t want to kill him. I want . . .”

“You want your cake, and you want
to eat it too.”

Kai glanced up in surprise. Her
father, the great
Ove
himself, stood before her. “
Ove
!” He scowled. “Father, what are you doing here? You
never leave the underworld.”

“The incompetent jackasses that I
instructed to bring you to me did not. So I had to do it myself.” He flicked a
finger in her direction. “Let’s go, Kai.”

“Excuse me?” She stood. Mitzi
leaped to the ground, shifted into her human form and blocked
Ove’s
access to Kai. The snarl on her friend’s face let Kai
know all
Ove
had to do was threaten Kai, and Mitzi
would attack. Kai tried moving her aside. She was no match for the demon lord.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I
want no part of it.”

The man whose loins she had come
from glared at her, baring his sharp teeth. Fire ignited even his hair. She and
Mitzi took a step back, almost falling onto to the bench behind them. Kai had
trouble remembering her training.

“It’s simple, Kai.”
Ove
sneered. “You will live in the
underworld,
in my house and under my direct protection or you will be killed.”

“What!” She couldn’t believe what
she was hearing. He couldn’t mean what she thought. She was confusing the
issue.

Gethin
stepped out from behind
Ove
. Before Kai could react
to his presence, he uttered a few words in a language she had never heard. The
next thing she knew he had reached into her chest, through her flesh to her
heart. The pain was excruciating.

Somewhere in the distance, she
heard Mitzi’s scream and then her roar. Darkness surrounded Kai, and the stench
of
sulphur
filled her nostrils. Just like that, after
weeks of training that had meant zip,
Gethin
had
taken her life with her father standing there letting it happen. And if she
knew anything about
Ove
, she knew he was thorough. He
would destroy her body so she could never regenerate in the way that she had.

In her heart, she cried out for
Donovan.

* * * *

“You have to do something,
Donovan!” Mitzi screamed for the millionth time, making his head ache. The girl
had no respect for her elders or the leader of her family. Her whole world
seemed to wrap around Kai. He had often wondered, watching her with Kai, if she
was in love with the woman.

“And what do you suggest, Mitzi?”
he spat. “That I stand against a demon lord? The deal was that I bring Kai to
the underworld and our whole family would get out from under demon rule. Now
we’re stuck in this damn world.” He spun away, pacing in the dungeon of a house
he had grown up in. After crossing to the window, he twitched the curtain aside
to look out at the sky, as it was. A great purplish expanse that went on and
on. No sun, no stars, no real light. He missed the human world. “I have more
than you breathing down my neck about this situation, Mitzi.”

He heard the tears, but didn’t
turn around to see her pitiful face.
Not that he didn’t care.
He did. For Mitzi and his family. But most of all, he ached for Kai.
Damn it, why did I fall for her.
Like
any dumb sap he’d chided in the past, he felt almost like Kai was the air he
breathed.
Fuck!

Mitzi would not give in. “I visit
there, and
Ove
lets me only because Kai badgers him
night and day. I can see how she’s been crying. Big nasty demons guard her
around the clock. They don’t let her go anywhere.”

Donovan attempted to convince
himself that Mitzi’s words didn’t drive a knife into his chest.

“She tried to use her powers on
him . . .”

He turned in shock. That news
hadn’t reached him before now. “What? She did? What happened? Tell me!”

Mitzi sighed. “I wasn’t there,
but I ran into Bevin on the street. It was during the time I wasn’t allowed to
visit this last week and a half. The message
Ove
passed through the demons was that Kai was not feeling well.” She frowned. “As
if a demon gets sick in this place.” She scoffed. “The demons are the superior
race here.”

“I know, I know!” he snapped.
“Tell me about Kai.”

“Bevin said she apparently used
everything she had learned from
Brenton
. It wasn’t
enough. He cut her down. He . . .” Mitzi doubled over, clutching her stomach
and swallowed a few times. “He hurt her. I begged to get into his mansion to
care for her, but he wouldn’t let me.
Please
,
Donovan, do something. You’re our and Kai’s only hope here in the underworld.
And only Kai would be willing to lift the power that keeps all of us out of the
human world.”

He pressed a hand to the bridge
of his nose and closed his eyes. With his other hand he waved her away. “Leave
me.”

“But—”

Without words or a move from him,
the door opened, and Mitzi was swept from the room with a slam behind her. He
didn’t turn around, knowing his mother had taken her place. Would the world
always weigh on his shoulders? “Mother?”

“
Ove
has commanded the portal through my shop be closed.” She sniffed. “I am no
longer allowed to have it. Donovan, I serviced immortals of all kinds, even
those who were legally in the human world. I managed the gateway to other
worlds, and if I say so myself, I made a damn good potion or two that was
useful to humans.”

“I know you did, Mother.” He
clasped his hands behind his back and didn’t move away from the window. At
intervals, citizens not of his family strolled past, their eyes cast in his
direction. Just who told them that he was the way to raise demon oppression, he
didn’t know. “
Ove’s
punishing you, because of me.”

“Maybe I should appeal to another
lord?” she wondered aloud.

“He is the most powerful,”
Donovan informed her.

“There’s always power struggles
going on, and none of the lot of them
are
loyal. They
are disgusting. I hate them.”

“Yet you want me to go and rescue
a half demon.” He glanced over his shoulder at his mother. Her hair was all
over her head like she hadn’t combed it that morning, and unless he was
mistaken, she had worn that same wrinkled outfit the day before. “You acted
like you hated her as soon as you learned what she was. You were glad when
Ove
took her from me.”

His mother’s hands slid to her
hips. “You’ll note, son, that I came in here complaining about what
Ove
is doing to your people, not to that . . . that . . .”

“Careful, Mother.”

“Woman,” she finished. “It’s all
tied together, and I guess since you’re grown, you won’t listen to me about
having nothing to do with her. But you do owe it to your family as our leader
to rescue us. We want out, or at least to have the opportunity to visit other
worlds if we choose.”

“Has no one considered the
humans?” he pondered. “How would they feel to have the ‘hounds of hell’ let
loose on them, so to speak?”

She rolled her eyes, and he
chuckled for the first time in weeks. None of them cared. The humans tended to
be play things for his kind. Most enjoyed causing mischief, like bad dreams,
accidents, and whatever other dark deed they could think up in the human world.
Besides, there was enough goodness already in the human world, the creatures
that kept the balance. He didn’t doubt more would be released to keep things in
order should his family be able to come and go. Besides all that, there was an
endless amount of worlds to explore. His people would spread over them all.

He came to a decision. “Mother,
have someone find Bevin for me. I want to learn all there is to know about
Ove’s
mansion and those who guard it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Why doesn’t he come?

Kai had tormented herself with
those words for weeks in this hell hole. She understood how much the people
hated living in the underworld. There was not a peep of sunshine. It seemed
perpetually dark, and the temperature was at one level—hot.

Demons walked the streets in
soldier uniforms, and every other creature bowed to them, practically scraping
the ground in hopes that they wouldn’t be tormented. That hope meant nothing
more often than not. This was a demon’s world, his play house, and she had seen
first hand how they ruled with an iron fist.

She sat up on the side of her
bed, holding her right arm close to her body. Attacking
Ove
had been a mistake. All the others who thought she was the key to taking him
down had made a huge miscalculation. She had believed it herself, but had felt
the full force of his wickedness, his power. Now her arm was damaged, maybe
permanently.

“Call me, Donovan,” she willed
with tears in her eyes. “Call me,
please
.”

Who was she kidding? He wouldn’t.
He had been using her, just like
Gethin
, just like
Ove
and just like
Brenton
. Her trainer
had to know she would never amount to
Ove’s
level
being a half bred demon. After the pitiful excuse for a fight she and her
father had, which had been over in less than five minutes, she began to believe
Brenton
had only wanted to hurt her, to get back at
Ove
indirectly.

“Poor calculation on his part if
he thought
Ove
gives a shit about me,” she grumbled.

With despair, she glanced down at
the flat
mudlike
shoes on her feet. At least that’s
what came to mind when she examined her hideous
footware
.
She missed her spiky heels, her sexy clothes and bubble baths. The underworld
was sorely lacking. No wonder everyone wanted to get out.

She rose to her feet on unsteady
legs and stumbled toward the door. Trying the knob she found it locked as
expected. She’d been shut in here since the attack. Mitzi hadn’t been allowed
to visit, and Kai would give anything to turn back
time
so this never happened. But how far back. Would she give up the limited amount
of time she’d spent in Donovan’s arms?

“Kai!”

She spun around the empty room
and fell to the floor. Her heart hammering, she prayed it wasn’t her
imagination. “Donovan?”

“Kai, come to me.”

Tears splashed down her cheeks.
She felt the pull, that wonderful jerk that would bring her to Donovan.
Locating a tissue before she lost substance and traveled through the sturdy
walls surrounding her, she nearly held her breath in anticipation of seeing
him.

With her cheeks and eyes scrubbed
free of moisture, she bit her lip when the darkness turned to light. She was in
what she assumed was his house, in his living room. He stood with his back to
her, his broad shoulders not so wide as they had been the last time she’d seem
him. He had lost weight. And his clothing was different, more somber—black
slacks, shirt and shoes.

Kai tried not to look so frail
and ugly, as if that were possible. “Donovan, I’m here.”

He turned slowly and then caught
his breath. “No!” He rushed across the gap between them when the last time, he
had made her come to him. When his arms wrapped around her, her knees gave out.
He lifted her and carried her to the couch to pull her onto his lap. “He hurt
you. He’ll die for that.”

“You can’t want me now,” she whispered,
feeling sorry for
herself
. “All my confidence is gone.
I . . . I’m so ugly. My arm—”

“No, you’re beautiful. And
remember I love you.”

She sobbed on his chest. “It all
feels hopeless, Donovan. He’ll sense I’m not there and come after me. You
haven’t seen the demons he guards me with. They’re huge, and just one of them
is probably more powerful than I am. What made you think for a minute that I
could defeat
Ove
? What made me stupid enough to
believe it? He left me years ago without looking back. I think it takes that
level of evil to be as strong as he is.”

“You’re wrong.” He tilted her
head up to look into his eyes. “You don’t have to be as evil as he is. You
don’t have to be evil. You have humanity in you.”

“No, he killed that. He destroyed
my human body.”

He shook his head. “What makes
you
you
, Kai, is your soul, not your physical body.
And the despair you feel is an illusion that demons use. Their imps actually
carry out that order. Trust me, I had no idea until recently that I had a few,
invisible, hanging off me, making me feel like I couldn’t rescue you, that
anything I tried wouldn’t work. Look how I was able to call you to me.”

She considered his words. Could
it be true? She would be the first to admit that she knew little of this world
and the way in which the demons ruled over all the other races. After all, many
of them wielded powerful magic. Why wouldn’t they be able to overcome a demon
who
had only fire and simple magic to keep the inhabitants
in this world?

“It might be a trap,” she muttered,
unable to accept that it was this easy for them to be together.

He tugged her closer to his chest
and ran his hand down over her hip. “I will take what I can get for as long as
I can have it. I’ve missed you, Kai.” He lifted her chin and covered her mouth
with his own. She softened against him, drawing heat from his tender kiss. A
tingle started in her injured arm, and she pulled back, breaking the kiss.

Donovan groaned. She felt him
strain against his pants beneath her. Images of their coupling flashed in her
mind. Kai wrapped her arms around his neck and then drew back again, her eyes
widening.

“What’s wrong?” Worry lined
Donovan’s eyes. She noted how dark they were like he hadn’t been sleeping.

“My arm.”

He nodded. “I’m going to torture
him for doing that—”

“No, look at it. I couldn’t move
it two inches from my side since it was hurt, but the pain is gone. It’s still
red and burned, but I don’t feel pain.”

“You’re welcome.”

Kai spun around on Donovan’s lap
to face
Brenton
. “You? What do you have to do with
anything?”

Mitzi stepped out from behind him
looking pale. Kai squealed, jumped off Donovan’s lap and ran for her friend.
They clung to each other, crying.

Brenton
groaned. “Doesn’t it just turn you on seeing two sexy women together?”

“Fuck you,
Brenton
,”
Donovan growled. “What are you doing here? I blame you for leading us
on,
making us think you had the power to help Kai beat
Ove
. Because of you, she was hurt. I ought to kill you
right where you stand.”

Kai dragged Mitzi over to Donovan
and stood in front of him. “No, you can’t fight him, Donovan.”

He frowned. “I thought we
realized the demon’s tricks, Kai. We’re not bowing to them anymore. And I downplayed
my ability to use magic. I do a lot more than you’ve seen thus far. I can take
him and be fine to kill
Ove
.”

“Brave words, Donovan,”
Brenton
spat. “But wrong. You cannot defeat
Ove
by yourself. You and I remain to be seen, but I’m here
to help you take him down. After that, our working together is at an end.”

“And what gave you that change of
heart,” Donovan grumbled. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned good, because a demon
doesn’t have it in him. I can see just looking at you that your heart is black.
What, do we have to sell our souls for your help?”

“Oh I got a soul all right.”
Brenton
chuckled. “But not yours.”

Kai had been listening to them
argue, hope springing inside thinking
Brenton
would
help. But when he said he had a soul, her best friend slipped from her arms as
if pulled by magic. She slid backward across the floor to land against
Brenton’s
hard body. He curved an arm around her waist and
molded his form along hers.

In shocked disbelief, Kai stared
when Mitzi lifted her chin for
Brenton’s
cruel and
hot kiss. Mitzi was pale, and Kai saw tears in her eyes. She lurched toward
them, but Donovan held her back.

“Let me go,” she screamed. “Mitzi
doesn’t want him.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Donovan
whispered in her ear. “But she’s made the choice to sell herself to him. She’s
his slave now.”

“No.” Kai cried. “Mitzi!”

Her friend turned to look at Kai.
“I would do anything to save you, Kai. I promised myself to
Brenton
in order to get him to help. I stole the book of spells from Donovan’s library
to be able to call a demon to me. I called
Brenton
and made the deal. You said yourself you noticed how he was attracted to me.”

And Mitzi had been attracted to
him, but she was afraid of his size. From the look of her, she’d been right to
fear. And
Brenton
didn’t have a heart. Mitzi was
looking at an eternity of pain and unhappiness.

Kai closed her eyes, sorrow
overwhelming her. “Not for me, Mitzi. You deserve better.
Brenton
,
I’ll make you a deal. I—”

“No!” Donovan exploded. “I won’t
allow it.”

Kai tossed away his hold and
whirled on Donovan. “I’m not going to let her throw her life away for me. This
is my problem, and I’m going to fix it.”

“Not that way, and that’s final!”
Donovan shouted back.

“You don’t own me, Don.”

“Enough!”
Brenton
roared. “No more deals. I have what or rather who I want. Get your house in
order, Donovan. I will protect you here until tomorrow. And then we battle.”