Red Demon (49 page)

“Excuse me?”

He cursed under his breath, about to leave, but then she began sinking fast, and leaned into him for support. “Please, hold me,” she said, tears suddenly in her eyes. He clasped her waist, steadying her. “Just like this. I’m so worn-out after tonight. Healing . . . all the spiritual warfare.”

“Why did they involve you in this intervention?” he asked sharply.

She looked at him in surprise. “I’m a Daughter of Delphi. I had to be there! And Nikos almost died when Layla attacked him, so I healed him, no choice there,” she chattered. “Same with Juliana, duh. You know that! You understand who I am.”

He released her from his grasp. “
You
are impossible, female! Without a bit of self-preservation or self-concern in your body.” He pointed at the few thorny protrusions that remained along his flank and sides. “Why don’t you go ahead and touch me again as well? Add that additional pain and anguish to your own frail, pathetic little body!”

Wordlessly Sophie walked forward and pressed her face against a smooth portion of his withers, and began weeping. Her small shoulders heaved, and several soft sobs were muffled against his side. The damp tears instantly burned his body; they were pure. He was evil.

“Stop that!” he roared, swiveling his torso to get a better look at her. “Move off me, woman!”

Before he could stop himself, his hand shot out, reaching toward her, but then he froze midgesture. He began laughing cruelly, ignoring the way her tears seared his side. “You pitiful mortal. What help do you believe I can provide?”

“Sable, for once . . .” She didn’t finish, just pressed her face harder against him, her left hand now rubbing across his withers. “For once just stop fighting it.”

Staring at his own hand, still outstretched, still halfway extended toward her, he grew enraged by her existence—and that he cared for her, that he couldn’t shake her or resolve the conflict inside his perverse soul.

With an infuriated growl, he felt his horns lengthen and sharpen, his vision washed pure crimson with rage. He was at war with himself. The horns twisted again, wrapping about his forehead. He was at his ugliest and most foul, and still, despite the transformation, in spite of the pure crimson that washed through his vision . . .

He did not hurt her. He did something that went against every ruined instinct humming in his mind. He drew Sophie Lowery closer against his side.

“Wh-what happened?” he stammered, aghast at his own need to be a source of strength. “Why these tears?” he asked more softly, his gnarled fingers catching and pulling in her unruly curls.

She released another sob. “Juliana . . . we might not be able to save her. I hope you’re right, about Layla, but if not . . .” She cried harder. “Juliana will die. Aristos will lose her, again, and it’s . . . heartbreaking. I feel that sadness inside of me. It seems so cruel.”

His mouth watered at the word. She was treading dangerous territory; darkness roared inside his heart. “Cruel?” he forced the word past his lips, panting slightly with need. A need that only grew as he felt her warm, soft body fold closer against his own.

“Don’t you think so?” she asked softly. “But at least their love lives forever.”

“Don’t talk of love,” he warned her. “Not around me. The word does not inspire me to . . . behave.”

She only clung to him harder, as if he represented her next breath of life, the only stability in a foundering landscape. As if, he thought with a painful gasp, he was her
beloved
.

“I knew you’d make it better,” she said with innocent frankness. She rested her cheek in his fiery palm. “I knew . . . I needed you.”

The words pierced his heart, made him feel alive, and at once the world was no longer red. He blinked at her, still cupping her cheek.

“Your eyes,” she murmured wondrously. “They’re blue again. . . . Why does that happen?”

Because some small part of my soul isn’t craven
, he almost shouted.
Because you are dangerous to my basest nature.

As the hurricane of conflicting emotions rose even higher inside his chest, he gave a shake, bucking slightly so he could throw her off.

She cried out, and he flinched when she fell awkwardly against the base of a large oak tree.

“You are
such
a liar. You know what you feel,” she accused, pointing a finger at him. “What happens inside of you whenever I’m around.”

With a flick of his fingers, he’d summoned his fighting swords. Their hilts were encrusted with gleaming rubies and emeralds. “This is what I am, Sophie Lowery! A demon. A murderer.” He sliced the weapons dramatically through the air, and when she didn’t even blink, he drove first one, then the other into the tree where she leaned, framing her between the vibrating blades.

“Right now, Sophie, I could relish killing you. . . . I’d drag it out, get drunk on the pleasure.” He leaned closer into her space and sniffed the side of her neck right at the jugular.

She didn’t recoil. “You can’t do it.”

She wasn’t shaking, damn the bitch. Wasn’t trembling or crying out. That stillness in her was an accusation.

“I am death. Not your comforter or your . . .”
Beloved!
He couldn’t even say the damned word.

She finished for him. “Or my friend?” She just looked up into his eyes, her expression sad but not intimidated. She’d never even glanced at the sharp blades beside her cheeks.

“We are not playmates!” He thrust a hand against his chest. “You seem blind when you look upon me. Unable to sense or understand my true nature no matter how plainly I reveal it to you.”

She shocked him by suddenly smiling, and brightly, as she tilted her chin and met his gaze. “That’s just it. I
do
see. Your truest nature. Not the one you wear now.” She waved a hand up and down in front of him.

“Tell me this truth, Sophie Lowery,” he seethed, leaning so close against her face that his hot breath undoubtedly burned her cheeks. “Tell me what
I
, with all my thousands of years of roaming this world, do not know about my own nature.”

Reaching before he could stop her, she touched his cheek. “You’re going to love me. Completely. And you’ll do anything to make me love you in return. I’ve seen it. That is what is true.” She shrugged easily. “It’s the only truth, really, between you and me.”

He tightened his grasp on the twin swords, ready to inflict deathly wounds, anything to end her babbling. “I am incapable of love!” he roared. “Incapable of caring.”

“Or holding me close while I cry?” she reminded him on a gentle whisper.

His eyes slid closed, and somehow, all the roaring fury inside of him evaporated at the quiet words.

He
was
a liar; she was truth itself, so pure and lovely that he could not fight her tide. It was a losing, drowning effort to cling to his own fading darkness.

“I . . . hated that you hurt,” he admitted, wincing at his own confession. “I had to stop it. Do anything to take it away.”

She stroked his scarred cheek, so gently. “Yes, see? It’s not so hard, after all. It’s just that this change inside of you—it’s painful, I know. But it’s okay. It will be worth it.”

Closing his eyes, he turned his face so that his lips grazed her palm, and with the faintest, lightest touch, kissed the center of her hand.

“You gave us Layla’s true name. Why?”

He opened his eyes and stared down at her. “You, Sophie,” he admitted hoarsely. “I did it for you.”

 

Juliana brushed out her damp hair, fastening the white lace blouse she’d bought from the boutique. She wore it with a multitiered skirt, black taffeta cut above the knee. It was ridiculous, she supposed, but she wanted to present herself to the others appearing composed, especially if it was the last time she would ever see Aristos. For surely, she felt in her bones, if they could not defeat Layla by using this new information, then Layla would consume her.

Not entirely satisfied with her appearance, she set the silver-handled brush down and walked out of the room. Aristos leaned up against the wall outside her door, looking as sinfully handsome as ever, even though his eyes revealed fatigue and fear.

She walked right into his embrace. “I love you,” she promised him, needing him to hear it, now more than at any other time. “No matter what happens next, always know that I love you.”

He slid his arm about her, leading her down the hall. “I love you, too, but this isn’t good- bye, baby. It’s our beginning.”

“I want to believe that, too,” she said, leaning into him as they entered the library. She flinched when she saw the bloodstains on the floor. Someone had tried to clean up, but without much success, and soaked rags and a mop lay on the floor. She shivered, staring at the bloodshed.

Ari pulled her along. “Don’t look at that. You didn’t do it, remember. And Nikos is all right now.”

“For now. But if Layla gets loose again?” She fought tears, still gawking at the scene.

But then another hand grabbed hold of her arm, touching her softly. “Juliana, hi.” It was Mason, and he was looking at her with a surprisingly kind expression. “You ready for this?”

“Do you hate me now?” she asked bluntly. “Because, sir, I would not blame you at all if you did not care to assist me. Unfortunately, I still very much require your help.” She glanced at Ari, who hadn’t let her go for a moment. “We both do.”

Mason rubbed an eye for a minute, then said, “Like Ari said, you didn’t do all this. You’re a victim of Layla, sure as anyone else. She’s lethal, but it’s my job—it’s my calling, Juliana—to protect you from her. You’re one of the innocents that her kind prey upon, even, apparently from beyond the grave.”

They directed her to the sofa, and Shay took position behind her, laying gentle hands on her shoulders. Ari settled beside her, and his strength and solidness reassured her more than anything else, including the group that now knotted all about her.

Ari leaned forward and gave her a sweet, long kiss. “Here goes, sweetheart,” he said.

 

Ari began praying much harder right then. Layla was
not
going to do this again, he thought, as she transformed beneath his grasp, becoming slithery and clawed—even displaying gleaming fangs this time around.

“Take two, anyone?” Jamie barked, but Ari never even looked up.

“Let’s contain this thing,” he said, forcing Layla onto her back. Her leather wings beat against the sofa, bunching beneath her shoulders. “Whatever you guys do, nobody let her get free.”

She writhed and fought him, scratching up at his face, and he barely managed to duck out of her reach before Mason pinned her wrist down with brutal strength. “Don’t even think about it,” Mace growled at her.

“Kelly didn’t have nearly the fight that you do,” she said to him.

“Ignore her, Mace!” his brother cautioned. “Don’t let her use his memory as a tripwire.”

“I’m using his memory for fuel, brother,” he said, pinioning her down. “Ari? Go! Now—do it.”

Ari leaned right down over her and produced his own genie from a bottle. “Llayias, you ready to rock and roll?” he asked with a smug, satisfied smile. “Because we’re about to bind you and boot you back to where you came from.”

 

Jules moaned, her body covered in cuts and welts, but as far as Ari could tell, Layla was truly gone. She’d released her hold on Juliana, flying with a murderous screech all about the room, until Mason had dropped low, semiautomatic in hand, and fired a single sniper’s round. She’d fallen like a swatted bug to the floor, writhing there for half a second, then just vanished in a squealing puff of smoke.

Done. Gone.
Hasta la vista
, baby.

In that aftermath, though, Jules wasn’t looking very good, or seeming to possess much strength at all.

Sophie stroked her hair, laying her healer’s hands all over the marks and bruises. “Oh, poor thing,” Soph said softly, murmuring against her cheek as she kept releasing her gift into Juliana’s body. Ari had tried—and failed—to do the same; too much of his energy had already blown out during the demon battle.

Daphne approached, leaning against the sofa’s arm. “Aristos?” she said very gently. “We have to get her to Olympus. She’s not strong, but I worry that if we don’t take her now, she may not survive. She needs to be in Eros’s pool immediately.”

He stared at Jules’s wan expression and felt torn. If they teleported her, that required strength, and in her current state, would she survive it?

“She’s so weak,” he argued.

Sophie leaned closer, working more furiously. “She’s getting a little better.”

“We really need to go now,” Daphne pressed.

 

Juliana was drowning again. This water was warm, light, though, not asphyxiating. She felt it seep into her body, restoring her and bringing life. She tried opening her eyes, but there was only the glowing crimson water in every direction. She kicked and used her arms, trying to figure out which way was up or down so as to know how to reach the surface. Was this some aftereffect of her original curse?

Strong arms seized hold of her shoulders, pulling her. She felt the cool breeze of air on her face and, blinking, sucked in a deep breath.

Ari knelt by the pool, pulling her toward the side. She reached for the edge, but he stopped her. “You have to stay in; that’s what Eros told us.”

“Actually,” a warm, musical voice informed them, “you both need to avail yourself of the water’s special properties. There is life there that you must absorb while you’re together. Let’s put it that way, shall we?”

She gaped at the tall man—god?—who loomed over the edge, right beside Ari. “In you go,” the beautiful man instructed Ari, giving him a light, playful shove. Ari went tumbling into the pool with a huge splash, and then swam back toward her.

 

They were alone, thank all the gods who lived on this mountain, Ari thought, pulling Jules to him. Her soaked clothes bunched about her, and he began unbuttoning absolutely everything. Something in these waters aroused him beyond anything he’d ever known before.
Go figure
, he thought, barely swallowing a laugh. Eros would have the hot tub to end all hot tubs.