The Demon King (37 page)

During sex, it joined male
demons to female demons in an exchange of life that brought as much
pleasure as orgasms did for mortals. The act was known among demons
as
the harrowing
.
When a demon mated with a mortal, however, the harrowing was
forbidden. For when a demon’s partner was
mortal
, the experience was not quite
so pleasant. It was in fact deadly. In the demon realm, it was
called the
harrowing’s
death
.

Apollyon took his human victim’s life force
into himself and used it to mend the rest of the wounds Lazaroth
had inflicted. It moved through him, replacing the vitality he’d
lost until he was no longer bleeding, and his blood no longer
burned the flesh it touched.

He drained the young vessel of every ounce
of life it had once possessed. He drank until his bones were
mended, until his connective tissues were once more sewn into
place, and his skin sealed up. He drank until the pink scars formed
by demon blood began to fade, and with it the burning ache of a
battle lost.

And that was how the young girl who had died
with her dress hiked around her waist and her shoes across the
street provided sweet respite from Apollyon’s pain.

“
I don’t know why you
bother.”

Apollyon’s eyes snapped open. He recognized
the voice at once, and dropped his victim unceremoniously, pulling
his fangs from her throat to whirl around and face the demon behind
him.

Astaroth shook his head, glanced at the dead
girl, then cocked his head to one side. “My son must have done a
number on you. You really drained her dry. But your relief won’t
last.” Astaroth grinned, revealing fangs even longer and sharper
than Apollyon’s. “You and I both know it.”

Apollyon glared at the
former Demon King, but he smiled too, and that smile was just as
terrible. “You’re just jealous, old man. It’s been so long since
you’ve tasted the
harrowing’s
death
. I imagine you lay in bed dreaming
of how good it would feel.”

He narrowed his gaze on
Astaroth. “Those wounds on your back,” he said as he paced away
from the fallen body and the wreckage around it. “Those would go
away. Think of it – no more pain.” He shook his head and chuckled.
“It could all be over so easily. But the Curse won’t let you. All
because you just
had
to reproduce.” He stopped and turned to fully face Astaroth.
“What a shame that you chose fatherhood over common sense. You’ll
pay forever for that mistake.”

When Lord Astaroth, king of the demon realm,
had fallen in love with a mortal, he had done the previously
thought impossible and won her love in return. She’d given him a
child. But as all demons knew: It had to hurt to work. She would
not conceive unless there was suffering involved. And for the
demon, the suffering had to be permanent.

Idiot
, Apollyon thought. “What manner of man condemns himself to
eternal pain just to have a brat?”

But Astaroth smiled slowly and
enigmatically. “I think if you asked around, you would find that
fatherhood carries with it a rather uniform suffering,” he said
softly. Then he laughed, and it was not a derisive laugh, but one
of quiet wisdom. It managed to infuriate Apollyon even more than
out-and-out disdain would have. “These scars,” Astaroth said
indicating his back with a casual shrug and a shake of his handsome
head, “they’re nothing in comparison. Parenthood’s truest agonies
are those that can not be seen.”

“
Such as the agony of
losing a son?” Apollyon asked.

The world grew still. All around them, the
entropic discord of wreckage and shock slowed on the cogs and gears
of time’s clock, and their noise in turn faded. What Apollyon had
said was unmistakable. He’d meant it as a threat. A warning. And a
promise.

And that was how Astaroth took it.

The former king straightened, his dark, dark
eyes flickering with the faintest hint of red.

“
You can’t touch me,
Astaroth. Don’t embarrass yourself by trying.” Apollyon knew the
rules. He held to them like a life line. The moment Astaroth had
given up his throne, the former king had become benign to those of
royal blood. Members of the royal family, no matter how distant,
were harmless to one another, as laid down by the Curse long ago.
Only the current king could kill others who carried royal blood.
And from the moment of Lazaroth’s birth,
he
had been that king.

The little
fucker
, Apollyon thought. But he had
nothing to fear from Astaroth.

“
In all honesty, I wouldn’t
deny my son that pleasure anyway,” said Astaroth. “But I have to
tell you,” he said as he put his hands in his pockets, looked
around at the mess, and shook his head. “You sealed your coffin
when you set sights on his queen.” He smiled as if Apollyon had
just been caught making the biggest mistake of his life. “I don’t
think you can count on a swift death now. But look on the bright
side. At least you’ll live that much longer.”

With that, the former king of the demon
realm vanished, leaving Apollyon standing with a spinning head and
a cold heart amidst the bloody, twisted, and crushed remnants of
his latest temper tantrum.

Chapter Forty-Eight

She hadn’t seen the drink appear. She’d been
lost in the red rings of Lazaroth’s irises, wondering if they were
hurting him. Suddenly she’d noticed that the space in front of her
on the table was no longer empty. She looked down at the glass and
her mouth fell open in wonder.

“
What…
is
it?” she asked. The drink had
been served in a wide wine glass, the top like a crystal bowl. The
liquid itself, however, didn’t look anything like wine. Instead it
looked like a rainbow, divided into layers of color that covered
the entire spectrum. She was a little afraid to touch the glass;
she didn’t want to mess up the layers.

“
It’s a Black Dahlia,” he
said softly. She looked up at him as the song changed, and Daft
Punk lasered the audience. She realized suddenly that every time
he’d spoken, she’d been able to hear him over the din of the music
and revelry. But then again, he was magic. She looked back down at
the glass, and then back up again, frowning. The name made no
sense.

He grinned. “A toast,” he said, lifting his
own glass. His was a tumbler containing what literally looked like
water. She had no idea what he was drinking.

Dahlia took a deep breath and gently wrapped
her fingers around the bowl of the wine glass. At once, the layers
of color disappeared. She gasped, disappointment warring with
surprise as she raised it higher to get a closer look. As the
colors vanished, they melted into one another, becoming a shade so
dark red, it was nearly black.

So red it’s nearly
black
, she thought. Just like the Black
Dahlia. There was no such thing as a pure black Dahlia.
Horticulturists had been trying to create one for more than a
hundred years. Deep, dark red roughly the same shade as a
blackberry was as close as they had come. This blossom of very dark
red was known as the Black Dahlia.

Dahlia ducked her head, peering closely into
the glass of red darkness. She turned it slowly between her
fingers. When she did, a multitude of sparkling dots reflected the
light within that darkness as if she were staring at a night sky.
It shimmered back at her, winking with the secrets of existence and
eternity.

“
It looks like the Cosmos,”
she whispered.

“
Indeed it does,” agreed
Lazaroth softly. She glanced up at him. But he was staring into her
glass just like she had been. “I believe my birth mother, Lenore,
would have appreciated this particular drink.”

Dahlia gazed steadily at him, taking
everything in. It was much easier to do when he wasn’t staring
back. Right now, his expression was softer. His eyes seemed softer
too. It was like a piece of the Steven Lazarus she’d come to know
was managing to pierce through the shroud of darkness that was
Lazaroth. She was seeing the man and not the monster.

Take it
, she thought.
Take this and hold on
to it.

She looked back at her glass. “Tell me about
her,” she coaxed, hoping against hope that he would take the bait.
She watched the stars in her glass swirl, nearly mesmerized by
their beauty. But a sudden silence from him drew her attention.

He was watching her very intently, and his
eyes were again that dichotomy of chilling cold and dangerous fire.
“Another time perhaps,” he answered easily and once more lifted his
glass. “Now, that toast.”

Dahlia felt the heaviness
of fear settle in her gut.
I don’t stand a
chance against him
, she thought
helplessly. But she lifted her glass to his.

“
To new beginnings,” he
said, repeating the toast he’d given earlier. However, this time
when he said it, there was a cruel bend to his lips and a double
meaning in his eyes.

New beginnings
indeed
, her thoughts echoed. She put the
glass to her lips and inhaled, taking in the sweet, clean scent
that reminded her of blush wine and champagne and cherry 7-Up. And
something else…
magic
, she thought. Liquid magic.

She closed her eyes, instinctively wanting
to shut out the rest of the world as her sense of taste took over.
She tilted the glass, and the magic of the Black Dahlia poured cold
and crisp across her tongue. At once she was deliciously assaulted
by the refreshing nature of the drink; it quenched every thirst
she’d ever hand and tingled like pop rocks as she swallowed. It
tasted like raspberries and grape juice and the vast expanse of a
starry sky.

She couldn’t stop at one sip. It was too
good. It felt like she’d been thirsty forever, a dying man in the
desert offered sparkling salvation in a cup. She pulled and
swallowed, and the music in the club changed again. A deep,
throbbing beat moved through her, mesmerizing and compelling. She
continued to drink.

So good….

At last, the glass was
empty, and when she lowered it, she licked her lips and sank
further into euphoria.
Oh
gods
, she thought as pleasure and numbness
mixed recklessly.
What have I done?
Not that she particularly cared. Not just then,
anyway.

“
Would you care to dance?”
Lazaroth asked.

Dahlia opened her eyes –
but slowly. She felt drugged. Hell, she
was
drugged. It was like being given
all the responsibility in the world and then having someone else
come along and say, “You know what? I got this. You just take it
easy.” It was the most delicious feeling she’d experienced in far
too long. She felt out of control and she really,
really
liked
it.

Lazaroth was smiling knowingly at her, and
she couldn’t help but smile back.

“
Gods, you have a beautiful
smile,” he said.

She blinked to find that
his expression had again changed. Gone was the hardness once more,
and back was that little bit of him that was Steven – more empathy
and instinct and kindness – more
man
than monster. An idea blossomed
within her. Not unlike the Black Dahlia, it was dark and different.
But it was one she felt with such strong instinct, she held on to
it, even in her current state.

“
Dancing sounds good,” she
admitted. Then she looked down at her long legs, wanting to make
certain her red velvet number of a dress didn’t hike up around her
bottom when she slid out of the booth. She scooted and
turned.

Rave music poured from the speakers and
infiltrated each and every far corner of the dance club. The tempo
pulsed like audio morphine. Dahlia felt a shadow fall over her. She
glanced up to find that Lazaroth was now standing at the end of her
booth, tall and ridiculously strong. Waves of enormous power pulsed
dangerously around him.

She looked into his eyes. They sparkled like
a million dark promises.

She placed her hand carefully in his and
watched in fascination as his long, graceful fingers curled
possessively over hers. His hand was warm, almost too warm. There
was a heat pulsing from him as surely as his power.

He pulled her to her feet, and she found
herself standing so close to him that they were nearly touching.
She looked up, holding her breath. He caught her gaze and kept it
as if he’d just caught something precious. “Despite my spell, there
are six men in this club watching you right now,” he told her
softly, quietly. “They want you.” His tone was gentle and warm,
familiar and personal. His words, however, were edged and sharp and
left her cold.

They were a threat that hedged on a
promise.

Her fear was back, but this time it was a
fear for the welfare of others. “I’m a Tuath,” she said. It was
hard for her to concentrate. The drink he’d given her warred with
her consciousness for control of her body, including her tongue.
But she won the battle of wills, at least for now, and said, “And
I’ve been giftwrapped. So it isn’t exactly their fault.”

His eyebrow raised. “You’re that
irresistible?” he teased softly.

She nodded, which made her dizzy. She swayed
a little on her feet, and heat branded her lower back. His hand was
there, steadying her… claiming her. A new wave of weakness washed
over her, coupled with a growing warmth in her core. He was getting
to her in every possible way.