"Then you might as well tear my throat out," I whispered against the almost press of his lips. "It would hurt me less."
Halcyon stilled, looked deep within me, and read the truth of my words. He drew away and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said, not knowing why I was apologizing but feeling as if I should.
He gave a harsh laugh. "So am I. So am I. It's my fault you are hurt. I should have hid my interest in you. My only excuse is that you took me so by surprise. I was not thinking."
"No," I said sharply. "You cannot hold yourself accountable tor Kadeen's actions." My voice softened. "Anyway you rescued me and killed the bad guy."
One elegant eyebrow quirked upward. "You don't think of me, a demon, as a bad guy? After you saw my other self?"
"No. You just make visible that dark part that every one of us has inside of them, especially me."
Halcyon reached out, his thumb rubbing small circles against my hand. "I love that part of you, hell-cat."
"Do you? I sense a beast within me, waiting to be let loose. It scares me sometimes." I smiled tremulously. "But it reassures me to see how in control you are of that part of yourself. You control it. It doesn't control you."
"No, it doesn't control me."
"What you change into is not so different from the forms the Monère shift into."
"Perhaps because we were once Monère."
My eyes widened upon hearing that fact. "All of you?"
"There are some Mixed Bloods among us but not many. Few have enough psychic power to make the transition to Hell."
"Why should that matter?"
Halcyon smiled. "Hell is not the place for sinners that humans believe it to be. After the Monère die, some fade back into the darkness. Those who have remaining psychic power come here and exist in this forever twilight realm for as long as their energy sustains them."
"Would I come here?"
"Yes, if your mind was not burned out when you died."
I searched his eyes. "Then why did it anger you so when you learned that the witch's brew almost killed me?"
Halcyon pressed a soft kiss to my hand, making me shiver, and not in fear. "I value life. Yours especially, hell-cat. It was your joyous laughter that first drew me to you, your pure delight in nature's beauty. You were bathed in sunlight and filled with happiness. You captivated me and you lured me in even deeper when you betrayed no fear of me. When you tried to protect me, made Amber sheath his sword, I fell in love with you."
His simple statement lay between us.
I lifted the hand he had kissed and tenderly traced the lean lines of Halcyon's elegant face. "You must find try and find someone else to love. For both our sakes."
"You love Gryphon and Amber only because you met them first. But you will love me last. I shall be here long after they have gone," Halcyon said with certainty.
I smiled wryly. "But will I?"
He nodded. "Your psychic power is greater than theirs."
When Halcyon had promised to wait, he had spoken not only of life but of the afterlife. I stared at him. "How old are you, Halcyon?"
"I have lived over six hundred years in this realm."
No wonder he had looked at me so curiously when I'd asked if he was over a hundred years old when we'd first met. What was this thing I had for older guys?
"One last question. Can I leave Hell?"
Halcyon's smile did not reach his dark chocolate eyes. "You mean will I let you leave."
"That too," I said softly.
"Your young man does not expect you to return," Halcyon said suddenly.
He meant Gryphon. I guess seventy-five years would seem young in Halcyon's eyes. "Why not?"
"No human or living Monère ever has. If the descent does not kill them, the arrival certainly does. Their bodies cannot survive in this heat. They become the demon dead or simply fade into the darkness."
So maybe it was not the sun itself but heat that killed the Monère. "But I'm still alive. My heart beats."
"Yes. You can survive here," Halcyon said, looking at me in a contemplative, unsettling manner. "And you were not brought here by my hand. Even the Council would not question me if you never returned."
His dangerous words made my blood run more quickly in my veins. "I am not a captured butterfly you can keep, Halcyon. Do not make me hate you."
"Could you not choose to be with me?" It was a quiet plea.
I gazed at the lonely elegant man before me. A man who said he loved me. A man who stirred feelings of friendship and more within me. Could I have chosen to remain here with him? Yes, if I had met him first. And to tell Halcyon that would have been the utmost cruelty, because the unalterable fact was I had not met him first.
"You must let me go. I fear my brother is in peril. I must find him. Please, Halcyon." I licked my lips nervously, drawing his gaze down to my mouth. His eyes dropped even further to the beating pulse of my neck.
"A kiss. Or one small taste of your blood," Halcyon said finally. "That is my price for letting you go."
Dizzying relief rushed through me even as my heart pounded faster in fear as I remembered the brutal way Kadeen's teeth had ripped into me.
"I will not hurt you," Halcyon promised gently.
My brief spurt of alarm receded. "A taste then," I said, reasoning that a sip of my blood would be much, much safer than kissing him. Turning my head, I offered my neck to the demon prince.
Halcyon bent down over me and sharp awareness of his body over mine singed me though no part of him touched me. I felt his breath against my skin, felt an involuntary tingling in my breasts as he inhaled and drew in my scent. A tingling that turned into an ache as I felt his teeth sharpen against my neck, an ache that began to throb as he scraped his fangs lightly along my skin in an erotic caress that made me suddenly doubt the wisdom of my choice. Sensual tendrils whispered over my body like invisible hands.
He pierced me, a glorious aching pain that made me cry out. Crooning with fierce pleasure, Halcyon drank my blood and I felt his vibration trill over my breasts, trip down to my core and arrow into me with sweet ferocity. I arched up against him as agonizing pleasure burst within me, drenching me until wetness trickled down my thighs and the scent of my satisfaction filled the room. Halcyon released me as my light was slowly absorbed back into my body. I looked up into his dark eyes, limp and dazed, my breath coming fast.
He licked a small drop of my blood from where it rested like an innocent red beauty mark upon his lips. "A small taste of me, as I tasted you."
"I do not believe I could survive more," I said, breathless.
"Would it not be glorious to sec if you could?" Halcyon whispered temptingly.
I laughed shakily, pushed him away from me, and sat up on the bed. "Take me back, Halcyon. Please. I need to find my brother."
We arrived back in the same alley where I had been taken. Halcyon walked out of the misty wall, carrying me in his arms. He had shielded me somehow so that all I felt was minor discomfort.
Gryphon was waiting, slumped against the wall. Grief and despair ravaged his face, twisting it into a harsh mask. He rose to his feet slowly and stiffly. Disbelief shadowed his luminous eyes for a moment then fled as fierce glittering emotions filled their place.
Halcyon set me down and I rushed into Gryphon's arms. He held me tightly, uncaring of his own wounds.
"Amber? Chami?" I asked.
"Back in your apartment, not far from here, resting."
They were both still alive. Thank God.
Gryphon set me carefully aside and dropped to his knees before Halcyon.
"My thanks, Prince Halcyon, for returning her back to us," Gryphon said, his voice hoarse with gratitude.
"Do not thank me. It was her choice. Not mine."
"My deepest gratitude, then, most especially because of that," Gryphon said, holding Halcyon's gaze.
The Demon Prince smiled wryly down at Gryphon. "Thought of that, too, did you, lad." Halcyon sighed and looked at me mockingly. "I would have been the better choice. But he's not too poor an alternative, considering. Until we next meet, milady." Halcyon bowed and walked back into the mist. The swirling white slowly faded and disappeared.
Gryphon stood up and ran his gaze over me in close examination, taking in the expensive silk shirt, the baggy pants cinched tight at the waist with a man's leather belt, the masculine necktie wrapped around my throat. "I thought we'd lost you," Gryphon whispered, loosening the cloth about my neck and gazing at the marks on either side. He retied the cloth without comment.
"Nope. I'm hard to kill."
"That was the only hope I clung to, when I dared hope."
"How badly are Amber and Charm hurt?" I closed my eyes. "Stupid question. I saw how badly. But they'll live, right?"
Gryphon nodded and gave a fierce smile. "We are hard to kill as well."
"I'm glad. Terribly, terribly glad. Let me see your wounds."
Gryphon lifted his shirt. The deep furrows, already beginning to heal, arrowed angrily from his left hip to just below his right ribs. The stiletto wound was finally gone, I saw, only to replaced by this new injury. My palms tingled as I ran both of my hands over the deep gashes, easing his discomfort.
"Ah, that feels much better." Gryphon took my hands in his and kissed them. "The wounds will heal quickly enough on their own. I was most fortunate. It was but a glancing blow."
I'd seen up-close and personal what those claws could do and could not disagree with him.
"Let us go quickly to your place," Gryphon said, tucking me against his side as we left the alley. "Amber needs you."
I was grateful for Gryphon's lack of jealousy. Truly I was. But at the same time it bothered me. "You and Amber. You're amazingly generous with each other about me."
A hard gleam came into Gryphon's eyes. "I do not share you lightly, Mona Lisa. Only with Amber. He is my equal and shares with you his strength and helps shield you from our enemies. We belong to you." Gryphon touched the necktie, his fingers unerringly finding the spot where Halcyon had bit me. "Halcyon does not belong to you. He is not one of us. And being with him does not strengthen but endangers you."
"I asked him to find someone else to love."
"That would be most ideal," Gryphon said dryly, "and make you less of a target. Will he do so, do you think?"
I shrugged unthinkingly, jarring my wounds, above and below. "I don't know. Will there be other demons?"
"The fate of the demon who took you will surely serve as a deterrent but… few demons are powerful enough to leave Hell."
I shuddered. "Great. So that means that the ones that do come after us are going to be really strong."