“Thanks,” he whispered.
She shivered. He’d intended to release her immediately, but his arms tightened instead. Wrapped around her small frame, his cheek pressed against her hair and his eyes squeezed shut, he held her to him. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to acknowledge his pathetic relief that he wasn’t alone in this.
And how petrified he was of the moment when he’d have to face this new future on his own.
Forcing his arms to loosen, he released her and stepped back. She wobbled, cheeks bright with a fresh blush. Unable to help himself, he brushed his thumb across her rosy cheek.
“Stay safe, Clio. I won’t be long.”
Leaving her in the shadows, he hastened across the street to pawn her jewelry and buy them a little of the safety they would desperately need very soon.
Chapter Four
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Clio muttered. “Why would we want a room anywhere near a … a party street?”
“Altaire Avenue,” Lyre told her as they cut through another dark alley, homing in on the loud thud of conflicting dance beats. “Haven’t you been here before?”
“Of course not,” she huffed. “Why would I?”
He didn’t comment as he surveyed the surrounding buildings before venturing out. They’d been out in the streets for a couple hours and he was jumping at every shadow. After he’d traded Clio’s necklace for a mix of human money and the platinum coins that formed most daemon currency, they’d trekked across downtown. They needed to find shelter soon.
They rounded a corner and Altaire Avenue stretched ahead of them—rows of buildings flooded with lights and glaring neon signs. Despite the late hour, a couple hundred people wandered the pavement, young and old, some in casual dress, others in flashy club wear. The music pounded in an unpleasant cacophony as each club’s sound system vied for dominance.
Humans were strange creatures. Terrified of the dark, paranoid about daemons attacking them, but give them bright lights and cheap beer and they were as brave as lions. It might have seemed odd that so many were out reveling when the average resident was barely scraping by, but the tougher the times, the more people craved a release from the stress.
A group of laughing women in skintight dresses that barely covered their asses sauntered by, leaving a trail of alcohol-scented air in their wake. Clio cringed back into the shadows of the alley.
“It’s easier to hide in a crowd,” Lyre explained. “And this is the busiest street in the downtown area.”
“But how will we sleep with all this noise?”
“The clubs are quiet during the day, and that’s when we’ll be sleeping.”
“Oh, right. How do we find a room to rent?” A wrinkle formed between her brows. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
He looked at the bustling humans, laughing as though they had no cares in the world, and uncertainty settled in his stomach—right beside the anxiety and dread. “Me neither.”
A soft touch on his hand. Warm fingers curled around his, and Clio smiled at him encouragingly. “We’ll figure it out together. Let’s go.”
She started forward, tugging him after her. He lengthened his stride to keep pace and watched her out of the corner of his eye.
By almost any standard, he was an expert when it came to women. He knew how to read their faces, bodies, and scents. He could predict their thoughts, emotions, and reactions to what he said and did. And he could manipulate those thoughts, emotions, and reactions as needed, with or without magic. It was his business, his nature, as an incubus to understand exactly how to deal with females.
So why didn’t he understand the way Clio’s smile had tightened his chest as though she’d grasped his heart and plucked it through his ribs?
“Hi.” A face appeared in front of him, bright red lips smiling.
He reflexively jerked to a halt. As soon as he stopped moving, five women surrounded him and Clio. Shit.
“Wow,” someone breathed. “You are gorgeous.”
“Babe, you want to come dancing with us?”
“Forget the clubs. I want to take him home.”
“I saw him first.”
“No, I did.”
They pressed closer, jostling for his attention, and he silently swore. What was wrong with him? Walking into a crowd of inebriated women with his face uncovered? Drunk, uninhibited, and human—three factors that made women so susceptible to his aphrodesia that he didn’t even have to unleash it to attract them.
As they crowded him, pushing Clio away, he tightened his grip on her hand. A woman draped herself over his side, arms wrapping around him as she slurred something about taking his clothes off. As though that had given them permission, two other women grabbed him.
“Ladies,” he crooned, projecting his voice with a touch of power. “Give me a little space, hmm?”
His voice—and the seduction magic in it—blanked their faces. They obediently stepped back, bumping into the small crowd that had formed around him. He pulled Clio to his side and pushed through the group. The nearest women hastened to follow and he flicked his fingers behind him, casting an invisible tripwire. The girl in the lead caught on it and fell. The others tripped over her.
Dragging Clio with him, he ducked into the shadowy entrance to a bar where three guys were smoking cigarettes. He focused on the one close to his size.
“Hey,” he said. “I want to buy your sweater.”
“Huh?” the man grunted
“Your sweater—your hoodie. How much?”
“I’m not selling my—”
Releasing Clio, Lyre stepped closer, smiled, and unleashed a hard punch of aphrodesia. His victim’s eyes glazed over and his mouth fell open.
“Your sweater,” Lyre purred. “I want it.”
“You … yeah, sure, man.” With dazed motions, he pulled the dark green hoodie off and held it out, staring at Lyre. “Hey, uh, you want a beer?”
“No thanks,” Lyre said, taking the sweater.
He pulled a couple bills from his pocket and tossed them at the guy. As he strode away, he yanked the sweater over his head—relieved it didn’t stink too badly of human or smoke—and tugged the hood up, adjusting it to cover his hair and shadow his face.
Clio grabbed his arm, slowing his fast pace as they reentered the crowded street. “Lyre, did you just use your aphrodesia on a man?”
“Attraction is attraction,” he said grimly. “Gender doesn’t matter.”
“But—I mean—you—” She jerked to a halt and her fingers bit into his arm. Alarmed, he spun toward her as her face went from rosy-cheeked to bleached white in two seconds.
“That man just vanished,” she gasped. “I think it was a reaper. He was watching us, and I looked at him, and he disappeared.”
Snarling, he grabbed her arm and launched into motion again. “Definitely a reaper. When you spotted him, he teleported. What an amateur. Someone is going to beat his ass for that.”
“How did they find us so quickly?” Panic raised her voice an octave.
“They must have been waiting to see if I’d turn up. Bloody hell.”
He ducked through a doorway and into a dark bar. Breezing past the tables, he pulled Clio through the kitchen door as though he knew where he was going. A greasy line cook glanced up from a deep fryer. “Hey, what—”
Lyre walked right by and straight out the back door. In the alley beyond, he swore again. “This is my fault. I suspected they might be watching this area, but I figured we could blend in. But then, like a complete idiot, I forgot to hide my face.”
And the boisterous crowd of women had acted like a flashing sign, drawing the hunters right to him.
Scanning the shadows, he led Clio down the alley to a narrow gap between buildings where they could peek into the busy street. He leaned back against the wall and raked his fingers through his hair, then tugged his hood low again.
“Lyre,” Clio whispered, “shouldn’t we be getting away?”
“They might be following us.” He squeezed his temples. “Probably waiting to catch us in a less public place. If we move too far from the busy street, they’ll attack.”
“Hmm.”
Her thoughtful murmur surprised him. She peered down the alley, then looked up at the dark roofs of the buildings. She moved closer to the busy street and gave it a slow, thorough study.
“I don’t see any reaper auras. I think we lost him.”
“Any … what?”
She dusted her hands together like she’d just taken care of business. “You aren’t the only one with useful skills,” she said tartly. “I can see all magic—even cloaking spells. I can spot daemons easily, and reapers’ red magic is especially conspicuous.”
He stared at her. Astral perception, the unique gift of nymphs. “You can see auras?”
“Magical auras, yes. Yours is gold.” She smiled. “It’s very pretty.”
“Pretty?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head toward the street. “There are six daemons out there—two blue, two pink, one purple, and one bronze. No red. Even if a reaper used magic to hide, I would see him.”
“Huh. But what if he’s staying out of your line of sight?”
“My asper doesn’t work through walls, but if he tries to follow us, I’ll probably see him.”
He took a deep breath. Her asper wasn’t foolproof, but it gave them an advantage. “Okay, I guess we can—”
“Wait.” She leaned toward the street again, her voice hushed. “He’s back. Walking south and—ha! He’s searching for us.”
Stepping close behind her, Lyre spotted the daemon—all too obvious now that he knew where to look. The man, dressed in casual black clothes, was strolling along the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and his head swiveling constantly.
“He lost us,” Lyre murmured. A cold, calculating stillness slid over him. “But he’ll bring others to search this area until they find our trail … unless we stop him from reporting to anyone.”
She stiffened. “You … you mean …”
“This is life or death, Clio. Our enemies won’t show us mercy.”
He waited to see how she would react—and what she would decide. She didn’t like violence. To her, death was shocking, appalling, a tragedy. He suspected her hands and her conscience were clean of blood. She had never killed before.
Unlike him.
Her eyes darted between his, her focus shifting back and forth as she thought hard and fast. He braced himself, already planning where he would leave her while he did what needed to be done.
She pushed her shoulders back. “All right. What’s the plan?”
Damn. She kept surprising him. With a tight smile, he cast his most powerful cloaking spell over himself. Before she could cast her own, he touched the base of her throat, her pulse fluttering against his fingertips, and cast the same spell on her.
“Mine is stronger,” he said, answering her questioning look.
She nodded without argument. “I’ll follow your lead.”
He checked the reaper’s position, then slipped into the street. Trailing at a distance, he and Clio shadowed the reaper for several blocks. Eventually, the daemon gave up on relocating his quarry and turned down a side street.
Lyre and Clio followed him away from Altaire Avenue. The streets grew darker and quieter until the throb of music was too distant to hear. The daemon slowed, then stopped in a small, empty parking lot behind a row of shops.
Lyre paused. Beside them, a door hung off its hinges, revealing a dark hallway that led into an abandoned office building. Drawing Clio with him, he headed inside and upstairs into an empty office where a broken window overlooked the parking lot. The reaper stood in the same spot, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“He activated a signal spell,” Clio whispered. “I can see it.”
“Summoning his team. We don’t have much time.” He backed toward the door. “Wait here a sec.”
“Lyre—”
He ducked out of the room and around the corner, out of sight. Closing his eyes, he dropped his glamour. The weight of his weapons materialized on his back. He pulled his bow and quiver off, then shifted into glamour again and hastened back into the room with Clio. As he knelt and pulled out an arrow, she glanced at him but didn’t comment. He was hiding his true form from her, but she’d done the same. There were things an Underworlder just didn’t do in front of an Overworlder.
Nocking the arrow, he raised the bow and took aim. An easy shot, an unsuspecting target. With Clio crouched beside him, tense and silent, he drew the string back to his cheek.
She grabbed his wrist, stopping him just before he could release it.
An instant later, footsteps crunched on loose gravel. The reaper agent turned around as three men walked into view, wrapped in shadows. Two silhouettes revealed average-sized men in simple clothes, but the third’s outline was distorted by the bulky shapes of weapons—multiple swords, including a hilt jutting above his shoulder.
An icy prickle ran down Lyre’s spine.
“Two reapers,” Clio whispered. “The third is … human? I can’t see an aura on him.”
No, the third one wasn’t human. The arctic chill in Lyre’s gut told him that much.
“You summoned us?” a reaper asked, a note of sharp command in his voice. His words, though quiet, echoed off the buildings.
“I saw them,” the agent replied, shifting nervously. “They were heading down Altaire Avenue, then they disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” the reaper demanded. “How?”
“I—I’m not sure. It was crowded.”
The heavily armed daemon faced the agent, who cringed back. “They saw you. You lost them because they saw you.”
That voice. Deep and sepulchral in a way that reached into his bones. Lyre knew that voice. He knew why the mere silhouette of that daemon sent trepidation twisting through him.
He was so, so dead.
Beside him, Clio had stopped breathing. She gasped in a lungful of air, the sound full of terror.
“Black aura,” she whispered faintly. “Not a missing aura. A black aura.”
The agent stumbled back a step. “The nymph’s astral perception makes it impossible to—”
The motion was so fast. The other daemon grabbed the agent by the throat. A crunch, a gurgle, then the agent hit the ground, twitching and wheezing in the throes of death.
“Ash,” the lead reaper growled.
“I don’t have the patience for incompetence and excuses. Call off the rest of your idiot spies before they slow me down even more.”
“I’m not—”
“Then I’ll keep killing them as I see them.”
“You aren’t in charge here, draconian. Samael assigned the contract to you, but we are overseeing—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you do. Stay out of my way and this will be over a lot faster.”
A long moment of silence.
“You’re confident you can kill a master weaver on your own?”
“I can kill anyone.”
The reaper snorted. “Arrogance will be your downfall.”
“Human or daemon, powerful or weak, everyone bleeds. Everyone dies.” He turned away. “Especially when you shove a sword through them.”
As he walked out of the lot, shimmers rippled over his body. Black wings rose from his back, flaring wide, and he sprang into the air. With two beats of those sinister, dragon-like wings, he vanished, swallowed by the night.
Lyre clutched his chest as a bolt of terror seized his lungs. Beside him, Clio had curled in on herself, her frantic breath hissing through her clenched teeth. The panic waned almost as soon as it had manifested, but he recognized it. He’d felt a similar surge of paralyzing fear just before his last encounter with Ash. The fear was triggered by the draconian—a magic similar to Lyre’s aphrodesia, except it fed on terror instead of lust.
The two reapers stood for a moment more, then without a word, th
ey disappeared in flashes of red light, teleporting away.
Clio sucked in air. “That—that daemon was …”
Lyre nodded, his fingers digging into his sternum. Though the exacerbated panic was fading, a block of icy dread had lodged inside his ribcage, and he doubted it would abate anytime soon.
“But Ash won’t … he wouldn’t kill us … would he?”
“He’s one of Samael’s best assassins,” Lyre answered dully. “And he has orders to follow. Whether he wants to or not, he’s going to kill us.”
Growing up in Chrysalis, Lyre had learned how to toe the line of defiance. He’d learned where he could resist and where he had to obey. And sometimes he’d obeyed orders that killed pieces of his soul because that’s what it had taken to survive.
Ash knew where the line was too. To survive, he would follow his orders. He was coming for Lyre and Clio, and the only mercy he could give them was a fast death.
Clio’s mouth trembled. “He helped me escape the bastille.”
Lyre looked at her sharply. “He did?”
She nodded, her eyes huge and shining with tears. “You and I would never have made it out of Asphodel without him. Will he really …”
“He will.” Lyre’s voice cracked, and he caught her hand and squeezed it gently. “What happened before—what he did—doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t defy direct orders any more than I could when I was at Chrysalis.”
Her fingers clenched around his. “What do we do?”
“We get to the Overworld before he can catch us. If he finds us first …”
“Will you be able to stop him?”
“Will I be able to kill him,” Lyre corrected. He looked at his bow. “Maybe. If I see him before he sees me.”
She too glanced at his bow, and her throat moved as she swallowed. “Lyre, you know how I said no daemon can hide from me because I can see their magic?”
“Yeah.”
“His aura, his magic … it’s black.”