The rocks were high on a rise above the road, but accessible by a worn slope others had used before. Michael was able to park on a level area behind the formation so that the sedan was hidden from passing vehicles. With midday approaching, it was doubtful anyone would stop for photographs, as heat already shimmered in waves above the golden-brown earth warmed by a cloudless sky and glaring sun.
The largest boulder was roughly triangular in shape and Lily decided to utilize the shade it provided for her circle of kachinas. Michael stood with his back to her also sheltered by one of the rocks, but facing the road. He would see if anyone paused or turned their car onto the slope they had taken up the hill. Grim, revealing his true hellhound nature, had winked out of existence only to materialize on the rock nearest Michael. He was undeterred by the fact that its surface must have been as hot as the griddle they’d left back at the waffle house. He lay in the shadows created by taller boulders against the one he was using as a perch, looking like a shadow himself. He watched the road as well.
Lily left the Fire kachina wrapped and in her bag. She was hesitant to use it again so soon. It had become her most powerful element, one she wasn’t sure she could control. She also left the warrior angel wrapped, but she did allow her fingers to touch it lightly as she gathered the other dolls. Its coolness soothed in the heat. The sudden tingle in her chilled hand felt like a hello. But she didn’t want to antagonize Michael so she left it in the bag. Controlling his Brimstone was so important to him. He wore his scars like a constant reminder of what might be if he embraced his heritage. She didn’t want him to think she consciously threatened that control. He had worn the wings to save Grim, but he hadn’t worn them since. Just like her, he was led by instinct and experience. For some reason, he still rejected the wings even though he had worn them so well in that moment to save his loyal hellhound friend.
She didn’t want to remind him of wings and daemon expectations. She didn’t want to remind him that she might ultimately be a part of his capitulation to the daemon king’s plans.
This was a simple ceremony she’d performed many times. She was asking her ancestors and her elemental spirits to help her find an open sipapu. One she promised to sanctify and seal when she was finished. To protect the old places. And to limit Rogues’ abilities to travel to and from Ezekiel’s kingdom.
Often the sipapu she found were amid nothing more than rubble and rocks in a long-ago-looted site. But a couple of times over the summer she’d managed to rediscover pueblos that had been forgotten. She’d been happy to point Native archaeologists to historic places for study and preservation.
The spirits were less likely to be mischievous if they knew her motives were pure.
Then again, she was participating in a scheme to place Michael on the throne of hell. Ezekiel had reasons—good reasons—for wanting his grandson to be the next daemon king, but she wasn’t sure if pure could be applied to daemon manipulations. At best they could be ambiguous by human standards because mortals weren’t required to survive and thrive for centuries.
Only when she had readied Wind, Water and Earth kachinas did Lily reach for her flute. Michael seemed to know when to brace himself, as if he sensed her breathing in behind him. She watched his back stiffen as she brought the flute up to her lips. Just before she released air to blow, he reached to hold on to the rock beside him. It wasn’t a lean. It was a grasp. He held the edge of the rock with tense fingers and white knuckles. His whole body tightened.
And then her music began to fill the space around them.
She couldn’t hold back during a summoning ceremony. She couldn’t control her affinity. She allowed the full swell of her power to rise within her and then rode the release of it as an almost visible aura of warmth exuded from her every pore. Her affinity joined the music—warmth and vibration, feeling and sound. Lily tried to focus on the kachinas, but Michael was too close and the stiffness of his posture was too much of a challenge.
It was too natural for him to be the one she called.
The aura that wouldn’t have been visible to the naked eye was visible to her heart. Like the heat she’d seen shimmering over the desert, the affinity vibrated the atmosphere between her and Michael. She watched it reach him and envelop him. She watched his tension increase a hundredfold.
Then he turned, and with his movement a rush of heat rode the invisible waves of affinity back to her. Lily tensed in response. Her eyes closed as Michael’s Brimstone warmed her from her pursed lips to her stomach to then curl enticingly lower. She continued to play, a pied piper who was damned to call, call, call a man who didn’t want to follow her off a cliff.
But when she opened her eyes it wasn’t only tension she saw in Michael’s broad shoulders and braced legs. His intense gaze was riveted on her playing—the breath that came softly from her lips, the pads of her fingers dancing on silver, the rise and fall of her breasts as she inhaled and exhaled—and in his eyes was anticipation.
The kachinas were forgotten. The spirits would have to wait. Her ancestors would have to continue to sleep. Because this song was for Michael, for all the affinity and Brimstone fire between them while they could still indulge it.
She played and he stepped toward her. Slowly but not reluctantly. He wanted to jump off the cliff she created for him with every breath, every sigh, and every slide of her hand. She didn’t pause, although her breath grew lighter and shakier the closer he came. Not until he was standing directly in front of her did she allow one note to trail down to a long soft whisper of sound. Only then did he drop to his knees. With that sudden movement, her last note ended as his hands came up to rest against hers on the flute.
“One last kiss before we go to hell,” Michael said. “I’ll risk everything for one last kiss.”
Lily didn’t protest. She had no air left in her lungs to fuel any sound. Michael held only her hands as she held her flute, but she didn’t pull away. She waited as he leaned down to bring his lips near hers. Close. So close. Dangerously close. But not close enough. The heat parched her lips, but he didn’t soothe them. Not yet.
“One kiss, Lily. Worth dying for?” Michael asked. “We’ve got to be a beacon right now. Just from our hands touching.”
He was right. The affinity throbbed between them with every beat of her heart. The unseen aura nevertheless burned her eyes with a warm glow that caused them to fill with tears.
“I could face Oblivion with the taste of you on my lips,” Lily whispered.
Flames leaped to consume the hazel in Michael’s irises as he moved the hairsbreadth necessary to bring their mouths together. She opened for him, eagerly meeting the hungry thrust of his tongue. It wasn’t tender or gentle. They had no time for slow seduction. He devoured and she hungrily explored all of the silken and rough textures of his mouth while their tongues tasted and twined and danced together.
Exhilaration claimed her with pounding heart and shaking limbs. Michael held her hands in a grip that was relentless, but that was all. He didn’t embrace her. So she trembled for want of more—his arms around her, his body pressing her to the ground, the thrust of him inside her. But his lips became all of that to her because this kiss was all they had.
It was too long. Too indulgent. He discovered all the sensitive hidden crevices of her mouth that seemed to be wired directly to her most intimate nerve endings elsewhere when he teased them with his tongue. Her nipples hardened. And she tensed against the ache between her thighs. The vibrations when he groaned at the response of her questing tongue only increased her pleasure. Perspiration rose from their skin as steam. They were surrounded in a humid embrace in the middle of an arid day.
Lily imagined pulling her hands free from his controlling grip to fumble for the waistband of his jeans. She imagined taking this further than they could. Truly risking the chance of being captured and killed just so she could join with him one last time.
She whimpered into his mouth. She actually tugged against his hold. But a chill suddenly crept up her spine. Michael didn’t release her hands, but he must have felt the sudden cold, too. He broke the kiss. He leaned his forehead against hers.
“I would risk death, but I don’t want you at risk,” Michael said. “I’m going to put some distance between us while you complete your ritual.”
He stood and she rose along with him. Mostly because he still held her hands. Her knees were shaky. It was only with his help that she managed to get to her feet. He backed away, but didn’t release her hands until he was at arm’s length.
“Grim,” Michael said. The hellhound was beside him instantly. “We’re going to go for a walk while Lily does her thing. Not too far. Don’t attempt too much.”
Michael didn’t say goodbye. He broke eye contact and followed the beast, who disappeared more slowly than usual as he walked away. Lily watched Michael dissolve from her plane of existence little by little from his ankles up, up, up the long length of his legs and spine. His broad shoulders and the shine of his hair went last.
He didn’t look back.
Her body still trembled from his taste and touch even after he was long gone. She had no time to savor or regret. The Rogues would have felt the amplification of her affinity. They would be on their way.
Lily reset the kachinas that had fallen over. She quickly placed her focus entirely where it belonged. Or as much as she could muster when her body was still tender with needs that might never be met. This time the elemental spirits responded with messages from her ancestors in the form of visions in her mind rather than a map drawn on the ground. They left her with a magnetized feel for the direction she and Michael needed to travel.
There was an open sipapu nearby.
She gathered the kachinas and wrapped them and placed them back in her bag. Somehow the warrior angel had come loose. A flash of black caught her eye. When she reached to wrap it back up, the sting of cold burned her fingers and she drew them back with a gasp to suck them back to life. How could the doll likeness be so cold when Michael was filled with Brimstone’s fire? She thought about how a chill had come between them and how it had caused Michael to back away from their kiss.
If the chill had come from the kachina, it had probably saved their lives. The warrior angel seemed to become colder and colder every time she touched it, after years of dormancy. She wasn’t sure what its chill meant, but it seemed more and more foreboding. She was used to being hunted by now, but the doll seemed to warn of unseen dangers.
By the time she was ready to get into the car, Michael and Grim had materialized nearby. This time Grim didn’t climb into the back seat when she opened the door. Michael gripped his ruff and tugged before the beast loped away.
“He’s going to keep an eye out for Rogues,” Michael said.
“I’m sure they’re coming,” Lily warned.
“It was worth it,” Michael said as they both climbed into the car.
“That’s what scares me,” Lily said. Too softly for him to hear over the roar of the engine. If he was willing to risk death for her kiss, he might accept the throne. For her. She couldn’t allow herself to be the reason for that sacrifice. No matter how it might help her to win Ezekiel’s heart. His fondness was reserved for D’Arcys. If she married Michael, she would be the closest thing to a D’Arcy that she could ever be, but did she truly want his love and approval that way?
If only he could love her on her own—as Lily Santiago—and if only he would allow Michael to make his choice without daemon deals and manipulations. Then maybe Michael could be free to love her, too.
* * *
The Rogues had found where Abaddon’s body impacted the canyon floor. It had been partially burned but mostly intact when he’d jumped from the skywalk. Much trouble had been taken to gather his remains together and bring them back for a ceremony that involved singing unlike any Peter had ever heard. He participated by bowing his head and biding his time. Abaddon’s charred heart had been stabbed through with a daemon blade at the end of the ceremony. To “release” him to a state they called Oblivion. Peter imagined it much more likely he would wind up in hell. He kept the observation to himself.
“Friends,” he began when the ceremony was over. “I have an idea of how best we can seek retribution for Abaddon’s death.”
He was rewarded for his service and patience by the gleam of a dozen pairs of daemonic eyes turning his way. Before he had completed his pitch for the continued hunt of Samuel’s daughter, they all felt it—the call of Lily Santiago’s affinity.