She’d felt the burn of the daemon king. She wasn’t surprised to find him in the great hall of the main house, but she was surprised to find him alone. She’d expected an army come to take her away.
“Adam Turov called me,” Ezekiel said.
“That was not his call to make,” Victoria said. “Malachi has taken Michael and I intend to go and get him back.”
Ezekiel looked at her with ancient eyes.
“I regret not doing the same. I allowed myself to be too distracted by war. I should have fought for you and your sister. I never should have abandoned you,” the daemon king said.
“You were fighting for us. We just didn’t know. We felt more alone than we actually were,” Victoria said. She couldn’t help a glance at the grand staircase behind Ezekiel. Adam had to be on his way. She didn’t have much time to convince her daemon stepfather that she could take care of herself.
“You are stronger than I ever imagined you would be. The song of your affinity is more powerful than you know. I am ancient. I am always. Yet it nearly brings me to my knees in your presence. Your lover doesn’t understand. He wants to protect you. As I want to protect you. But, I think, you need warriors by your side. Not as your keepers,” Ezekiel said.
“I’ve been kept since I was born. The Order has owned me. I don’t want to be a possession,” Victoria said.
The daemon king walked toward her and she braced herself. She had only her strength of will. She had no weapon other than her song and she didn’t know how to use it against him.
But Ezekiel didn’t touch her or take her. He simply stopped a foot away and reached beneath the bronzed wings on his back. Lucifer’s wings gleamed in the lamplight. The knife he pulled from beneath them didn’t gleam. It was dull and black and its short blade had been forged in a graceful, but deadly curve. She could see its thin, sharp edge. Its hilt was black too, but beneath the iron-like metal from which it was made glowed a fluid that flowed like molten lava.
“This is my blade. This is my blood. By rights, my blood should flow in your veins. I loved your mother. I couldn’t have her. I couldn’t save her. But I can give a part of myself to you in reparation for her sacrifice. This blade and my blood in exchange for my life. She gave a gift and nothing was returned. I would give this to you to seal the bargain that has remained open-ended for too long,” Ezekiel said.
His words were formal. Victoria recognized the tone. This was a daemon deal. She should turn and run far away. The daemon king’s blood was a gift she should never, ever take. Yet when Adam came to the top of the stairs and started to descend, she reached for the dagger. When her fingers closed over the glowing handle, Adam paused. The whole universe paused. Her lungs stilled and dust motes hung suspended in the air. Adam was dressed in the same black tactical clothing she’d seen him in when she’d first arrived at Nightingale Vineyards. Like a dark ninja in a modern military-style uniform, his pause only allowed her to appreciate just what a threat he could be with a hundred years of experience in his muscles and his mind. Even a blade from the daemon king himself might not give her the leverage she needed to decide for herself how she would save her son if Adam decided to stand in her way. He wouldn’t hold her. She wouldn’t cut him. An impasse was possible.
But the power of the daemon king’s knife certainly couldn’t fail to tip the scales slightly in her favor.
“It is done. I am with you. Wherever you go, whatever threat you face, I am by your side. You’ll never be abandoned again,” Ezekiel proclaimed.
Adam heard him. The pause was over and he made his way toward them with a storm-cloud brow and Brimstone eyes.
“So you won’t take her to hell where she’ll be safe while I go to retrieve her son?” Adam asked.
Ezekiel’s positioning changed in the blink of an eye. One second he was facing her, and the next he stood in front of the man who had summoned him. He began to circle as he spoke. Walking around Adam as Adam stood stiff and still.
“My kingdom is hers whenever she wishes it. It will be her son’s when he comes of age. But it will be a gift, not a prison cell. You of all people should understand how I feel about prison cells, Adam Turov,” the daemon king said. “Of course, I shall be very persuasive when the time comes for my grandson to take his place on the throne.”
Victoria carefully brought the wicked blade closer and tucked it into the outer pocket of her backpack as if she was pocketing a viper. Never trust a daemon. Especially a daemon bearing gifts. The blade was going to prove more trouble than it was worth, but she would worry about that when the trouble revealed itself. For now, she had a weapon and she had foiled Adam’s attempt to shelter her from the battle at hand.
It didn’t matter that her heartbeat thumped in her ears when the hardened daemon king seemed to threaten Adam with his posture, with his harsh tone.
“I’m ready to go. We’re wasting time,” Victoria said.
She suddenly wanted Adam away from his daemon master. Ezekiel might claim to be her stepfather, but he was a being from a different realm. Daemons couldn’t be trusted. The daemon king wasn’t an exception to that rule. He proved it every time he drew breath. He ruled a whole hell dimension of beings who couldn’t be trusted. As their king, he could be trusted least of all.
“You and I have an agreement, Adam Turov. It does not include standing in the way of Malachi’s demise. The opposite, in fact. I agreed to help you bring the Order of Samuel to justice. Victoria must go. This is what her affinity sings to me. And I listen,” Ezekiel said. “If you value your soul, you will help her. Not hinder her.”
“Once you’re there, you’ll wish you had let me save you from it,” Adam said. He didn’t even acknowledge the powerful daemon who surveyed him so closely and carefully. He ignored Ezekiel. His focus was entirely on her.
“I sang my baby a lullaby through the flames of a collapsing portal to hell,” Victoria said. “I’ve got this.”
Adam tilted his head. It wasn’t a nod of agreement or acquiescence. It was only acknowledgment that he’d been outmaneuvered by a hundred-year-old daemon deal and a mother who refused to be kept from her son. If he’d compared the power of the two, the latter would have come out on top.
He turned on his heel, never more removed from his peasant beginnings than now when he refused to bow before a daemon king in order to walk away with his shoulders squared and his head held high.
“I have been his master for a hundred years and I give you this warning...he will put your safety above his soul. It is entirely up to you if you let him,” Ezekiel said.
Things would never be easy between them. It wasn’t how to deal with Malachi or Ezekiel that came between them. It was the best and worst of Adam Turov himself. He wanted to protect and save. He wanted justice. But his desire to shield her threatened her worse than the Order of Samuel ever had because it warred with her desire for him to regain his soul from the daemon king’s clutches.
“If it’s up to me, he’ll find himself in paradise one day. He’s certainly earned his wings,” Victoria said.
“Heaven doesn’t require wings. Only complete subjugation,” Ezekiel said. His smile curved up slowly on one side. “I prefer to stand.”
She blinked and he was back beside her. She tensed, but he only leaned over to place a kiss on her cheek. She swore she heard her skin sizzle, but there was no pain.
“Take care, my love. You’re strong, but I fear your feelings for Adam Turov might be stronger. Don’t let them sway you from your path,” Ezekiel said.
He turned and walked away, gradually disintegrating from the top of his dark hair to his chest to his waist...until nothing was left but his booted feet and then they, too, disappeared.
She imagined Adam Turov had done something in his rooms to undo his summoning of the daemon king, but leave it to Ezekiel to make it look casual and voluntary. She walked over to the hall mirror and looked beneath the hand she’d placed over her cheek. Only the slightest redness remained where the daemon king’s lips had brushed her skin.
Why did she feel like she was marked for eternity as his?