Chapter 29

A hand stroked my forehead, someone speaking to me in a hushed voice. Though the words were too fuzzy for me to make out, whoever this was would protect me.

I tried to lean into their touch, but I was racked with another bout of coughing that pushed me back under the dark ocean of pain.

A muscular arm slid under my head to raise it and two blazing silvery-blue orbs filled my vision.

I fought hard to stay with that light.

“Aviva, sweetheart. Please.” Ezra’s voice cracked. “Give me your consent to heal you.”

I must have nodded because a moment later his bleeding wrist was against my lips. The flavor of peppermint and rain on a hot day exploded in my mouth, adrenaline hitting me like a rollercoaster shooting out of the gate.

I greedily fed off him, the spark of warmth flaring into a blazing heat that coursed through my veins. It brought no pain, only an intoxicating comfort not unlike a hot chocolate after I’d been standing outside and freezing for hours. My muscles, tense from the shock of injury, began to relax, the strain seeping away as though swept out by an ebbing tide. Bones knit together and my strength returned, pulsing through me with each breath. The sharp edges of pain were softened, blurred into a hazy memory by Ezra’s otherworldly magic.

Along with the physical healing came a dizzying elation that left me breathless. It was as though a veil had been lifted, allowing me to experience the world in its full vibrancy. The gold flecks in his duvet cover sparked like embers, his bedroom furniture possessed the rich walnut hue of a living forest, and the lap of the waves outside the repaired window crooned a lullaby.

Ezra’s inner wrist was velvety soft, his hint of cologne the faint scent of a favorite memory, while the full, pungent flavor of his blood tasted better than a rare vintage merlot. His mattress under my butt was as soft as a cloud.

He finally pulled his wrist away with a shiver so imperceptible that without my heightened senses, I’d have missed it. There was a vulnerability in the way he watched me, a crack in the fa?ade of imperiousness that always surrounded him, and through it, I sensed the deep-seated hunger pulsing beneath his skin like a heartbeat.

He ran his tongue over his fangs, his hand ghosting up the side of my neck until his finger rested on my rapidly stuttering pulse.

I held myself very still, feeling like a bunny in a wolf’s grip, albeit a bunny with very conflicted feelings, because cresting on this high from his magic, I yearned to take that next irrevocable step and blood bond with him.

My lids fell shut and my lips parted on a sigh, an invitation which Ezra accepted, brushing his fangs along the side of my throat, his warm breath sending shivers along my skin.

“No. You really don’t want this,” he said in a rough voice.

“Part of me does.” I pressed my throat closer to his fangs, wanting to feel their sharp tips pierce my skin. But he didn’t oblige. I opened my eyes to find him frowning at my hand bunched in the sheets.

A hand covered in frosted green scales. I made a small sound of distress because I hadn’t even realized I’d changed into Cherry’s form. I pulled my knees into my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “How long have I looked like this?”

“It happened almost immediately once you started to feed.”

It was bad enough that I hadn’t noticed, but I’d felt his closeness as acutely as if I’d been naked. “Is that why you didn’t want?—”

“ No .” He gently pressed his hand against my lips for a moment to stop my protest. “You’re vulnerable and not thinking clearly and I almost took advantage of that.” A flicker of pain crossed his features.

“Right,” I said softly. The decision to blood bond should only be made under the most lucid and sober of mindsets. I was very sober now and grateful he’d had the presence of mind to stop things, but… I dropped my head, allowing my crimson hair to hide my face.

Ezra brushed the strands away.

I tried to pull back, but he placed his hand against my spine to keep me in place.

“You’re beautiful like this,” he said huskily. “Cherry Bomb, the Brimstone Baroness.”

“It’s still me,” I said, feeling an insistent compulsion to state that, despite—or because of—the way his piercing gaze roamed over every inch of my shedim body.

“Ah, mi cielo,” he said, “I’m always desperately aware of you. It doesn’t matter if you look human or shedim, I always know it’s you, and I want all of?—”

I lunged for him, knocking him back against the mattress as our mouths fused together.

Ezra cupped the back of my head, tangling our tongues together, and I twisted closer, positive there was a live wire between my mouth and the pool of molten desire deep in my core.

The air between us thickened.

He ran his hands over my body. I nearly came when he stroked my horns, but my scales seemed more numb to touch than my human skin. Good for defense, but at a cost.

Note to self: the initial rush of Ezra’s healing magic induced heightened sensations in this form that were otherwise missing.

Also, I was basically only a humanoid shape right now. Some crucial features—like sensitive nipples—were missing.

Well, that sucked.

I sat up, holding a hand against his chest when he followed, and relaxed into my regular human body. The shifting wasn’t great for my clothes, but they were basically ruined from my earlier attack. A cold sweat beaded my brow but I shoved those memories away, drawing strength from Ezra’s steady presence against my palm. “You may proceed.”

He grinned. “May I? How magnanimous of you.”

“I’m a giver.” I placed his hands on my breasts. “And you like these.”

“True.” He brushed his thumbs over my nipples and I jerked with a breathy exhale. “There’s the sound,” he said in a darkly seductive voice. Gripping me by the hips, he yanked me against his jeans— oh, hello —his mouth once more finding mine.

His stubble chafed my cheeks but I didn’t care because even that light stinging rasp felt brilliant.

I shoved his shirt up to run my hands over the dusting of dark hair on his chest, letting my fingers roam lower along his sculpted powerful pecs and down his slim waist to his hard abs. I scraped my teeth against his neck, dizzy with the taste and feel of him.

Ezra unbuttoned my raggedy shirt, each pop of the button accompanied with murmurs of what I was doing to him, our rocking growing faster, more crazed. He suddenly stilled with a laugh, resting his forehead against mine. “It’s not a race. You’re always running to get to your destination, and you miss important and wonderful things along the way.”

I snorted, waiting for him to elaborate on these aforementioned wonderful things that he would no doubt guide me to.

“Like those baby deer you would never have watched playing in the forest on that one hike because you wanted to run up the mountain. Luckily for you, I insisted we take our time, and thanks to me, you have a lovely memory of Bambi.” His voice was serious, but his eyes were lit up with laughter.

I trailed my fingers along the outline of his hard cock through his denim and he hissed. “You’re comparing this to deer?” I said. “Deer who, may I remind you, you followed off the trail, forcing me to rescue you with my superior guiding skills.” I gripped his hips, trying to get him to move. “Given that, I’m probably the only one who should ever lead.”

He slowly ground his hips against mine, earning a moan from me. “Oh, I can lead just fine, sweetheart. And my considerable experience?—”

“You really want to trot that out now, Prime Playboy?”

“I’m just saying let’s slow the hell down.”

I was soaking wet, and my clit throbbed. “That’s the stupidest idea ever.”

He sat back, the sudden lack of his body heat as shocking as being thrown into a cold lake. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to take a time-out to shift into something more pleasurable, but I can’t get the same leeway?”

“Mine is pleasurable for both of us.” I scrambled into his lap and rocked along his cock, my lids falling halfway closed.

“Aviva,” he growled in warning.

I snickered.

Ezra laid me back against the mattress. “Are you going to play nice or fight me?”

I batted my lashes at him. “Which gets me the better outcome?”

He cocked his head, raking a slow gaze along my body. His silver-blue eyes darkened like the ocean’s depths, his jet-black curls tousled and his lips kiss-swollen. “Which one has you naked faster?”

“You’re so easy.”

He dipped his head. “I’ve never claimed to be other than a simple man with simple needs.”

I laughed, but before the sound had drifted away, he’d divested me of my sweater and bra. “Nice,” I murmured.

“I have my uses.”

I leaned back on my elbows against the mattress. “Big words, Cardoso. Put your money where your mouth is.”

“I’d rather put my mouth where the money is,” he said, and placed his lips on my breast.

I dug my hands into his hair and arched against him, my breathing ragged, while Ezra sucked and lightly rasped his teeth over my nipple.

“You’re so easy,” he mocked. But he made short work of my torn pants, tossing them into a corner, and kneeled between my open legs, so I allowed it. He licked my clit, pressing a finger inside me, all the while watching me with cocksure eyes.

My insides tightened. I felt like a firecracker whose fuse had been lit. “Zee?”

He looked up, his present and past selves blurring into this one perfect moment of us being exactly like we were the first time we made love.

I tenderly brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I need you inside me. I don’t care how fast this is. I just need to feel you.”

He gave me this sweet crooked half grin. “Okay,” he said simply. His clothes were off in a flash, condom in hand from the side table.

For a moment, I was sorely tempted to tell him to go bare. I hadn’t been with anyone since our last time together and vamps didn’t carry STIs, but as a Prime, Ezra could get me pregnant. I didn’t want to worry about that. Not tonight.

I took the condom from him and rolled it over his cock.

His nostrils flared at my touch, then he stretched out over me, his weight braced on his elbows. “Aviva.” He whispered my name like a prayer, a lock of hair falling into his eyes. “Do I still have to buy you dinner?”

“Eh.” I shrugged. “Just leave a couple hundred on the bedside table.”

He furrowed his brow. “Who carries cash these days?”

“Criminals.” I slapped his ass. “Talking drives up the price, big guy.”

“Shit. I better get moving.” Ezra thrust inside me and my eyes fluttered closed, my arms tightening around his neck, and my hips rolling.

Fiery tongues of desire licked at me from within, and Ezra’s kiss was as tempestuous as a whirlwind, but we kept our lovemaking slow.

“Tú eres mí mundo y me has conquistador,” he said.

You are my world and you’ve conquered me . The tattoo he’d inked on himself after seeing me again. The words I’d recalled more times to count.

I traced my fingers over them, relieved and awed he’d not just gotten that tattoo about me but that he’d kept it after all. “Bite me, Zee,” I moaned.

He jerked back, but his pupils had dilated. “I told you. You don’t want?—”

I grabbed his forearms. “Not a blood bond. I want you to bite me.”

He dropped his gaze, shaking his head.

“I’m lucid.” A bit breathy, but of sound mind. “I want this. From you.” I laid my hand on his cheek. “Only you.”

Blazing eyes snapped to mine, and his fangs descended. “You’re certain?”

I tilted my head to bare my neck.

Ezra caressed my cheek, then lowered his mouth.

There was a flash of pain and I arced up under him with a gasp, but it vanished in an instant, replaced by a dizzying euphoria. I dug my nails into his arms, my breathing ragged. It wasn’t like when I fed off him to heal because underneath this electric connection was a languid sweetness, a tenderness that was undoing me, along with a sense of his emotions flooding into me, his loneliness and longing mixing with my own desires.

He withdrew his fangs and pressed his lips to my skin. I turned his head and caught his mouth in a kiss.

Our bodies found their familiar rhythm, our lovemaking entwining us in a new intimacy. It wasn’t fucking and it wasn’t laying siege. The rightness of it should have sent me screaming or slamming my walls into place, but I rode the wave with a breathless joy and the hope that for this moment at least, I’d banished some of his loneliness.

A starburst of pleasure exploded inside me, and shuddering, I cried out Ezra’s name.

He followed shortly thereafter, gentling his kiss to the softest brush of our lips. He rolled off me, but didn’t move, lying there and holding my hand tight. “Any regrets?”

“None. You?”

“Hard to say. We should try it again ten or twenty more times so I can decide.”

“In the interests of fact gathering.” I grinned at him.

“Yes,” he said somberly, nodding, “facts.” He got up and walked naked to his ensuite bathroom.

I barely had enough energy after that magnificent orgasm to turn my head and enjoy the clench of his tight glutes, but I rose to the challenge.

He returned with a damp cloth and cleaned me up, examining my neck. “Anything still hurt?”

I’d forgotten all about my previous injuries. I stretched, the only ache in my body, a delicious one. “No. I had an excellent physician.”

“I pride myself on my bedside manner.”

“Use it a lot, do you?” I tossed the rumpled cover aside, but my claw got stuck in the material. I swore under my breath.

“Your jealousy brings out the green in your eyes,” he said in a voice laced with amusement.

I smacked him with the pillow, his curls flying up and the cutest grimace on his face as he swatted it away.

Ezra caught my wrists and leaned in, kissing me with a thoroughness that left me mindwhacked. “No one else.”

“Huh?” I placed my hand on my racing heart.

“I haven’t been with anyone else. Not since I came back to Vancouver and saw you after all those years.” He pulled his jeans on, then opened a drawer and tossed me a set of sweats.

I held the dove-gray top made of a butter-soft fabric against my body, then checked the tag to be sure. “You bought this in my size?”

“A just-in-case pair. You have a knack for almost getting yourself killed and ruining your clothing. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Appreciate the forethought.” I scrambled into the clothes. “Now you may feed me while you tell me every last thing you know about Delacroix.”

“I, uh, actually haven’t made a reservation yet.” He popped his head through his shirt, his wide-eyed anxiety making me chuckle.

“This isn’t the dinner, but you don’t want to see me hangry.”

“Horrors.” He gave an exaggerated shiver, then he winked and phoned someone to bring up cheeseburgers and fries. At the last second, he added a slice of chocolate cake.

I crossed my arms. “I’m not sharing.”

Ezra slid his phone into his pocket. “You will if you want more orgasms like that.”

“Humph.” Chin in the air, I padded out to his living room, which, like his bedroom, bore no trace of destruction from my last visit. He’d even replaced his torn sofa with an identical model.

Ezra sat down on one side, his legs splayed, while I snuggled up against the cushions on the other side, my feet in his lap. Positions we’d taken countless times when watching movies or hanging out and talking. Sure enough, he massaged the instep of my left foot.

“Delacroix,” I said. “You know something about him that you’re not telling me. Don’t say you’re not; I know you too well. Spill.”

Ezra cast his eyes to the ceiling as though asking the heavens for guidance, then pressed his thumb into the ball of my foot. “You’re Canadian. Can you parse out the French etymology?”

“De la croix. Of the cross? He doesn’t strike me as very Christian.”

“That is the origin of the meaning, but you’re dealing with a demon. Take nothing at face value. What word is buried in that name?”

“La Croix? He’s king of fizzy drinks?”

Ezra chuckled. “Partially.”

“Roi? He’s a demon king ?” I’d been running my finger over the site of the puncture wound, but it was already healed. I tucked my arm behind my head.

“He was. Centuries ago. One of about a dozen.”

“I knew my aspirations of royalty were valid.” I flipped my hair. “Princess Aviva.”

“Not exactly legitimate progeny, Princess.”

“Don’t care. Still want a tiara. So how did he get from His Majesty to this yacht?”

“A power struggle. Delacroix backed the wrong side and fled to earth, setting up a court with his followers. It bounced around different places until he and Calista formed the Copper Hell back in the 1800s.”

“It’s a secure territory and he retains power through information,” I said.

Ezra pressed his thumbs into my arches and I sighed happily. “Plus, every time someone loses,” he said, “be they human, vampire, or shedim, their physical and psychological anguish feeds him.”

“Why did he need Calista? Or you?”

“Think of Delacroix’s magic like a siren’s song, luring the unsuspecting with promises of wealth and power or whatever their heart desires.”

“The lure of the Hell.” The lure for my mother the night I was conceived.

“Exactly. It brings patrons in and has them place forfeits that no sane person would ever suggest. But it also ebbs and flows like the tides. Delacroix requires a stabilizer to keep his magic at peak potency, and for some reason, Primes are the only ones capable of that.”

“That’s why you taunt him to kill you and he won’t.”

Ezra shrugged. “That and it’s fun.”

I dug my knuckles into his side and he laughed and kissed them.

“Being hooked to his magic,” he said, “makes me attuned to every single patron who passes through that door and where they are at any given moment. If they deviate from their expected course, or behavior, I take care of it. Security on top of necessity.”

I tapped my finger against my lip. “Calista was old, even for a vampire, and she failed to detect her own abductor.”

Ezra smiled blandly, his fangs peeking out. “She was faulty and required replacement.”

“Which wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t have you waiting in the wings.” I touched his arm. “Do you blame me? If I hadn’t insisted on coming here in the first place, you would never have been placed in his path.”

“Delacroix was very aware of me before that. He always has a plan B. And C. Much like someone else I know.” Ezra switched his massage to my other foot. “It’s not your fault, especially since I freely agreed to take this on in exchange for my own information gathering.”

I sat up. “He knows about your mother?”

Ezra nodded.

“Explain something to me,” I said. “Delacroix mostly holes up on this ship, but he makes frequent visits to Flaming Flapjacks, which is in the demon realm.”

“It’s like the foyer of the realm. Barely within the threshold.”

“Regardless, he’s still in the demon realm, technically speaking. How is that even remotely safe for him? Isn’t he supposed to be deposed? Don’t the new overlords really dislike having exiled royalty just running around?”

“The current Powers That Be leave him alone because he’s just an old demon eating pancakes with friends.”

I rubbed my recently broken ribs. “He’s got them totally snowed.”

Our food arrived after that, along with a knowing nod and smile from the Hellion who’d brought it at the sight of me in Ezra’s quarters. “You’re the one he’s been texting and laughing with,” he said.

Ezra shooed the other vamp to the door. “Go away, Hector.”

“No, tell me more, Hector!” I beckoned him in.

Hector’s smile widened and he stepped forward, but at Ezra’s throat clearing, spun around immediately and left.

While the juicy burger had the correct bun-to-meat ratio and the fries were my preferred level of crispness, the revelations about Delacroix screwed with my appetite. I still polished everything off, but with a subdued gusto. And I even willingly shared the cake.

I wiped my mouth off with a linen napkin. “I want to finish my talk with Delacroix. Will you come with me?”

“Of course. But do you want to light the candles first?”

“What?” I looked outside but the yacht sailed under a night’s sky as always.

“It’s dusk in Vancouver.” Ezra opened his armoire and removed a delicate gold menorah already set with seven candles plus the shamash.

“You’ve been lighting the candles? On Vancouver time?”

“Mamá and I always lit them, and it was one of the few traditions my dad kept up after her death. As for the time.” He carried the menorah to the coffee table, pushing aside our dishes to set it in the center. “I had to pick a time zone and I liked thinking of us lighting them together.” He tightened his grip on the matches. “Although maybe I shouldn’t give you any ideas about fire around me.”

I kissed him and took the match.

We sang the prayer, connected by our shared history. Like the pasts of our people, there was darkness there, but tonight we stood strong, bathed in firelight.

The flame of hope burned bright within me, but alongside it flickered a yearning to get answers for my many questions.

I allowed myself a few more moments to enjoy this quiet respite, then I tugged on my shoes and followed Ezra to Delacroix’s bubble abode.

The door was unlocked, my father sitting in his chair and running his finger over a bumpy dried starfish like it was a lucky talisman.

I dropped into the seat across from him.

Ezra took up position at my six and scooped up the silver lock that had been tossed on the table next to the brass scales. I was surprised Delacroix hadn’t nuked the lock yet, but it had survived the fire and remained unmarked. Maybe the magic on it precluded it from harm.

“All the information flowing through this place,” I said, “and you had no clue this was happening, did you?”

“Gloating is unsportsmanlike, girlie.”

I made a big production of looking around. “I missed your motto adorning this place. What’s Latin for ‘honor among evil supernatural scum’?”

Delacroix wrapped his fingers around the starfish like it was a ninja star he was about to whip at me. “You want an answer to that? Put your hands on the brass scales.”

“It was rhetorical, and you’re the one who kiboshed playing that game. Use your powers of deduction and tell me this: were all the locks stored in one place before? Like near Sarajevo, right before WWI? Then demons were let out and sold to the highest bidder to plunge us into a world war?”

“Answer her already,” Ezra said tiredly. “Neither of you have time for power plays.”

“The shedim aren’t being let out.” Delacroix pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and jammed it in the corner of his mouth but didn’t light it. “Not by my kind anyway. Why do you think that woman was murdered?”

Certain humans had learned about these locks and how to release the demons within. Except… “Wards can only be undone by their maker,” I said, “and there’s shedim magic on this. Some demons are absolutely involved in letting them out.”

“One bad apple doesn’t mean all of us are,” Delacroix replied.

“No, that’s literally what the saying means,” I countered.

Ezra held the lock up to the light.

“If this isn’t all a plot to contain demons until they can be most useful and make someone a lot of money,” I said, “what’s the point?”

“I comped you one answer,” Delacroix said. “You want more, you play for them.”

“I don’t quid pro quo with cheaters.” Frustrated, I rose out of my chair, but Ezra placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Imprisoning shedim in these cells is like dumping waste,” he said, “then building a park over it, knowing that the toxicity will be leaching out for eternity.” He handed me back the lock. “I feel it. It’s faint because this prison cell is empty, but that’s what it was.”

“Shedim arranged for their kind to be imprisoned so they could move them around and spread their evil like weeds?” The revelations sent shivers down my spine. Being close to the silver lock had almost immobilized me. It was only discernable thanks to the magic from Sire’s Spark, but the lock also had that scorch mark on it. That cell was empty, and it had practically brought me to my knees. “These things are fucking batteries, powering up evil in the world?”

Ezra nodded. “Wars, genocide, ecological disasters in delicate geographic areas. Anything is possible.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw. “And now they’re disguised as love locks and placed all over the globe. Think about cities like Paris with bridges famous for those stupid things and all the unrest and violence that erupts there. No one would ever suspect something so sweet of being so heinous.”

“Brilliant, right?” Delacroix said in an admiring tone. “The sheer cunning and calculated nature of their actions is astonishing. Usually, you put three shedim in a room and you get four opinions. But these buggers not only had the vision to come up with this, they possessed the tactical ability to use Maccabees in the process.” He sucked on his unlit cigarette. “Shedim don’t like being used and they aren’t controllable, but contained in these prisons, they’re both.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen for much longer,” I snarled. “I’m telling the Authority everything.”

Delacroix laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face. “Please do,” he said when he could finally breathe. “Those shedim will hail you as their hero.”

“We’ll stop them.”

The demon shot me a look of contempt and wiped his eyes. “How? You spent hundreds of years developing a magic formula based on a delivery system that we shedim corrupted, while you spent the past couple centuries believing you made a difference, like children believing in Santa Claus. But absolutely tell your bosses that not only is it back to the drawing board, you’ve been actively assisting some of the worst events in human history.” Delacroix swiped his tongue over his fangs that had appeared. “The demoralization will be delicious. It will be the end of those annoying do-gooders.”

“You’re underestimating our determination to keep humanity safe,” I said.

“Not at all,” Delacroix replied. “But determination only gets you so far, girlie. Even if the Authority throws all its resources into creating a new foundational strain—” He smirked at my surprised blink. “Did you really think I didn’t know the plans to storm the production center in 1600?” He shook his head at my foolishness. “How long will it take to get a new cocktail allowing the five types of magic to work in harmony?” the demon said. “What will that determination look like in ten years? Twenty? Despair will take root and you’ll get sloppy. Make more and more costly mistakes as you get more desperate to win this fight. Eventually you’ll make the one that tips it forever. The thing that destroys the barriers between our realms and lets us devour you.”

“And what do you think happens to you in that scenario?” I said. “Right now, you have your little kingdom.” I leaned into the word, savoring Delacroix’s flinch and surprised glance at Ezra. “You may devour humanity, but shedim also eat their own. It might be these jailers, or it might be others who come through as the barriers get weaker, but they’ll look to usurp all your hard-won power. They’ll storm your gates and take this ship and that will be the end of you.” I mimed scrubbing tears from my cheeks. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

Delacroix crushed his cigarette in his fist, tobacco and paper falling to the floor. “Let me guess,” he sneered. “You have a helpful solution.”

I’d worried about whether it was worse to steal someone’s hope or turn it into the lie that sustained them. Except, I had it wrong on both accounts. Hope wasn’t a savior and it wasn’t sustenance. It was the weapon we wielded through the darkness of our fears.

“Work with the Authority to dismantle this operation, destroy any imprisoned shedim, and kill those responsible.”

“I don’t work with Maccabees,” he spat. “Come after me, I’ll pull up ship, and jettison any unwanted cargo.” He looked pointedly at Ezra, who just laughed. “That includes your little friend Sachie, and any single person you’ve ever spoken to. Are we clear?”

I stood up. “I won’t have to come after you, Delacroix. The others will and you know it. Maybe not now, but what will the situation look like in ten years? Twenty? Will you be making costly mistakes in an effort to not just win, but survive? And what about Maud?”

“What about her?” he said sharply.

“You’ve publicly recognized her as your daughter. You took her to Flaming Flapjacks. You like having a kid? Then do what it takes to keep her alive.” I walked out the door without a second look back.

Unlike with Maud, Delacroix hadn’t played poker with me. He’d tortured me. On more than one occasion.

I didn’t need a father.

But I’d take the devil I knew as an ally.