Her Demon Prince (Forbidden Fantasy) (16 page)

The demon
screeched and released her.

As she did so, a
roaring sound hit her ears and everything around her seemed to disintegrate.
Her body began dissolving, fading so that her form no longer mattered. She
stared at Envy. The demon was disappearing before her eyes. Looking down, she
couldn't see her body. A fork of lightning hit the ground where Envy had been
standing and the house caught fire, but the flames did not touch her because
everything around her seemed fluid. The walls of the house vanished and
everything went black.

Her last thought
was of Agrat, his body horizontal, suspended like a sacrifice to an unstable
and merciless power.

How could he
survive?

Chapter 12

The roaring sound continued in Phoebe's
ears. A swirling sensation inside and outside had her reeling. She landed hard
on a polished concrete floor on her hands and knees. Glancing up momentarily,
she saw she was in Rachael's apartment and she wasn't alone. Her head swam. Her
stomach heaved as she dry-retched, fighting not to eject the little that she'd
eaten that night onto Rachael's living room floor.

She flopped onto her stomach
and groaned, but she still had the wherewithal to slide her one remaining
dagger back into its wrist guard. Sweat broke out on her face and body with the
effort that it took to concentrate. "How the hell did I get here?"

A sweet scent came to her
nostrils along with the slight hint of decay.

"The first time you
dematerialize and rematerialize is the hardest. You feel as if the pieces of
you will never come back together. Rest assured, the unpleasantness doesn't
last long."

That voice. She knew it. On
looking up, she saw Galaden coming toward her, but he wasn't the pristine angel
she remembered from her encounter with him in her studio. Instead his face was
stern and bruised, his body battered. One of his wings was bent at an awkward
angle, its formerly spotless feathers stained with blood oozing from the wound
and the ends of the wing dragged along the floor as he stopped in front of her.

A deep groan sounded behind
her. She rolled onto her side and the world swam but even so, when she saw
Envy, his clod-like hand gripping his side where she'd embedded the dagger, she
exulted.

"Go!" the angel
ordered.

The demon staggered through
Rachael's living room door.

Galaden raised his hand and
the door shut behind the demon.

A seal appeared covering the
door and windows so that she could no longer see them. There was no escape. She
would have to fight for her freedom. She had one more dagger in her possession
and she intended to use it.

"Where is Rachael?"
Galaden asked her, his voice demanding.

"How the hell should I
know?" She pushed herself to a sitting position. The living room swam and
she thought she was going to vomit again. For a brief moment, she closed her
eyes, trying to settle her stomach. She should have been frightened. Terrified.
But she wasn't. Instead, goddess energy surged within her and she felt it
mingling with her own, pumping her blood around her body, flooding it with much
needed strength. She wanted to fight.

Worse.

She wanted to kill.

Lives were at stake. Agrat
needed her. She forced her mind to flick from the hideous image of him
suspended in midair surrounded by demons wanting to rip him apart. Focusing on
that would distress and distract her from her immediate goal of taking the
angel down.

Galaden's crystal blue eyes
darkened. He held up his hand. White energy left it and streamed toward her.

An energy
slap across Phoebe's face
left her gasping.

"There is no time to
waste. Tell me where Rachael is. The demon prince has shielded her
energy." His proud face was drawn with desperation.

Phoebe struggled to her feet,
sucking in a gasp of air as she did so. "You drained her dry. Maybe you
killed her." She muttered a prayer hoping it wasn't so. If she could break
free of Galaden she'd be searching every hospital to find Rachael.

"No. I would know if she
were dead. I know what it is to lose her." Misery flickered across his
face. His glow had dimmed to a dismal glimmer.

Fury built up inside of her.
"Don't act like you care. You took what you wanted from my friend. You're
nothing but a leech. A filthy sucking energy masked as an angel. What did
Rachael ever do to you? You go near her and something bad happens." Her
heart contracted with worry at the thought of her best friend languishing in
one of the city hospitals. It would only be a matter of persistence and phone
calls before she found where Rachael was and she hoped that the angel couldn't
tap into her mind and work that out.

The angel didn't react to her
insults like she expected him to. Instead, silver tears glistened at his eyes.
"My love. My beautiful wife."

Phoebe wished she were sure
enough of her powers to throw a dagger right through the angel's heart, but she
didn't dare waste the only weapon she had. Did Galaden think she was idiotic
enough to believe he loved Rachael? "Agrat found her close to death in my
apartment. You did that to her, so if you think you can order me into helping
you find her, think again."

Galaden groaned. "It
cannot be so. What did the demon prince do with her?"

"He said he tried to get
her to drink and she couldn't even manage that, so he called for help. You left
her for dead and I hate you for it." Vertigo made her grab onto the lounge
chair closest to her. The moment her balance returned, she'd attack.
"Rachael is not your wife."

"An angel's marriage is
forever. It is Rachael's wish too."

Phoebe thought of her friend's
obsession with the angel, the delight in her eyes when he'd come to life. She'd
never known her best friend to be mistaken about anyone but Phoebe was certain
the angel had her friend charmed and she wasn't going to let him get away with
it. "Rachael never hurt anyone. You didn't have the right to use her like
you did."

"The weak winter sun of
your country does not charge me fast enough but I will not leave and recharge
in another dimension until I have killed the demon. Rachael offered me her
life-force
. I took it.
Too much.
Help me return her life-force back to her."

Phoebe braced herself, certain
that he would attack her. "Steal what's left of it, you mean."

"No. Never. I love
Rachael. I always will. She is all that is honorable in the world."

"Then it was an unlucky
day she met you."
Phoebe took her hand from the lounge
chair
,
relieved the dizziness had gone
. With
one flick of her wrist, her knife would slide from her wrist guard into her
hand. Thanks to the goddess energy, memories of fighting techniques resonated
in her mind. Whether they would work for her or not, she didn't know. There was
no time for practice. She tightened her stomach muscles, preparing to leap at
the angel and drive her dagger home.

He glared at her and the air
around him seemed to crackle with intensity. "Where is she?"

She met his gaze and didn't
back away. Instead, she moved from foot to foot, checking that no residual
vertigo remained from the shift from Salem back to New York. The angel stood a
few feet away. She'd one chance to get this kill right.

Or she'd die.

"I told you, I don't
know."

"You trusted me in your
past life. Thanked me every day for the life I gave you." A shadow
flickered across his pale face, which was too perfect, too beautiful to be that
of a merciless killer and yet, that was what she was dealing with.

"Trusted you! Like hell I
did. You're here because of a curse. You intend to kill me, too." The
image of Galaden putting his wing around her came to mind. There was something
important from their past life and no matter how hard she tried, the image
wouldn't expand or give her more information.

"So Agrat explained the
nature of the curse." Galaden turned and walked to the window, which
looked over the Hudson River.

"It's true, isn't
it?" she pressed.

"Yes. I gave my father an
oath and an angel must act upon a vow sworn to his creator. Had I known what
you were then, I would never have uttered the vow. To take revenge on Agrat
will be my pleasure, but to take your life from this dimension gives me no
joy."

"I don't
understand."

"You are descended from a
goddess of the northern people. Whoever owns you is enhanced by your power. In
times of peace you bring creativeness, joy and love to your owner. In times of
war, you bring healing and strength."

"I won't let you use
me."

"You have no choice. Your
presence is enough to restore my energy. When I owned you after the death of my
father, no one could defeat me. You were special and although it was said you
would not come into your full gifts until you reached five and twenty, it was
well worth the wait."

She was turning twenty-five
next
month
, but she kept her mouth shut and her dagger
hand ready.

"Do not glare at me so,
Princess. Remember I have already lived through all the moods of your
transition."

"You have no right to
keep me here, you hear me?" Agrat! How she wanted him, loved his fire and
his passion. It was incomprehensible to her that such a cold being as Galaden
could be a half-brother of the prince.

"The only time you will
see the demon prince again is to view his corpse," Galaden said, as he if
could hear her inward cry.

"It won't be his corpse
I'll be seeing. It'll be yours!”

"Do not place your
loyalty in a demon. Why do you think the demon prince met you at the palace
gates in your past life and made you his? Why do you think he has claimed you
again?"

"Don't think you can
manipulate me. I trust Agrat. He's tough enough without my help. He doesn't
need to hide behind me.”

The angel shrugged, left his position
by the window and spread his wings.

"Agrat risked his life
for me. He defied his father and spent three thousand years trapped as a stone
statue. He was not a coward."

Her words hit home. The angel
rounded on her, his eyes flashing anger, his hand moved onto the hilt of his
sword.

She tensed, expecting him to
fly at her, but perhaps he thought better of it because he removed his hand
from the hilt of his sword and examined the wound in his left wing, instead. It
had stopped seeping blood. He smiled, the expression in his eyes satisfied.
"Your anger fuels me. Already I am healing just from the nearness of your
energy and yet, unlike Rachael, it doesn't drain you. Soon I will be strong
enough to kill the demon without having to leave to seek sunshine or recharge
in another dimension."

Phoebe tried to contain her
emotion, realizing he was extracting her energy and using it to heal himself.
"Before or after you murder me?"

"The result of an
unfortunate vow. I prefer to own you. With you close by I would never have to
leave this dimension. Regrettably, it is written that you must die."

"No one owns me you cold,
evil bastard, and you don't have the right to play God with my life. Go to
hell."

"Believe me, I have been
there and I do not wish to return. When my honored father turned my demon
half-brother to stone for his theft of you, I discovered why Agrat chose you.
Your presence enables him to absorb energy faster. You made me resilient and
the hollow years without Rachael bearable." Instead of lasciviousness, his
gaze held warmth.

"Then why kill me? Why
bother with this cruel vendetta? You father has been dead for three thousand
years."

"A male angel must do the
will of his creator. If I do not enact the curse, I will turn to stone. Already
I can feel the cells in my body changing, hardening. There will come a time
shortly when I cannot put off your death."

The cool way he delivered his
words, so matter of fact, without compassion, chilled her. There was no emotion
in him unless he spoke of killing Agrat. He seemed to care for nothing, love no
one except Rachael, though she shuddered at what he called love. "Then get
it over with."

She moved her hand just behind
her, flicked her wrist and the dagger slid into her hand. If the angel thought
he was going to snuff her out easily, he had another thing coming. She ran at
him, determined to stop him playing with her, the dagger in her hand, hidden
just behind her back.

Galaden's wings flared and
they folded neatly behind his back. He moved so quickly, she barely had time to
register. One of his hands shot out and he jammed the flat of it into her chest
preventing her from getting close enough to stab him, the other twisted the
dagger from her hand. A bolt of white light sent her skidding backwards and she
landed on the floor with a thud, banging her head on the polished concrete
floor so she saw stars. She lay gasping.

He strode over to her, flares
of anger left his body like white jabs of light. "You are stubborn beyond
measure and foolish enough to think you can harm me." He turned over
Agrat's dagger, weighing it in his hand. "It disappoints me that you would
make an attempt on my life after what we shared in our past life
together."

"We have shared nothing.
You sicken me." Disappointment blazed through her. The angel was too
strong, too fast to defeat. Despite the way his naked torso glowed when he came
close to her, he was cold like the marble she'd carved him from.

"It was not always so and
may not be again. Your passion excites me, connects me with what it is to be
human when I have waited so long in another realm for Agrat to escape his stone
prison. You make me feel again."