Brimstone Seduction (16 page)

Chapter 21

My Dearest Daughters,

I have failed you in so many ways. I didn't know how much until Ezekiel came into my life. How frightened I've been. How failed by my own mother. This is not the legacy I would bequeath to you. I know that now. I know what I must do. Reynard has found me for the last time. He intends to destroy Ezekiel. I must seek help from a man I don't fully trust. But I do trust Ezekiel in spite of his daemonic nature. We've been so wrong. So misled. Daemons aren't damned. They're different from us. More different than our human beliefs can describe.

I can only assure you that Ezekiel loves me as I love him, and he loves both of you although you were fathered by one of the monks who mercilessly hunt his people. No beings that love as fiercely as daemons love can be damned. I won't believe it.

Your biological father was as misled as we have been. He cared for us as much as he was able to care once the Order had corrupted his heart.

Please remember that when you think of him. He was not an evil man, but he followed an evil man, and for that reason and that reason alone he had to die. I will stop Reynard once and for all without help if I have to. Ezekiel doesn't know what I intend to do. If he did, he would try to stop me and the Order would have him. I can't distract him from his duty to his people. He's their leader now. I know it seems a horror for me to be in love with the Prince of Darkness, but I promise you that it isn't horrible. I've seen true darkness in my life. I've seen it always in Reynard's mad eyes.

Please know, if I fail you yet again, that I also do this for you. I can no longer justify running and hiding. I must make a stand.

My only consolation in this long, dark life has been my love for you both. You and the music have saved me. When we sing and play, I feel the love of Ezekiel around us. That sustained me for many years.

But now, I must step boldly into the shadows and meet my fate. If I succeed, we will be free. If I fail, you must continue the fight without me.

Love always,

Mother

G
oing back in time was messy. Especially when it revealed how others perceived you. Kat read all the letters, not only the final letter meant for her eyes. Her mother's words to Ezekiel, the daemon she'd loved, described her daughter as quiet, withdrawn, guarded and always alone. Her cello was her only friend.

It hurt.

But she'd come to l'Opéra Severne to help Victoria in spite of those things. She was stronger than her mother had known. The true revelation was about her mother's tragic past.

She'd loved a daemon, and she'd been forced to let him go. Their father had been one of the monks in the Order of Samuel, but their mother had never loved him. She'd been forced to marry him. Forced to have children the Order could use. She worried that one day they'd be forced to do the same. Ezekiel, in his letters, had promised to rain hell's fire on the Order's heads if they tried to hurt them.

They'd been loved.

In the great darkness of Anne's life, having children to resist the Order by her side had been a comfort to her. Time and again she spoke of her love for them in spite of everything.

They had never known.

They'd been told their father had died fighting a daemon to protect their mother. She told a different tale. About how her true love had tried to save her and how he'd killed their father when he wouldn't let them go.

Reynard had told them the same daemon had killed their mother, but her last letter revealed that she was going to try to save the love of her life from Reynard and that the obsessed priest might kill her if she got in his way.

What had Victoria thought of the letters? Had discovering Reynard's betrayal frightened her into hiding? Had their mother succeeded in saving the daemon she loved?

The letters raised more questions than they answered, but they also revealed that Anne D'Arcy was braver than Katherine had ever imagined. She prayed that they had that in common.

Chapter 22

L
'Opéra Severne was muted the next day. Any loud noise drew dark looks from a multitude of people who had overindulged the night before.

“You understand the twenty-four-hour recovery window now,” Tess said. The cooling gel mask she wore over her eyes was an ironic commentary on the masquerade masks from the night before.

Kat had joined Tess in the quiet dressing rooms for pedicures. She needed the company, and the mundane beauty ritual was soothing. She'd opted for a deep crimson on her toenails as a shout of hope to a universe determined to throw her one tumultuous twist after another.

“I saw you dancing with Severne, by the way,” Tess said. Her eyes were closed beneath her mask, but her tone was arch.

“We did dance. There was...dancing,” Kat said.

Tess opened her eyes and glanced at Kat sideways. “He terrifies me. I mean, in the most delicious way. But I'm still scared. Be careful there,” she said.

Kat had a nailbrush full of Scarlet Temptation in her hand, but she knew her friend wasn't talking about being careful with the bold color.

“Have you ever known him to...date...performers?” she asked.

“He doesn't talk with us, Kat. Much less date. He's like the moon. Who dates a planet?” Tess asked.

“The moon isn't a—” Kat began.

“You know what I mean. He's above us all. Untouchable. Not that he hasn't been wanted. Most wanted,” Tess said. Her soft words resulted in a chorus of shushes from women across the room who were also half-heartedly prepping for tomorrow night.

Quiet. Withdrawn. Guarded. Her cello was her only friend.

Alone.

She had a lot in common with a daemon opera master.

Kat smiled at Tess though the other woman had lain back to close her eyes again.

“I guess I have nothing to fear, then,” Kat said. “If he's untouchable, I can want him without being in any danger.”

She knew better. She was in terrible danger. But she could seem to heed the older woman's advice without sharing her secrets.

Chapter 23

O
pening night actually began long before dawn. Props were finalized and wheeled into place. Technicians spent hours troubleshooting last-minute problems with ancient wiring and lights. By the time the first of the audience arrived, the air was electric with tension and expectation. Traffic was blocked on Severne Row, and a long stream of limousines and town cars and giant SUVs with tinted glass began to dispense glittering passengers in designer dresses and tuxedos on the red-carpeted curb in front of the Théâtre de l'Opéra Severne.

Severne greeted the most important of the night's guests in person. He hosted preshow champagne in salons only slightly less crowded than they'd been the night of the masquerade.

And all the while, only one woman and her cello were on his mind.

When the tones sounded to alert the guests to find their seats half an hour before the overture, the heat in his blood was already high in expectation of what was to come. He stepped outside. Spotlights shone their beams high into the sky above the opera house, arching high above his head in shafts that crisscrossed each other as technicians manned the mechanical housing for the giant bulbs. The spotlights were also antiques. They'd been wheeled out once a year for decades only for the opening of the summer's
Faust
.

The Baton Rouge night didn't cool his skin. Nor did his temporary reprieve fool him. He was going to attend the show. He was going to listen to Katherine play. And even though she played for an audience, her true performance, that of the affinity in her blood and the music in her soul, would be only for him.

* * *

The house was full. The lights dimmed low. Voices swelled to fill the great performance hall. But it wasn't voices Severne heard. It wasn't voices that caused his eyes to burn and his chest to squeeze so tight he could hardly breathe.

It was Katherine.

The echo of her heart reverberated from the cello in her arms.

Every resolution he'd made in the past twenty-four hours burned away.

He found his place in the private box that was kept empty for the family. Once it had been occupied often. For decades it had been empty and still. He disturbed it now. He pushed aside the draperies and sat in the shadows. He watched her, secretly, while tears ran down her cheeks.

Did she cry for Marguerite, for Faust, or were her tears for other beings more real and tragic?

If even one salty droplet was for him, her pain pierced his damned soul.

The whole orchestra was dressed in gray, a soft dove gray that blended with dusky shadows. But to his eyes, Katherine's silk gown was iridescent. It hugged her subtle curves and shimmered with her every movement. In its simplicity, it allowed her to shine. Her fervor for the music was accented because there was nothing to distract, only the seductive compliment of unadorned fabric. So different from the masquerade. That night had been about masks and secrecy.

This night was about raw emotion laid bare.

He clenched his fists on the tops of his thighs. Grim whined from behind him, not quite materialized in this time and place. The hellhound was recovered. Sybil had healed him with Brimstone from her own blood. The dog was eager to stretch his legs.

Perhaps he should run. Run away until nothing was left but the burn in his blood, until his ache for Katherine D'Arcy had mercilessly cooled to ash.

He didn't.

He stayed.

There was nowhere far enough he could go. No amount of time or distance between them would change his need for her. Staying was a mistake, but a sweet one. Her heartfelt playing mingled with memories. She had cried out his name during her release. He had touched her intimate heat, and he could still feel her on his fingers. He recalled perfectly the look in her eyes when she'd said “seduction.” So brave. So bold.

He was damned.

Even now, he and his father were lost. His grandfather had made the Severne blood in their veins a curse. Katherine's music didn't care that he was damned. Her playing didn't save him, but it seemed to understand and desire him anyway.

Her music came to him, mingling with his head, his heart and his blood. Meeting and matching the Brimstone burn. Each poignant note wasn't a reprieve, but it was a brief pardon. If not a salvation, a respite from what he'd done.

And what was still left to do.

He didn't make a conscious decision to go to her after the performance. It was inevitable.

He was already damned; he might as well enjoy the burn.

* * *

The first performance was a success. Her whole body—arms, back, core and thighs—ached to prove what the company had accomplished. Music extracted a price that was physical as well as emotional, but this night it hadn't been
Faust
that drained her.

She'd wept for her mother, her sister, her frustration with Severne as the music claimed all her inhibitions. She hadn't been able to focus on control when the cello required her concentration. And she hadn't wanted to. For the first time in her life, she'd let go.

Amid the blood, sweat and tears backstage, her damp cheeks went unnoticed. Or so she thought while she placed her cello in its case. She should have known nothing escaped Severne's attention, least of all her distress or pain. He'd seen straight to the hidden heart of her from the first time he'd approached her and Eric in the alley as they cowered from Reynard. John Severne was tuned to her need even as she sought to deny it.

The remaining stragglers were departing the joint dressing room of the orchestra and chorus when the opera's master filled the doorway. She was overwhelmed to see him, but not surprised. She didn't turn away. She wouldn't be ashamed of her human emotions. Whether he allowed himself to share them or not.

“You are so lovely. Even surrounded by stage opulence and all the beauty calculated to dazzle an audience, you glow. I thought it was your music. I thought the Brimstone burn in my heart was seduced by its accompaniment in the air. But it's you. You draw me. Your cello is closed away in its case, but I stand here, unable to stay away,” Severne said.

She should tell him to go. She tried to recall the chill of his withdrawal the night of the masquerade, but her strength was gone, spent over the long hours of performance. She was vulnerable. Unable to muster resistance when capitulation was her heart's desire.

He was a daemon.

She was a tool for daemon hunters.

But for a little while, for tonight, maybe they could accept that her soul and whatever was left of his were in tune.

He crossed to her when she didn't protest. He reached to touch her tear-stained cheek. His heat immediately soaked into her body, finding and warming those places she hadn't known were still chilled from the shadow's touch.

“I didn't play for you. I played for me. For the first time, I played for me. Not to hide. Not to seduce. Not to impress or endure. Just to feel,” Kat said.

“And you can't stop feeling yet. You tremble beneath my hand. Tears gather again in your eyes,” he said.

“I'm tired of resisting Reynard, the Order of Samuel, the winged shadow, the fear I might never see Victoria again,” Kat said. “You.”

He leaned over her and pressed his forehead against hers. She could feel his tension. She could feel how hard he worked to hold himself in check.

“Don't resist me. Not anymore,” he said. “I have to face untold tomorrows alone. Be with me tonight.”

Her gaze flew up to meet his when she heard the shaking need in his voice. She'd been averting her eyes to hide what she could of what she felt, but as their gazes met, she could see his need was fiercer and hotter than the damnation in his veins. He went against universal strictures to touch her, to allow her to touch him. And she risked everything to respond—her sister, her life and her soul.

His lips, when he swooped to claim her mouth, bespoke age-old secrets against her skin—fire and flight and shadows and song. Daemons were an ancient race. Their history was dark and tragic. They'd fallen from Heaven. They endured a revolution in hell where once-angelic beings fought lesser daemons that longed to conquer paradise. And Severne was somehow caught in between.

A hint of wood smoke flavored his tongue as he teased past her lips. And she boldly met him with hers, tasting, savoring, feeling the thrill of fear at his heat and obvious strength of the desire that shook his body against hers.

He encircled her with steel arms and she twined her arms around his neck to keep from falling, but also to feel how their twining tongues affected the strong being she wasn't supposed to be allowed to touch.

Daemons were hated. Hunted. Killed.

His muscular arms were living, heated stone, but she could feel the shiver, the tremble as he reacted to her taste and touch.

When he pulled his lips from hers to kiss her neck, her shoulder, and trail his mouth down to the swell of her breasts above the dove-gray silk gown, she cried out. His mouth was so hot and her skin had been so much colder than she'd known.

The winged shadow's chill evaporated off her skin like invisible steam everywhere Severne's lips caressed.

“Grim will lead us privately back to my rooms, but only if you desire it. I will walk away now if you don't ask me to stay,” he said.

Her legs had buckled. He held her fully, with her back bowed and his face at her breasts. His words were a raw whisper that teased over nipples distended under clinging silk.

She answered by leaning to kiss his upturned face—forehead, cheek and then jaw as he rose with her once again in his arms. His skin was salty sweet against her tongue, his mouth slightly opened when she reached it. He moaned when she kissed him and paused at the door with the jamb at his back when she dipped her tongue inside his mouth, as if she weakened his knees. An impossible feat but one she gloried in. She felt empowered in his arms. Not like the quiet, hidden bloodhound for madmen. But like a woman with the world at her fingertips.

“Grim,” Severne called hoarsely.

The hellhound materialized out of the shadows and led the way quietly, down dark, unoccupied passages filled with fog and impossible forest scents.

She'd never been to Severne's private apartments. She would never find them on her own. The way was long and far from every other part of the opera house. She wondered as the passages turned to carved stone if it was part of the world she knew at all.

Finally they came to a stone archway and a great wooden door. It looked more castle keep than opera house.

The door opened with a loud clang of rusty hinges and locks when Severne brushed it with his hand. Grim lay down in the hallway, and Severne stepped inside.

* * *

Just inside the threshold, Severne placed her on her feet and turned to shut the door. Her stomach plummeted as if she'd fallen from a great height. Fear, adrenaline rush and desire caught her. She firmed her spine and balled her fists. The door clanked multiple times as if locking itself even though Severne only pushed it closed.

He stood with his palm against the wood for a long time. She watched his broad shoulders rise and fall. His need for a pause cranked up the adrenaline flooding her veins. She wanted his kiss. She wanted to flee. She wanted...

“You fear me,” he said as he turned to her.

The intensity in his face caused her heart to pound. She'd feared much in her life. Dark nights when she'd been stalked by killers using her to perpetuate their deadly cause. The loss of family. The loss of hope. She'd feared that one night she would stop resisting and become a willing slave to the Order of Samuel, negating years of the fight against darkness and death.

The tension in Severne's body caused her to ache to soften his shoulders and ease his constant muscular readiness for destruction.

“I fear what we are together,” Kat said. “What we feel together scares me.”

“I've denied myself for a long time. But I won't hurt you,” Severne said.

“Not physically. I know. I trust your touch. You've shown me you can be gentle and responsive to my need. I fear how we might hurt each other tomorrow,” Kat said.

“Grim is outside. You can leave. He'll lead you back to your room,” Severne said. His stance between her and the door said other things. Darker, needier things.

And she didn't mind.

“I'm here. With you. I'm not going anywhere,” Kat said.

It was a bigger confession than she'd intended to make. She didn't mean for tonight. She meant for as long as she drew breath. But he didn't have to know that.

* * *

He wanted to promise her the same. He clenched teeth against the impossible pledge. He wasn't a free man. He was bound. He could only pleasure her with all his might. Take some ease for the ache in his bartered soul. And then crush her promise to him tomorrow or the next day or the next.

For all his strength, he was weak in this. He couldn't send her away with Grim tonight. He had to accept her offer to stay. He couldn't draw another breath without her promised touch.