Brimstone Seduction (24 page)

Kat eased the precious gift of her new cello onto its stand. Then she rose to go to Severne's side. She pressed into the hard muscular body that had been his defense for so long. She easily detected the strong rhythm of the heart he offered against her breast.

“You aren't damned, Severne. You were imprisoned by your grandfather's evil choices. But you made your own decisions. Now you're free. And you helped me to free myself, as well. To stop running. To stop hiding. To take a stand for love and family,” Kat said. “I love your strength, but it isn't the strength of your muscles. It's the strength of your heart and soul that held me and didn't let me go. Your soul was never the Council's to take,” she said.

“No matter how hard I made my body, you penetrated to my heart. I was supposed to use you to fulfill my grandfather's contract, but the contract was nothing but ash to me long before it burned,” Severne said.

“I'll marry you. And we'll reclaim the Severne name. We'll make of it something beautiful and courageous, as you have done. We'll leave the greed and corruption of your grandfather behind,” Kat promised.

Her affinity had become something stronger and brighter because of John Severne. She felt the glow of it now, binding them together like the music she played even when she played no instrument at all.

Epilogue

T
he baby slept in his cradle. Kat completed the comforting ritual of rosining her bow while she listened to his soft breathing. Sun sparkled off the Mississippi, but the dancing light reflected on the nursery walls didn't seem to bother her son.

He'd experienced enough shadows while still in her womb.

She left the white patchwork curtains drawn back to let in the light. Some of the sparkle came from light reflected off the crystal beads Sybil had incorporated into the curtains' design. The ball gown she'd taken back to save Kat's life had been remade and regifted, this time with only forgiveness asked in return.

With practiced motions, Kat stroked the brown rosin cake up and down the horsehair of her bow. Again and again. Her playing was different now. She had settled into it as easily as breathing once Reynard was gone. She no longer had to hide from the madness with music. She was free. The cello was a part of that freedom now. Not a shield to hide behind, but a means of expression. Her voice to the world.

“He's a fine namesake. I'm quite pleased,” a strange voice said from the door.

Kat's reflexes were not so out of practice that she didn't immediately jump up to place herself between the sleeping baby and the daemon at her door.

He had wings.

No. He
wore
wings. They were bronzed and folded down his back, suspended on a matching bronze harness he wore across a broad, bare chest. On the front of the harness was an iron brooch she recognized. Its stylized
L
flashed in the sunlight.

He came forward, straight and tall, but his face was craggy and lined. Not with wrinkles. He'd been handsome once. She could see it in his square jaw and the cut of his cheekbones. But he had battle scars from what must have been terrible wounds across his skin. Everywhere skin showed, he was marked. But he smiled when her eyes widened, and he brushed her horror away.

“Old pain is past pain. And every mark I suffered for my people is worn with pride. We faltered, but we didn't fall. The ancient ones had enough of falling to last an immortal lifetime,” he said.

“I named him Ezekiel. After a daemon my mother had loved. Samuel Ezekiel Severne,” Kat said.

“She was an angel. Her singing called to me even though I knew we couldn't be together. It almost called me to my death. But Reynard failed because she stood against him. For me. She gave her life for mine,” Ezekiel said.

Her mother had loved this intimidating creature. And his love for her mother must have been the reason Lucifer's Army was on the river boat that night. They hadn't been sent to harm her. They'd been there to protect her from the Council's daemons. They'd withdrawn when they saw she was unharmed and in good hands with Severne. The idea warmed her, and Katherine
had
named the baby after him, but she still stood between the daemon king and her child.

For a king was what he had to be.

“Lucifer's wings were shorn and bronzed to hang above the Council as a macabre prize and a symbolic crown,” Kat murmured to herself. “John told me about them. He saw them when he was child.”

Ezekiel wore Lucifer's wings. Only the ancient daemons had wings. The ones that had fallen from paradise to rule in hell. The Council had cut them away from Lucifer before they had bled him completely of his Brimstone and left him to die. Her sister's lover, Michael, had reclaimed his in death. He'd been a ghost with mighty wings when she'd known him as an icy shadow.

“I will never harm him. He is my grandson in every way but blood. I've only come to offer him a gift,” Ezekiel said.

At his words, a snuffling growl sounded from the doorway, and a black-muzzled nose poked its way into the room, followed by a dog the size of a German shepherd. Only its movements revealed its true nature as a puppy. It was clumsy and quick, tumbling over its big paws. It was also occasionally transparent, winking out of their world and into another in turns.

This was how Grim must have looked when he first came to Severne all those decades ago.

Tears burned behind her eyes. She hadn't realized how badly she'd missed the monstrous hellhound until now.

“Will you permit this gift, Katherine D'Arcy?” Ezekiel asked.

Sammy gurgled and rolled over in his sleep. The hellhound came and stood by the cradle just as a much more adult Grim would have done. Paws planted. Legs stiff. Muzzle down.

“Yes, we will,” Severne said from the bedroom just off the nursery. “If Kat approves.”

Daemons couldn't be trusted.

“What will you ask for in return?” Kat asked cautiously.

Ezekiel, Lord of Hell, Prince of Darkness, or whatever his title, looked askance. One eyebrow lifted in surprise.

“So many daemons were trapped in l'Opéra Severne's walls. It was a cursed and cruel purgatory. You freed Lucifer's Army. The battle we waged to overthrow the Council is responsible for my scars. They were defeated. That wouldn't have been possible without your help,” Ezekiel said.

“That's why my contract turned to ash,” Severne said. “It never would have burned in ordinary flames.”

“And why the tally marks disappeared,” Kat said.

He'd come to stand by her side. Baby Sam had woken, but he only kicked his legs in the air and gurgled at the vigilant shadow of puppy nose on his bed. He was either unaware or unconcerned that the Lord of Hell considered him beloved.

“For us in hell, the battle raged for centuries. For you, it was an instant conflagration,” Ezekiel said. “The pup is a thank-you. No more. No less. We owe you that. I feel a personal interest, but this is no daemon bargain you have to fear. This is a gift from a grandfather,” he said.

“A daemon king,” Kat surmised.

Ezekiel inclined his head.

Kat looked at him through narrowed eyes. Not damned. Only different. But they were fallen. There was mystery in that, and danger. Daemons were beautiful and tragic. Much like l'Opéra Severne. She could feel Ezekiel's Brimstone burn. She was glad when he ordered the pup to stay before turning away.

“Samuel was born with an affinity for daemons. He was taught to fear us and fight us, but the affinity led him to love us instead. It also led to his death, but not before he passed his ability to your grandmother,” the daemon king said.

“The gift he gave us wasn't the ability to find daemons,” Kat whispered.

“It was the ability to love us,” Ezekiel said.

“And overlook the Brimstone blood,” Severne said.

“Or crave it.” Ezekiel laughed darkly. “And once you're daemon-marked, you're never forgotten. Your family will always have a hint of Brimstone. A remnant. Consider it a gi—a mark of favor,” he said.

Katherine had experienced both pleasure and pain from daemon marks, but she wasn't afraid. Even without Brimstone, her blood was bolder than that.

* * *

The baby had fallen back to sleep with his new hellhound by his side. Kat imagined Michael slept with Grim in much the same way. Her sister's lover was gone. Unlike the other daemons that had been trapped in the walls, Michael must have used the last of his immortal energy to manifest as the icy shadow. She still shivered when she recalled its nearly fatal freeze. She still wondered at the great love he'd had for his child.

Kat would always wonder how much of the daemon had been left in the winged threat that had almost killed her several times. She now suspected that he had stalked her through the catacombs. She knew that if she hadn't invoked Victoria's name, the shadow would have frozen her to the marrow in her bones. But it had tried to watch over Victoria and her baby. Michael had been gone, but his will to love had lived on. She would remember his angelic face on l'Opéra Severne's wall. He had been an ancient one. He had loved her sister. His son lived on.

Both of their sons would be touched by the gift Samuel had given their family. Only time would tell how love and curses mixed.

Severne took Katherine by the hand and led her onto the balcony and into the sun. When he kissed her, she tasted wood smoke and his unique masculine flavor. She also caught a hint of dramatic dust and powder, rosin and aged timbers.

Across town, the opera house was being rebuilt. Severne was helping in its construction. The opera master dirtied his hands every day with mortar and bricks, and there wasn't a single workman who could boast a stronger back or the ability to work longer hours. He'd been honest with her the evening he'd told her he wanted to build a perfect place for her to play with his own two hands.

It had been a sexy promise. Though they'd both fought the emotion behind it, she'd never forgotten the way he'd kissed the callouses on her fingers when he'd made it. And the fulfillment of his promise was even sexier.

There was no sign of where the catacombs had been. Only solid ground. The foundation had already been put into place where the new l'Opéra Severne would rise. It would be built from the blueprints of the old building, but both she and Severne had insisted on no cherrywood. The walls would be plastered and wallpapered with vintage Victorian paper. Flowers. Hydrangeas and calla lilies.

Kat wanted no faces on the walls.

Severne had been the master of the opera house for so long, she imagined the old haunted building would always be a part of him. Since she'd loved it in spite of its forbidding atmosphere, she didn't mind. But just as the day they'd first spent in Baton Rouge away from l'Opéra Severne, she was glad to see Severne's dark hair shine in the sun.

He raised his lips from her and looked down into her eyes for a long time. She could still see all the long years of stark loneliness he'd endured in the depths of his gaze. But then he sank back down into her kiss, and their lips reignited the Brimstone burn. Heat flared between them.

No cello necessary.

He'd spent his long life burdened by hell's most wanted, but they'd found what each of them wanted most when they allowed the music to bring them together.

Some tragic pairs were meant to be together after all.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE IMMORTAL'S HUNGER
by Kelli Ireland

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