Zen failed to take his threat seriously because he took out the rest of Nix’s design. “The Ark of Heaven has no place in Hell.”
“Right now I’m not the Ark of Heaven. I won’t leave her alone to face him.”
“This is her fight, Phoenix. Not yours, but
hers
.”
“You don’t know that motherfucker the way I do, Zen. She doesn’t stand a chance against him, and she has no idea what lengths he’ll go to keep her. I do.” Knowing she faced her nemesis ex-husband alone ripped him apart. “She cannot win this fight alone.”
“She has Kur at her side,” Cael said.
Was that supposed to make him feel better? “A dragon without the least bit of love for her.” He glared at Zen. “Fuck you both, I’m going after her.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Nix gawked at the immortal, mentally sputtering over the man’s highhanded attitude. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him an order and he followed through because they outranked him.
“Good luck stopping me, Zenny.”
Nix had half the oval etched out when Zen touched the back of his neck. Something cold shot through his system, numbing his limbs as blackness dimmed his vision.
Fuck…Zenny won this round
.
His world went black.
Chapter Thirty-six
“Wait.” Madison halted Kur with a hand on his arm. “I want to see if I can find Micah before we run haphazardly through Hell seeking him.” Muscles flexed beneath her grip, and she snatched her hand away. “You’re freezing.” He was so cold her hands burned as if frostbitten.
“My blood runs cold, not hot.” His fingers rifled through his blue-black hair. “Our cage is located in the deepest region of Hell where it is so cold it burns. My magic is in fire and ice, and our world glitters with icecaps in sunlight. You should visit it sometime.”
She’d pass on the visit.
“I’ve got him.” Freaky how easily she plucked his location through the connection of his sigil. “Will you open a magical portal to him as I concentrate in on him?”
“Yes.”
A beautiful seam of magic exposed a crease from point A to point B. They stepped through the portal.
A bevy of dragons exited various gateways as she and Kur came out of theirs, all engaging in battle immediately with something hellish. One chopped off the head of a zombie with its tail.
“Zombies are like vampires, outside the realm of demonology.” Madison glanced at Kur, unsure why he provided the history lesson. “Good thing you sent Phoenix back because they could have harmed him even though he was under your protection.”
She nodded, digesting the information as she scanned the cavern. Every creature in sight was of non-demonic origin. It seemed Micah had a host of non-demons living inside his domain. She’d hate to read that nasty deal. Certainly Petra knew these details, so why hadn’t she prepared them?
Dragons buzzed around their heads picking off one creature after another. Screams echoed through the room from their painful demise.
She spied Micah and Elias to their right. He must have been waiting for her to notice him because when their eyes locked, he grinned and saluted her. She got the cold feeling he enjoyed their mini-war. But she also surmised he didn’t think her rebellion would last.
“He’s mine.”
Kur tensed beside her. “What should I do?”
“Whatever needs doing, just keep Elias away from me.” She made her first determined step toward Micah.
***
Nix went from out to alert, with no grogginess of wondering what’d happened.
“Feel better, Phoenix?”
“You bastard,” he snarled sitting up on the bed. “You’ve damned her without a care for her. What type of friend are you?”
He glanced about. The hand-crafted, high quality furniture had an intricate scrollwork design etched into the cherry wood. Roses were carved into the four-poster bed and the perfumes and other toiletries on the vanity left him wondering if they’d moved him to Mads’s bedroom. The deep burgundy of the bedspread suggested it could be hers, which prompted a bizarre urge to grab the pillow and breathe in her scent.
“I’m the type of friend that spared her life when her power sank part of California, killing thousands.”
That meant the immortal had some way to kill her while in Hell. Nix bolted off the bed and curled his fists into Zen’s shirt, yanking him closer. “Touch her life and I’ll kill you.”
A one-sided all-wrong grin hit the other man’s face. “Consider me forewarned.”
“I don’t think he can kill her any longer,” Amos said from the doorway and Nix wondered how long the boy had been standing there. “Something about her has changed. I can’t tell what, but I sense it.”
“He didn’t require that information.” Zen extracted himself from Nix’s grip and strode across the room.
Nix’s focus shifted between Zen and Amos, thinking back to what Micah said in the shower. “If I understood Micah correctly, Madison killed Pandora and took over her power.”
The immortal crossed his arms over his chest, his lips drawing into a displeased, straight line. “I wonder if that was Micah’s plan for her all along?”
Zen wasn’t asking his opinion, but spoke his thoughts aloud. “She also”—Nix dragged in a deep breath and said on an expelled breath—“accepted her demon DNA. I think they merged somehow.”
Zen said something in a foreign tongue, rough and sibilant-sounding. He tossed Amos a dark look. “I knew this would go wrong.”
Amos shrugged. A strange reaction for a child who wanted his mother to return. “Sometimes the demon in us isn’t as scary to accept as we might’ve thought.”
“It wasn’t a fate anyone foresaw for her,” Zen countered. “I cannot predict how gaining Pandora’s power will affect her succubus DNA.” Amos said nothing. Zen looked at Nix. “You might want to call in Sherlock reinforcements because my guess is she could go either way. If it goes bad, Hell
will
reign on earth.”
“I won’t kill her,” Nix said solemnly. “I’ll help her burn the world to cinders before I harm one hair on her head.”
Amos smiled. Zen glared.
“I won’t give up hope on Mads until I have no other alternative.”
“I have you trapped in the room and your fancy doorways into Hell are locked down. Feel free to try and get out all you like, but you won’t emerge from Madison’s room until I grant you permission.” The immortal walked from the room. Somehow the way he shut the door, a silent click, expressed his volatile mood more effectively than a slam would have.
“What do you see for her, Amos?”
“Zen’s right. Momma’s split between two worlds. I watched her kill Pandora, but she blocked me from any further contact after that.”
Nix expected more emotion from Amos, something showing he wanted Mads to exit Hell. It’d been a year since he’d spent any real time with the kid, so he hoped Amos hid emotions behind a façade of calm.
He walked to Amos. “I love your momma.”
“I know, but so does Daddy.”
A chill skittered down Nix’s spine. “How do you know that?”
“How I always know.” Amos shrugged and grew fascinated with the rug beneath his feet.
Lie
. Nix’s radar pinged off the charts.
“Don’t lie to me, Amos.” The boy lifted his head. “Keep secrets, but don’t lie to me.” Amos nodded and Nix went on. “I’ll fight your daddy for her.”
“I don’t know that you’re going to be my daddy anymore, Nix.”
Nix shivered at the prophetic words. Five years ago the child had declared Nix would one day be his daddy. Madison had said Amos’s prophecies were never wrong. To hear otherwise at the darkest moment of Mads’s life nearly panicked him.
Elias launched himself at Kur and a battle ensued. The demon threw balls of magic while the dragon belched a weird mixture of fire and ice crystals. Creatures went up in smoke when the concoction touched them. Only in Hell could she witness such an oddity.
As she neared Micah, he held up his hand, indicating one of Amos’s marbles. “Our son is a genius.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I didn’t expect him to assist you.”
Why not
? “How does it feel to know he provided me with ammunition against you?”
Micah grinned, not the reaction she expected. “Pride. I feel great pride in him. He’s loyal to you, which will work in my favor once you accept your place in Hell.” He tucked the marble in his pocket and she remembered what Petra said. That Micah could track the signature of Amos’s power with the marbles.
“Nix is earthbound and out of your reach.” She approached him slowly and he watched her like a predator. “It’s all I wanted.” Madison adjusted her grip on the blade as she halted in front of him.
He nodded at the dogs. “Why are the Hellhounds following you?”
“They came to me when I called for something else.”
“They’re venomous, so don’t let them bite. It means they chose you as their owner and are cosmically bound to you.”
Eerie
. Even creepier knowing Hellhounds thought that deeply.
“You planning on using that against me?” He tapped a claw against the tip of the dragon blade.
“I have no desire to wield it against you. Kur expects me to kill you, though.” She ran her thumb along his chin. “I admit I’m curious which of us would win a fight.”
Overhead, Elias laughed, a demonic sound hinting of insanity. Dragon smoke belched over her head and rolled into her eyes, blurring her vision, but she didn’t choke on the stuff. Rather, she breathed it in as if it were clean air. A bolt of ice landed by her feet and protruded up from the hellish floor, which screamed an agonized protest. Then it burst into flames before disappearing.
Micah slid his fingers into her hair and tugged her against his chest. His embrace offered safety and it intoxicated her, piquing her need for asylum, lending a sense of rightness.
Nix’s embrace feels right, too
. God, she was so messed up.
“How does your demon feel?” His fingers kneaded her scalp.
“Comfortable.”
“I’m disappointed you and Kur think that nail file will make me bleed.”
She held up the knife, its multi-colored blade shimmered in the lighting. “You up for seeing who’ll win?”
“No-holds-barred kind of fight?”
“I would expect nothing less.” Madison kissed him. “I promise to spill your blood.”
Micah dragged a claw down her left arm all the way to her wrist, opening a seam of flesh as easily as a scalpel. A whimper tore from her lungs, but she didn’t react. “I drew first blood.” He nipped her chin.
“I’ll draw yours last.”
He grinned. “We’ll see.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Micah.”
“Noted. Either way, I’ll enjoy making love to you afterward.”
His hand clamped over her left wrist. As she twisted her arm to get out of the hold, he shot his seraph into her through his sigil. Madison gasped as the power blasted into her, hard enough to shock her heart into a different rhythm and powerful enough to reset her molecular DNA.
Silence descended. Pleasure deluged her nervous system, building like a crescendo for the finale. Micah’s lips moved but she heard nothing. Not even the misery of the damned penetrated.
On the backside of the pleasure ambushing her, her world would end. Nothing would be the same. Afterward, she and her demon would be forever one united force, neither able to exist without the other. A shaky breath slipped from her lungs as her succubus, humanity and Pandora’s magic merged into a cohesive unit, reborn in the image of Hell.
Micah shut off his seraph as fast as he turned it on. She collapsed against him, panting. “I give you any more and I don’t know what will happen.”
She rubbed her face against his chest. He smelled divine, like nectar from the gods.
“Let me look at your eyes.”
His request registered, but she couldn’t concentrate over the hodgepodge of contradictions spewing through her body.
Drain his power. Fuck him. He is mine. Claim my seat as Queen of Hell.
Executing the last thought would require very little effort on her part, except she refused to be one man’s instrument in apocalyptic warfare. Madison feared she’d never be more than a strategic move to Micah. Even in Hell and full-blown demonic, she wanted more.
She snapped her head back and stared at him as his seraph spread tranquility to her neurons.
“There’s my beautiful Lynx. Feel different?”
“Much better, thank you.” Madison stepped backward out of his embrace. “Game on.” She slashed wide toward his chest with the knife. Micah bowed his back, the blade catching his shirt and slicing a clean line. He backhanded her hard enough to spin her around. She collapsed against a stalagmite. She spit out blood and her eyes throbbed as if they’d explode from their sockets.
Behind her, Micah taunted, “You’ll have to do better than that if you plan to beat me, kitten.”
Pushing off the stalagmite, she faced him. She made a mad run for him and instead of attacking his body, at the last moment she changed tactics and punted into his crotch. Unprepared for the girly assault, Micah didn’t block her kick. He doubled over and the floor shook from his howl of pain.
Squealing, she dodged a line of icy-fire when Elias and Kur grew near. But they just as quickly receded in the opposite direction.
Micah limped toward her, clutching his package, with a weird grin on his face. “Kitten, I’ll expect you to kiss that injury later.”
“We’ll see.”
His eyes flamed, but his angel didn’t surface. She adjusted the blade securely in her palm, assessing and preparing for his next move. Just to have a slim chance of beating him, she would have to be smart about her countermoves.
He swayed to the right and stumbled and she prepared for him to go down. She’d stake him just after he hit the floor.
Micah whipped around behind her—a blur—and kicked her lower back. Needles of pain lanced up her spine and her legs went numb. She dropped to her knees, her hands catching her fall on the skin flooring.
Long legs stepped in front of her, braced apart, and she tilted her head back, knowing she’d find Micah. He ruffled his fingers through his hair. “I’m starting to sweat, kitten, and I only sweat when I fuck.”