“It might—” He snapped his lips together. Mon Dieu. She had nearly done it to him again. “Non. This is no time for your games.”
She pouted, but catching sight of his sour expression, she heaved a sigh. “Perhaps you’re right.”
He glanced around the shadowed garden, half expecting Yannah’s mother to be hiding among the hedges. Which was ridiculous. Siljar was an Oracle, not a thief that skulked in the bushes. Not to mention the pertinent fact, she had the sort of power signature that could crush at a hundred paces.
If she was nearby, he would know.
He returned his attention to the tiny female who moved to stand in front of him, her white robe long enough to brush the paving stones. “Why are you here?”
“I sensed your unhappiness.” She reached to gently stroke the tip of one stunted horn. “Tell me.”
“I’ve done something I will never forgive myself for,” he shocked himself by admitting.
It had nothing to do with her soft touch or the hint of sympathy in her dark eyes, he assured himself. He wasn’t that easily manipulated.
It was just . . . he needed someone to talk to.
Anyone would do. Even the marble statue of Neptune that spouted water out of his head.
Yeah, that was it.
“Ah.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve called for the Goddess of Light.”
Levet didn’t bother to ask how the female knew he’d used his magic to speak directly into Abby’s mind. Or that he’d urged her to travel to the rift. Yannah had more than one mysterious talent.
“Oui.”
“Why does that trouble you?” Yannah frowned, obviously puzzled by his distress. “It’s the purpose of the Phoenix to stand against the tide of darkness.”
“Because the Phoenix will not be charging into the battle alone,” Levet said, his wings drooping at the mere thought of sweet, oh-so-fragile Abby standing face-to-face with the Dark Lord. “The spirit will take ma chérie amie along for the outing.”
Yannah gave a faint shake of her head. “You mean along for the ride?”
“That is what I said, is it not?” he asked with an impatient frown.
“Yes, well, it’s a time of change.” Yannah tried to soothe. “We’re all called to do our duty, whether we like it or not.”
Levet pulled away from her distracting touch, pacing the distance between two ornate urns. “Well, I do not like it,” he muttered, his tail whipping behind him. “I do not like it at all.”
“Please stop, Levet,” Yannah pleaded. “You’re making my head spin.”
“Bien.” He came to a halt. Not because that’s what she wanted. But how else could he send her a warning glare? “You have been making my head spin from the moment we met.” He pointed a claw in her direction. “And, you punched me.”
“It was a love-tap.”
Levet made a sound of disbelief. “Love-tap? You broke my jaw.”
“Do you want an apology?”
What he wanted was for her to kiss and make it better, a renegade voice whispered.
Kiss him over and over and over.
And not just on the jaw.
They could slip into the grotto where they would be all alone. He could at last indulge in the fantasies that had plagued him for weeks.
Non. Non. Non.
He folded his arms over his chest, just like he’d seen Styx do when he wanted to be an intimidating badass. “I want to be left in peace.”
Yannah studied him, the dark gaze unnerving in its intensity. “This is more than guilt at calling your friend into danger, isn’t it?”
He started to deny her ridiculous accusation only to find the words dying on his lips. Against his will his gaze shifted to the mansion where he could hear the rumble of vampires and Weres shouting orders.
“They are preparing for war while I am condemned to the gardens. You see, my skills are”—he searched for the appropriate word—“lacking.”
Yannah regarded him with a shocked confusion that seemed genuine. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“No.” She gave a fierce shake of her head, the braid swinging from side to side. “It’s not true.”
Any other night Levet would have reveled in her fierce defense. Why not? He’d tried every trick possible to capture her attention only to be dismissed, abandoned, and forgotten.
Tonight, however, he’d been brutally reminded of his numerous inadequacies. With a grimace, he glanced down at his stunted body. “Look at me.”
“I have looked,” she assured him. “More than once.”
He lifted his head with a scowl. “If I were one of my brothers they would beg for my assistance. I would be a powerful warrior with magic that would make even the Dark Lord tremble in fear.”
She slowly stepped forward, her hands folded at her waist and the moonlight pooling around her. Despite her tiny size, she looked as regal as any queen.
“No, Levet,” she said, her voice oddly somber. “If you were one of your brothers you would be hibernating in your lair waiting to offer your loyalty to whoever comes out the winner.”
It wasn’t at all what he’d expected and his pity party was suddenly deflated as effectively as if she’d stuck a pin in a balloon.
She was right. From all reports his brethren had retreated beneath the streets of Paris, ignoring Styx’s call for demons to stand against the Dark Lord. Like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Gargoyles were infamous for bowing to whoever sat on the throne. Loyalty was not a word in their vocabulary.
“I suppose that’s true,” he slowly agreed.
She reached to place her hands on his shoulders, standing close enough he could feel the pulse of her power surrounding him.
“Besides, you have a weapon far more important than muscles or magic.”
Levet found himself lost in the compelling darkness of her eyes. “What weapon?”
“A heart.” Her hand moved to rest in the center of his chest. “The one power that can’t be defeated by evil.”
Chapter 24
The Dark Lord’s prison
Gaius seriously underestimated the instinctive desire of any creature for survival.
He’d been convinced that he had nothing left to hope for. Nothing left but bitter regret and endless days of wishing for a swift death that would at last reunite him with Dara.
But the moment the Dark Lord had turned her attention to creating further rifts, he found his feet carrying himself forward, scouring the godforsaken surroundings for a way to escape.
A frustrating, not to mention, futile waste of time.
Although he still had his medallion, he discovered it no longer obeyed his commands. Not surprising. The Dark Lord wasn’t stupid. She knew he would disappear at the first opportunity.
And while he could sense the doorways she’d ripped through the veils, and occasionally catch the scent of demons as they sought to use the openings to spill from their particular hell dimension, he couldn’t push his way through them.
Perhaps this was his punishment.
To be trapped with the Dark Lord, all the while knowing that freedom lurked just out of reach.
It seemed fitting.
Standing near a stunted tree, Gaius flinched as a flare of heat seared over him, threatening to melt the flesh from his bones.
“Gaius.”
He didn’t want to turn. Not only because he was weary of her taunting, but because it made him nauseous to watch the strange spirit flickering around her.
But what he did or didn’t want no longer mattered. Not since he’d bartered away his soul.
With a slow movement, he stepped around the dead tree and faced the female eyeing him with petulant displeasure. “Yes, Mistress?”
Her eyes smoldered with crimson fire while the misty outline of the Gemini haloed her slender body. “Were you hiding from me?” she demanded.
He wryly glanced around the empty landscape. “Where would I go?”
“I don’t know, but you were plotting something,” she accused. “I can sense it.”
He stoically refused to react. Instead, he tried for a distraction. “Was there something you needed?”
There was a pause before she dismissed any thought of him with a wave of her hand. “The transformation should be complete,” she complained. The lion’s head flickered in and out of focus just behind her, as if being shorted out by some unseen electrical charge.
“Perhaps another sacrifice is needed.”
“No,” she glared at him with malevolent annoyance. As if the spirit’s refusal to complete the binding was his fault. “There is something interfering. Or someone.”
He took an instinctive step backward. “You can’t think that I—”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “Despite the treachery you harbor in your heart, you don’t possess the power to halt my inevitable victory.”
His lips twisted. All true.
Humiliatingly true.
“There’s no one else here.” He pointed out the obvious.
“Which means the interference must be coming from one of the rifts.”