Demon's Fire (13 page)

“Oh,” she said, her cheeks gone hot over how completely she had ignored that possible consequence.

Charles rolled off her onto his back, where he pressed one of the pillows over his face. “Beth, I am so sorry. I can never make this up to you.”

“What are you talking about? I asked you to.”

“Beth, you’re not a virgin anymore.”

“Well, I know that, but it’s not like I’m going to have a husband or someone who’ll mind…unless you’re intending to write my parents and tell them.”

He pushed the pillow off to give her a look.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted, annoyed and uncomfortably defensive at his attitude. “I wanted it to happen. I enjoyed it.” At his continued stare, she folded her arms, a gesture that might have been more impressive if her shirtwaist hadn’t been in tatters. Her nipples still felt as hard as stones. “I know I’m not experienced, but it seemed like you enjoyed it, too.”

“Oh, I enjoyed it,” Charles said grimly, then squeezed the bridge of his nose. “More than I should have, if you want the truth.”

His muttered addendum wasn’t precisely encouraging, or the way he flung himself from the bed to go to his washstand. With a house full of demon-style bathrooms, these old fashioned accessories didn’t get much use. To her surprise, Charles didn’t clean up but returned with a soft, dampened cloth for her.

He sat on the edge of the bed to use it. Beth would have taken it from him, but he didn’t let her squirm away. His strokes were gentle, his attention embarrassingly focused on her private parts.

Funny how she hadn’t minded him doing all sorts of things to them a few minutes earlier.

“I was rough,” he said, “so there’s a little blood, but I don’t think you need to worry.”

“I’m
not
worried,” she said, finally succeeding in catching his wrist. “There’s supposed to be a little blood the first time. And you couldn’t have been too rough, because I’m barely sore.”

He didn’t want to meet her eyes. He pulled the cloth from her and balled it in his hand. It rested on his knee, making a wet spot on the trousers she’d torn open. She wanted to peel them completely off, to show him just how tender and thankful she felt toward him.

“Maybe we could try again,” she said shyly. “I’m sure I’ll get better as I go along.”

Charles snorted and closed his eyes. “Beth, this is never, ever going to happen again.”

Her shyness dissipated as anger rose. “And why is that?” she huffed. “Because you think I’m so much ‘nicer’ than you are?”

Unlike Pahndir, Charles had moaned for her, more than once and damn loudly. He wasn’t allowed to act like this was a mistake he was going to forget the first chance he got. Beth filled her lungs and made up her mind.

“I followed you to Prince Pahndir’s the other night. I saw what you did with those Yama. I thought it was as exciting as you did. In fact, I thought it was so exciting I…I let Prince Pahndir kiss me when you were done.”

Charles’s attention was on her now, the skin around his flattened lips gone white.

“You followed me,” he repeated, his voice dangerously calm.

“And let the prince kiss me.” More than kiss her, but there were limits to what even she was comfortable admitting.

“You stay away from him, Beth. That demon isn’t anyone to play with.” His hand was on her arm, too tight to easily shake off. “I mean it. You don’t want to go down that road.”

She was furious enough to wrench away from him. “Not that you have any rights over me, but I’m reasonably certain your concerns are moot. Pahndir didn’t seem particularly interested in seeing me again.”

Charles’s pretty eyes narrowed. “
If
that’s true, you ought to count yourself lucky.”

What did he mean,
if
it was true? Did he think she was an idiot on top of everything else?

Rather than ask and have the suspicion confirmed, she strode to his wardrobe to steal a shirt.

“I’m leaving,” she announced as she buttoned it over the ruins of her own. “I’m sure you have some guilt you’d like to wallow in.”

He called her name before she stalked out, but for once she didn’t feel like making peace with him.

After she left, Charles paced his chambers back and forth. Night had filled the mansion with shadows, but he didn’t consider for a minute going down to eat.

Beth might have been in the dining room.

Her scent rose from his skin in waves. He stank from working at the site all day and then having sex with her. The salt of his sweat blended with her personal perfume. Normally fastidious, it drove him mad that he was reluctant to wash it off, especially since the combination was bringing him erect again—despite his cock stinging from the pounding he’d given it. Lord, he’d gone at her like a maniac, and had loved every blessed stroke. At least he couldn’t worry she’d wanted it. She’d urged him on until he knew (no matter what she said) that he’d been downright rough with her.

That being so, could there be any doubt Prince Pahndir wanted her?

Beth had probably misinterpreted the prince’s Yamish reserve. A man like Pahndir Shan wasn’t going to let a spitfire like her slip through his fingers.

Charles stopped pacing and bit the side of his thumb. From what he’d seen, it didn’t seem like Pahndir wanted Charles to slip away, either.

God, this was impossible. Did the demon honestly think he could seduce them both? Had he learned nothing about human mores when it came to people who
didn’t
pay for their partners?

Charles sat on the chest of blankets at the foot of his rumpled bed, his breath going out of him in a shivering gust.

Beth had watched him at The Prince’s Flame. She’d seen what it did to him to feed those demons. If anyone knew brothels had spy-holes, Charles was that person. He’d fully expected the prince to watch, had even taken a twisted interest in the idea, but never in a million years had he expected Beth to stand as witness to his shame.

He wished he could have said he’d have walked away if he’d known. He wanted her again, right now. Wanted her hands on him. Wanted to spill inside her the way he’d come so close to doing that first time.

Most of all, though, he wanted the demon to watch.

“Fuck,” he said, squeezing the bedpost so hard it creaked.

Why were confessions so easy for Beth? Why didn’t she “wallow” in guilt, as she put it?

He wasn’t sure if what he was doing now was wallowing. His emotions felt like they were battling each other: anger, horror, a sick relief that she didn’t hate him. Twisted up with all that was some confused species of jealousy.

Beth had let Pahndir kiss her, and Pahndir hadn’t tried to kiss Charles yet. Charles shouldn’t have wanted him to. His life was tangled enough.

I can’t go back,
he thought.
I can’t un-want what I’ve tasted.

Unfortunately, what he’d tasted with Beth was an inferno that could burn a man to the ground.

Prince Pahndir’s visitor was unexpected, though perhaps he should have foreseen the call. The bell rang after noon, but Pahndir’s valet, Biban, was still obliged to shake him out of bed.

Pahndir wasn’t actually being lazy. He hadn’t been unconscious for more than two hours. He’d been sleeping badly of late, his slumber broken by too-arousing dreams of his lovely humans, his thoughts racketing around in circles he didn’t know how to stop.

He was generally better at seduction than he was proving with these two. At the least, he’d never had such trouble deciding what his next move should be. As the date of his heat approached, he grew less and less able to control either his hopes or his anxieties. He wasn’t even certain he could bring the situation to a test this month, but if the answer was no, if Beth—or Charles, for that matter—couldn’t trigger a full release from him…

Well, all he could say was someone had better hide the kitchen knives.

He could probably count on his valet to do it, if only to keep the man who paid his salary alive. Biban was a young, brown-skinned Bhamjrishi with manners so punctilious Pahndir hadn’t been able to break him of using his title. Biban had won the position because he’d seemed less fearful of working for a demon than the other candidates. He had a terrible burn scar on one side of his face, which Pahndir (accustomed to his own race’s perfection) had initially found unnerving. Now he hardly noticed it. Though formerly poor as a mouse, Biban had proved an irreplaceable guide to all that was stylish in this city.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Biban apologized as Pahndir struggled up on his elbows. The silk sheets slipped down his chest with a crinkling hiss. “I wouldn’t have woken you except the Yamish gentleman refused to leave until he saw you.”

“Herrington,” Pahndir repeated, the name having penetrated earlier.

“Yes, sir. He scolded the butler so harshly Artur was in tears. Should I not have interrupted you?”

Pahndir let his breath sigh out quietly, glad that his employees found one Yama more fearsome than him. “It’s fine. Your waking me gives me the choice of saying yes or no myself.”

“I know he doesn’t outrank you,” Biban said. “Though, him being a…one of your race, I’m not sure any of us would have the strength to toss him out.”

Pahndir was so sleep-deprived he grinned at the thought of his servants piling on Herrington to drag him from the premises. It would be like teacup puppies trying to subdue a wolf. His muffled laugh startled Biban enough for the servant to jerk himself straighter. He knew his master liked to maintain face.

Pahndir dragged his palm down the chuckle, effectively stopping it. “Put Lord Herrington in the parlor. Tell him I’ll be down as soon as I’ve washed and dressed. And bring him a coffee tray. Warm up some of those little cookies Serita makes with the chocolate bits.”

“Sir?” Biban inquired, patently unwilling to bring someone who’d been so rude such a rich reward. Their cook Serita’s sweets were legend in Bhamjran.

“If he’s angry—which he is—he’ll be too proud to eat them,” Pahndir explained. “The smell will drive him insane.”

“I see,” said Biban, his own mouth twitching on the side opposite his scar. “And perhaps Your Highness could take a long time dressing.”

“Perhaps I could,” Pahndir agreed, for once perfectly attuned to an employee.

Pahndir descended almost an hour later, dressed in traditional silver overrobes with embroidered plum chrysanthemums. Herrington stood before one of the parlor windows with his hands clasped loosely behind his back. In his human jodhpurs, he looked like a general, ready to review his troops. He exhibited all the Yamish stillness Pahndir’s friend Xishi hadn’t bothered to employ.

Despite the propriety of his stance, Pahndir noticed an empty spot on the tray where a single cookie was missing.

“Good day,” Pahndir said, though he knew Herrington was aware of his arrival and simply didn’t care to turn right away. “I gather this isn’t a social call.”

He spoke to Herrington in their own language, his casual tone sufficiently insulting to ice over the great man’s eyes.

“It is not,” he confirmed crisply.

Herrington offered Pahndir no bow at all. Privately amused, Pahndir planted his rear on the hip-height table where the coffee and cookies sat. Taking his time, he poured himself a cup and balanced one of the fragrant biscuits on the saucer. The little sweet inspired a memory: the plate Charles had brought him in the dig’s cook tent. Pahndir hadn’t thanked him for it. He could have the other night, except Charles had been upset after his experience with Donjen and Darja. He’d been less so by the time Pahndir brought him food, but still very quiet. Now Pahndir wondered if he’d get the chance to rectify his lapse.

More focused in the present, Herrington’s gaze flicked to the tray with the barest hint of longing. He was rough-looking for a Yama, far more like a human with his redheaded coloring, and as broad and tall as a soldier. Pahndir understood why his staff would be reluctant to gainsay the man.

“You brought my butler to tears,” he commented mildly over the rim of his porcelain cup. “Is it your intent to bully me as well? Or, I should say, to attempt to? It’s hardly a feat to inspire a
human
to lose composure.”

Herrington’s mouth fished open at the bluntness of the slur, a mortifying shade of red creeping up his cheeks. With an obvious effort, he shut his jaw and forced his skin to pale again.

“My ward Beth Philips has been seen in your motorcar.”

Pahndir set his cup and saucer on the carved table. “Your ward, is she? I wasn’t aware she was a minor.”

She wasn’t, of course, and Herrington’s lips pursed infinitesimally. “Beth is under my protection. As is one of your customers, Charles Watkins.”

“Him, too?” Pahndir allowed his brows to rise a millimeter. “Well, The Prince’s Flame is a popular gathering place for young men.”

“I won’t have you corrupting them!” Herrington exploded. “They are nice young humans. They don’t need to be the objects of your games.”

Pahndir had prepared for this accusation; Herrington couldn’t know how unresolved their seduction was and would inevitably jump to conclusions. Because of his preparation, Pahndir didn’t expect anger to surge up in him so strongly. He came to his feet and straightened his robes. His face was icy, but in another moment it might well grow as warm as Herrington’s appeared to be.

“You insult me,” he said, “and you insult your charges as well.”

“You deny you have designs on them?”

“I deny nothing,” Pahndir said with every drop of princely hauteur he had. “My so-called designs on them are my business, as their interest in me is theirs. They are adults, the pair of them, and more than capable of making their own decisions.”

Herrington stepped right to him, his forefinger drilling into Pahndir’s breastbone. “I know the sort of shenanigans royals get up to. You touch one hair on either of their heads—”

“You forget yourself,” Pahndir cut him off, wrapping one hand around Herrington’s poking finger to force it away.

Then, because asserting mere physical victory didn’t quite satisfy, he let his aura swell as it hadn’t since he’d lost his wife, and maybe as it hadn’t in his life. His human staff aside, intimidating others in this primal Yamish fashion had never been his forte.

If it had, his family might not have been able to depose him so easily.

At the time, they’d barely broken a sweat getting rid of the embarrassment he’d been to them. Pahndir was surprised to discover how much control he had now. Naturally, Herrington’s aura struggled against his. He was a man used to wielding power. Their battling wills had the air between them buzzing like enraged insects, a sensation that lifted all the hairs on Pahndir’s arms. In the end, though, Pahndir’s genetically superior energy subsumed the older man’s. Herrington gasped and took a single involuntary step of retreat, rubbing his chest where Pahndir had prodded him with a spear of royal purple etheric force.

It was a measure of Herrington’s control that he recovered within seconds. He bowed his head stiffly.

“Forgive me, Your Highness. I shouldn’t have presumed.”

Hisformalgesture of submission, however reluctant, allowed Pahndir’s aura to recede. “I understand your position, Lord Herrington, but you shouldn’t assume I esteem your young human friends any less than you do. I assure you, I am as likely to be hurt by my designs, as you describe them, as either of them is.”

This unusual bit of honesty had Herrington’s eyes rounding. As to that, it took Pahndir back a bit himself.

“It’s not possible,” he continued softly, “to protect those one cares about from all harm. I’m not certain it’s even wise to try.”

Herrington narrowed his gaze at Pahndir a moment longer, apparently hoping to bore into the truth of his thoughts. Pahndir gave him nothing, neither on his face nor in his energy. He’d bared his soul enough for one day.

“I see reports of your death weren’t the only news that was exaggerated,” Herrington said. “You seem to have more…personal authority than your family gave you credit for.”

There was nothing to say to this. Thanks would have weakened Pahndir as much as admitting that his family’s estimation of his leadership potential had been justified. Indeed, the only appropriate reaction was silence and a steady stare.

After half a minute, Herrington inclined his upper body in a genuine bow.

“I appreciate your attention to my concerns,” he said coolly. “I will show myself out.”

It was only after he’d done so that Pahndir let the sweat that had been gathering pop out on his brow.

The sun outside the brothel was headache brilliant, but Herrington ignored it. As soon as his boots reached the dusty street, he looked back at the deep-blue lacquered door to The Prince’s Flame. His meeting with its owner had thrown him more off balance than he wanted to admit.

It had been decades since anyone had forced him to back down in a test of wills.

The reaction was instinctive, of course, bred into his genes like dominance in a pack of wolves. Any royal worth his blood, if he’d mustered up the nerve to try, could have elicited the same response from him. The surprise was that Pahndir Shan had mustered it.

A bicycle cab with a bright green awning tooted its brassy horn, reminding Herrington where he was. As he moved aside to let it pass, he thought he caught a glimpse of Sahel’s tall, black-robed figure. He probably was mistaken, because whoever the woman was, she disappeared around a corner without a backward glance. Perhaps it had been another member of her tribe.

The thought of the hot-blooded chieftain warmed his groin pleasantly. Enjoying his own vitality, not to mention his good fortune in finding an inspiring bed partner this season, he stepped onto the pavement and began to walk. The city was alive with lunch crowds, businesswomen fitting in one more meeting over the meal, one more deal in a city that accommodated a million a day. Prince Pahndir seemed to have made a place for himself in Bhamjran, despite the handicap of his sex. Along with what he’d seen this morning, this revelation led Herrington to an inescapable conclusion.

The former head of the House of Shan wasn’t the mentally defective weakling his family had tossed aside. Herrington had already been living among the humans when Pahndir’s competency trial occurred, but he’d read reports of it through the Yamaweb, just as he’d read reports of Pahndir’s subsequent “demise.” The prince certainly wasn’t paralyzed by grief these days. Instead, he was subtle, sly, and capable of disarming honesty. A dangerous Yama in any city, and one who excelled at a competitive and rather exotic job. In truth, Prince Pahndir was exactly the sort of man who’d appeal to a reckless monkey like Beth Philips.

The appeal he’d exert for Charles would be more complicated. Herrington wasn’t unaware of the boy’s background. He’d had him investigated soon after he’d found his daughter, Roxanne, who’d been taking care of Charles at the time.

Charles had survived things Herrington could barely conceive of. Poverty. Life on the street. Selling his body to his own gender for food. Though they’d never discussed it and, Fate willing, never would, Herrington respected Charles for pulling himself out of that. Now he was one of the most talented and hardworking employees Herrington had, a perfectionist in his kitchen realm. Herrington had watched him pine after Beth for years. Every time the two of them were together, Charles’s feelings were obvious. Herrington had chosen not to interfere, judging that Charles’s decision to keep his distance might indeed be appropriate.

Since they’d met the prince, however, the balance between his two charges seemed to be shifting. Pahndir’s seduction had stirred them up, had muddied what had once been clear. Herrington didn’t like muddy, nor did he see how whatever the royal Yama was intending could end well.

To his mind, Charles was better off leaving his past behind, and Beth…

Herrington felt a frown begin to tug his mouth as he sidestepped a water seller making a delivery. Herrington had friends in this town. Just because the prince had cowed him, temporarily, didn’t mean Herrington couldn’t squash him flat, should that turn out to be desirable.

An unexpected grin pulled his lips the opposite way. Herrington hoped he got a chance to eat another of those human cookies before he had to resort to that.

This must have been Pahndir’s day for unexpected meetings with his countrymen. He was in his favorite restaurant down the street from The Prince’s Flame, enjoying a leisurely version of the repast Northerners called “tea.” He was alone, of course, but the solitude was agreeable. His corner table on the sidewalk terrace afforded him room to spread out with the
Daily News
. The service was attentive, and his view of passing traffic—foot and otherwise—was as colorful as any in Bhamjran.

The familiarity of it all relaxed him. This was becoming his home, even if the occasional Northern tourists did stop and drop their jaws when they saw him.

In his princely embroidered robes, Pahndir didn’t resemble the humble gray-garbed
rohn
they were accustomed to. He imagined watching him being served by humans seemed as strange to them as if
he’d
seen a donkey climb onto a throne.