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“The bed,” I ordered.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He grabbed my hand as if I still might try to get away. A liar knew a liar. He might not have fully believed me just yet, but the one fatal flaw of so many men was ego. Vanity was an awfully deadly sin.
He tried to ease me back onto the bed. I shook my head, pushing him onto his back instead. His eyes sparked brightly, like lightning in a winter sky. Evidently, he was pleased with my idea. He spread himself out across the red silk, one arm propped casually behind his head, arrogant smile wide and confident. I crawled on all fours, up along his body till my knees straddled his pelvis. Running my hands slowly along his abdomen up across his chest, I did my best to lull him into a stupor. I leaned my upper body over his, moving closer as if to kiss him. But I didn’t. He’d gotten all the kisses he was going to get out of me.
His eyes closed. I continued to pet, rubbing my hands back over his chest and down his torso. As I braced myself with one hand on his abdomen, my right hand unsheathed the dagger, raised it high, and plunged it violently into the left side of his chest.
My body flew with a supernatural push, knocked clear of the bed onto the floor. A gurgling shriek of rage had me scrambling to my feet, still clutching my dagger. Danté stood at the edge of the bed, staring at the wound seeping black blood. I’d hit him exactly where I’d hit Nathaniel, yet there was no real reaction. No fatal reaction.
Liquid crimson eyes pierced a chill straight through me. He laughed. I stood, legs apart, ready for him.
“I have no heart, Genevieve, so there’s no need to go for the vitals. It will do you no good.”
I watched as the wound slowly closed, healing instantly, though black fluid streaked across his chest where his fingers had touched. He circled toward me as I inched toward the door. He held out a hand, curling his fingers as one might summon a child.
“Come to me now. No more games.”
When I didn’t obey, he vanished, sifted directly behind me. I elbowed him hard enough to crack something and spun, swiping out with the dagger.
“Flamma intus!” I screamed, beckoning my VS that had felt dormant since I’d killed Nathaniel.
A dim flicker of inner power hummed down my arm and through the razor-edged steel as I sliced across his face, from ear to lip. He howled. I ran.
Disoriented, for I’d never seen this hall, I sprinted, bare feet slapping hard on the slate floor, not knowing how to get out. There were doors randomly placed along the hallway. I ran toward one, throwing it wide, and halted.
Creatures that might have once been human were chained to the wall by different limbs. Eyes yellow, hollow, seemingly lifeless glanced disinterestedly at me. They were in various stages of starvation. One small creature was no more than skeletal bones with a thin layer of papery gray skin. What was this? A torture chamber? No. It was cold punishment. A place to punish disobedient slaves who could not die. This was hell, one small room in one realm of it.
I ran again, knowing Danté was close behind. The hall seemed an endless path into gloom. I saw another door and thrust it open, screaming as one foot fell into endless air. The shock made me drop the dagger, which clattered to the stone floor of the hallway as my body swung over the abyss. I gripped the doorknob with both hands and clung to the edge of the entrance with one foot.
I hung over impenetrable darkness falling away beneath me. The cold emptiness of a deep gulf stretched wide and far. Using leverage and my foot still crooked on the edge of the door, I managed to pull myself back into the hallway, slamming the door shut.
“Genevieve.” An echoing, singsong whisper. “I do so love a chase, but I’m in no mood anymore.”
I grabbed my dagger and kept running, now in a frantic state to find the stairs or some other way out. Sweaty strands of hair clung to my temples and neck.
A large door stood at the very end of the hall, the walls narrowing toward the iron-studded entrance. A special room. A way out?
Opening more cautiously this time, I entered a vacant space, gray stone on every side, with six tall, rectangular windows—three on the left, three on the right. Wait. No. They weren’t windows exactly. I walked up to the first on the right, peering inside.
Through the glass, I saw a cathedral-ceilinged room, walls and floors of white marble. A long red carpet led to a throne of shining silver with clawed feet and arms. There was a second smaller one molded from sparkling gold. There was no one sitting on either throne, but two muscular, blackened demons with ghastly yellow eyes stood on either side, staring straight ahead, oblivious to me.
The glass separating the room I was in from the other moved, shimmered. I lightly touched one finger to the surface and drew back. Ripples blurred the image for a few seconds, then righted itself. My finger felt wet but wasn’t.
I moved to the next one. The room was pitched in darkness, and though I could see nothing, I sensed something there. I shuddered and moved on to the third. Another vast room with Gothic ceilings and ribbed vaulting canopied a throne. This one had no carpet at all centered down the hall, and there was only one throne—tall and wide, carved of deep mahogany wood with a pointed arch at the head. Black velvet draped behind the dais where the throne stood. This was definitely for royalty.
“Throne rooms.”
My head swiveled to each doorway. Six of them. Six princes, brothers of Danté. The seventh throne room would be in this castle somewhere.
“Yes, my sweet,” said a bitter, cold voice behind me.
I spun to see Danté in the doorway. Smeared with black blood on his chest and a dripping gash on his face, he darkened the door like the demon prince he was. The wound on his face festered in a red welt and didn’t seem to be healing. My VS power. While my power had been mostly blocked by my foul murder, smothering what light she normally gave me, she’d still come forward when I summoned.
My pulse staggered a beat as Danté moved into the room. I glanced at the entrance to the throne room right next to me. Danté chuckled.
“If you think to find mercy or sanctuary with one of my brothers, you’re sadly mistaken. I will show you far more mercy than they ever would. When I’m done. Step through one of those doors and find out for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
