The Demon's Song

CHAPTER Twelve


It was dark by the time they got back to the apartment, with Phenex carrying a heavenly smelling bag of what they hadn’t been able to finish…along with a few things Phenex had decided he just had to bring back for later, even though he’d already eaten five times what Sofia could have managed at her hungriest.

“I can’t believe you’re this ancient thing and you’d never eaten sushi,” Sofia teased him. It still surprised her. She expected that he would have done everything, tasted everything. Wasn’t that what eternity was for? But whatever Phenex had been spending his existence doing, it didn’t seem that adventures in food had been his thing.

“I felt like eating a raw fish would have too much of a Gollum vibe,” Phenex said as they headed through the front door of the building and started up the stairs. “Now I’m too full to give a damn. I don’t think I’ve been this full in at least a couple hundred years. When I told you to order what was good and I’d try it, I didn’t think you’d order the whole menu.”

“You should have been more specific.” Sofia laughed. “Everything’s good.”

“That much is true,” he replied, then groaned. “What was the thing again? With the pile of stuff on top?”

“I think you mean the mountain roll. With the spicy mayo and the masago on top.”

“Yeah, the fish eggs.” He made a face that had Sofia snorting. “They were good as long as I didn’t think about what they were. But I probably should have stopped at the mountain roll. That was about when I started to feel like I had a stomach full of bricks.”

“It’s all the rice,” Sofia said. “Nobody held your mouth open and made you e—”

She didn’t expect the kiss. The man moved like a cat, or some kind of ninja. He was just there all of a sudden, his mouth on hers. The bigger surprise was that the kiss was over almost as soon as it had begun, a soft brush of his lips that was as fleeting and gentle as yesterday’s kiss had been lengthy and heated. It didn’t seem to matter. Her lips tingled just the same where Phenex’s had been.

Sofia stood very still on the landing between the first floor and the second, waiting—who was she kidding, hoping—for him to kiss her again. But Phenex simply stood there, inches from her, looking down at her with a curious expression.

She looked back at him, eyebrows raised, unsure of what he was looking for, or what to say.

“It was a nice day,” he finally said, and she would swear that his cheeks actually looked kind of pink. Maybe it was just the weird lighting in the stairwell.

Sofia smiled. “It was a nice day,” she agreed. “The kiss was nice, too.”

In response, he twisted up his mouth. “Nice? I don’t give nice kisses.”

Her grin widened. Maybe it was his almost-blush. Maybe it was just that he’d been so normal today, so easy to be with. But despite all of her misgivings, it was the easiest thing in the world to rise up on her tiptoes and press her mouth against his.

She’d startled him. Sofia could feel it in the way he went still, hear it in his soft inhalation when her lips met his. She had the briefest moment to savor it, and then he slid into her. She heard the bags of leftovers hit the floor, and then his arms were around her, pulling her against him. Sofia wound her arms around him, determined not to just be swept along this time. Wanting him didn’t mean just succumbing. She might be a human, but she would hold her own with him.

Sofia molded herself against Phenex, stroking his tongue with hers, showing him without words how she wanted, needed to be kissed. Phenex made a soft, achingly sensual sound in the back of his throat that had fire curling through every inch of her body. Then he slid his hands into her hair and took the kiss deeper, turning it into something dark and decadent.

His touch was everywhere, stroking, gliding, and Sofia curled into him, seeking his heat. They seemed made to fit together, every curve and hollow matched so that they were fused perfectly, no space between them. Phenex settled his hands on the small of her back, and with every slow stroke of his tongue, she could feel the pressure in his fingertips change ever so slightly. The thought flitted through her mind that he was playing her body just as he would an instrument, and her lips curved lazily against his mouth as she began to let her body move in time to every gentle press of his fingers.

Immediately, she could feel how hard he was, rigid and hot even through the fabric between them. The sound she made was somewhere between a gasp and a moan when she felt him against her lower belly, and she moved her own hips against his, savoring every shudder of his breath, the way he moved one hand to her hip and guided her against him, over and over until Sofia was swollen and wet, so ready for him she was quivering.

He maneuvered her so deftly that she barely realized it was happening until she’d been backed against the wall. When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist instinctively, then remembered, albeit in the haziest of ways, where exactly they were.

“I think...I think we should go upstairs,” she breathed, as Phenex moved to suckle at her earlobe. Just that tiny bit of suction had her tightening her legs around him. “Oh. God.”

She could feel his smile as he pulled her lobe through his teeth, lightly. “What happens then? Or are you still thinking about it?”

She stroked the back of his neck lightly and felt him shiver. How had she thought she could resist this? It had been hopeless from the start, and he’d known it. But she couldn’t regret waiting even the one day she’d managed to hold him at bay. His kisses, his touch had gentled, and he was taking care not to overwhelm her. Sofia could feel it in the way he held himself, had seen it in his sweet uncertainty. She knew he was holding back. The effort counted for a lot with her. He didn’t want to scare her. He just wanted her.

And she didn’t think she was going to be able to push him away this time.

“You told me to be sure the next time I touched you,” she breathed. “I kissed you. Draw your own conclusions.”

His chuckle was soft and full of the kind of promise that had goose bumps rising in pleasurable little prickles on her arms.

“I want to hear you say it.”

He shifted his grip on her ever so slightly, and that was when she felt those long, talented fingers begin to stroke her from underneath, sliding over the fabric of her jeans and creating delicious friction against her tight, swollen sex. Sofia pressed into him with a soft gasp, her eyes slipping shut. The sound echoed around her, a reminder that Phenex was ravishing her in a place where they could easily be walked in on. It was a small, quiet building…but it was also a Friday evening.

“I’ll tell you…upstairs.”

“No,” he said, intensifying the rhythm, pulling her even closer to the climax that shimmered just out of reach. Her muscles tightened, her breathing grew shallow.

“Look at me, Sofia. I want to see you. You’re so beautiful.”

The words were as unexpected as his restraint. Sofia did as he wanted, opening her eyes and seeing how his blazed an unearthly blue. He was the beautiful one, she thought. Luminous, not dark at all. His fingers pressed harder against her, and her head fell back as everything began to tighten deep within, a wave about to crest.

“Tell me.”

Sofia dug her nails into his shoulders. “I want you. On me. In me. Phenex…”

Then she came, her orgasm intensifying as it unfurled. Sofia surged forward, her legs squeezing Phenex tight as she gave a broken, strangled cry that was as close as she could come to being quiet. He watched her with something like awe, his own rough breathing keeping time with hers as she rode the wave he’d sent crashing through her.

When those waves subsided, she curled around him, feeling as though every bone had been removed from her body. Phenex said nothing for a long moment, simply holding her there with her head on his shoulder, her legs dangling. But she could feel his heart thundering in his chest, keeping time with hers. There was an intimacy about it that she hadn’t expected from him, along with that lingering sweetness he’d displayed.

She would have to be careful. So, so careful not to fall for him, Sofia thought, drifting in a fog that was all pleasure. Then he tucked his head into the crook of her neck and breathed deeply, drinking in her scent. Something deep inside began to ache, and she knew that it might already be too late to keep any kind of emotional distance.

She turned her head and pressed her cheek against his ear, hungry for the contact. Even as the last of her orgasm ebbed, she knew he would be able to stoke her need for him again in a heartbeat…and that he would in very short order.

The door opened below them, and Sofia found herself on her feet in an instant. Somehow, she managed not to topple over and land on the floor, though it was close. Phenex, on the other hand, looked as though he had it all together. Sofia felt a moment’s hurt watching him bend to pick up the dropped leftover bags, worried that he was just playing with her. But when he rose, she saw the way his eyes were still full of light, accompanied by two bright, flushed spots high on his cheeks.

The interloper, a tall, dark-haired woman who was some sort of computer programmer, if Sofia remembered right from the couple of times they’d run into each other, gave them a curious look as she walked by and then through the door to the second floor. Her eyes lingered on Phenex, so much that she nearly walked into the door instead of through it. Sofia didn’t blame her. He was impossible not to stare at. As it turned out, that was even more true when he was turned on.

And he seemed to have eyes only for Sofia.

“You ready?” he asked. Sofia nodded, thinking that was a loaded question if she ever heard one. She wasn’t going to change her mind, though. Being with Phenex felt right, even if her common sense had retreated to some darkened corner to cry.

They headed up the last flight of stairs, and Sofia couldn’t help but watch the way he walked, the way his clothes hugged him in all the right places with even the smallest movement. He was gorgeous, and tonight, he was all hers. And why not? She’d worked so hard, always played by the rules. For once, why shouldn’t she just indulge in something—someone—she wanted? Sofia inhaled on a wave of fresh desire, catching Phenex’s scent, and imagined burying her face in his skin. She wanted to explore him with her hands, her tongue…

Phenex growled softly as he pushed through the door onto the third floor, turning his head to glance back at her with a look that could have melted a glacier in seconds flat.

“Behave for just a few more seconds, or I’m going to have you right here on the hallway floor.”

Sofia’s mouth fell open. She was ready to demand he quit poking into her thoughts, or whatever he was doing, when Phenex gave a growl of a very different sort. It was the sound of a threatened and angry beast, and it had every hair on Sofia’s body standing on end.

“What is—”

Phenex held up a hand so sharply that it stopped her in mid-sentence. Then she saw the problem, and her heart sank.

Her door was cracked open.

She knew she’d locked it before they’d left, but it was very slightly open, revealing a sliver of darkness inside the apartment. Sofia looked at Phenex, every last lovely bit of her pleasure draining away. Anger was fast to replace it. It had been such a good day, she thought. Probably the best day she’d had in a long time, which had seemed to be moving into the best night she’d had in a long time.

And now this.

Phenex looked as though he was scenting the air, his head lifted just a little, eyes narrowed. Slowly, his lips curled, revealing the sharp incisors that had lengthened with his anger.

“Stay here,” he said, putting his bags of food beside the door. “I swear by all that’s Above and Below, these vamps have shit for brains.” He glanced around the short hallway, then reached back and drew his longsword from between his shoulders, pulling it from the air itself. “I mean it, stay put,” he warned her as he headed in, his voice low. She had just a glimpse of his eyes, glowing bright but cold, before he slipped inside. Sofia frowned at his back as it vanished. She had no intention of going anywhere she might get killed. She just hated that her apartment had become one of those places. Her pulse began to pound, the sudden burst of adrenaline making the harsh light seem overbright.

It made her wish she had a sword of her own. She hated being afraid, and hated feeling helpless just as much. This, all of this situation with the vampires, had brought her plenty of both.

Sofia listened, but it was completely quiet inside her apartment. There wasn’t a footstep, not a murmur. If he found anyone, they weren’t lasting long enough to make a sound. For such a big guy, Phenex was as silent as death.

The lights in the hallway flickered abruptly, then dimmed so much that the bulbs burned a soft, angry reddish gold. Sofia’s breathing caught, even as she tried to tell herself it was silly. She was out where anyone could see her. She had a big, dangerous protector within earshot. Nothing was going to happen to her.

Too bad that didn’t do anything to stop the terrible, creeping dread that slithered up her spine. The air felt heavier, pressing down on her until she felt glued to the floor, and the reddish tint to the semi-dark grew more pronounced. Her throat felt thick and strange when she swallowed, panic welling up like a scream. But when she tried to call for Phenex, the only sound that came out was a pathetic whimper, barely more than a breath.

“Hmm,” purred a soft voice by her ear, beautiful and awful in a way she hadn’t known was possible. Sweat beaded on her brow. She felt sick.

Whatever was in her apartment, she knew that the true danger had just found her.

“A bodyguard for the human? And not just any bodyguard…they gave you your very own songbird. You must be special, eh? And here I was thinking you were just a loose end to tie up. Another stupid talking monkey who stuck her nose in somewhere it didn’t belong. You killed one of my better recruits, you little bitch.”

She struggled to deny it, understanding now that whoever had left the door open had only done it to bait Phenex away. She’d been ridiculously easy to trap. Part of her wanted to see who was behind her, whispering in her ear. Another part was horrified by the prospect.

“N—” she tried to push the simple word out. “Nnn—”

“Don’t.” The silken voice turned poisonous. “Not a word. If you hadn’t walked in, Reichen would have been able to have his fun and vanish before anyone found the whore he’d been playing with. But no, you had to play hero. I heard all about it. I loathe boring little do-gooders.” She felt one long finger trail down the back of her head, over the curve of her skull through her hair, and whimpered. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. There was something in that touch that she knew would drive her insane if it lasted.

“That pathetic excuse for a vampire king is wrong. You’re useless, little human,” the voice crooned. “A pretty bit of nothing. You’ll have to die, you know. You look too stupid to know much of anything important, but one never knows. Besides, Reichen, was worth a thousand of you. Loyal, strong, vicious…”

“D—don—” God, why couldn’t she speak?

“Don’t?” A soft, humorless laugh. “Begging already? I’m going to make you wish I’d killed you quickly. But not yet. You’re going to give me something I want before I disembowel you and feed your entrails to my horde.” Whoever was behind her moved in closer. She could almost feel the lips against her ear. He whispered, and it was like nails on a chalkboard.

“Imagine my delight when I discovered who your protector is, little monkey. He and his friends are going to burn, but I want to take care of him most especially. He took something of mine, you see. Something valuable. I will have the retribution I am owed from that filthy traitor. Maybe the Phenex will sing us all a sad song when he sees your carcass. I think I’d like that. That’s what you’ll give me, you mewling bitch. I want to see the songbird’s face when I break something of his.”

He might have been discussing the weather, or an interesting place he’d visited. His voice was calm, almost cheerful. But the things he said were awful, making her stomach roll. Sofia began to shake, the only motion she seemed capable of. This man—or whatever he was—was serious. He planned to kill her slowly and painfully. Through sheer force of will, she was finally able to rasp out two words.

“Not. His.”

“Lies.” He spat the word. “Hellfire, you stink of him. Has he been all over you? In you? Of course he has. Weakness is drawn to weakness. Phenex’s weakness will be the end of him. I will see to that personally.”

Sofia gritted her teeth and tried desperately to regain some kind of control over her body. She managed to wiggle her pinky finger, though the effort nearly made her black out. She was going to die tonight. Right here, with help only feet away. She knew it with a certainty that was bone deep. Sofia thought of her parents, and her brothers, all of whom might as well have been a million miles away instead of just an hour… All she wanted in that moment was to see them again. The pain was as keen as the edge of a knife. As mocking laughter ruffled the hair by her ear with breath that was like a blast of heat, a tear slipped down one of her cheeks.

“Oh, are you crying, little human?” the voice crooned. “Such sweet tears. Perhaps I’ll lick them up.” She heard a soft rustle, and knew that she was about to see the owner of the voice that had gone harsh and raspy all at once, much less humanlike. She didn’t want to see…didn’t want to know what he would do…

There was a thunderous shout as her door slammed open and Phenex came through, moving so quickly he was little more than a blur. His sword flashed over his head. Sofia summoned up strength she didn’t even know she had and hurled herself to the side, landing hard on the floor and hitting her head. For a brief instant, she saw stars. There was a rush of air, an unearthly shriek, and then she was free again. What had felt like invisible ropes dissipated into nothing, and her limbs could move, if weakly.

Sofia didn’t even try to get up, instead curling herself into the smallest ball possible. Her head ached miserably from the fall, throbbing in time to the rapid beating of her heart. She couldn’t get that thing’s voice out of her head.

I want to see the songbird’s face when I break something of his.

But she wasn’t his. Was she?

Then Phenex’s hands were on her, surprisingly gentle as he gathered her to him and lifted her into his arms.

“Damn it, Sofia, are you all right? What did he do to you? Say something. Please, baby.”

The endearment was enough to shock her into speech.

“I’m okay. I couldn’t move or talk, but I can now.”

Her voice was too soft, and her limbs didn’t have much strength in them, but at least she was in control of herself again. Phenex’s voice was as gruff as she’d ever heard it, but she couldn’t even muster the wherewithal to look up at his expression.

“Just hang on to me. I’ve got to get rid of the dead vamps in your apartment, and then we’re getting out of here. It isn’t safe for you.”

She didn’t have it in her to argue, though she couldn’t imagine where they’d go. A hotel? Maybe that was best. She couldn’t imagine being comfortable here. Not knowing how easy it had been for them to get to her this time.

“Who was that?” Sofia asked as Phenex stepped back into her apartment, carrying her as though she weighed nothing. He was warm, and she huddled as close to him as she could. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering. She’d seen plenty of death, terrible things. But she’d never come so close to touching it herself, never had it whisper in her ear. It shook her, more than she’d ever thought it would.

“Belial,” Phenex growled. He shifted, pulled something out of his pocket, and murmured a few words she didn’t understand. The burst of flames made her jerk, and Phenex’s hands tightened on her.

“Don’t worry. This is just cleanup. Fire is cleansing. It’ll be like they were never here.”

He repeated the ritual twice more, then turned off the lights and locked the door before shutting it. Sofia considered suggesting that he put her down to make it easier for him, but she found that right or wrong, she didn’t want to be put down yet. His strength was a comfort, which she sorely needed when she was so low on her own.

“I’ll send somebody by to pick up a few of your things tomorrow,” Phenex said. “I’m not interested in sticking around to see if Belial has anything else to throw at us while the sun is down.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

His laugh was hollow. “Not even close. He didn’t make it onto the Infernal Council by being easy to kill. The Prince of Sloth moves pretty quickly when you swing a sword at him. Besides…it would take fire. A lot of fire. It’s really the only way to kill one of us.”

“Oh.” Any hope she might have had was replaced by a sick, empty feeling.

“Son of a bitch,” Phenex cursed softly. “I knew. I knew there would be a demon running things. When I see Uriel again I’m going to throttle him. He could have given us some warning. If I’d known, I would have had you somewhere safer. Especially if I’d known it was Belial.”

“He said you took something of his...”

She felt him stiffen. “No. I removed something he should never have had. The lords of Hell are like dragons with their treasure, Sofia. They hoard it, amass it, and ignore it. But remove the smallest thing, and their fury will make you think you’ve stolen their most precious possession.”

“Would he stop if you just gave it back?” Sofia asked, unable to imagine what it might have been.

“No. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. It should never have been tolerated in the first place. She’s back where she belongs.”

She? So many questions, and none of the energy to bother asking. She was still reeling from the pure evil that had touched her, whispered in her ear.

It was hard to associate Phenex with the creature that had taken such pleasure in terrifying her. Had Phenex ever been like that? She didn’t know. Right then, Sofia realized she knew almost nothing about him, except that he’d given his word to keep her safe. It was going to have to be enough for now.

But it wouldn’t always be.

“There’s only one place I know of you’ll be safe,” Phenex said, then sighed angrily. “This is going to cause some problems, Sofia. Just remember to blame me if anyone gives you shit. They’ll be more than willing to believe it.”

She looked up at him wearily, not liking the grim look on his face at all.

“Blame you for what?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he carried her up the stairs to the roof. She began to get a strange, not altogether pleasant feeling about what he was doing. “Phenex?”

The cold night air hit her like a slap, and she sucked in a breath. She said his name again, not a question this time but a demand. In answer, he strode to the edge of the building. As he moved, there was a rustle and snap as the beautiful black wings she’d seen once before spread out at his sides. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was going to do.

“Oh, God,” she said.

“Just hang on,” Phenex replied, and sprang into the air with a flap of his wings, rising, taking them both away from whatever danger still lurked below. Sofia tucked her face into Phenex’s chest, hiding it from the wicked breeze, and wondered whether she would ever truly be safe again.