Still, the movements of the horse began lulling me into a sense of calm, along with the slow rhythm of his pounding heart at my back. As I leaned into him, I breathed in his soothing smell. My eyes began to drift closed.
After only another minute, his deep voice pierced the silence. “We’re here, Ruby.”
I opened my eyes. There, in the darkness, a castle loomed above us. It towered over the edge of a cliff, its dark stone walls gleaming with rain in the faint light. Shadows claimed the space beyond the cliff, but the sound of waves crashing against rocks filled the air. I ran my tongue over my lips, tasting salt.
“When we get inside, I’ll find a room for you.” His voice was a soft murmur in my ear.
“Where are we, exactly? And what time is it?”
“Scotland, and late,” he said quietly. “Everyone will be asleep.”
“Everyone?”
“You’ll meet them tomorrow.”
Adonis led Thanatos over the rocky terrain toward his castle. Rain slid down my skin, between my breasts. Still, Adonis’s warmth kept me from freezing.
As we moved closer to the gatehouse, I caught sight of the carvings in the walls—the skulls and gargoyles—haunted, human-like faces whose mouths and eyes gaped in horror.
Looks cozy.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight of the castle looming above us, the peaks and towers majestic against the dark night sky. At our approach, the heavy portcullis began to creak open. The gate’s iron teeth speared the air, giving the entrance the appearance of a wild beast. The gatehouse’s narrow windows gaped out onto the rocky landscape like empty eyes.
When the gate had groaned fully open, it revealed a towering, arched hall, lit by the dancing flames of torches. The horses’ hooves echoed off a vaulted ceiling high above us. Vines climbed the walls, blooming with blood-red flowers.
The hall gave way to the open air—a wide outdoor passageway between towering gothic structures.
As I dismounted from Thanatos, a movement in the shadows caught my eyes. Cloaked in a cowl, a figure glided over the stones. I caught the faintest hint of bone-white skin under his hood. Creepy.
Adonis slid off his horse, and pulled our leather bags off. He handed over the reins, and the cloaked man led the two horses away, their hooves clopping over the stones. Adonis handed me my sodden bag, and I clung to it.
I surveyed the walls around me, each one carved with leering or agonized gargoyle faces. This place was built to intimidate, but I’d already lived through one horseman’s castle. I didn’t scare that easily.
Wordlessly, Adonis stalked to a second arched doorway, expecting me to follow him. We crossed a stony courtyard. Here, a statue loomed over the center of the courtyard—a beautiful man sitting on a pedestal, his wings arched and demonic. He looked down at the ground, and a stone snake coiled up his leg.
Drakon landed on the ground by the statue’s feet. He hissed, and a flame shot from his mouth at the statue’s base.
“Lucifer,” I said quietly.
“Also known as Azazeyl.”
“He’s beautiful.” I paused at the statue, frowning. “Who was he, exactly?”
“He introduced humans to the magical language. He was an archangel, and when he plummeted to earth, he fractured into the seven earthly gods. Then with him, a horde of angels fell, transforming into demons.”
I hugged my sodden coat tighter. “Why do you have a statue of him?”
“The other horsemen think it’s to remind us of our mission—to correct the great original sin. I have no interest in doing that. I admire him.”
“Why?”
“Because he rebelled against those who would control us,” he said with a touch of awe. “He broke the rules.”
Like the snake at the statue’s base, Drakon began scaling the statue, crawling up the stone in a slinking motion. He seemed quite at home there, almost as if the marble god were a long-lost lover.
Apparently done with our conversation, Adonis moved on toward one of the towers that loomed over us. As we neared it, an oak door swung open on its own.
I followed him into a hall—a vast, stony atrium. From here, a wide stairway led up to a second floor. Wordlessly, Adonis led me up the stairs.
Vaulted stone ceilings arched above us like ribs, and my footsteps echoed off a stone floor. Faintly, my fae senses tuned in to the distinct scent of old parchment and leather. Bingo. Somewhere around here, I’d find a library. Maybe the Dark Lord had one or two books about the Bringer of Light on his shelves.
He wasn’t big on filling me in on things like what we were doing, or why we’d come here. Or what, specifically, a Light Bringer was going to do. He didn’t seem to feel the need to tell me how I’d help him rule the heavens, or why he wanted to return there if he had such contempt for the celestial angels in the first place.
I was still a spy, though, wasn’t I? I didn’t need to wait for the information to come to me. I went out and found it.
At the top of a stairwell, Adonis led me down a long mezzanine. To my left, sculptures of twisting and thorny vines snaked over the walls. In the hallway’s guttering candlelight, the sculptures looked half alive.
“Nice place you have here,” I said. “Real homey.”
“It suits me.”
He paused at an oak door, and pushed it open to reveal a cavernous bedroom. Here, pale light shone through steeply peaked windows onto an ornate, tiled floor, inlaid with rubies. A canopied bed stood on a dais, the blankets a deep crimson. Black, thorny vines climbed the stone walls, and poison hemlock grew among them. A dark, arched doorway led to another room—the bathroom, probably. Candles hung in chandeliers high above us, but none of them were lit.
I swallowed hard. When I said before that I was no longer easily intimidated by creepy spaces, I was vastly overestimating myself.
“You’ll be comfortable here,” he said.
“You must be misreading my facial expression.”
“What’s the problem?”
I glanced at the marble fireplace, as gaping and empty as the gargoyles’ eyes. “It’s cold. Do you think we could get a fire going?”
He studied me, his eyes gleaming like stars in the shadowy room. “That’s right,” he said softly. He crossed to me, his hands in his pockets. “I’d nearly forgotten that you were scared of the dark.”
I bristled. “How did you know that?”
“I can feel it.” His eyes gleamed in the dim light. “You said darkness surrounds me. Do I scare you, Ruby?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to him, so I thought I’d just go with the truth. “Yes. You were born to scare, weren’t you?” Born to seduce, too, but let’s not get into that. I turned, meeting his gaze head on. “But you don’t scare me all the time.”
Sometimes, he made me feel calm.
He snapped his fingers, and firelight burst into the empty fireplace. “That will keep you warm.”
With another flick of his wrist, curtains fell over the windows. At least in Adonis’s home I’d have some privacy from the ever-watchful eyes of the sentinels.
“You can hang all your wet clothes by the fire to dry. I don’t have anything for you to sleep in, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll sleep naked.”
His eyes widened, body tensing.