Brimstone Prince. Barbara Hancock J.

and stood up straight to meet her. Grim paced a few steps away. His eyes were watchful.

      Lily spread the map on the hood of the car. She was careful to keep some distance from Michael. He had tamped down his Brimstone heat and his affinity, too. His guitar was in the back seat. It sat there like a special passenger. Its seductive song silenced...for now. She was pretty sure it was unnatural for him to leave it there, neglected and unplayed.

      It didn’t matter.

      All the self-control in the world—hers and his—didn’t stop her body from humming in his presence.

      She focused as much attention as possible on the map. It would have meant nothing to her without the spirits’ guidance. Geography of his world wasn’t her strong suit. It hadn’t been her home for a very long time. Thanks to her elemental guides she was able to point out the exact route she’d seen traced in the dirt of Michael’s bedroom floor.

      “The Grand Canyon leads to heaven?” Michael asked.

      “The river leads. The canyon is incidental. The carving of it a side effect of the river’s flow.” Lily shrugged off one of the wonders of the mortal world.

      “And you couldn’t follow that path to lead me to Lucifer’s wings?” Michael asked Grim.

      The hellhound tilted his head, but arrogantly. He was a creature of hell. What did he care about pathways he was forbidden to take?

      Without being conscious of her actions, Lily had shrugged out of her backpack and placed it on the hood to hold down one corner of the map. Michael called her attention to the bag and its contents when he suddenly placed one hand over the lumps that showed beneath the worn canvas.

      “If I hadn’t seen you summoning with my own eyes, I would think you were going to lead me on a superstitious version of a wild-goose chase,” Michael said. Every inch of her body tensed and Lily held her breath. His hand was directly over one of the larger lumps that indicated dolls other than the tiny carved representation of himself. She had no idea how her treasured warrior angel would react to Michael’s touch. It had never reacted to hers. Unlike the other dolls, it seemed to have no powers whatsoever. Part of her fascination came from its silence.

      She hurriedly grabbed for the backpack, more out of embarrassment than fear. She had no idea what Michael would think of the likeness, but she’d prefer he never see himself in a tiny doll she’d treasured for so many years. She was too hurried. Her rushing made her clumsy. Her whole body brushed against his and her hand tangled with his fingers. Had she actually wondered if this world was real all morning? Because it was suddenly ferociously real... Her skin flushed, her breath caught, every muscle tightened. There was no breeze—the air stood still—and yet she felt a rush of response lift her hair.

      At first she thought her sudden movement had caused Grim to growl low in his chest. That maybe the contact of her against his master had worried him. The hellhound was up and pacing. Grim’s hackles had risen and turned to something more like smoke swirling on his back. Michael narrowed his eyes, but his focus wasn’t on the bag she had pulled away from his hand to clutch to her chest. Rather he looked back down the highway the way they’d come.

      “It’s time to go,” he said.

      The map resisted being folded correctly when she grabbed it off the hood of the car. She was breathing again, but her respiration was rushed and her fingers were clumsy. Grim was all swirl now. He hadn’t disappeared, but he looked like nothing but smoke and ember eyes.

      “Keep an eye on them,” Michael ordered. Grim had vanished before his master finished speaking.

      “It’s getting worse. I don’t think we’ll be able to shake them as long as we’re together,” Lily said. She sounded winded. She was winded. That slight contact between them had left her oxygen-deprived. Michael had already opened the passenger-side door for her. A prince to her princess. His consideration was salt in the scratch of her reaction to him. She wasn’t sure if she would have been able to operate the door handle herself.

      “We have to be very careful. When we touch, the affinity is amplified,” Michael warned. It was the understatement of the century. Did his body still vibrate as if it was an instrument’s string? She wondered that hers wasn’t quivering for the world to see, still reacting from the slight brush of her body against his.

      As he crossed around to the driver’s side, Lily swallowed. The distance between them was still negligible. Because it wasn’t from the earth to the moon. She didn’t have the guts to tell him actual touching might not be necessary at all. She still felt amplified. Every cell in her body seemed tuned to the possibility of the future touch and taste of him, but even if those touches never happened, the memory of previous ones might well keep her affinity vibrating forever.

      There was a time she’d felt safe, if a little trapped, behind the palace’s walls. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever feel that way again. She’d flown with Michael, silhouetted against the desert sky. His burn and the adrenaline of that moment might be with her forever after.

      Deep down she thought this new fear was a small price to pay for the exhilaration of that flight.

       Chapter 7

      Peter could taste the wild, sweet affinity on the back of his tongue every time it was unleashed. He’d traveled across the world to this godforsaken desert before Samuel’s daughter had even met the half-daemon prince. Her blood alone had lured with a purity of call he’d never sensed from others.

      She’d been sheltered from detection for years. Hidden. Kept by Ezekiel. They had never suspected. Samuel, once the mightiest daemon hunter, had allied himself with the heir to Lucifer’s throne. Such an alliance had been unexpected, as the Order of Samuel was already dismantled. Scattered to the winds. So few brothers were left to carry on Reynard’s work. That great man had been murdered by D’Arcys and Loyalists. As had most of his followers.

      Peter himself had been close to giving up. But he’d remained faithful. He’d survived by selling his soul to Rogues. In that he’d also followed in Reynard’s footsteps.

      And now he had hope again for the first time in years.

      He traveled in a fleet of gleaming black vehicles with a group of Rogues more ruthless than any he’d known. They’d been on the trail of Samuel Santiago’s daughter for months before Michael Turov had found her for them. The second he’d touched her they had pinpointed her exact location. Together they burned with the heat of a thousand suns. Residual desire coursed through Peter with the memory of that burn. The Rogues were like a pack of hounds on her scent and he, too, panted. But the Brimstone his deal had accepted into his blood was for the Order of Samuel. With Samuel’s daughter he could rebuild what they had lost. Perhaps, in time, he could turn on the Rogue allies and purify the earth of the daemon scourge once and for all.

      The Rogues could have heaven. What did he care of that far-off realm? He would rule a new order on earth. He wanted to bathe in Samuel’s daughter’s affinity, and when he no longer needed her, maybe he would bathe in her blood. All the years of powerless fury he’d suffered would be soothed.

      They were close. So close. And other Rogues were close to a different prize they’d sought. Lucifer’s wings were almost within their grasp. Ezekiel would be brought to his knees. But he wouldn’t be bowing before Rogues. He would be bowing before a new order of saints. One led by Peter himself.

      * * *

      He hadn’t had the flame nightmare in a very long time. When it visited him with a vengeance, as if to make up for years of leaving him in peace, the vivid memory of pain seared along the tracks of his scars and woke him with the sound of his own screams. Grim was there before the sound died down and the hulking beast almost smothered him with his concern. He pressed his great hairy body against Michael’s arms as if he were putting out actual flames and not the memory of a first Brimstone burn that had almost annihilated a toddler too young to control it.

      One