Brimstone Prince. Barbara Hancock J.

in order to bring him back from the brink of combustion. Rogues had taken him to get to her and the daemon king. Adam Turov had helped Michael and his mother defeat the Rogues that had also tortured him as a child.

      His stepfather also had scars from his time with the Order of Samuel. But the beautiful opera singer, Victoria D’Arcy, had helped the daemon hunter to heal. They had raised Michael together even though his biological father had been a daemon. He’d had love, stability...and the looming threat of a grandfather who wanted to bequeath him the throne of hell on his twenty-first birthday.

      Thankfully he’d been sleeping outside the roadside hotel to keep watch and to keep his distance from Lily Santiago when he woke screaming. The night air helped to cool his skin, and no one saw the glow along the tracks of his scars caused by the Brimstone in his blood rising to the surface.

      Lily didn’t have to touch him. Ever again. Keeping his distance did nothing. The memory of her touch was enough. He’d fallen to sleep hotter than he’d been in a very long time. Thus the dream. Thus the burn. He rose and went for his guitar for comfort. The music and the affinity his mother had bequeathed him held the Brimstone burn at bay.

      Of course, the music did nothing to erase the memory of Lily’s taste on his tongue.

      * * *

      Sometime after midnight, Lily woke suddenly with her heart pounding. Her fists were clenched, but the only intruder in her room was a stray shaft of moonlight beaming through the slim opening between the heavy motel drapes. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken afraid from a sound sleep since she’d left the protected confines of the daemon king’s palace. She’d been hunted from the start. Rogues craved her ability to lure and hunt daemons because of the power it would give them over Loyalist enemies. But their desire to use her was at war with their more personal desire to claim her affinity for their own pleasure.

      Reason to run, for sure.

      But running with a half-daemon prince wasn’t exactly salvation, especially when she found herself uncomfortably close to having those same thoughts to covet and claim. She was no greedy Rogue daemon, but Michael’s Brimstone was alluring.

      Michael would have been alluring if his blood was cold as ice.

      Lily rose from tangled sheets that spoke of her restless dreams and tiptoed to the window. She twitched the curtain just enough to look down on the Firebird gleaming in the pale moonlight. She hadn’t expected to see Michael leaning against the hood in a familiar pose, his legs crossed at the ankle. She eased back, but he wasn’t looking up at the window where she stood. He was concentrating on the guitar in his hands.

      She couldn’t hear his song. Not with her ears. But she suspected she’d woken with his playing, attuned to him in ways she couldn’t understand. He played to quiet the Brimstone in his blood. To soothe away the burn. Knowing he was as restless as she was didn’t help. He was used to controlling his burn. She was less practiced at pretending. Especially when she wasn’t at all sure the attraction between them was something they could fight.

      That’s when she saw Grim. She’d been too distracted by the striking figure of a daemon prince curled around his guitar at midnight. At first she hadn’t seen the giant shadow of his constant hellhound companion. But, unlike his master, the hellhound had seen her. His snout was pointed toward the window and for a second the burning coals of Grim’s eyes met hers. He had been sitting at Michael’s feet. He rose and walked several stiff-legged paces toward the hotel. Lily heeded the warning. Her fingers slid from the curtains and she turned away from the beautiful prince playing by the light of the moon.

      Her backpack was only a few steps away. She kept it close at all times. In addition to the kachinas, her father’s sword was stowed in a side pocket that served as a sheath. Only the top of its hilt protruded, but it was within easy reach should she need it. It was probably a mistake to pick up the pack and bring it with her when she climbed back into bed. She did it anyway. It wasn’t safe to stare at Michael. But there was an alternative. She’d been staring at his kachina-doll likeness her whole life.

      So why did the beat of her heart kick up again when she pulled out the tiny burlap bundle to unwind it? Why did every slow revolution of the doll as she freed it feel like a risk she couldn’t afford to take?

      The room was dark, illuminated only by the moon on one side and the soft glow of emergency lighting from the interior corridor on the opposite side.

      She saw the doll with the pads of her fingers more than her eyes.

      It was still a treasure, but it was no longer as compelling as it had been before. Now she’d seen the real warrior angel in action. She’d heard his song. She’d felt his burn. She’d tasted his perfect lips. But more than that, she’d felt his scars. The tiny carving hadn’t revealed those scars to her. She’d had to see them on the real man in real life. Something deep in his changeable eyes told her there was much like the scars about him. Things the kachina doll had never revealed in spite of her familiarity with it.

      She had to obey the daemon king.

      But as she held the doll in her hands the smooth statue suddenly grew cool in her fingers and she trembled. The chill was unexpected. The real man could warm her if it wasn’t forbidden in so many ways. The hellhound knew her secret. But Michael was the true mystery. A daemon prince determined to run away from the throne of hell. He was scarred by his past. He fought his future. Yet he’d had the kind of familial love she’d never known.

      The doll was too cold to comfortably hold and she rewrapped it, puzzled by the sudden change. What could it mean?

      Ezekiel had a plan, and she was entangled in his scheme because love and gratitude bound her. She’d run away only to find that her guardian wouldn’t set her free. Whether Grim approved or not, one of her ancestors had seen the daemon prince in her future. Was he her destiny or would she be his damnation? Was the sudden chill from the doll meant as a warning?

      She wanted to warn Michael. It wasn’t the Brimstone in his blood he should fear. It was her place in Ezekiel’s plan and the power she might have to overcome his resistance.

       Chapter 8

      It wasn’t safe for her to travel alone. She couldn’t fight off an army of Rogues with her father’s blade. She wasn’t sure how much sleep they’d managed between them, but they were up before dawn to meet at the car as they’d planned. Grim had disappeared. She blinked at shadows to determine if the hellhound was lurking near his master, but couldn’t decide if her gooseflesh was in response to the cool morning air or the beast’s stare.

      “We should separate and meet at the river, but I don’t want to leave you on your own and Grim won’t cooperate,” Michael said.

      Lily wouldn’t have been keen to travel alone with the hellhound anyway.

      “I’ll think cold thoughts,” she promised, knowing it was a lie.

      “Will you?” Michael challenged. He had placed his guitar in the back seat and he braced his hands against the top of the car on the driver’s side. Lily stood in the open door of the passenger side and met his gaze over the dusty roof. Something in his narrowed eyes spoke of tension and she dropped her eyes, but that only led her to look at his white-knuckled grip.

      “Maybe you’re the one that needs to chill?” Lily suggested.

      “I’m working on it. Trust me,” Michael said. He pushed away from the car and got behind the wheel in one fast, fluid motion. Lily swallowed. If this was him working on tamping down his Brimstone burn, she couldn’t imagine him letting go. Couldn’t, but did for several long moments as she tried to remember how to get into the car like a woman who wasn’t lost in thoughts that could get her killed.

      Only the sudden thought that the daemon king had known exactly what he was doing when he’d thrown them together spurred her to take a deep breath and get into the car. He wanted them harried and hounded by Rogues. He wanted them drawn together.