Copyright © 2009 Kimberly Kaye Terry
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
Chapter One
“Pontou et pe, q’iye an dou, v’eta!” Bacclum grunted the enchantment from behind clenched teeth. He clamped his thighs around the demon’s head and wrapped his hands around his throat.
His entire body was on fire, every muscle painfully strained as sweat poured from him and dripped onto the body of the massive creature he straddled.
“Pontou et pe, q’iye an dou, v’eta!” With the ancient words, the demon’s power flooded his body. Bloodied tears fell from the corners of the demon’s closed eyes. Bacclum ignored the sympathy hovering in the recesses of his mind. All that was important was that he find Azrael and for Azrael to lead him to Arakeil, Azrael’s father. To do so he needed the demon’s power added to his own.
The end was near; the Fallen One’s life source began to fade.
“Let him go, Bacclum!” the rumbling growl demanded close behind him. “It is enough!”
“Not until he gives me what I want.” Bacclum grunted. “I want all of it.” He held on to the demon’s neck, his strength increasing as the creature weakened.
Octavius’s leathery wing brushed against one of the many cuts on Bacclum’s naked back at the same time the demon opened his eyes. The whites were eclipsed blood red, and his gaze locked with Bacclum’s.
The demon reached his hand up and slashed a claw deep into the side of Bacclum’s face, scoring his flesh. The pain was intense, unlike any Bacclum had felt throughout the long battle.
He bellowed and his grip loosened. His head swam and bile churned within his gut and filled his mouth.
The demon’s mouth opened and moved without sound.
“Let go, Bacclum!” Octavius’s roar was deafening, the tinge of fear one Bacclum had never heard from the gargoyle in all their years bound together.
Bacclum desperately tried to release the demon, watching in surprised horror as the demon’s chanting somehow became audible, louder, picking up in intensity, until it was deafening, despite his hold on his throat.
The air around them grew hot, humid and sticky. The windows began to tremble and the furniture started to wobble before sliding across the floor. A chair slammed into Bacclum’s side, but didn’t dislodge him from his position on top of the demon.
Bacclum watched as though from a distance, as the demon’s voice became a whirlwind, sucking everything in the room into its ferociously spinning column. The windows’ quaking increased violently until they exploded, the glass splintering into a thousand fragments and shards of glass falling like icy rain on Bacclum’s naked body.
The floor beneath them rumbled, cracked and split, creating a large chasm.
Bacclum’s hands were torn from the demon’s neck and he was dragged away by unseeing hands. He glanced up in time to see a shadow throw Octavius as though he were of no more significance than a child’s toy—and not a six-and-a-half-foot, massive gargoyle—into the remaining intact window, glass exploding as he was hurled through.
Bacclum had no time to think of Octavius’s fate as he was dragged along the floor, away from the demon’s body, his fingers clamped down, digging deep grooves into the hard wood.
A large tome appeared from thin air, slowly making its way toward him, spinning in wild arcs until it stopped near his body, suspended in mid-air, pages flipping until the book was wide open.
“No!” he roared, fighting like hell to escape, even as his body and spirit were sucked into the glowing amber pages whose beckoning he could not resist.
* * *
“Domi, please, baby, reconsider this… I don’t feel good about it.”
With a definitive snap, Dominique closed the top of her last suitcase. She turned to face her mother, trying to keep her irritation in check.
“He was un tonnerre a la voile—he was no good, Dominique.”
A dark shadow fell across her mother’s features. Agate glanced away briefly, but not before Dominique saw her mother make the sign of the cross, reminding her that her mother had once led a different life, held a different belief, long ago.
“Momma? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Agate turned back to face her, a grim cast to her features that belied the determined smile firmly in place. She walked toward Dominique, and framed her face with her hands.
She eyed Dominique, worry reflected in her dark brown eyes. “It’s not me I’m worried about. Domi—”
“Look, Momma, I’m going. There isn’t anything you can say or do to change that. It’s my right, he is…was,” she instantly corrected herself, “my father.”
She placed her hands over her mother’s for a brief moment and squeezed, before gently removing Agate’s hands from her face. “This is something I have to do. I don’t want to hurt you…I just want you to at least try and understand.” She said it as gently as she could before turning back to her suitcases.
“No. He wasn’t. Not really.”
“Wasn’t what?” Dominique spun back around, brow wrinkled as she stared at her mother, confused.
Often, Dominique felt insignificant next to her mother. Agate was powerful, secure in her skills as a witch and her ability as the leader of their coven. She was confident in who and what she was. Traits Dominique felt she pitifully lacked.
But as she looked at her mother, the worry and fear etched deeply into her face reached out and nearly strangled Dominique.
Both women were tall, thin, angular, with a sinewy type of muscled build that had nothing to do with working out in any gym, and everything to do with simple genetics. Although Dominique worked out regularly with one of her coven sisters in the Brazilian martial art capoeira, she didn’t need the exercise to maintain the perfect physique she’d inherited from her mother’s line.
Their features were also markedly similar; Both had sharply cut cheekbones, full lips and slim noses that were just shy of being overly long. They were often called striking women, rather than beautiful, their looks not classified so simply.
But there were differences in the two women. Whereas Dominique’s complexion was a light brown, caramel color, Agate’s was the color of dark, smooth milk chocolate. Of course, beyond their skin color, there were other variations between the two women, some visible, others…not.
Unlike her mother’s dark, soulful brown eyes, Dominique’s eyes were different. Painfully so. That difference had marked her from the beginning and was a sign of other variations, traits that slowly began to manifest as Dominique grew into her maturity.
That very difference that marked her was the sole reason she was determined to find out who—what she mentally clarified—she was.
“That house…that man…no, you should stay away, Domi. Stay with me,” her mother part demanded and part pleaded.
But Dominique was resolute in her determination, despite the pull on her heart, knowing how badly Agate wished for her to stay with her. She couldn’t get sucked into her mother’s overprotectiveness. The time for that was over.
She had to find the answers to who she was. Deep inside she knew going to her father’s home was the only way she would find out the truth about herself.
She pulled her mother into her arms. “I’m going to be fine, Momma, don’t worry so much. I’m a big girl now.” For long moments the two women embraced.
Dominique held on to her mother. She pushed aside the anxiety and fear of the changes growing inside her that were escalating since she’d learned of her father and her inheritance.
After a while Agate moved away and nodded. From one of the deep pockets within the flowing, colorful caftan she wore, she withdrew a long, silver chain with an amulet attached.
“Don’t ever take this off while you’re away, baby.” Agate placed the necklace around Dominique’s neck, staring at Dominique, her gaze piercing. “And always keep it close against your skin, against your heart.”
Dominique glanced at her mother, noting the worried frown creasing her otherwise unlined skin.
“What is this, Momma?”
Dominique lifted the charm to inspect it. As she did, her mother closed her hand around Dominique’s, enclosing both their fists around the charm, and shut her eyes. Seconds later, the charm began to warm noticeably. The sudden heat startled her, and Dominique tried to pull her hand away.
“No.”
With the clipped demand, Dominique stilled.
Her heart jackhammered. Images flashed in her mind of a house, a mansion—the outline of what looked like a large…a…creature…something, fighting, his face contorted in pain, blood…
…before melding into images of a man and woman locked in an erotic embrace so intense Dominique felt the heat of their coupling sear her, brand her. Mark her.
Before the image could dissipate, she saw her own face, clearly. Her features were contorted in what could only be described as bliss.
Sheer, unadulterated, carnal bliss. She was the woman held within the creature’s erotic embrace.
She felt her face burn from the intensity of the image. Afraid, she fought against her mother’s hold.
“Momma…wha—what…” she stammered. She squeezed her eyes shut, her head throbbing. Nausea welled until she thought she’d vomit.
Her mother refused to let go. It felt like an eternity passed when suddenly the feeling was gone along with the kaleidoscope images and the heat from the charm receded. Her mother released her. Dominique stumbled back, swiping at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, staring dumfounded at her mother.
“Never take it off, Dominique.” Agate’s voice was firm, yet flat.
Shaken, Dominique could only stare in wonder mixed with fear at Agate.
“Promise me,” she demanded.
Dominique slowly bobbed her head up and down, unable to break her mother’s gaze. “I won’t, Momma, I promise.” The tears burning the back of her throat were as confusing to her as the images she’d just seen.
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