PROLOGUE
HORROR
1691, A small village in the hills of England
Dimitri stared down at the blood. Everywhere. It was everywhere. On the bed coverings. On the floor. On the table. On his hands. His arms.
The taste…still in his mouth. Rich, hot, full.
He swallowed the last vestiges on his tongue.Ambrosia.
He blinked, trying to focus, but his head pounded. When he tried to lift himself up, his sore muscles protested. Yet life shimmered through him. His skin prickled, alive. Dimitri tried to breathe, but every breath he took in was laden with the scent. Bloodscent.
And then he remembered.
He remembered how it happened.
Horror seized him.
And only then did he look over at the bundle of blankets and clothing, the lifeless form in a triangle of sunlight on the floor. One pale, plump arm hung out, marked and torn. Blood seepedeverywhere: through thick quilts and the heavy layers of her dress. The mass of graying hair, loose and streaked with blood.
No. No.He held his temples, closed his eyes.
But he couldn’t deny it.
And even as he sat there in a room half shadowed and half blazing with sun, Dimitri was filled with loathing and hatred.
No more.
I don’t want this.
I want out.
“Do you hear me, Lucifer?” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I wantoutof this.Release me.”
Silence.
Naturally.
For like all angels, fallen or no, Lucifer’s preferred method of communication was via dreams.
In the deepest of night. When one was the most vulnerable. The most suggestible.
The most easily lured and tricked.
“Release me, you damned bastard!”
But Dimitri already knew there was no way out. He’d already attempted it, tried to break the covenant since he’d left Vienna a year ago. He’d already denied himself what Lucifer had recreated him to need, twenty-five years ago: blood. Rich, warm, life-giving.
The devil’s Mark, depicting the insidious crack in his soul, was imprinted on his back and would never leave him. Thus it had been, for two decades.
And his attempt at self-denial, his attempt to thwart the devil and to break free?
The result was on the floor, a horrifying mess of limbs and tendons and mutilated flesh, destroyed. Dead.
Murdered.
Dimitri pinched the bridge of his nose hard, a black ball of anger swelling inside him. His eyes stung.
