“’Tis his real name. Dón-Dueli. Du or Duel for short.”
Dón-Dueli … that name sent another shiver down her spine. It denoted a sense of evil even darker than the name Devyl Bane, and reminded her of the tales her father had once spun of his Irish homeland. Of the sinister fey and the dark bean sidhe who stalked the night and preyed upon the weak. “I’ve never heard of a name like that before.”
“Like me, he comes from an ancient race. Only, where my people sought tranquil peace, his sought war and domination.”
“Is he a demon?”
“Nay, child. That would be an easy excuse for him and his kind, when there is no reason for the brutality he embraced in his mortal lifetime. He reveled in the misery of those around him, and drank it in like mother’s milk.”
“Then why is he helping you and the others now?”
“I assure you, it’s not by any real choice or out of any sense of noble obligation. He was forced to this task against his will to right a wrong he once committed.”
“Against?”
“A girl like you. Sweet. Innocent. Until she met him and made the mistake of commending her heart to his most callous hands.”
There was no missing the bitter undertones in her voice.
Or the hatred.
“You?”
“Nay, child. My younger sister.”
* * *
“Did you sink that damnable ship?”
The lusca paused as he noted the anger in his lady’s voice. More grateful than ever that she had yet to breach the barriers that kept her locked from the world of man—and from reaching him—he swallowed hard. “Nay, my lady. They carry a Seraph with them now. When I tried to break the hull, it activated a shield of some sort around them all and the ship, and almost killed me.”
Vine shrieked in frustrated rage as she slammed her hand against the portal that kept her shielded from the world she was desperate to enter. And from the creature she wanted to disembowel.
The shield cracked more.
But not enough.
Only a mere fraction, teasing her like the merciless bastard who had trapped her here while the world of man loomed just beyond her reach.
Damn you, Dón-Dueli!
And damn Marcelina for her interference.
Sister or not, she wanted Mara’s heart in her fist every bit as much as she wanted his. Wanted to feel both of their organs beating against her fingers while their blood coated her flesh, until her need for vengeance was quenched.
And the world of man bowed to her feet and licked them clean.
Gathering her layered skirts, Vine turned to glare at the pathetic bastard her servants had managed to drag through the portal for her amusement a few months ago.
Weak and bleeding, he was barely recognizable as human now. While his strength had been formidable in the beginning, he was starting to fade beneath the barrage of their endless feedings from him.
Still, he refused to give them the location of the key they needed to open this damnable doorway so that she could walk the human realm again.
But the Seraph would break eventually.
They always did. No matter who or what had shat them out into this universe.
And that begged a very important question. “A Seraph sails with them, you said?” she asked the lusca.
