The legion atop on the roof ceased his feeble attempts to delay me. The first member trailed me, his ever-shifting plumes of smoke taking up space in my periphery as he refused to obey a direct order.
“But, Prince. The conclave. Our meeting. The treaty. Those that left, sire. The ones who departed… They didn’t keep our… Told… Knows… Guard… There… Sire… Heaven…”
I hadn’t listened to a word he’d said from the moment I’d caught her scent on the wind.
The painfully clean lungful of air grew stronger. I rounded a corner, dragging my fingers along the pale bricks, counting the windows of the long, single-level building as I angled for the modest two-story home at the end of the street.
I skidded to a halt.
There, in the midday heat and light, seeped the shimmering glow of something ethereal from an upstairs window.
I began to run.
One stride for home.
A second for love and Love alike; the emotion, the compulsion, the person.
A third for our reunion.
A fourth?—
I rammed into an unmovable wall long before I’d reached her front door. I collided with the object with such force, it sent me sprawling onto my back, head bouncing against rock. I blinked up at the white-hot sun, head spinning. There was no time to process the impact before a weighty pillar crashed into my chest, pinning me to the limestone.
Reality flooded in from all directions. Every devastating revelation crushed me, some more literally than others.
It was no pillar on my chest; it was a foot.
The obstruction hadn’t been a wall; it had been an unseen man. No, not a man. This was no human. It was the heated glow of metal yanked from the forge, pressed against my throat. A mountain of beige leather and tanned meat glared down at me with blazing, golden eyes.
A wave of brown hair blocked the sun as he leaned toward me.
“The mighty Prince of Hell,” chuckled my assailant. “I was wondering when we’d meet.”
He’d had one singular advantage: the element of surprise.
I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t carewhathe was. He was in my way, and he’d lost his upper hand. Literally. No one stupid enough to launch into a villainous monologue deserved a fair fight.
I twisted to my left with explosive force, my right hand grabbing the ankle on my chest, rolling toward the blade as my left, open palm shoved the broad side of the blade. The stranger lost his footing, the tip of his sword driving into the gravel as I turned my roll into a forceful sweep of my legs. Already stumbling from my shove, my legs against the back of his calves landed him on his ass.
The second it took him to gather his bearings was all I needed. He threw his weight into his sword in a two-handed arc,but rather than eat into my flesh, the metal hit stone, for there a new shape planted four enormous paws where only seconds earlier, a man had stood.
Frothing lips pulled back from fangs.
Ears flattened against scalp.
Claws extended.
I caught the reflection of piercing white fur, jagged black stripes, and a half ton of an apex predator.
I unhinged my tiger’s jaw, snapping down before he’d regained control of the sword. He scrambled beneath me as I bit into his face with every drop of strength, satisfied with the pop as my incisors pierced his skull. The sword clattered to the ground as he continued to twitch beneath me, hands grasping for nothing as he tried, and failed, to latch onto my fur. The hot, bitter rush of myrrh. I yanked my mighty head to the side, tearing the assailant’s face free.
He strained to stay upright, swaying as exposed brain tissue, the ripped dangle of a tongue, and gold, shimmering blood oozed from the stump of his neck. I stuck out my tongue, dropping the angular jaw, straight nose, and popped eye sockets of someone who had either been very brave, or very stupid, to take on the Prince of Hell.
Glitter oozed between stones for all who had eyes to see what stood just behind the mortal veil. A young boy ran by, dirty feet passing straight through the attacker’s legs, our realms meshed, yet wholly separate. I wrinkled my nose at a familiar scent. It was sweet, and minty, and though I hated it, I couldn’t quite place why.
The oils…the perfumes…the baked in smell of?—
The staccato slap of flesh on flesh tore my eyes to an imposing figure leaning against the clay wall. He took three loud, slow, resonating claps. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was nearly impressed that three notes of percussion conveyed suchclear mockery without saying anything at all. The man pushed away from the wall and strode toward the fallen assailant. He kicked the leg, carefully avoiding the pool of metallic sparkles.
