“Oh, no, you’re not that tired. You can talk to me for a little bit.”

“Women talk after sex. Men recover.”

You’re immortal. You have nothing from which you need to recover.

I snored into her mind, but she was having none of it. “This is important, Gray. You know we’re going to have to talk about it.”

“Beloveds,” I said, sighing and capturing her legs between mine. “My father always told me to stay away from them.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Would this be the same father who killed your mother?”

I frowned. “She told you that?”

“Yes. Look, I can feel that you’re not happy about having to talk about this, but as I’ve said several times now, I’m a Guardian. I can help you with your problem, but I really do need to have all the facts before I decide what steps to take. Let’s start with why you feel you were responsible for your mother’s death. She says you weren’t.”

Pain clawed at my guts, a familiar pain that I was used to ignoring. “She’s wrong.”

“You killed her?” Noelle looked at me with a gaze that stripped away all of the protective layers I’d built up over the years.

“Not physically, but if I hadn’t left the Abbey, she wouldn’t have died.”

“Start at the beginning,” she demanded, pulling the blankets over us and shifting until she was comfortable atop me, her gaze steady on mine as her fingers gently stroked my collarbone.

I didn’t want to but knew that sooner or later, she’d breach the part of my mind where my secrets were hidden.

“The beginning goes back to before I was born. My father was the child of a Dark One and a mage. Such pairings are not common, but he was born with not only the nature of a Dark One but the drives of a mage. The Magisters’ Guild wanted nothing to do with him, however, because of his dark origins, so he turned to a more sinister source of power.”

“A demon lord,” Noelle said, her eyes bright with interest.

“Not just one but two, actually. Amaymon and Ariton were thick as thieves, and when my father contacted them, they found in him a kindred spirit, albeit one who resided in the mortal world. They were inseparable for a time, according to all accounts, raping and pillaging and murdering at will. In addition, my father developed a taste for turning mortals, something the Moravian Council was and is quite against, except in extreme circumstances.” It hurt to admit the truth, but I knew that she was correct about one thing: if we were to have a future together, she would have to know the worst.

“I’m sorry.” Her kisses along my jaw were as soft as feathers, as gentle as the warmth she wrapped around my aching heart. You’re not responsible for your father’s actions, though. Surely you must realize that.

It’s not quite that simple… A tapping noise had been slowly growing while I spoke, until it sounded right outside the door of my room. I cocked my head, listening for a moment. The tapping stopped, and the door opened, the thin, weak light from a pencil flashlight flickering around for a few seconds before Miles appeared in the doorway.

“Ah. Just so. Er… I appear to have been in a trance and lost my way. I’ll return to my bed now.”

The door closed softly behind him, and after a few seconds of silence, the tapping again sounded softly along the hallway.

“What on earth is he doing?” Noelle asked with a frown of puzzlement.

“Trying to locate the treasure.”

“There’s a treasure here?” she asked, curiosity gripping her.

“No, but he thinks there is. Nosty filled him full of some story he tells the tourists. Sooner or later, the mortal will find the hidden chamber behind the fireplace in the great hall and will realize that Nosty is unreliable as a source of historical information.”

“Secret room, hmm? Sounds fascinating.”

I smiled to myself as she began to plot a way to get me to tell her how to access the room.

“So your father was buddies with Amaymon and Ariton and raising hell, and you feel guilty about that for some reason. How does your mother’s death fit into this?”

The pain that always accompanied that thought was just as sharp now as it had ever been. I wondered if it would ever dull. “I was powerless to stop my father’s path of destruction. I tried repeatedly, we both did—my mother and I—but I think now that he must have been a little mad. He was certainly heartless. The last time I tried to stop him, he had Amaymon vitiate me.”

She stared at me, clearly aghast, her jaw slack in surprise. “Your dad did this to you?”

“Yes. So I left the area, went to France first, later Italy, always hiding from the demons Amaymon sent after me. It wasn’t until a year had passed that the truth reached me. The night I left, the night I was damned for all time…” I stopped, the memories choking me.

Noelle kissed me, her arms tight around me as she filled me with all her light and warmth and love, using it to battle the pain that was bound so tightly around me. My darling, you’re not alone anymore. Let me help you. Let me free you from the vitiation, at least.

I held her, wanting to drink in her essence, wanting her goodness to erase all the stains on my life, but knowing I could taint her with my darkness. “The night I left, my mother died. By her own hand.”

Noelle gasped and pulled back, her eyes filled with tears. “But… she said your father killed her.”

“He did, in a way. He had a falling out with Amaymon—their relationship had begun to deteriorate for some unknown reason—and he went on a rampage of destruction. He blamed me for all the trouble that he himself had brought upon his head. Since my presence seemed to make things worse, I left, running from my responsibilities rather than facing them as I should. I told myself that things would improve if I were not around to remind him of his failures, and caught up as I was in my own fight for survival, I left the region. My mother saw what I did not: the only way to end my father’s reign of terror was to kill him. I was gone, so there was no one left to do the job but her. He was taken by surprise. I’d tried to kill him twice before, so he knew to expect an attack from me, but she… she loved him, loved him with every morsel of her being. And she used that love to give her strength to stop him when I couldn’t, taking her own life as penance for such a mortal sin.”

Noelle clutched me again, her fury at my father surprising me, almost as much as the love she felt for me. It sank into my pores like water on parched earth, easing much of the pain that had for so long been a part of my life. She loved me! She loved me, and I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

“None of that, now,” she said, pinching my shoulder. “Perhaps I love you. I’m not entirely sure. It could be just indigestion. But even if I do, it doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly fragile, or vulnerable, or anything different from what I was before. In fact, it’s just the opposite. As a Beloved, I won’t age and die. So you can just stop thinking those protect-me-at-all-costs sorts of thoughts and go back to being parched earth, because I’m not going to let you run away any longer.”

I sighed and shifted her off me, getting out of the bed to open the door. Johannes sat outside it, giving me a smug look.

I stared at him, the taste of Noelle’s sweet lips still on my tongue. “You have the worst timing.”

Johannes strolled past me, tail held high, observing Noelle with interest as she clutched the blankets to her chest. He started for her, but I swore and picked him up, marching him over to the bathroom despite his yowls of protest.

“Go ahead.” I snarled at him as I flung open the bathroom door. “You dig your claws into me, and you can spend the next few days locked in there.”

“Gray!” Noelle gasped, sliding out of bed, winding a blanket around herself as she ran over to where the cat was spitting and hissing, trying to bite and claw me. “I know your emotions are running high right now, but you shouldn’t take them out on an innocent cat.”

“Innocent cat?” I spun around, holding Johannes at arm’s length, ignoring the pain when his back claws found my arm. “You didn’t let me finish my story, Beloved. You didn’t let me tell you what happened to my father after my mother killed him.”

Her eyes were confused as she looked from the spitting, snarling ball of fur to me. “What… I assume he died.”

“No. My mother killed him. Mostly. Amaymon may have washed his hands of Johannes, but his good friend Ariton was there as well, and he swore to my mother that he would not rest until my father was returned in one form or other.”

Noelle’s mouth formed an O of surprise as she looked at the cat, now making a low, ugly growl, his teeth bared at her. “He’s… you mean the cat…”

“I have neglected to make the proper introductions, haven’t I? Beloved, meet Johannes Horal, my father.”

Chapter Seven

They came when Noelle was least expecting them.

Never, she said to Gray as Raleigh stopped filming Miles in order to gawk with an open mouth at the two men who had strolled into the great hall as if they owned the place. Never have I known a demon who had good timing.

Demon? Despite their distance, Noelle could feel Gray’s sudden spurt of fury. They are there?

Yes. “Hullo,” Noelle told the two demons.

Teresa, standing near enough to overhear, looked startled at the sight of the interlopers.

“Mortals,” one of the demons said with a dismissive sniff as it looked around the room.

Flee, Gray demanded, even as panic for her welfare flooded his anger. Run, Beloved. Do not, under any circumstance, attempt to deal with them yourself.

Grayson, I am a Guardian, she reassured him.

“The spirits of the Abbey are uneasy, and thus their emanations—what the devil is going on now?” Miles glared at the interruption. “Who are these people? Dammit, Teresa, this is the last straw! I will not have this meaningful, important work documenting the existence of the spirit world put in jeopardy by your insistence on hiring every man on the street you can find!”