The lovely flower had been no substitute at all. Its soft petals were nothing compared to...
He sucked the sweetness of cream from her lips. He sought its remnants on her tongue. He pressed into her until her bottom was on the table and his impossibly muscular body was between her legs. The pastry was forgotten as his mouth took its place, a much more decadent treat. Forbidden. Bad for her. Crazy. She tasted sweet cream and pastry and fire and a wicked hint of wood smoke that must be the never-before-tasted burn of Brimstone heat on her tongue.
She opened to him. She didn’t resist. Their tongues twined. Their bodies melded as closely as clothes would allow. He tasted her completely, plundering every gasp, every sugar-sweetened sigh.
And when he finally pulled back, as she clung to him so she wouldn’t fall, she finally saw the flush of pleasure on his face and neck that the pastry alone had failed to give him. Heaven help her, but she instantly ached to give him more. It wasn’t his marbled perfection she wanted to caress; it was his vulnerability. She wanted to explore the chink in his armor that had allowed him to taste her.
“Good night, Katherine. You heard Sybil. It’s time for bed,” Severne said.
He backed away. She straightened. In his deep, smoky voice, the suggestion of bedtime was much less utilitarian.
It had been only a kiss.
Only.
She walked by him on quaking legs. He let her go. But between them was so much more heat than could be blamed on hell’s fire.
Her whole life she’d hidden in music. Perhaps being excellent at hiding made her also long to seek. Severne hid many things behind his mystery and his muscle. His hardness was his armor. But he was capable of softening. He’d softened tonight. For one stolen moment, his mouth had softened on hers. She couldn’t risk losing herself in the search for the softness he hid from her and from the world.
Victoria was missing, and she couldn’t afford to lose herself in John Severne before her sister was found.
The next day John left the opera house as much to escape the memory of Katherine’s taste as to fulfill his duties. The house he visited was small, but neat, in a row of older bungalow homes in Roseland Terrace, a part of Baton Rouge’s Garden District that had been carefully maintained. The elderly man inside the historic Craftsman was happiest in a home with few rooms and big windows to let in the sun. The navigable home kept him from being confused as he moved from room to room with poor eyesight, failing legs and a cane in a stoop-shouldered shuffle.
And the big windows kept the shadows at bay.
He didn’t like shadows.
He didn’t remember why.
At first John Severne had tried to correct his father’s failing memory. He’d consulted the best doctors. He’d experimented with homeopathy and modern medicines. But then he’d seen the grace in Levi Severne’s forgetfulness. The relief.
His grandfather had been killed by one of the daemons he’d been charged to hunt. He’d died a doomed man. He’d known hell had come for him. Though only a young teen, John had seen him consumed by Brimstone’s fire until nothing was left but dust. His father had seen it, too. He’d taken John’s hand, helpless to prevent for them both the same fate unless they were successful in their task.
Down to the last name on hell’s most-wanted list.
John Severne had visited with the father who hadn’t known him for decades. Every time he came, they met for the first time. A nearly immortal man with Alzheimer’s was a pitiful sight. But it was also a respite. They spoke of other things. The hydrangeas were blooming. Levi Severne liked blue. The big clusters of blooms made him smile.
Severne had left his father on a chair in the backyard, where the flowers swayed in the breeze. The nurse would collect him in time for an afternoon siesta. No more killing. No more strife. He had no memory of the damnation that had once plagued him with nightmares.
“We’ll beat it, John. We’ll beat it. I promised your mother before she died I would see you saved. I promised her my father’s terrible contract wouldn’t damn you.”
How many times had his father repeated that pledge to him?
How many times had he stood watching the frail old man he loved and quietly vowing the same pledge back to him?
“I’ll beat it. I’ll save you. You have my word,” Severne said.
The burn in his throat wasn’t Brimstone.
The evil old man who had been his grandfather had deserved the agony that had devoured him. He’d brought it on himself. His father had been an innocent child when Thomas Severne made his deal with the devil. John had been sacrificed to the Council when he’d been barely old enough to survive the burn of Brimstone that had claimed his blood.
* * *
He had been playing with jacks when his grandfather came for him. It had been his favorite game, to bounce the ball and swipe up as many metal crosses as he could before the ball came down. He’d wiled away many a lonely afternoon in solitary play, too grand of parentage to be approached by servants’ children or the children of performers. He was often alone while his father was away on hunting trips.
He’d been too young to imagine that his father hunted monsters. But he’d often wondered why his father hunted when their cook visited the butcher for all the meat that went into his oven and pots.
He bounced his ball, and Grandfather caught it before it came down. Only then did he notice the shiny boots that had crushed the tiny jacks he’d not scooped up in time. His grandfather hauled him up roughly with his other hand, and the jacks John had managed to scoop fell from his fingers, prizes he would never come back to retrieve.
His time of childhood play was over.
He was five years old.
His grandfather had taken him down several flights of stairs too quickly for him to follow safely. He’d fallen several times. Skinned both his knees. His arm had felt almost ripped from its socket each time his grandfather had pulled him to his feet.
“It’s past time. The Council grows impatient. Your father should have done this well before now,” the old man had growled.
He’d had a booming voice up until the very end, when its deep resonance had morphed into high-pitched screams.
He’d done his best to keep up. His father had always warned him not to anger Thomas Severne. With his bushy brows and wild hair over ruddy cheeks, the old man had featured in many of John Severne’s nightmares even before that night.
More than once, in fevered dreams, his grandfather had picked him up and tossed him into a roaring fire.
John didn’t dare cry even when his knees bled. He didn’t dare protest even when his elbow popped out of joint from a jerk too hard and sudden to anticipate. Agony flared, but he didn’t cry out loud. Instead, he hurried as fast as he could, all the way down to where his father had always forbidden him to go.
The secret catacombs beneath l’Opéra Severne.
These dark, endless caves were filled with chill shadows his father warned him might not be as harmless as they should have been.
The giant door protested when Thomas Severne pushed it inward and open.
John had mindlessly held back. His instinct to fear the catacombs was greater than the order always to obey his grandfather when he couldn’t avoid him.
Thomas Severne jerked even harder on his arm. The dislocated joint screamed. He bit through his lip to keep from crying out at the pain. He stumbled after his grandfather, knowing he was in great danger, and his father couldn’t save him.
“It’s a good thing your mother is dead,