Sebastian e-1 Page 16

  Sebastian stiffened. That son of a succubus! If Teaser thought to have some fun playing a game of rival-rival, he’d find himself looking for another landscape to live in. There wasn’t time for games. Lynnea wouldn’t be here more than a few hours. And he needed those hours more than he wanted to admit.

  As he shifted to set the wineglass on the table, he felt someone approach. The explicit warning to leave him alone never made it past the thought as Glorianna slipped into the chair next to his, her back to the street.

  There was so much to tell her, but he blurted out the thing most important to his heart at that moment. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  Glorianna reached for the wine bottle and poured a glass for herself. “No one comes to the Den by mistake.”

  “She did.”

  She sipped the wine and studied him. “Are you sure?”

  “She was supposed to go to the Landscapers’ School, but something happened and she ended up here.”

  “Then something here must have resonated with something inside her.”

  Me. But he wasn’t going to say that. Not to Glorianna Belladonna. “I’m going to take her to the Landscapers’ School after she’s had some sleep.”

  Glorianna hesitated. “If that’s what you need to do.”

  “It’s the right thing to do.” His voice sounded harsh, but he heard the plea beneath the harshness. Tell me I’m wrong, Glorianna. Tell me I can keep her here with me without taking away the life she should have had.

  But Glorianna said nothing, just stared at the wine in her glass. Finally she said quietly, “There may be trouble at the school. Serious trouble, if the Landscapers ignored the warning signs. But it should be safe enough for you and Lynnea to go to the school, since neither of you will be there for long.”

  He shifted, folding his arms to lean on the table, bringing him closer to her. “What’s happened?”

  “The Eater of the World is free in the landscapes again.”

  “The Eater of the World is a myth,” Sebastian protested. “An evil that children whisper about to scare one another—or adults use to scare children into behaving.”

  “It’s real, Sebastian,” Glorianna replied. “It was confined for so long, most people don’t remember It as anything but a story. But now It has escaped. The landscapes that were sealed up with It aren’t sealed anymore, and It has the power to connect those places with other landscapes to create access points from which It can emerge to hunt. It will feed on the fear It creates, strengthening Its power over a place until the dark facets of the heart are the only things that shine in that landscape. Until the Light is so dimmed people won’t be able to find it in themselves. Hope, happiness, love. Those feelings will fade until they’re little more than a memory barely remembered.”

  Sebastian refilled his glass, then downed half the wine. “Do you think that…thing…has been hunting in the Den?”

  “I know It came here. It tried to anchor one of Its landscapes to the alley where the woman was killed. I altered the Den after I saw what It had done.”

  He told her how the alley had shifted when he, Teaser, and the bull demon had gone in to investigate the body. Then he told her about the other death in the waterhorses’ landscape.

  “I can understand why this Eater would come hunting in the Den,” he said as he poured the rest of the wine into their glasses. “The Den is a dark landscape with plenty of humans and humanlike demons in a small area. But why kill a waterhorse? They’re demons that prey on humans when they get the chance. Wouldn’t this thing want to…embrace them?”

  Glorianna shook her head. “Like the bull demons and the Merry Makers and some of the others, the waterhorses are a dark aspect of Ephemera—a natural one. The Eater didn’t shape them. It can’t control them, so It will hunt them, too.” She hesitated. “Sebastian, don’t stay away from the Den too long. Do what you have to do, but don’t stay away too long.”

  “Why?” There was something she didn’t want to tell him, but this wasn’t the time for more secrets, not if she was right about this Eater of the World being loose in Ephemera’s landscapes.

  He didn’t like the look in her eyes. Pride and regret—and both those feelings aimed at him.

  “Because you’re the Den’s anchor,” she finally said. “The others who live here provide…texture…but the Den, at its core, is what you want it to be, what you expect it to be. Because the Den is a reflection of you.”

  “Are you saying I let that thing come into the Den to hunt?”

  “No. You couldn’t have stopped It from coming into the Den. But It can’t change the Den if you don’t allow the Den to change.”

  Sebastian laughed harshly. “My will against something so evil and deadly It can change our whole world into a nightmare? Do you really think I can do that?”

  “You did it. You did it,” she repeated when he just stared at her in disbelief. “You said it yourself, Sebastian. The alley started to shift and become a different landscape, and you didn’t allow it to happen. You held on to what the alley was supposed to be, and you got away. You can’t stop It from coming into the Den. There are plenty of bridges that connect the Den to other landscapes not in my keeping, and until those are broken, It can find a way in, and It can create small access points. But It can’t control the heart of the Den as long as you hold on to this place.”

  Philo. Mr. Finch. Teaser. All the other residents in the Den. He felt the weight of their lives on his shoulders. He had never bargained for that kind of responsibility.

  Then he looked at Glorianna and realized the burden she carried was a thousand times heavier.

  He laid his hand over hers. “What are you going to do?”

  She sighed. “All I can do right now is hold on to the landscapes in my care and protect them as best I can. Lee can help with that—once I find him.”

  He heard the worry in her voice. He didn’t try to offer false comfort. After what she’d told him, that would be no kindness. So he just kept his hand on hers, offering the connection of family, telling her silently that she wasn’t alone.

  Glorianna walked up the Den’s main street, resisting the urge to rush back to Philo’s place and tell Sebastian not to take Lynnea to the Landscapers’ School. She didn’t think he’d run into any real trouble while he was there, not with all the Instructors who lived at the school and the other Landscapers who were always returning to tend their gardens. Maybe they had already contained the Eater of the World. And if they couldn’t contain It by themselves, they’d summon the wizards to help them. After all, wizards were good at containing problems.

  No, she didn’t think Sebastian would run into trouble, even though she’d made sure he knew of another way out of the school. It was the thrumming of two heart wishes in the currents of power that flowed through the Den that made her want to push him into the decision she wanted him to make.

  You can guide, but you cannot take control. You cannot take away the choices a person must make in order to fulfill his life’s journey.

  Opportunities and choices. People were offered opportunities to fulfill heart wishes all the time and either didn’t recognize them or couldn’t find the courage to reach for the very thing they wanted.

  She couldn’t interfere with Sebastian’s journey, wherever it might lead him. She’d given him an opportunity, an excuse, to back away from the decision to take Lynnea to the school, and he’d chosen to ignore it.

  Knowing she was doing the right thing by letting him make the decision didn’t stifle the urge to give her darling cousin a swift kick in his newly polished honor.

  By the time he said good-bye to Glorianna and went up the street to find Lynnea, Teaser and two younger incubi were finishing up some kind of impromptu skit full of double meanings. Bawdy, yes, but too exaggerated and good-natured to be lewd.

  And there was Lynnea, standing at the edge of the crowd, laughing and applauding, shining like starlight.

  No, not like starlight. She was too warm to
be starlight. Sunlight, then. The kind of warmth that never touched the Den—until she had walked here, laughed here.

  He applauded with the rest of the crowd, not because he’d seen the performance but as a way of acknowledging Teaser’s help in creating these few hours when his little rabbit could feel like a tigress.

  Lynnea turned, as if she recognized the sound of his hands, and smiled at him. “Aren’t they wonderful?”

  “Yes, they are,” he replied, returning the smile.

  “Did you have a nice visit with your cousin?”

  “It was fine.” He slipped a hand into the pocket of his leather jacket and touched the folded linen napkin. Glorianna had insisted on drawing him a crude map of the school. It had seemed silly, since there was only one road into the Landscapers’ part of the school grounds, and that led straight to the buildings that housed the classrooms and living quarters. Then he realized the road and buildings were only reference points for the thing she wanted him to be able to reach if he needed to. Her garden.

  Mentioning her garden had made her uneasy, but she still made him go over the directions until she was satisfied he could find it. A safe place, if he needed one. And a way to escape, hidden in the fountain in the center of the garden…if he needed it.

  He’d worry about that once he and Lynnea reached the school. Right now he didn’t want to think of anything but her, didn’t want to feel anything that wasn’t connected to the time they had together. Not enough time. Not nearly enough. But he wouldn’t ask for more.

  Leaving Teaser, he and Lynnea strolled hand in hand, enjoying the music, the action, the energy. Everything looked different now. They were his people, his responsibility, demons and humans alike. His will and heart were the anchor that would keep the Den safe from encroaching evil. He was needed in a way he’d never been needed before.

  And something inside him began resonating in a slightly different way as a response to that knowledge.

  As they came up to a side street, two demon cycles zipped around the corner. One, noticing Sebastian, came to an abrupt halt. The other, its attention fixed on Lynnea, rushed forward, waving its arms and roaring, “Blaarrgh!”

  Lynnea stared at the demon, with its claws and razored teeth—and she giggled.

  The demon stared back at her, its ears lifting at the sound. “Blaarrgh!” it said again.

  She giggled again, then wrapped a hand around one of its claw-tipped fingers, and said, “How do you do, Mr. Demon?”

  There was a difference between being a tigress and a fool. The demons who had claimed the motored cycles as the spoils of battle could eviscerate a man with one swipe of those claws—and usually started feeding before the first scream died away.

  But there it was, grinning at her, while its companion looked on as if it had been denied a particular treat. Which was not a healthy way for either of them to think about his rabbit.

  “We have to go now,” Sebastian said. “We have a bit of a walk ahead of us.”

  The grin was replaced by a scowl. “Where you go?” the demon said in a voice that sounded like gravel rolling in a metal barrel.

  They talked? Sure, everyone knew the demon cycles understood human words, but no one had ever heard any of them talk.

  “We’re going to my cottage,” Sebastian replied reluctantly. They probably already knew how to find the cottage, since they traveled all over the Den, but that didn’t mean he wanted to point it out to them.

  “We take you. You ride.”

  In those moments when he tried to figure out how to refuse without getting hurt, the demons focused their attention on Lynnea.

  “Wanna ride?” they asked.

  The look on Lynnea’s face was answer enough. His little rabbit-tigress wanted to ride. He just wished the excitement he could read on her face had something—anything!—to do with his anatomy rather than a demon cycle.

  “Okay, let’s ride,” he said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice that might be misinterpreted as an invitation to a pissing contest. It wasn’t a contest he could win, and a gelded incubus wouldn’t be much use to anyone, least of all himself.

  He straddled one cycle, then had to bite his tongue to keep it from falling out when Lynnea straddled the other one—which made him desperate to find out if she was wearing anything but skin under that catsuit.

  Mr. Finch was, without doubt, a wicked, wicked man.

  It was less than a mile between his cottage and the streets that made up the Den proper, but the demon cycles couldn’t seem to find the lane that was the straight route. They zipped around the countryside, weaving between trees, zooming up a hill and down the other side, making strange sounds that might have been gleeful laughter while Lynnea whooped and squealed and giggled.

  Finally, when he insisted that she was too tired to play anymore—and she dutifully agreed with him—the demon cycles found the lane and took them to the cottage.

  “Good-bye,” Lynnea said, waving at the demons as Sebastian hustled her inside the cottage. “Thank you for the lovely ride.”

  He closed the door before the demon cycles decided to join them, then tensed when he realized there was a lamp glowing on the table in front of the couch. He never left a lamp burning when he’d be gone for hours. Too much risk of fire.

  “Stay here,” he whispered, moving cautiously into the room. Then he noticed the package wrapped in brown paper next to the lamp and the slip of paper tucked under the string—and breathed a sigh of relief when he recognized the writing.

  Glorianna.

  A careful, one-fingered poke at the package gave him the next answer. “I think my cousin brought the rest of your clothes here.”

  “Was that the wrong thing to do?” Lynnea asked, sounding baffled by his behavior.

  “No. It was a kindness.” Returning to where she waited, he reached past her and did something he’d never done in the ten years he’d lived there. He locked the door.

  “Come in,” he said, moving around to light more lamps.

  She wandered around the room, looking at everything. Then she stopped and studied two framed sketches on the wall. “Who did these?”

  “I did,” he replied gruffly, not sure if he was embarrassed to admit it or afraid of her opinion. He’d shown his sketches to Nadia a few years ago, after she’d bullied him into telling her how he spent his time when he wasn’t prowling the Den. She’d kept three of them—one for herself, one for Glorianna, and one for Lee—and had these two framed for him.

  He’d never told her how much that had meant to him.

  “They’re lovely,” Lynnea said.

  And he would never tell this woman how much her words meant to him.

  “I like your home, Sebastian.”

  He moved toward her without thinking, too desperate to feel to be able to think. His fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth feasted on hers, wanting anything, everything.

  And he could have everything. He knew it by the way her arms wrapped around him, the way she responded to his kisses. He could slake this terrible hunger and give her pleasure she’d remember for a lifetime. All she would forfeit was her virginity.

  But he could lose his heart, if he hadn’t lost it already.

  She doesn’t belong here.

  The thought intruded, rankled, savaged desire. He wanted one night with her, but he couldn’t have it. Not for her sake, but for his own.

  He gentled the kiss, lingering because it would be the last. Then he eased back, out of her arms.

  “After we get some sleep, I’ll take you to the Landscapers’ School.”

  “But…” She stared at him, unfulfilled desire shifting into the pain of rejection. “But I’m a bad person. Mam said so.”

  He shook his head. “You’re one of the finest people I’ve ever known. If she couldn’t see you for who you are, the flaw was in her, not in you. You don’t belong in a place where the sun never shines. You don’t belong in the Den.”

  When he took a step forward, intending
to ease the sting of rejection, she hunched her shoulders and turned away.

  No comfort. No sweet ending to a sweet encounter.

  Maybe that was just as well…for both of them.

  “Bedroom is through that door. You can have the bed.”

  She didn’t ask where he would sleep. She just crossed the room, picked up her parcel of clothing, went into the bedroom, and closed the door.

  He stared at the bedroom door for a long time before he pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the couch.

  He had done the right thing.

  So why did the right thing make him feel so bad?

  Chapter Ten

  They rode the demon cycle in the fading light of a summer evening, Lynnea snug against his back, her arms wrapped around him. Even here, even now, he hadn’t escaped the night. The day was taking its last breaths before surrendering to its rival. Not that it mattered. He belonged to the night. And Lynnea belonged to the Light.

  The Landscapers’ School spread out over acres of land surrounded by a high stone wall. Borders and boundaries. A world confined in order to be free. Had the first Landscapers envisioned this when they shattered Ephemera? Had they intended for their world to be parceled out and held in pieces, or had they thought their descendants would be able to put the pieces back together?

  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Aunt Nadia had told him once. He hadn’t understood the meaning at the time, but now, as the demon cycle skimmed above the road next to the school’s wall, he wondered at the wisdom of controlling so much from one place.

  Not his decision. Of course, the majority of people in Ephemera didn’t have any say in the matter either. Everything was in the hands of the Landscapers. And, perhaps, the wizards, since they decided when a person was too unmanageable to live anywhere but a dark landscape.

  Travel lightly, Sebastian thought. Especially when entering this place.

  “There’s the entrance,” he said, raising his voice to make sure the demon heard him.