“But the beast didn’t so much as scratch you.”
No, it hadn’t. The hound had been ready to rip out her throat. She’d never forget the smell of its breath. Brimstone and death. But it had stopped. She blinked and fought to remember. “It . . . smelled me.” Then the beast had licked her.
And it had stopped growling.
Sam frowned at her.
“Why am I not dead?” she asked him. He was touching her. He thought she was some kind of deceitful bitch. And she had been, but not with him. Not since they’d become lovers. “If you think I’ve been setting you up all along, if you think I’ve sicced a hellhound on you, why am I still alive?” Screw the two watching. “Because you like to f**k me? Is that why I’m still standing here instead of rotting in the ground?”
A muscle flexed along his jaw.
“You’re addicted, right?” The word grated in her throat. It was just lust for him, but it had been so much more for her. She’d gotten all weak with him and hoped for an actual chance of happiness.
Ridiculous. When the chips were down, men couldn’t be trusted. Humans and Other were all the same.
Sam wasn’t speaking, and that just made her angrier. Her head throbbed. Her shoulder ached, and her heart hurt. “There’s no hound breaking down the door right now.” She stated the obvious. “If I was this all-powerful hound master, don’t you think I would have called the beast in by now?”
The seconds ticked by.
“It’s Rogziel.” Couldn’t Sam see that? “He wanted you to doubt me. He knew we were working together, and he wanted us to turn on each other. He sent the hound after you.”
“Rogziel’s a punishment angel.” Keenan had moved to stand beside the vamp. Seline glanced his way in time to see him nod. “Only punishment angels can summon the hounds, you know that, Sam.”
Seline’s heart squeezed tighter at his words. No. Oh, this was not good.
“Punishment angels can walk between heaven, earth, and hell,” Keenan continued, and his words seemed too loud, echoing in her ears. “And when they enter hell, they can bring anything back to this world with them.”
“Seline . . .” Sam’s voice pulled her focus right back to him. “Tell me about your parents.”
She didn’t want to tell him anything right then. She wanted to run away. Why couldn’t a girl run once or twice in her life? Run as if hounds from hell were on my trail.
But a Fallen and a vampire were blocking the door. And another Fallen had his hands on her.
Addiction.
She wrenched away from him. Fine. “My father was an incubus. I already told you that.”
“What was his name?” Keenan wanted to know.
“Brion.” So she’d been told. “Not that I ever met him. He died right after I was born.”
“Died?” Now Sam was the one pushing.
Whatever. So she’d strip bare what was left of her soul. Maybe then he’d let her walk away, because she sure needed to get out of there. It felt like she was suffocating right then.
“He killed my mother, so, in turn, he was killed. By Rogziel.”
She heard Keenan whistle.
“Who was your mother?” Sam’s eyes had never looked so dark.
“Don’t you mean . . . what was she?” Seline laughed then, but no humor filled the hard sound. “She was an angel, one charged with the task of punishing an incubus who’d been seducing human women.” The shame was there, just as it always was when she thought of her father—and how like him she truly was.
Addiction.
“But instead of punishing him”—the words came quickly now because she wanted this story over—“she fell for him.”
Literally. Her mother had traded heaven for a night in her demon’s arms.
“Too bad for her,” Seline whispered. “She trusted the wrong man. He killed her.”
Just like I trusted the wrong one.
A bit of blue bled back into Sam’s eyes.
“Rogziel was sent for Brion then. He succeeded at his job.” And he’d kept her alive. All those years . . . Rogziel had always been around. Watching. Monitoring her as she grew up. He’d placed her with a family, the O’Shaws—humans who guarded her but reported directly to him.
Then he’d come for her and begun to train her.
Time to punish. Make your mother proud. Earn redemption.
At first, she’d tried for that sweet promise of redemption. Only later, she’d realized that Rogziel’s punishments weren’t always just, and she’d wondered how much of her soul he was stealing away with each kill.