"Not at the pace we're going." She stopped, and he took a few steps forward before looking back. "Sit for a minute. I have some ringa root that I can put on your leg. It will help you so we can go faster."

He paused for a minute, considering it before nodding reluctantly. Lux took a step back toward her and sat down on a large boulder. She knelt before him and rummaged through her bag. Wick pulled out a gnarled bright orange root, the root of a ringa plant. It had strong healing properties, which is why she'd brought it along. She'd meant to use it if they got hurt in a fight, but she needed to use it now, if they wanted to get there quickly.

"Roll up your pants," Wick commanded, and Lux did as he was told.

Lumps of bone were malformed under his skin, bulging out below the knee. His bones hadn't set themselves right where Ira had broken them.

Without warning him, Wick pulled out her knife and sliced open his leg above the b.u.mp. Lux howled and swore under his breath.

"You could've let me know you were doing that," Lux grimaced.

"Sorry," Wick said without emotion. She snapped open the ringa root and held it over his fresh wound, letting the orange juice drip inside so it could do its work.

The juice began to sooth his pain, and Lux relaxed a bit. Wick pulled a rag out of her bag and pressed it to his leg, holding the liquid inside.

"It will take a few minutes for it to work fully," Wick said.

"Thank you," Lux said, and Wick looked up at him when she realized he'd meant it. She'd never heard of a peccati saying a kind word.

"How are you like this?" Wick asked, not hiding the awe and confusion in her voice.

"Like what?" He leaned back a bit on the rock and met her baffled gaze evenly.

"Kind. How can you be kind?"

"I ..." He didn't really know the answer, so he sighed and shook his head.

"How did you end up working for Valefor?"

"That was a very long time ago," Lux said, as if it answered the question.

"You chose to, though," Wick clarified. "You chose to do this, to be the luxuria."

"Yes." He nodded and lowered his eyes.

"Why?" Wick asked. "Why would anyone willingly choose to be in the service of something so evil?"

"It's not that simple." Lux shook his head again.

He didn't like the way Wick looked at him, so he moved her hands and tried to stand up. His leg wasn't fully healed, but it felt better, and it could heal as he walked. Wick stayed crouched down for a moment, watching him as he walked away, then she got up and followed him.

"I was engaged," Lux said finally. It'd been so long since either of them had spoken that Wick had nearly forgotten what they were talking about.

"When you were still human, you mean?" Wick asked when she realized what he meant.

"Yes," he nodded. "I was the Prince of a very large kingdom, the only son, and I was set to inherit it all. My father had arranged a marriage with the daughter of a neighboring kingdom, so we could join them and become nearly unstoppable."

"Who were you engaged to?" Wick asked.

"I've forgotten her name," he sighed. "That's the horrible truth of it. I forgot about her long ago. But she had a younger sister, Saphron." He paused for a moment and licked his lips. "I fell in love with Saphron nearly the instant I met her. I tried to convince my father to let me marry her instead, but she was already betrothed to another."

Lux stepped carefully over the brambles of the Necrosilvam, and Wick noticed that his gait was almost back to normal. The ringa root was working quickly on him.

"And Saphron loved me in return," Lux went on. "Somehow, I think that made it worse. We began an affair together, and we did our best to keep it secret, but eventually her sister found out. I'd expected her to call off the wedding, but she did something worse."

"Worse?"

"She banished Saphron and insisted we go on with the wedding," Lux said. "I was irate and heartbroken, but my fiancee wanted to rule the most powerful kingdom, and she wouldn't let a thing like love stand in her way. So in retribution, I decided to live a life of debauchery. I slept with everyone I could."

"You couldn't be with the one you loved, so you decided to sleep with every girl in the kingdom?" Wick asked dubiously.

"I was young, rich, and spoiled," he shrugged. "I didn't know how else to act out. And really, all I wanted was for her to call off the wedding. By the time she finally did, the entire kingdom knew of my exploits. They were legendary."

Wick scoffed, and Lux stopped and turned back to face her.

"I'm not proud of what I did or who I was, but I won't make any apologies for it, either," he said.

"I never asked you to." Wick returned his gaze evenly. "But you still haven't told me how you came to work for Valefor."

"After the wedding was called off, my father banished me," Lux sighed. "I'd ruined the greatest deal of his life, and he was p.i.s.sed off. Not that I blame him. I was homeless and penniless. I tried to look for Saphron, but I couldn't find her.

"And then, Valefor found me." Lux turned and started walking again. "He'd heard of my conquests, and he offered me a job. I had no other prospects. No other talents other than an ability to drink, spend money, and seduce women, and that was exactly what he wanted me to do. So I took it."

"But it's not a job," Wick said. "It's more than a job. You become something else."

They'd reached the edge of the Necrosilvam, at the Weeping Waters. Lux stared out at the murky water, more quicksand than true liquid. It bubbled and oozed, and he knew the kind of monsters that lived inside of it, ones that weren't threatened by mere peccati.

"Maybe you don't," Lux said finally, still staring out at the swamp. "Maybe Valefor only wants you to think you lose your heart and your humanity."

"I know you'd like to believe that," Wick said quietly, and he turned back to her. What he saw in her eyes surprised him, because she looked genuinely sad. "But you sold your soul to a demon. You have no heart. You can't love."

Lux didn't want to think about that or what it meant, so he did the only thing he could think to do. He headed into the Weeping Waters, prepared to kill any creature that crossed him.

14.

Valefor didn't look Lily would've pictured a demon, but then again, she didn't realize that's what Valefor was yet. He was tall and muscular, making Ira look puny in comparison. Beyond that, Valefor was gorgeous. Breathtakingly so. It was as if he was chiseled out of marble, completely flawless and perfect.

He came into the room shirtless, which seemed fitting because of the heat. His hair was a golden brown that shimmered like satin and grew just past his ears.

For a moment, Lily just gaped at him, completely forgetting all her senses. In her whole life, she'd never really l.u.s.ted after anything, not the way she did when she saw him.

But it was his eyes that threw her off, his eyes that revealed to her that he was evil. They were an amber red, and in them, she could see how vile he was. It sent a shiver down her spine, and she had to look away.

"Do I frighten you?" Valefor asked in a voice that sounded like a lullaby.

"No," Lily lied and forced herself to look back up at him.

"Good." He walked toward her, and she fought the urge to cringe or scoot away. "I'll untie you so we can talk like civil people."

His hands brushed up against her as he untied her, and his skin felt like flames. She pulled away from his touch instinctively, and he chuckled under his breath.

"I thought you said you weren't afraid of me," he said, his voice low and right in her ear. It rumbled through her, reminding her of thunder.

"Just because I'm not afraid of you doesn't mean I want you to touch me," Lily said, and she looked back over her shoulder at him. He lifted his head, so his burning eyes met hers, and she gulped back the scream inside her. "Fear and being repulsed are two separate things."

"I repulse you?" Valefor raised an eyebrow as he undid the ropes. Her hands were free, and she pulled them away quickly, rubbing the sc.r.a.pes on her wrists.

"You killed the man I love," Lily told him.

Her heart broke as she remembered the last time she'd seen Lux, lying on the ground. His shirt was torn open, his chest scorched. His body was bloodied and mangled, and Lily didn't think anyone could survive that, though she hoped against hope that he was alive.

"Have I?" Valefor smirked and stepped away from Lily, leaving her to untie the ropes around her ankles. "This must have been a very long time ago, since it's been quite a while since I've killed a man."

"You ordered his death, then." Lily pulled frantically at the knots, trying to keep Valefor in her sights as he walked away from her. He had his back to her, but she refused to take her eyes off him.

"Perhaps," Valefor admitted. He pulled out a chair and sat down in it, resting his arm on the table. "Who is this man I allegedly harmed?"

"Lux." She swallowed hard when she said his name, and Valefor burst out laughing. "Why is that so funny?"

"Well, to begin with, Lux works for me," he grinned.

Lily said nothing to that. Her stomach dropped, but she merely continued working on undoing the knot in the rope that bound her ankles. In her heart, she'd always known that Lux had been hiding something. But everything he'd done since he met her had been to protect her, and she couldn't forget that.

"You don't believe me?" Valefor asked when Lily didn't respond.

"I believe you," she sighed. "It just doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?"

"No. I love him, and he loves me." She finally freed her ankles, and she quickly got to her feet. "And you took him from me."

"You are so naive." Valefor tried for an expression that looked sympathetic, but that was an emotion he'd never been able to master. "He doesn't love you. It was his job to fool you, to trick you into coming back with him. And he does it so well. I know. That's why I chose him."

"That's not true," Lily shook her head. "Maybe you did choose him. Maybe he was supposed to bring me to you. But he didn't. He decided he cared for me more than he cared for serving you. That's why you sent Ira to stop him and take me away."

His face hardened, appearing even more like marble, but he remained seated. Lily stood her ground. She'd do whatever it took to escape his grasp, and she was preparing herself for a battle.

"You don't know who he is," Valefor said simply. "If you did, you wouldn't speak with such conviction."

"I love him, and nothing you can say will change that."

"Have you heard of the peccati?" Valefor asked carefully.

"Yes," Lily swallowed. "They're minions in the service of daemons."

"Quite right." He slowly stood up, trailing his fingers along the table as he walked towards her. "There are seven peccati on Earth, each one meant to spread the good of a particular sin."

"The good of a sin?" Lily asked. "Don't you mean evil?"

"In my line of work, sin is good." He smiled at his own joke. "Lux happens to be short for Luxuria. Do you know what that means?"

"No." She stared up at him, watching as he stepped closer, but she refused to move back.

"l.u.s.t." His smile widened. "Your love, your one and only, is the minion for l.u.s.t. He was created to make women fall in love with him, to corrupt the pure." He stopped right in front of her, so close that the heat from his body felt like flames on her skin.

"He didn't corrupt me," Lily said, but the conviction in her voice was waning. "He protected me."

"That was his job. He left you for me to corrupt."

"He didn't leave me for anything!" Lily spat, remembering the last time she had seen Lux. "You killed him! He would never have left me! I don't care what you say he was, Lux loved me!"

"He's dead now, isn't he!" Valefor roared, and Lily shied away from his rage. His eyes blazed, and the fire around the room grew brighter and stronger, as if his hatred ignited it. "He doesn't matter anymore! It's just you and me, Lily!"

"What do you want with me?" Lily asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice. "Why did you bring me here?"

Valefor softened instantly. The flames around the room died down, and the anger in his eyes was replaced by some kind of twisted pleasure. He smiled widely and leaned back on the table behind him.

"This isn't how I wanted to tell you," he admitted. "But to be honest, this meeting isn't going exactly as I'd planned. I expected us to talk a little, flirt some, so you could warm up to the idea. But there's no sense in beating around the bush. I want to marry you."

"Marry you?" Lily asked. "I would rather die than marry you!"

"Ordinarily, I would offer to arrange that for you, but not this time." He waved his hand, completely unfazed by her reaction. "You will marry me. Maybe not today, and I understand that. You just lost someone you cared about."

"Because you killed him!" Lily shot back.

"No, I didn't kill him. I merely sent Ira to retrieve you, by any means necessary," Valefor explained as calmly as he could. "I needed to get you here with me. I had to know you were safe. I only did that to protect you."

"To protect me?" Lily shook her head. "From what?"

"From Lux!" He gestured to her. "He had you under a spell, and he was going to corrupt you. I couldn't allow that."

"I'm supposed to believe you were only looking out for me?" She laughed darkly. "You're the devil!"

"No, I'm not, but thank you," Valefor smiled. "I am only his servant, but I do appreciate the comparison."

"You disgust me."

"There's no need for that." He frowned. "I know this is a bad time. I'll let you get settled in, and we can talk more later, when you've had time to clear your head."

"There will never be a better time! I will never marry you!"

"Lily, my darling, I understand your anger here," Valefor said. "Really, I do. But you haven't heard what I have to offer you."