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Brimstone Seduction
Barbara J. Hancock
BETWEEN DESTINY AND DESIREDamnation is John Severne’s inheritance, and stalking the accursed his legacy. Kat D’Arcy has her own ill-starred birthright. The strange gift that runs along her maternal line dooms her to a life trapped between daemons and those who pursue them. But Severne is unlike any daemon hunter she’s ever known. The brimstone in his blood arouses every fiber of her being.For Severne, Kat is the key to his salvation… until she becomes much more than that. As the ultimate danger closes in on them both, Severne must decide if he can abuse Kat’s trust—and betray his own heart.
BETWEEN DESTINY AND DESIRE
Damnation is John Severne’s inheritance, and stalking the accursed his legacy. Kat D’Arcy has her own ill-starred birthright. The strange gift that runs along her maternal line dooms her to a life trapped between daemons and those who pursue them. But Severne is unlike any daemon hunter she’s ever known. The Brimstone in his blood arouses every fiber of her being.
For Severne, Kat is the key to his salvation...until she becomes much more than that. As the ultimate danger closes in on them both, Severne must decide if he can abuse Kat’s trust—and betray his own heart.
She was familiar with temptation and resistance, but surrender?
That was a new possibility for Kat. She was afraid if she spent too long in John Severne’s company her limits might be tested. He was a daemon, but he had taken the guise of a very attractive man. She was drawn to the burn beneath his control. She was drawn to what he might hide beneath the hardness he cultivated for the world. His penchant for sugary kisses and his reaction to her cello music gave her a glimpse at what vulnerabilities he might hide.
He wasn’t a forthright man. He was a daemon.
His every move seemed to scream those truths to her even though his words and demeanor were enigmatic.
BARBARA J. HANCOCK lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains where her daily walk takes her to the edge of the wilderness and back again. When Barbara isn’t writing modern gothic romance that embraces the shadows with a unique blend of heat and heart, she can be found wrangling twin boys and spoiling her pets.
Brimstone Seduction
Barbara J. Hancock
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader (#ulink_049e9f68-156d-519b-9bfe-a26799f000f8),
Music brings them together. Damnation threatens to tear them apart.
It’s been a decadent pleasure to create the lush, dramatic world of the Théâtre de l’Opéra Severne—from the haunted frieze on its walls to the dance floor of its grand salon where masquerade masks disguise darkly passionate motivations. Against the backdrop of a daemon revolution, the shadowed Baton Rouge opera house echoes its master, John Severne, and the heated mark of Brimstone he carries in his bartered blood—beautiful, cursed, standing the test of time and tide. To save his soul, Severne must betray the ray of light he longs to possess. But Katherine D’Arcy will not be easily betrayed. In fact, she might be the only one who can save him.
Confession: Severne, the man and his dark world, still linger in my imagination long after I typed The End!
In my first full-length Harlequin Nocturne book, my love of music and gothic shadows combine to create a high-stakes Faustian romance where the burn of forbidden desire triumphs over the darkness.
Welcome to l’Opéra Severne... I hope you’ll enjoy a dance with Severne in the pale moonlight.
Barbara
For Lucienne Diver...a hell of an agent and the ultimate finishing kick when the race has been long.
Contents
Cover (#uc63a6524-6594-537c-a59b-471b00d18cab)
Back Cover Text (#uf9c0508e-1b6b-5889-b160-5303cf273bed)
Introduction (#u903708a9-9818-5943-b23c-5b17d660681b)
About the Author (#u5aed7ce9-cb41-5178-8d0f-90ccc9006338)
Title Page (#ue51f458c-fc16-5513-a921-fa482e90ca87)
Dear Reader (#u0da3c1e1-8702-593b-b1be-2bf239e5ad2f)
Dedication (#ufeeba70e-6c8b-5802-a997-a44694ac0ae4)
Chapter 1 (#u4c2fc4cb-f00a-5906-a31e-777654e9ce6d)
Chapter 2 (#u8687062e-1ef1-5e98-8c63-dc18a66c01b7)
Chapter 3 (#u27ea2eb3-97d8-5a01-b635-d329bbb3654a)
Chapter 4 (#ua047b547-cb33-54d6-9da3-54fa327ea0cf)
Chapter 5 (#uaee45891-d2fd-5220-8425-f228f897be57)
Chapter 6 (#uf7564dbf-4406-5a10-94b3-af6a183a6baa)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_4a4eab56-f949-56fb-beac-41a83d35f9fa)
She was used to being followed. Sometimes she lost him. Sometimes she didn’t. It was those times she feared. Father Reynard wasn’t her enemy, but as she cut down the familiar side street that formed an alley between the auditorium and her apartment, she knew what he was to her was more complicated and more frightening than if he was something she could fight.
The Savannah, Georgia, air was muggy in July, and her efforts to evade Reynard had left her damp with a sheen that was more humidity kissing her skin than sweat. But she didn’t pause to set down her cello case so she could mop her forehead with a lace hanky like a flustered Southern belle. Instead, tendrils of her thick chestnut hair curled around her face as strands loosened from the diamanté clips the salon had used when she’d been cool and collected and air-conditioned that morning, preparing for the afternoon’s performance.
She heard his footfalls behind her. She knew his step. Others from his Order often hunted as well, but Reynard considered her his own.
Her faltering steps had brought the sound of his relentless pursuit closer. A desperate instinct to run, to hide, rose up in her chest, squeezing her lungs so that she breathed more quickly than her current exertions required. It was fear, plain and simple and stark.
Because there was no escape.
The soft blanket of gloaming draped the city in a muted haze. The muggy haze had dimmed to purple with the setting of the Georgia sun. In the distance, she could hear the traffic and the hum of people on the sidewalks of the historic district preparing for ghost tours and streetlight-lit carriage rides. But here, on the leftover cobblestones of a distant time, she was alone...except for Father Reynard.
His whistle began as it always did, with a lilting trio of notes that led into song. She recognized it as a Verdi piece she’d played that afternoon. Gooseflesh rose on her arms in spite of the oppressive heat from the summer day trapped in the narrow alley. The whistle meant he had her. It meant there must be a daemon nearby that she’d been drawn to. Her affinity had reliably led Father Reynard right where he most wanted to be. Again.
She did stop then.
Not giving up. Never that. She only paused to brace herself for what might be an ugly, dark and dangerous evening more from the violent monk who dogged her steps than the daemons he hunted. Although there was danger there, too. Certainly.
She was trapped in the middle of a war that would never have a winning side.
Katherine saw the daemon then. A woman. The glow of the horizon narrowly visible at the end of the alley cast her stiff form in stark relief. She stood poised for a fight. Her arms akimbo. Her knees slightly bent. It was going to be one of those times when the daemon didn’t go quietly. This was no hopeless soul longing to be sent back home. Katherine could see determination tense every muscle in the figure she faced.
“A female. Good job, Katarina. It’s so important to banish these before they breed,” Father Reynard said as he came up behind her. She kept her focus on the daemon, but she was totally aware of Reynard’s movements. The same way she would be if she were a hiker who was suddenly forced to skirt a mountain ledge over a steep precipice. Her footing was just as precarious. One wrong move with the deadly daemon hunter and she might be dead herself. She could feel the suck of gravity as if she was on the ledge, inches from death. His steps were slow and steady. Not rushed. He was confident. His voice was already smug with success. She was the one who was in danger. She was the one who might slip and fall.
Kat cringed at the utter contempt Reynard had for the daemon as a living, breathing creature, whether it was human or not. And at his total disregard for her and her disgust for his bloodthirsty quest.
Kat fisted her hands, but the woman leaped before she could decide how best to give her a chance to flee. The alley was too wide, an access point for delivery trucks to service the buildings on either side. She dropped her cello case and jumped but had no chance to keep the hunter and his prey apart. Not when the prey was determined to get around her. Kat was pushed to the side. She slammed against solid brick, and all the air left her lungs in a painful rush.
The daemon attacked Reynard with a fury Kat had never seen.
He was the one with the drawn blade, but Kat was as much a weapon as the bloodstained blade in Reynard’s hand. She didn’t deserve to be bypassed. The daemon should have attacked her first.
The sight of the deadly knife always repelled her. But it was Kat’s ability that had led Reynard and his weapon here. Like deadly magnets with a pull she couldn’t resist, daemons called and called to Katherine.
She was inexorably drawn to daemons, and Father Reynard followed with crimson death across all their throats.
“Stop,” Kat choked out as her own throat empathetically tightened—to the daemon or to Reynard or to the family gift she hadn’t asked to receive.
It was too late. Grizzled and gray, Reynard had fifty years of experience in killing. An extension of his wiry, muscled arm, the long knife gleamed red in the last hurrah of sunset on the horizon. Then it dripped a much darker stain from the daemon’s blood. Kat shuddered and backed away.
It was always the same.
The body went up in flames, consumed from the inside out, eyes and mouth and the gaping wound across the daemon’s throat gone to glowing with an impossible heat of coals in a fiery furnace. It was the freed Brimstone that did it, an otherworldly fuel that flowed through a daemon’s veins. Reynard said it was a little bit of the hell dimension they took with them wherever they roamed.
Kat always forced herself to watch until there were only curls of smoke where a daemon had been, but this time there was a sound discernible beneath Reynard’s triumphant chants.
To the left, behind a Dumpster, there was a shuffle of rubbish and gravel. There was also a sob. A small face peeked from around the refuse container. As the embers died, Kat could see chubby wet cheeks and eyes widened in shock and fear.
By then, the sun was gone and the sky was dark. It was only the glow of the daemon’s banishment that lit the scene. The light flickered and faded, but the daemon’s last dying illumination caused an eerie spotlight on the cowering child.
This time, she wasn’t too slow to react. While Reynard was occupied with ritual, in those few seconds it took for him to finish with one daemon and turn his attention when he realized there was another, Kat was the one who leaped. She wouldn’t let the mother’s last light aid Reynard in his hunt.
The child tried to get away. After all, Kat was part of his mother’s murder. Or so it seemed. So it felt. Regardless of what Reynard said about the daemons rematerializing in their own hellish dimension.
Kat was faster than the child. He was young. No more than five. And the mother’s desperation had transferred itself to Kat’s arms and legs. In those moments, Katherine D’Arcy was fit, fast and nobody’s bloodhound. Not anymore.
She grabbed the reluctant boy. He balked, planting his small feet on the pavement as if he planned to remain a statue in the alley, a fierce little memorial to his mother forever. He wouldn’t run with her. She had to pick him up. She tucked his squirming limbs against her side and bolted, deciding to base jump instead of fearing the fall. She’d never openly defied Reynard. Her grandmother’s fear had been passed to her mother. Her mother’s had been passed to her and her sister, their legacy darkened by his long shadow. His surprise at Kat’s action gave her precious seconds to get away with the child.
But even if she was faster than the small boy, Reynard was faster than her.
She’d long since realized his obsession drove him to superhuman lengths. His madness gave him strength beyond that of a mortal man.
Her only hope was to get back to the crowded street with the boy, where a blade across his throat would be too bold a move even for Father Reynard. The trench coat he wore like a monk’s robes flapped as he ran, great dark wings on either side of his lean body.
He seemed supernaturally unstoppable. As if he would never need rest. Her back. Her arms. Her shoulders. They all screamed under the squirming boy’s weight. Far too mortal in comparison to Reynard. She didn’t look back again.
“Hold still. Hang on. We’ve got to get you away from him,” she said into the boy’s towheaded curls.
The strands smelled like baby shampoo against her face. The simplicity of that impacted her even harder than the sneakers kicking her side. The daemon woman who had attacked Reynard to defend her child had also lovingly washed his hair like any human mother would. Kat couldn’t let Reynard kill him. She couldn’t let the boy die because of her gift.
