Golden Stair Read online

  Adonis’ hazel eyes darkened until it was like looking at the rich brown and green of the forest just outside her tower in the moments leading up to sunset. She looked into his eyes and she could imagine what it would be like to roll over in bed and see those eyes right next to her, feel his warm body pressed against hers. Heat spread from between her legs all the way to her face. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle, but she could feel his desire.

  She was right next to him.

  Ivy shrieked and threw herself backward, her gaze never leaving Adonis. He sprawled on his side in the circle, peering at her, a small quirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He rested a hand on his hip, drawing Ivy’s gaze…

  The heat inside her grew, pulsed. Her heart leapt into her throat, her head swimming in a strange haze. She closed her eyes, trying to block it out. Stupid, stupid girl, she cursed herself. He was an incubus. Even in the magic circle he could ensnare her, call to her. Her mother had always warned her about incubi. They didn’t need power to coax women closer, it was just part of who they were. Ivy had let herself forget that.

  She opened her eyes, about to call the demon out on his manipulation. Before she could get out a syllable, Adonis gestured behind her.

  “Bring me your paints and a canvas?” he asked.

  Her scathing words died on her tongue. “My paints?”

  “Please?”

  It was such an odd request that Ivy could find no reason to deny him. She retrieved the materials he’d requested, pushing them into the circle, careful not to disturb any of the stones. She watched, intrigued, as Adonis began to paint.

  Colors flew across the canvas, guided by his finger, his claw and, occasionally, a brush. He dipped his hand in the paints as if he could draw out the essence of his subject from the medium. His fingers danced over the surface and a picture emerged like it had been called from the depths of the canvas itself.

  The king and queen of Nysa. Trepidation filled Ivy as the monarchs emerged from the swirls of color. They stood facing one another, one of his arms around her waist and the other reaching up to touch a short dark curl with the tips of his fingers. Her arms were draped around his neck, the gold and champagne gown blending with the cape he wore over a vivid purple tunic. They stared into each other’s eyes and even through the filter of paint and canvas, Ivy swore she could feel their love. They looked so happy.

  A tear trickled down Ivy’s cheek and she wiped it away in shock. She looked to Adonis. The incubus was staring at the painting, a soft look on his face and one corner of his mouth tilted up.

  “The look on your face,” she said softly. “You love them.”

  “They’re my parents,” Adonis responded, without taking his eyes from the painting.

  “I didn’t think lust demon parents were particularly affectionate.”

  Adonis shot her a grin. “I’m so pleased to be in the presence of an expert on incubus child rearing.”

  Ivy blushed and cursed herself for it. “Sorry,” she muttered. After a moment of silence, during which both she and Adonis continued to admire the painting, Ivy gathered the courage to speak again. “The way you look when you’re painting—the way you look at it now—reminds me of how I feel when I paint.”

  “Like you’re bleeding onto the canvas?”

  “Exactly,” she said excitedly. She sat on the floor next to the circle. “You put so much life into this picture, I feel like they’re right in front of me.”

  “They are so in love,” he murmured. “I’ve never known such happiness. To be near them when they’re together is to get a rare glimpse into something beautiful.”

  Ivy tried to resist, but she couldn’t help but feel the truth of his words as she viewed the painting. The part of her mind that believed her mother’s warnings searched the portrait for some hint of sexual deviancy, some sign that the demon was the monster Dame Gothel had always claimed he was. She looked for the lust that would surely be present in a painting that came to life at the hands of a ruthless incubus. No one who painted with the intensity and abandon that he had could hide the piece of themselves that bled out through the paint. There was proof of his true nature in the painting, proof that what her mother said was true.

  But she couldn’t find it. The king didn’t paw at his wife, he didn’t leer at her with crude lust. His hands around her waist were gentle, but with a loving firmness that spoke of how badly he wanted to keep her with him. Likewise, the queen looked up at the king as if the very sight of him brought her the greatest joy. Ivy could feel a kiss in their future, as if Adonis had captured a true moment in time. Somehow, she knew that the kiss would be pure, the type of kiss that only true love could produce. Or maybe that was just her fanciful imagination.

  “You can feel their love.” It wasn’t a question. “Is that the demon king your mother has told you about?”

  “A painting is not proof.” Even to her own ears, Ivy’s claim held no conviction. Tears burned behind her eyes as she carefully tucked her emotions away deep inside her. She wouldn’t think about it now, wouldn’t think about what this meant. Life as she knew it depended on how she handled this day’s events and she needed time to think. Alone.

  “May I see more of your work?” the demon asked after a few moments.

  It was such a simple request. Part of her worried he was trying to manipulate her, trying to weasel his way past her defenses. But a larger part of her recognized how much of himself he’d revealed to her by letting her see this painting. It was a revelation that had to be reciprocated.

  She brought out several of her paintings. Most of them were violent, exorcisms of the nightmares her mother described to her. But there were a few that held happiness. A sunrise over the lake outside her tower, sunbeams illuminating colorful fish and vibrant aquatic plants. A sunset awash in crimson and plum, the brightest colors burning in the sky before bowing to the soft touch of darkness. Each painting was filled with little details of plants or animals she wanted to see, to touch. And in some places, blended into the brushstrokes in a way that hid them from her mother’s watchful eye, were creatures, people. Nymphs weaving through the ripples of the lake, sylphs laughing on the breeze. It wasn’t just the world she wanted to see, it was the people, the creatures she wanted to meet. There was adventure out there.

  Adventure she had no business wanting.

  Suddenly Ivy couldn’t breathe past the lump in her throat. Adonis was a painter. Would he know what to look for in her paintings? Would his artistic eye pull the secrets from her art that she’d so far kept hidden from her mother? What on earth had she been thinking, parading her soul in front of a demon?

  Oblivious to the chaos her thoughts had dissolved into, Adonis examined all of her paintings in turn. “I’m sorry you have so much panic in your life,” he said finally, quietly. “You have so many portraits of the royal families, but…I’ve never known anyone to hold such fear of them. Even the people of Dacia, who know the royal family are vampires, even they don’t feel this level of terror.”

  “I’ve never met them,” Ivy defended herself automatically. “I only know what my mother has told me.”

  Adonis leaned forward. “But surely everyone you talk to doesn’t speak of them like this? Shouldn’t that be cause enough to reconsider?”

  Ivy pressed her lips together and looked away. She counted to ten in her head, distracting herself and simultaneously cursing herself for dragging out her art. She bled her soul into her work and here she was displaying it for a perfect stranger. She swallowed, eyeing the incubus through her peripheral vision. A very perfect stranger.

  Her emotions were too close to the surface, and that was dangerous for one in hiding such as herself. I never should have held him here. I should have expelled him from the tower.

  “I’d like you to keep my rendition of the king and queen,” he continued gently. “Perhaps you could hang it up in place of that terrifying battle.” He gestured at the painting he’d commented on earlier. “It might l
essen your fear to have an alternative view of them.”

  It was a logical suggestion, but Ivy knew better. Her mother favored her violent paintings, praised them far more than any pleasant pictures Ivy created. She told Ivy that she admired truth, and that was why she liked the war depictions. She didn’t want Ivy to be confused, to start to believe in a fantasy world over reality. And after last night, Ivy was absolutely certain her mother would destroy Adonis’ painting of the king and queen as a lie.

  Suddenly it was all just too much. She couldn’t bear for him to be in the room with her anymore, couldn’t stand for him to say another word. She needed to be alone, needed to collect herself. She kicked one of the stones, breaking the protective circle that held him prisoner.

  “Get out.”

  She tensed, hyper-aware of her instincts wailing at her to be careful. Tracking his every movement, she concentrated on the energy in the room, on guard for any attack on his part. Her mind swirled in a chaotic cloud of doubts, everything her mother had ever taught her clashing with everything the incubus had said.

  Despite her caution, she didn’t believe he would hurt her—a conviction that twisted her nerves into tangled knots. She’d finally gotten her wish, a peek into the outside world. If only she’d realized just how devastating a little peek could be for the only life she’d ever known. It was too much.

  Adonis sat there for a moment, perhaps too surprised to move. Tension sang between them and the intensity of his gaze spoke to some primal part of her, reaching into her chest and grabbing hold.

  “Do you really want me to leave?”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice, arm twitching with the urge to point at him and try to call the fire that had nearly consumed her earlier. Instead, she found herself considering his words. Whatever manner of creature he was, he’d been her first introduction to the world beyond her tower, the only person she’d ever spoken to besides her mother. A tiny part of her wanted him to stay, wanted to beg him to tell her about the world and damn the conflict with her mother’s claims. The other part of her was petrified to hear another word. Her palms grew sweaty and she held very, very still.

  “Not that I’m not grateful,” Adonis added, rising to his feet. “But you look…conflicted.”

  “Get out!” her voice exploded with more force than she’d intended, but she couldn’t help it. She had to think. He had to go. Now.

  Finally, Adonis stood and looked around, probably searching for a door.

  “There is no door,” she said, standing and walking with jerky movements to the window. Her foot caught the edge of the rug and she tripped, catching herself just before she hit the floor. Heart pounding furiously, she sucked in a sharp breath through her nose, willing herself not to tear the rug from the floor and heave it over the balcony.

  The infuriating golden haze still colored her world, making everything shine like some sort of surreal dream. It grated on her nerves and she gritted her teeth and blinked, trying to make it go away. Grabbing onto her fraying self-control with both hands, she went through the same motions she performed every morning and night, throwing her braid over the hook on the awning and heaving her hair over the balcony. She gave herself a few seconds to gather her wits before facing Adonis again. He observed her with softly glowing red eyes, a rapt expression on his face. Despite the eerie crimson light in his gaze, Ivy read no anger in his face. More like…passion.

  “The far side of the valley is a curtain of vines,” she said with a forced calm. “That’s the way back to the other dimension.” The words felt ridiculous on her tongue now, but she didn’t know what else to say. She clenched her jaw, daring him to contradict her. He furrowed his brow and opened his mouth, but she held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “You can climb down on your own, I hope? Your strength has returned?”

  Adonis grinned. He stretched his wings above his head and Ivy blushed as she realized he didn’t need to climb down her hair. She whipped around and started to pull her hair down from the hook, hiding her face as traitorous heat stole over her cheeks.

  A hand on her arm made her jump and whirl back to face him. She winced as her braid snagged the hook and jerked her back, a stab of pain lancing her skull.

  “I’m sorry.” Adonis cringed. He reached out and unhooked her braid, smoothing his hand over it as he hauled the length back into the tower.

  Butterflies leapt to life in Ivy’s stomach, her senses full of his nearness. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from his hands sliding over her braid. There was something erotic about the way he touched the gold coils, as if he were caressing something far more personal than her hair.

  “Just go,” Ivy mumbled, shoving against his chest. His muscles tensed under her touch and she jerked her hand away like he’d burned her. Her mind melted to a jumbled pile of half-thoughts and she cursed at the way her knees trembled and threatened to give way. Fisting her hands at her sides, she stormed away from the balcony.

  There was a rustle of large wings and then the scrape of claw against stone. Ivy closed her eyes, freezing in the middle of the main room, bracing herself for the sound of the demon prince flying away. Just a few more moments and then you can have a nervous breakdown, she promised herself.

  “Ivy?”

  Biting her lip, she tried to ignore the pulse thundering in her throat, the itch along her spine where she was sure his gaze was boring a hole through her. As much as she wanted to ignore him, she couldn’t. Inch by painful inch, she turned to find him crouching on the balcony, his wings still tucked against his spine like a heavy leather cape. She held herself back, keeping an iron grip on her emotions just as she so often did during her mother’s tantrums.

  “Yes?” she asked evenly.

  He hesitated. “I can feel your energy boiling just under your skin,” he said finally, his voice gentle, soothing. “You seem upset as well. If you’ll trust me, just for a moment, I can help you.”

  Ivy stepped back, wrapping her suspicion around her like a coat of armor and stiffening her spine. “Don’t think that just because I’m letting you go that I’m an idiot,” she said in a voice as cold as she could manage. “I don’t trust you and I’m not falling into bed with you.”

  Heat flickered in his eyes, not anger, but more of a sharp twist of arousal. He swept his gaze up and down her body, not bothering to hide his desire. His blatant appraisal and attraction tightened things low in her body and she clenched her fists at yet another of her body’s betrayals, renewing her resolve to remain aloof.

  “As much as I would enjoy having you in my arms, warm and willing,” he murmured, his voice a hot caress of warm silk on bare skin, “that is not what I offered you just now. I am asking you if you would let me kiss you—just a kiss. I can take the edge off the power that seems to be flustering you so.”

  A sharp stab of arousal pierced Ivy so quickly that she just barely bit back a gasp of surprise. In that moment, she could have thrown herself into his arms, could have taken him up on the invitation so clear in that sexy curve of his lips and those deep hazel eyes. I just want a taste…

  “You are a monster,” she choked, smothering the wanton voice in her head. “You will not fool me.”

  With agonizingly slow movements, Adonis slid one foot to the ground. Ivy’s heart thundered to beat the most boisterous summer storm, thudding with added weight against her chest wall. She wavered, fighting the urge to take another step back, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. Too much had happened today to throw her off, and she was tired of feeling out of control and confused.

  “Stop where you are or next time, there won’t be enough of you left to heal yourself.”

  It was a bluff, sure, but he had no reason to think that—not after the horrifying damage she’d inflicted on him earlier. Adonis paused, but his hungry gaze kept roving all over her body, desire so thick in the room that she had to fight not to look down and check that her clothes hadn’t fallen off. His gaze, the intensity rolling off of him…it made her fee
l naked and vulnerable.

  “Leave. Now,” she said hoarsely.

  Adonis carefully stepped toward her, his eyes on hers. She bit the inside of her cheek, using the brief pain to keep from swaying toward him. The passion in his eyes that she was coming to suspect was a part of him flared a little brighter as he came to stand so close to her that a deep breath would have made their bodies touch.

  “Just one kiss,” he whispered. “Please?”

  Every nerve in her body sang with awareness. She could hardly see him through the wretched golden haze in front of her, could focus on nothing but those smoldering scarlet eyes. His voice reached inside her, caressed, stroked, and pulled. She snapped.

  With a small cry, she grabbed his head, lacing her fingers through his dark brown locks without a care for the black horns curling from his temples. He let out a muffled sound of surprise as she crushed her mouth to his.