Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

Pray to him? At that moment, she’d worship him, just for a chance to touch him.

She swallowed hard, closed her eyes, thinking he might very well be as dangerous as balefire to look at. She’d thought his human shell built to bring out mindless want; by the time he finished rebuilding his immortal shell, she might be a pile of ashes, immolated by her own desire.

A gasp reached her, and for a moment she felt relieved. At least it wasn’t just her. Then the pitch of the voice warned her. Dunne lost focus, turning toward Bran as devotedly as any human worshipper, his face blind with joy and want.

Lilith stepped up behind him, skin-close, and Dunne didn’t pay any attention, all his eyes on Eros.

“Hurry, Bran,” Sylvie said. Building the shell was only the first step, after all. It wasn’t enough simply to regain immortality, regain some of his power. He had to get it all back, and at present, Lilith was scooping it up at an enormous rate. Her skin—

Sylvie blinked, and in that single moment, Lilith found the core of Bran’s power, that hopeless desire that fueled men’s dreams and made them try for the impossible. One moment, Lilith was the Lilith Sylvie had come to know and loathe. The next—she flickered, skin warming, going from a too-pale, sharp-boned, witchy woman, to a goddess .

Still knife-edge lean, still competence and will made wiry flesh, but Lilith now appeared as sleek and as elegant as a glass-bladed sword. She demanded respect and admiration, and created in her beholders a helpless urge to touch, even if, like a blade, yielding to that temptation would gain you nothing but bloody fingertips.

Sylvie closed her mind as best she could. Falling into worship of Bran was dangerous, but falling for Lilith was just plain suicidal. She whimpered; her skin buzzed, caught between the two gods of Love. If she could have, she’d have crawled away and hidden. Dunne didn’t look much better. Lilith dropped a hand to his shoulder, and he shuddered, tilted his head back, baring the line of his throat. Her white hand crawled over it, cupped his chin.

“I want you to do something for me, lover,” she said.

Dunne shook his head minutely. The Fury-influenced arm rose, clamped around her forearm, but the claws stayed lax.

“No,” Bran said, but the kind of force Sylvie needed to hear in it was lacking. Lilith had lapped him on the field, taken the main bulk of his power into her. We, Sylvie thought bleakly, are losing .

“I need you to strengthen those lovely shields of yours,” Lilith said to Dunne. “We’ve got visitors I’m not ready to deal with yet. Can you do that for me?”

Clever, Sylvie thought. Dunne couldn’t really object to that, not when he wanted Bran’s power corralled and kept safe. If Lilith had asked something else, he might have tried to fight her pull on his loyalty, but this . . . And having said yes to her once made it so much simpler to say yes again.

“Bran, do something,” Sylvie said, even as Dunne slowly nodded to Lilith. The shielding around the building turned from the cloudy opacity of pebbled glass to the complete darkness of steel. The flashes of white light behind it disappeared, and the world within grew dim and close. Lilith and Bran glowed, and the loose power on the rooftop spiraled between them in a brilliant Mobius strip.

“Thank you,” Lilith said. “Keep it strong for me.”

Madness flashed in Dunne’s eyes for a moment, trapped between her will and his own. “Not for you,” he choked out. “For Bran. For the world.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself—”

“Thought you weren’t big on obedience,” Sylvie said. Her body might be down for the moment, but never her mouth. “Thought you wanted independence of thought. Guess you’re not content with being the god of Love. Aiming for god of hypocrisy . . . ?”

“Dunne, get rid of her,” Lilith said, and Sylvie, despite her terror, found herself laughing. That response proved it. Power corrupted, and all of Lilith’s ideals had become empty words. If they had ever been anything more.

“Don’t do it, Kevin,” Bran said.

Dunne’s face had relaxed as soon as Bran spoke, and Lilith, seeing her hold on him slipping, chuffed in an aggravation that Sylvie understood without words. If you want something done, her dark voice whispered, and Sylvie was sure that was exactly what Lilith was thinking.

Self-preservation uncoiled fangs in her belly, chasing away some of the hapless admiration and dread. Bran had Dunne locked in place; he couldn’t attack Sylvie as Lilith had commanded, but Bran didn’t have enough will to override Lilith completely, setting Dunne free. A very fragile stalemate, and Lilith was on her way to cut Sylvie out of the game.

Get up, her voice said. Will you let her win? When you beat her once already? Will you lie still while she kills you? Will you yield?

“Get up, then what?” Sylvie muttered, but the voice was not to be denied, even if it had no answer. She clambered to her feet, stiff, sore, her knees treacherous. She swayed.

“Hey, Grandma,” Sylvie slurred. “Got something to tell you. About genetics. About our blood.”

“I’ll see anything your blood hides soon enough,” Lilith said. “Spread out over the roof.”

Sylvie shrugged. “Probably. Your point?”

“I’m not so sure you’re mine after all,” Lilith said. “If you had any survival sense at all, you’d be trying to crawl away.” She smiled, thrust a casual hand out, and Sylvie’s legs were swiped out from under her.

Sylvie whimpered as she hit the rooftop again, banged her head. Again. She staggered back up to her feet, and said to Lilith’s back, “You’re soft, Grandma. Your enemy’s never fought back.”

Lilith’s spine went rigid. Sylvie laughed, high and strained. “But me . . . My enemies come at me from all directions, and I’m still standing. I’ve won. Every single time. Cedo Nulli. I will not yield. Not to you, not to anyone, not even to my own better instincts.”

Lilith raised a hand, plucked the gleaming spindle from her breast, and aimed it like an arrow at Sylvie.

Light flared, brilliant in the demiglobe of their world, and Sylvie watched it burn toward her. There really wasn’t any point in running. Even the dark voice, rabidly bent on survival, agreed that this was it, praised her for going out on her feet, going out without begging, then fell silent.

The sudden impact of warmth and weight, rolling her across the roof, left her gasping and stunned, even as the spell light shattered off the body shielding hers.

“Bran?” she said. Dunne groaned protest, outrage, and Lilith’s attention turned back to keeping him docile. Dunne’s features twisted, the absorbed Furies showing their touches. Lilith said, “Oh, lover, don’t fight me now—” But her voice was brittle, a little scared. Dunne was contained partially by her, partially by Bran, and mostly for preservation of the world. The Furies wouldn’t care about the world. Sylvie knew it. So did Lilith.

“Help me,” Bran said, a breath in her ear. “I need something of yours.” His arms cradled her head, his body nestled against hers; his skin was velvet heat beneath her clutching hands.

She’d wondered how Bran could stand to be held by a god, to feel that power thrumming against his skin. Now she knew. Being so close to a god, to this god, was . . . pleasant. Definitely pleasurable.

“Anything,” she said, all instinct and desire, then shrugged, a shred of rationality struggling through. “Though I haven’t got anything left.”

His hands stroked her neck, her nape, traveling down her back. “This,” he said. “Give me this .” She shuddered, feeling his touch reach far deeper than just her skin.