Benevolent Passion Read online

“Sweetheart, you look tired.” Her mother’s voice was light and comforting, a delicate frown on her face. She looked more like Peony’s sister, rather than mother.

  “Long night with a foolish demon,” Peony replied.

  “What happened?”

  “You know I can’t really talk about guild business.” Fact was, Peony probably could talk about it, but she didn’t want her mother to know much about her new life. Some things were better left unsaid.

  And it was always better to keep her mother happy.

  Selene tsked. “Demons are always so violent.”

  “Mom.”

  She flicked a mass of raven-dark hair over her shoulder. “What? They are.”

  “You’re part demon.”

  And Peony was half-demon, half-human. A cambion. It was too bad for her that her demon genes were stronger than her human ones.

  Selene smiled and held up her forefinger and thumb about an inch apart. “Only a little bit.”

  Peony didn’t really want to have a debate about their respective genealogies. Her mother wasn’t a cambion, though. You had to be half-human to earn that hated title.

  “How’s work?” Peony asked, changing the topic to something Selene was always happy to discuss.

  “Busy as always.” Her mother was a nurse, and she was employed at a thriving human hospital. She did a lot of ER work nowadays, to try to filter out the demons that were accidentally sent to human institutions; sort of an advanced-guard for the supernatural. It helped avoid the discovery of ‘medical miracles’ and rare deformities.

  It was her mother who’d inspired her to get into medicine. Because even though Selene worked as nurse, she was qualified in almost every medical field you could imagine. That’s what happened when you were immortal and could afford to start a new life every two decades or so. Peony had loved that her mother was so smart, and that she’d dedicated her numerous lifetimes to saving other people. Peony had thought that she could do the same thing, but she had a few fundamental differences that made her goals impossible.

  I was an idiot.

  Her mother’s voice cut through her musing. “Did you get my care package?”

  “Yes, thanks. I ate it already.” Peony had a sweet tooth that would put most people to shame—and Selene indulged it brazenly. “I really liked the donuts,” she added.

  “I bought them from this charming little—”

  A knock on the door made Peony turn in her chair.

  “You get that,” Selene said. “We can talk again later.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say hi to your sister for me.”

  “Will do,” she lied.

  “Love you.”

  “You, too.”

  She disconnected the call. Standing, she made sure her gloves were pulled up, and that her sleeves and trousers covered any bare skin. There was no way she was going to pass on her mother’s regards to her sister. Dru could barely tolerate the Christmas cards that Selene sent her, although Peony wasn’t entirely sure why her sister found the little pieces of paper so offensive. Dru had been stolen from the hospital before Peony’s adopted mom could have saved her, but maybe her sister hated Selene nonetheless.

  Opening the door, Peony’s spine locked at the sight of her boss on the other side. Trick gave her a once-over, his brown gaze condescending. He didn’t really like her, but that was fine, because the feeling was mutual.

  Peony had trained to be a healer, and this man profited from death.

  He finished his visual assessment. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.” She resisted the urge to poke out her tongue.

  “I need you.”

  “Sorry, I don’t do that kind of house-call.” She needed to watch herself, to not annoy him too much. Trick was powerful and he wasn’t known for being a relaxed slave master. You couldn’t be, not when you controlled a den of assassins who could as easily cut your throat as take your orders. But it was a well-known fact in the guild that Trick was keen to try his luck with Dru, and since she and Peony looked identical...

  “You wish,” he snorted, then spun on his heel and walked back down the corridor.

  She shut the door and followed him. “No, not really.”

  Sure, Trick was a handsome bastard—all golden hair, dreamy brown eyes, and a body that most women wanted to climb—but he wasn’t her type. Demons weren’t her type. Neither were humans or anyone else. But that was another story.

  Trick led the way through the maze of halls and corridors that made up the guild’s main headquarters, toward an office he barely used. He paused outside the door. “If you ever tell anyone about what you see or hear in this meeting, your life is forfeit. Understand?”

  She came to full awareness, as if she’d been doused with a bucket of cold water. “Yes. But my contract—”

  “Your life is owed to me. You can buy it back, or you can forfeit it. That’s how the system works. Don’t tattle on what you hear today, and you won’t die. Simple.”

  She swallowed. She’d always kind of thought of the blood-contract as a loan—she loaned her life to Trick until she paid off her debt, then she got her soul back and everything was done and dusted.

  I probably should have read the fine print more closely.

  And normally, she would have done. Her mother had always taught her to pay attention to the small details, because it was often these that gave clues about what was wrong with an individual. But the day she’d agreed to hand her soul over to Trick had been one of the worst in her life, and she hadn’t really been all that aware...

  “You going to come in or just stand there?” Trick’s voice snapped her back to the present.

  I must be more tired than I thought. She didn’t normally stand daydreaming in hallways.

  In fact, she’d stopped daydreaming a long time ago.

  Following him inside, he waved her to a dim corner, where she took up position against a wall. His face was set hard as stone as he scanned the room, then nodded to himself. He strode behind his desk—one of the two pieces of furniture—and clicked his fingers.

  The sizzle of electricity filled the space, and then it burst with a pop, leaving the skin on her face—the only exposed part of her—feeling raw. Two huge demons now occupied the room, holding up an unconscious man with tattered, bony wings, a hand under each of his armpits. Electricity crackled over their skin, and they shook themselves, bat-like wings rustling.

  Infernus.

  She hadn’t ever seen these horned creatures before in real life—Hell, her knowledge about most demon species was pretty sketchy—but she’d heard about them. Children of both Lucifer and Satan, they were evil to the bone. And proud of it.

  Her fingers itched to help the slumped man, but she kept her position against the wall. If she disobeyed Trick now, things wouldn’t end well for her. She didn’t need a warning from him to say as much.

  “What have you brought me, Kerrington?” Trick’s voice was full of ennui.

  The taller of the two Infernus stepped forward, letting go of his hold on the man, who drooped heavily. A dark voice filled the room. “An angel.”

  Did he just say...?

  Trick raised a golden eyebrow. “Really? It looks like you’ve flayed the skin off a human and then stuck some bones on its back.”

  “I promise you, it’s an angel.”

  Trick tilted his head to one side, skepticism lining his features. “It doesn’t look...well.”

  “There was a bit of a problem,” Kerrington agreed, as if the man had just encountered some bad traffic and not been tortured.

  “You plucked it.”

  “Its feathers are worth money.”

  “They haven’t grown back.”

  “It’s young. They will.”

  “This significantly decreases its value.”

  Kerrington spluttered. “When it heals—”

  “Of which there is no guarantee.” Trick walked ar
ound his desk and squatted next to the angel, poking it every now and then with his index finger.

  An angel. Wow.

  Peony may not like Trick, but she respected his knowledge; the guild leader had been doing his job a lot longer than she had been alive. If he believed the man was an angel, then he must be.

  A shrug from the huge demon. “It’s an angel, they heal.”

  “Peony!”

  She jerked a little at her name, but stood straight and nodded at Trick. He gestured for her to come closer.

  “Inspect this.”

  This. Not him. Way to dehumanize someone.

  Oh wait, demons weren’t human, and neither were angels.

  She tried to ignore the two hulking figures that loomed on either side of her as her gloved fingers carefully worked over the parts of the angel she could reach.

  “What is the woman doing?”

  “The woman is my medical professional.”

  That was probably the kindest thing Trick had ever said about her.

  “Can you please place him on the floor?”

  The Infernus simply let go of the man, and she lurched forward to catch him before he slammed face-first onto the carpet. She glared at the demon. “Carefully next time.”

  A mucusy snort was her only reply.

  “You have women doing medical work for you?” Incredulity laced Kerrington’s voice.

  The man smelled strongly of antiseptic and blood. Cranium feels spongy—probably a depressed fracture on the parietal bone.

  “I have women do all kinds of things for me,” Trick murmured.

  Eww.

  At least she knew that Dru only murdered for him.

  Wings are almost destroyed. All feathers have been removed. Tendons and sinews exposed, bone exposed, not broken. She didn’t know the medical terms for angel-wing bones. Birds had radii and ulnas—but they didn’t have arms.

  The demon shook his head. “Women don’t do the dirty work. That’s men’s business.”

  Spine may have been damaged, too difficult to tell without an X-ray. She moved on to his arms and legs. Superior and inferior extremities intact.

  “I am not from your archaic background. So deal.” Trick shrugged.

  “I need to roll him on his side, so I can check his anterior,” Peony interrupted. Blank stares met her request. “I need to check his front,” she clarified, her voice firm and strong. Confident. It was the kind of tone she used to use when working in the hospital; people would react to her authority without even realizing it.

  The second demon squatted next to her, the faint scent of roses reaching her.

  How strange.

  “We need to do this gently,” she warned him. “I don’t want to damage his wings more than they are already.”

  A nod. “Okay.”

  Together they rolled him into something resembling the recovery position, and she began checking his vitals without any of her equipment. Would have been nice if he’d told me I was going to be doing this. She could have at least brought her blood pressure cuff and stethoscope.

  From what she could determine, his pulse was erratic; he’d had someone cut into his stomach, and his head had been shaved roughly, leaving smears of blood over his fractured skull. She stood.

  “I don’t know much about angelic recuperative powers, but if he was a human, he’d be dead,” Peony said.

  “What did you find?” Trick asked.

  Remember to use plain English, she told herself. Trick got impatient with ‘medical jargon’. “Broken skull, possible broken spine, wings are destroyed, someone’s cut him open—did you take any organs?” She directed the last at the gravel-voiced Infernus.

  “No comment.”

  She focused on Trick. “Organs have been harvested. It’s lucky he’s still breathing.”

  “So, you want me to buy a half-dead angel with limited hope of recovery?” Trick asked the demons.

  “She didn’t say that it wouldn’t recover.”

  “I give about a ten percent chance,” Peony said. “Since he hasn’t started regenerating on his own, he will need all the help he can get.”

  And she hoped she was the one to give it.

  Chapter 4

  If Trick doesn’t buy this guy, he’s doomed.

  She’d learned that there weren’t too many demon-healers out there—most demons preferred to kill—and while the man’s angel-buddies could probably help him, she seriously doubted that the Infernus would be willing to sell him back to Heaven. They’d be signing their own death warrants; the angels would slaughter whoever approached them, then take their buddy back, anyway.

  “Ten percent chance of survival?” Trick tsked as he stared down his nose at the broken angel. “That also dramatically lowers the price.”

  Kerrington spluttered. “It’s an angel. It will live. And they’re rare.”

  “So, you didn’t pluck every feather from his body? And you didn’t harvest any organs?” Or beat him to within an inch of his life?” Peony’s voice was surprisingly calm, despite the churning in her gut.

  She’d been living with demons for a decade now, and she still didn’t understand the random viciousness or the brutality of their world. Sure, she’d grown up in the Human Realm and had trained as a doctor; she’d seen violence, but the nature of it was different in Hell. And she’d only been to Tartarus—she could only imagine what it was like in the realms ruled by Satan and Lucifer.

  The huge demon stared at her. “Angels regenerate. It’s a fact. This,” he waved a hand at the prone male, “is nothing.”

  “Then why hasn’t he started to heal yet, if they regenerate so well?”

  The demon’s black eyes narrowed. “I don’t know.”

  “Then you don’t know for sure that he will heal on his own, without medical intervention?”

  Kerrington gritted his teeth. “No.”

  Then without her help—or that of another medical professional—the angel was a dead man. And she didn’t want to see him die: she hated losing any of her patients, despite the fact that the majority of them were hired killers.

  Do no harm.

  Funny, how the Hippocratic Oath nor Lasagna’s Oath—the new, updated version—didn’t mention that line at all, but it had formed part of her training for as long as she could remember. Her mother had been especially strict on the concept.

  “This is going to seriously affect your asking price,” Trick said.

  Peony hadn’t pointed out the medical facts just so that he could buy the angel more cheaply, but Trick was a business man, and to him, this angel’s life was nothing more than a business transaction.

  We’re all chess pieces to him.

  Hell, he’d probably value a nice chess set more.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he bought the angel so she could save him.

  “When its wings grow back, you will have all the feathers you want.” Kerrington’s black eyes glinted.

  Trick crossed his arms over his chest. “Angel wings lose their potency in Hell. The longer an angel is in Hell, the less value its feathers hold. Everyone knows that.”

  Peony hadn’t known that.

  Kerrington’s jaw clenched. “They are still angel feathers.”

  “Worth far less than what you just harvested.”

  Peony fought to keep her face expressionless as her slave-master and the Infernus demon haggled. This was a man’s life they were talking about—and it meant less than nothing to either of them, except in commercial value.

  The angel groaned. Was he waking?

  Before Peony could move, the fallen man shot an arm out, gripping the second Infernus demon’s leg. Kerrington scowled, then kicked out.

  No.

  Without thinking, Peony jumped in the way of the blow, letting out an oomph when the huge booted foot contacted her shin, hard. Pain radiated up her leg, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning. She shifted
her weight to her right foot, easing some of the pressure off her injured limb.

  I’m going to struggle to walk after this.

  Sure, she healed fast, but she could already feel the lump forming on her shin.

  Imagine if that blow had landed on the angel...

  “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” Trick’s voice sliced through the room.

  He closed on Kerrington, stopping barely a foot from the huge demon and facing off against him. For a split second, she worried about what would happen, then realized that Trick and the demon were evenly matched, physically anyway. She’d always thought of her boss as elegant and lithe, but in reality, he was as tall as the Infernus—minus the horns—and just as muscular under his suit.

  “The angel was waking up—”

  “You just touched my property.” Trick’s brown eyes burned.

  Oh. He’s talking about me.

  “She stepped in the way—”

  “You did not have permission to use force against one of my slaves. And you almost damaged my potential property, hindering its healing progress even more. I could cut your throat for the first offence alone.”

  Power built in the room, the magic a steady pulse against her skin.

  And it was coming from Trick.

  She hadn’t realized he was that powerful. I don’t even know what kind of demon he is. In fact, none of the Halcyon Guild knew what their master was. She figured the secret was a ploy on her boss’ part to keep people on their toes.

  For the first time, Kerrington’s meanness abated, and something like fear crept into his gaze.

  The second Infernus kicked the angel’s hand away and stepped back, distancing himself from both the angel and Peony.

  “If she hadn’t stepped in the way...”

  “Don’t blame my slave for your actions.”

  “But—”

  “You either sell me the angel now, or leave. It’s up to you.”

  “I can sell the angel elsewhere...”

  Trick leaned his hip against the desk. “Then do it.”

  Tense silence filled the room.

  Kerrington cursed. “I need the option of buying the angel back.”

  Trick’s dark-blond eyebrows rose. “You want me to buy a slave and then sell it back to you? Like I run a fucking a pawn shop?”