Pitch chuckled, eyes sparkling. ‘Lucifer said I’ve been missing for three days.’
‘Four, and about seven hours and fifteen minutes. An eternity.’ The daemon’s bitter-sweetness was intoxicating. ‘One more, whilst your father isn’t watching.’
The kiss was a mess of Silas’s choked laughter and Pitch’s sputtered indignation. The prince landed a decent slap to his shoulder.
‘You bastard oaf.’
Silas grinned, no hint of a blush for he was certainly not embarrassed in the least. He turned on his heels to follow the teratism, the seven-league boots needing to add no extra spring to his step.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PITCH WATCHEDSilas move away from him. Even with the countless cuts upon that broad, muscular back, the terrible state of the ankou’s trousers and simply appalling muss of his hair, Mr Mercer made his balls ache and his pulse behave like a loon. Granted, Pitch’s incubus blood was famished, but he had given up using it as a convenient excuse to explain how topsy-turvy the ankou made him.
He turned back to Lucifer, despising the king for creating reason for the ankou to leave his side. Lucifer was still just standing there, staring into the carriage, flapping his hand at Scarlet on occasion, when the wisp got too close. Which was often.
‘By the gods you are an irritating creature. I just wish to see the Cultivation, that is all.’ That sent the wisp a little mad, darting in to try and snatch at the oiled strands of Lucifer’s hair. ‘Get out of the bleeding way, Crimson.’
Flames erupted from Lucifer’s fingertips. But no sooner had they appeared and Pitch retaliated with a lash of Dominion fire. He sent a maniacal tentacle snapping at Lucifer’s chest plate, with its questionable etching of goat horns, and pushed a whoop from the king, making him stagger away from the door.
‘Their name is Scarlet.’ Pitch felt calm, but in the way of the storm, right before it unleashed itself upon the countryside. ‘Don’t touch the wisp. Don’t touch the simurgh. And go near the ankou again at your peril. You have put a lot of decent people here in jeopardy with your flip-flopping decisions, and though I thank you for deciding not to kill me, and aiding us in leaving the cockaigne, I’m fully aware it was you who made it such a dangerous place to begin with. And who is to say that you’ll not change your mind again about relieving Arcadia of a prince. ’
‘You tell ‘im, lad.’ Tyvain had not followed after Silas, but had rather continued to huddle half-hidden behind the gravestone.
‘Why are you here?’ Pitch said, frustrated that the soothsayer was not with the others, that is to say, somewhere safer than near the king.
‘Fancied a show. And I don’t trust old Reginald there, far as I could kick ‘im. Thought I’d stay, and be ready to scream me head off, should he decide ‘e’s killin’ ya after all.’
Pitch blinked, taken aback. He’d rather thought the soothsayer despised him. ‘Oh,…well…he won’t be killing me.’
‘You are very sure of yourself, Vassago.’ Lucifer’s taunt had Pitch loosing his carefully cultivated air of calm.
‘Do you know what, I’ve had enough of being threatened with death, especially from someone with a blasted goat on their chest.’
Lucifer scowled down at his armour. ‘It was a damned horse when I last looked. Bloody thing keeps changing.’
‘I’ve seen more than one painting in the purebred world that would suggest the goat perfectly apt, the horns in particular, for the devil himself.’ He knew the king despised how his name and image had been distorted and mangled in human myth. Which made goading him about it now perfectly satisfying. ‘I am not afraid of you, as they are, Lucifer. Less so now than I ever was.’ Pitch stepped towards the carriage, where Phillipa looked decidedly uncomfortable, with half her body hidden within the carriage as she tried to keep out of Lucifer’s way. ‘If one more person tries to cut me open, whip me to a pulp, or lay so much as one finger upon me when I’ve made it very clear I want them to piss off, then so help me, not even Silas will be able to talk me down. I shall raze you all, and not even your ashes shall remain.’
Lucifer, Phillipa and even Scarlet stared at him.
‘That is a very odd way of thanking me for extricating you from the cockaigne.’
Pitch took a moment to hold his calm before he spoke again. ‘If you decide that you wish you had not done so after all, just know that my flame is every bit as powerful as it once was. The Beserker Prince has not yet died, no matter how many wish for it.’
The king watched him intently. ‘You have no idea how many times that is whatIwished for, after Seraphiel fell.’
‘I suspect the number runs high. And I count myself among those making such a wish.’ Pitch’s ire lost some of its heat. ‘But now I wonder if carrying the burden of the angel’s death is not just another play in this sordid game.’ He kept close watch on the king as he spoke. ‘Gabriel claimed Enoch was involved in Seraphiel’s death, that the blame did not lie solely on me.’
Lucifer betrayed no discernible reaction. His cold grey eyes devoid of flame, of life. But he took so very long to reply. ‘Are you so desperate to escape responsibility you’d believe that traitor?’
But there was no conviction there. No righteous indignation so typical of Lucifer.
‘My gods, it was not me.’ Pitch’s flame might burn true to itself once more but he’d never felt so cold. He had loathed himself for what he’d done, even after knowing what had been done to him in return. That day on the cliff had shaped him in such painful ways. Learning he was innocent, of that at least, was equally as agonising.
‘Do not exonerate yourself so quickly,’ Lucifer said. ‘You had every intention of destroying the angel that day, I saw myself how the beserker rage had taken you. And you did harm him, gravely.’ He paused, hands clenched tight. ‘But you were not the only mad creature upon the cliffs that day. Seraphiel had lost his way.’
Pitch had to step up to the stonewall to brace himself, the world spinning. ‘Sweet merciful gods…he was put down. Was it you?’ He shook his head at his own question. Lucifer could no sooner kill the angel than Pitch could harm Silas. ‘Enoch…he did this.’
‘The wherefores do not matter.’
