The Demon's Song - By Kendra Leigh Castle Page 0,76

watched, he sprang from the bed and took a running leap out the balcony doors and over the railing. If it had been anyone else, Sofia would have been terrified that she had a suicide on her hands. As it was, she just wondered what he’d flown off to get.

Five minutes later he was back, carrying what looked like a very nice acoustic guitar, black, the twin of the one the vampires had smashed.

“I got lucky,” Phenex said, looking in that moment like a young boy who’d gotten away with something. “This is where I got the last one. Looks like they still carry the model.”

Sofia eyed him. “Are you planning on returning it?”

He snorted. “No.” But when she just stared at him, he relented. “Hellfire. I’ll send them a check, Sofia. It won’t turn my wings white, but if it’ll make you happy…”

“It will,” she said, getting up from the bed. She went to him, took the guitar from his hand, and laid it gently down on the small couch in the sitting area. Phenex watched her, a bemused expression on his face.

“What are you doing?”

She gave him a wicked look of her own.

“You made me happy. Now it’s your turn.”

Chapter Twenty

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, just as the sky had begun to glow faintly with the promise of sunrise, Sofia opened her eyes to find Phenex gone.

She had a moment of pure panic, a sudden certainty that he’d left her here, alone, that he’d vanished someplace and she’d never see him again. Then she heard the sound, a strange and beautiful crooning that was like nothing she’d ever heard. It vibrated, crystalline, through the air, rising and falling, shimmering in a way she had never heard an instrument or voice do.

Sofia sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, then grabbed one of the robes that had been laid out for them. She put it on and tiptoed toward the balcony. It had to be Phenex…but it didn’t really sound like him, either. Only the emotion behind the song was the same.

When she finally stood where she could see him, her breath stilled in her throat.

She had seen the other Fallen in their other forms, whether shifting for her amusement or simply for expediency in going somewhere. But never Phenex. The mythical creature he was named for had remained hidden, despite her gentle prodding. Until now.

He was perched on the railing, a bird roughly the size of a peacock, with a long, luxuriant tail. But where the peacock was beautiful, Phenex made it look like nothing more than a pigeon. He was glorious, his feathers all the shades of flame, from bright siren red to darkest crimson, and all of it edged in hottest gold. Though it was dark, he glowed like fire itself, his light shifting and changing as he spread his wings to the night and the dawn. And he sang.

What poured from his throat was a song of such heartbreaking beauty that Sofia was weeping silently before she was even aware she was doing it. In that song, wild and gorgeous and strange, she heard every heartbreak, every hope that had belonged to him. She could hear loneliness and loss, and so much regret. It took her breath away.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, mesmerized, utterly silent. Phenex sang until she thought his heart would break—and any creature who could sing like this had a heart, no matter what he might say. And then, as the dawn began to paint the sky pink and gold above the ocean, his song changed.

As Phenex trumpeted his joy, Sofia realized that she wasn’t the only one who wanted to live in the sun.

He sent a final note ringing out across the water, then flapped his wings in a shower of flame until there was nothing of the bird left. Only the man without wings, almost human, staring out at the horizon.

Sofia hesitated. She’d always let him be when she’d heard him playing at night, but this felt different. Or maybe she just wanted it to be different. Either way, she slipped silently up behind him and slid her arms around his waist. He didn’t startle, just stood. He was actually sad, she realized. An emotion she had never felt from him before.

It had such depth that she felt it as her own.

“Why?” she asked softly, resting her cheek against his back. “Why would someone like you ever feel so