Demon Moon by Meljean Brook Read Free Book Online Page A

her cheek. “If it weren’t akin to cradle-robbing, I’d steal you away and ravish you so completely you’d never leave my arms.”
    Savi couldn’t stop her grin as her grandmother swatted his arm and protested his audacity, laughing. Even Nani was not immune to his looks and charm. After the tension and fear of their flight, this was exactly what she needed.
    But unfortunately, they couldn’t stay there. “I’m going to get ready,” Savi said. “Where are you taking me? Any dress code I should follow?”
    His assessing gaze swept from her bare feet to the tips of her hair. “Not a tattered housecoat.”
    And that easily, he declared her inadequate. Her mouth flattened, and she bit off her automatic reply. Nani did not approve of gaalis .
    â€œYou’re going out?” Dismay filled her grandmother’s voice, and Savi sighed.
    â€œI have to be seen, Nani, so that no one can say I was on that plane. No suitable boy is going to marry a girl who’s a terrorist.”
    She ignored the sharpening of Colin’s expression and waited for Nani’s reluctant nod before she headed for the bathroom.
    â€œSavi,” Colin said, and she glanced back over her shoulder. “Anything you put on will be appropriate.”
    â€œOnly because they won’t be looking at me anyway.”
    His delighted grin warmed the room—or her blood. It just wasn’t right for a man to be that beautiful. Even Guardians and demons who could shape-shift into ideal forms couldn’t equal Colin when he smiled.
    â€œThey will,” he said, “…after a while.”

    Colin angled the lamp, shining the light more fully onto the painting. His masterpiece, if he’d ever had one. But it had not been his brushstrokes, the color, nor the composition that made it beautiful: it was the subject.
    Caelum. The realm the Guardians made their home.
    Seven months before, only Guardians and their angel predecessors had ever seen Caelum. But when Lucifer had threatened Savitri’s life, Michael had teleported her to his temple in that realm, out of the demon’s reach. Several days later, the Doyen had taken Colin so that Lucifer would not discover Colin’s link to Chaos.
    Lilith had not been able to escape as easily: a symbol on her chest anchored her to Hell and prevented her being teleported to Caelum. Moments before Michael had taken Colin to Caelum, before she and Castleford had left to face Lucifer, Castleford had requested that Colin bring Caelum back to her, and the painting Colin had created filled one wall in Castleford’s living room.
    He’d chosen the prospect from outside the doors of Michael’s temple. It had been from that spot Colin had first seen the splendor of that realm; he didn’t know if he’d managed to capture the effect for Lilith, but it still overwhelmed him .
    He traced his fingers over the rough canvas, followed the curve of a spiraling tower in which the anterior edge of the lower spiral was the same as the posterior edge of the higher. What had Savitri said of the shape? He pondered for a moment. That it was the result of the Gestalt effect, he suddenly remembered; that they couldn’t truly see it and their minds completed the form with the most rational interpretation. He’d painted what he’d seen—but she was correct; there was no sense in such a structure.
    And she’d been as awestruck as he, naming most of Caelum’s forms irrational. Indeed, the spires seemed too tall and thin to hold their weight; the sky too blue and the sun too bright; the waters surrounding the city too still.
    How many times had she stopped him to point out a physical impossibility? How many times had he pulled her along to show her another sublime arrangement of shape and shades of white?
    She’d had to leave the day after Colin had opened the doors of the temple. He’d had two months; time given by Michael