The Paradise Gate

Ch.8.1 A Devil's Minuet

A/N: Hello, loves! I'm trying something new: because of Wattpad reader preferences, I'm splitting chapters into smaller portions but posting all of the parts at the same time so that you're still getting a complete chunk of story. Please let me know if you think this is better/worse/if you're indifferent.

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Dalli reflexively threw her arms up over her head to fend off the glassine shower spraying across her bedchamber, too surprised even to cry out. Eyes screwed shut, she heard rather than saw the thumping landing of five sets of heavy boots on the wooden floor.

Before she could process what was happening, the wind was nearly knocked out of her, and her head snapped to the side as she was yanked bodily through the air in a leftward direction by a steel band around her midsection. Her eyes went wide at the motion and she caught a brief glimpse over the right side of her bed of the outline of broad shoulders, a man's cold eyes above a black mask, and something that flashed metallic.

Her direction of travel abruptly changed, and Dalli nearly bit through her tongue as she was suddenly thrust to the floor none-too-gently and shoved beneath her own bedframe. That steel band had been Lycinder's arm, she realized as she lay on her stomach, hair in a wild mess over and around her face with her nightdress ridden halfway up her thighs against the woodgrain. His handsome features were set in concentration as a silken fall of midnight hair preceded their brief appearance in the space between floor and bedstead.

"Stay there, mistress," he ordered, and then disappeared from her view.

Her confusion turning to fear as her brain finally processed that they were under attack, Dalli quickly scrambled beneath the middle of the bed where she'd be farthest from whatever was going on around it.

"Good evening," came the low sound of Lycinder's droll voice. "How kind of you to join us, but I'm afraid my mistress isn't accepting visitors at this hour."

"'The fuck is this?" demanded a nasty and unfamiliar voice Dalli had never before heard in her life. "'Ey didn't say nothin' about some freak dandy guard."

"Well, that's very rude," Lycinder replied, though Dalli was fairly certain the man hadn't been addressing him. "I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, but I am certain that's no language to employ in the presence of a lady."

Dalli's fists clenched and a spike of anxiety raced through her. She wished Lycinder would stop amusing himself and just do...whatever it was that he did... already.

"It don't matter. We just shrike 'im, too, and then charge 'em extra," another voice cut in, from the right and forward this time.

Lycinder clicked his tongue. "I'm afraid I'll have to object," he said, his melted caramel voice roughening to gravel around the last word.

Billowing like ink splashes across her field of view, Dalli saw those same shadows blooming that had gathered around his feet in the tower when she'd first been introduced to his claws, and she supposed those wickedly long black blades were making an encore appearance. Not to mention the tongues of tenebrous flame that must be swallowing his eventide eyes.

Her guesses were confirmed by a round of gasps and exclamations from the intruders.

"Nine hells! What is he?"

"We didn't sign up to deal with no sorcerer!"

Dalli maneuvered herself around and crawled carefully on her forearms until she could peek out from under the end of the bed if she laid her head flat to the floor. Lycinder stood, calm and proud, surrounded by a horseshoe of assassins dressed in black. Even Dalli could tell that was what they were since they all bristled with weaponry.