by Lana Sky
“How?” I whispered. “Doesn’t yours…help you somehow?”
He nodded. “It’s more than just enchanted by petty magic. It contains my blood. When you wore it, I could sense you even while halfway across the world. And while I wear it, I can control the urge to feed.”
I swallowed hard as my thoughts spun, replaying all of the times he’d forsaken the necklace around me. Namely the night he returned when, by his own admission, he nearly killed me.
“We both know how hunger can affect you,” Yulia had told him during a hazy conversation I barely remembered. “I should have talked you out of ever giving up that stupid amulet in the first place…”
“Mero never relied on his totem the same way,” Dublin continued. “He spoke of a future. Of a life beyond this curse we’d been stricken with. The fool even mused of children born mortal. The only price would be his soul. His eternity. While he could never die, his seed would grow, and spread, and prosper. It was his dream. But Raphael was not pleased.”
He turned, starting to pace. I doubted he was even speaking to me anymore. No, this tale ripped from his soul unabated was for his benefit alone.
“He considered it a betrayal, and in my selfish, callous addiction, I let myself believe it. Gratitude toward my old friend for showing me the light of redemption became hate. How dare he believe that we could change? How dare he threaten the world we had spent countless years creating?” He demanded the question of no one, his face upturned skyward. “Blinded with rage, I hunted him down, finding him in the Americas. I killed his lover, slitting her throat right before his eyes. He would see reason then—or so I convinced myself. He would surely realize it. Chasing happiness, and mortality and pointless joy was futile. We were Gods among men, how dare he forsake that?
“But I quickly realized that there are no gods. No Heaven. No Hell. Just pain and redemption. And as I watched Mero mourn for a woman whose life was but a speck of dust in the stream of time, I realized that my grip on power was just as futile as his lust for freedom. Neither path would lead to salvation. Just destruction.”
He turned to me, running his finger across my throat. “In his grief, my old friend found a mortal to corrupt to his will.”
“James,” I whispered. My mysterious ancestor.
“Yes. I’m sure Mero spun his aim as some grand crusade against evil, but that was merely a lie. He wanted a bloodline to poison. A fertile bit of soil within which to plant his revenge. Yet I didn’t want to fight that war with him. Call me a coward, but I alas, I was tired…”
He bowed his head, his eyes downcast. “So I went to Raphael. I traded my time in exchange for his avoidance of the Grayne. I let Mero plot in obscurity, telling myself that his promises of revenge were nothing more than fantasies. And I still believe that.” He turned to me again, an eyebrow raised. “Do you want to know why? Because if my affections were the result of some twisted curse, I imagine I’d be easily wooed by a creature like your sister. I’d succumb with no resistance, hypnotized. But you…”
Step by step, he advanced on me and there was no escape. “I resist you, and you tempt me further. There is no mindless surrender. You claw your way through me like poison. There is no ease with you. I’m tormented. In lust, you torment. In pain, you torment. In happiness even…you torment me.”
He trailed his lips across my forehead, lingering there. “I am the soul at your discretion. No curse could inspire that. You claimed Saskia told you I thought of your sister? How could I not? Let’s say she is missing. That Mero has her. That he is using her as a pawn to lure you to him, knowing you would never abandon her. Killing her without your knowledge would easily solve the threat she poses to you. And yet…” He sighed and withdrew. “I know you would never forgive me if I took her life. So I haven’t. He knows as much. I am sure of it. He knows exactly how to win this game.”
My breath caught. I couldn’t avoid asking, “Do you know where she is?”
“I suspect she’s in hiding,” he said. “And not only from me.”
“Oh?” Fear gnawed at my stomach. I’d been able to ignore it until now—but as if conjured by his mere mentioning, weeks of pain descended. My sister. God, I wanted to face her. Demand my own answers. See her face.
Did she ever love me?
“Well, you’d think she could send me a letter, or a phone call, or even a goddamn homing pigeon just to let me know that she was still alive.”
“Would that change anything if she had?”
“It would certainly make it easier to hate her,” I blurted. Only he could do this to me—drag out the truths I wasn’t even aware of myself. I eyed the rose in my grasp, ripped a petal from the beautiful mass, and watched it dance in the still air. “As it stands, she can’t even bother to send me so much as a postcard.”
Something in his silence made me look up, but for once, he didn’t seem willing to meet my gaze.
“You wouldn’t keep her from me,” I insisted. Why did I sound so damn terrified? Georgie’s abandoning me was one thing. But if he had purposefully led me to believe…
“Here.” He reached into his pocket. “I found this in your crypt. I suspect it had been there for at least a few weeks before then.”
I froze as he shoved something into my hand. It was small, soft. A crumpled piece of paper. Written on it was a simple message scrawled in painfully familiar handwriting.
Elles. I wish I could smile in that scrunched-up way I used to back in the days I could easily charm you after stealing one of your biscuits. I understand that this is different. I’m trying to find my own way to answer your questions. But remember what Mother always said—above all, blood remains. Remember that and you will always be able to find me. — Georgie.
God, it was the exact thing she’d say at a time like this. Clueless, mocking, and coy. Heat burned behind my eyes, impossible to fight back.
“Where…” The answer came to me before the words finished leaving my throat. The urn. Telltale signs of dust coated the edges of the paper.
He’d stolen it, perhaps that very day I’d mentioned our hiding place.
Teeth bared, I whirled on him, “I should kill you for this. Were there more?”
“No,” he admitted. “But if there were, I would have burned them.”
A scream of frustration left me hollow. When that wasn’t enough, I found myself pacing in a circle, tearing my hands through my hair. It still wasn’t enough. I had to hit him, swiping my nails at his flawless features. “I hate you!”
“You should,” he agreed, not flinching so much as an eyebrow in the face of my assault. Without even leaving a mark, my fingers glanced harmlessly off his flesh. “Because if she proves to be a threat to you, I’ll do far worse than that.”
The veracity of the promise drained me of rage entirely. I just felt numb, watching the hint of a monster lurk beneath his callous façade. “You had no right—”
“I don’t?” In a motion so effortless that I felt it rather than saw it, he snatched up my wrist, yanking me so close that my lips met the skin of his throat. Against my scalp, he murmured, “I don’t have a right to be concerned when your sister consorts with a band of cultists who want you dead? I don’t have a right?”
My skin stung beneath the venom in his tone. I’d never heard him quite this cold—passionless and passionate at the same time.
“Do you have any idea—” Within seconds, he had me backed against the stone wall enclosing the garden. When I dared to meet them, his eyes were midnight, flashing with rage. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done—what I had to bargain—to even bring you here? Time! More than you can ever imagine!”
He was shouting. Smoldering with rage, he alone made the sun seem powerless, and the world became gray with shadow.
“Do you have any idea what I’d do to anyone who threatened you? I won’t apologize for any of it. So do not expect me to. And do you want to know why?” His mouth was against my hair, his words a low, mocking hum.
“I sho
uld never forgive you for this.” I’d felt compelled to say it. To mean it, even as the words broke off in a gasp when his lips met the side of my throat. “Never… Not even if you beg.”
“I never beg.” The promise taunted me as he sank to his knees. In front of me. Right there in broad daylight. Swift fingers wrenched up the hem of my dress. His head darted beneath it, and then…
Slow, deliberate pulses of his thumb nudged my legs apart and a moan ripped from my throat, echoing on the secluded silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, throwing my head back against the stone. Neither action helped reduce the insanity of what was happening.
“Stop!” I wanted to cling to my anger. I tried to.
But a brush of his touch against my skin disrupted my senses. Perhaps he had been right all along? I was delirious.
“I believe we have concluded this discussion,” he murmured against my inner thigh. “I promise to avail myself to your rage at a later time. But now… You were beyond me for days. I believe I am due some kind of recompense.”
Recompense?
“But Georgie is your ideal,” I hissed even as my body remained rigid, at his mercy. “And it’s not like you’re my type, either.”
As my thoughts scattered, they turned to what my pride considered his worst offense, in addition to lying and scheming. Insulting my apparent appeal.
“You’re too bold.” As if to prove it, what felt like his lips grazed the side of my hip, making my train of thought sputter and nearly derail. “Too cold. Mean. C-Cocky—”
“Those sound like defining attributes to me.” As he spoke, he did something with his hands that stole my breath. Soft, dangerous fingertips. Rough, sinful heat.
I found myself gasping for air. “You’re too blond,” I breathed. “I prefer brunettes—”
“Like that man you dined with?”
I heard the question as if he’d spoken to me through a tube.
“What was his name again?”
“Hmph?” My brain was too busy detaching from my skull to keep up, floating.
“Gabriel something,” he recalled. Muscle and nerves melted. The vibrations of his voice dangerously enhanced the slow, steady pressure building between my legs.
I wanted to correct him. But then his lips slid lower, too low, and I panicked, desperate for ammunition.
“Oh, him… He was charming. A gentleman. The usual list of everything you aren’t—”
He went too low. My back bowed, nails scraping against the stone on either side of me for any hint of stability. In response, he laughed, really laughed, and it was sin. Evil. Devastating. My spine turned to putty. Rudderless, I had to brace one hand against his skull, fisting my fingers through his hair.
“The man shrouds himself in an unusual amount of mystic,” he admitted. “I do suspect he has ties to the mob. Or that he’s secretly a crossdresser given his rather feminine aesthetic. I daresay you dodged a bullet.”
“You actually stalked him?” Alarm countered pleasure. Mr. Lanic may have been a money-hungry grifter, but mere greed didn’t warrant the wrath of Dublin Helos.
“I nearly killed him. Or just maimed, perhaps.” His mouth withdrew just enough to make it easier to breathe again. “Alas, a sudden intrusion into my private sanctum by a madwoman made me rethink that plan.”
Had I been? A madwoman?
Cool hands brushed my neck before I could decide, seizing the collar of my dress. When my eyes opened, I found Dublin on his feet again. With little care, he tugged on the silk in his grasp, tearing it right down the middle. He was intent on guiding my arms from the sleeves so that the material could fall at my feet. I barely registered then that I was naked in broad daylight. That he was quickly removing my panties as well. That his touch became more possessive by the second.
Hungrier.
But then he entered me in a single thrust and the world fell away. Hate disappeared. All that remained was selfish, desperate, grappling need. I lunged against him, seeking only one thing. He gave it to me. He took it from me—screams, moans, repeated whimpers of his name.
Guided by his corrupting touch, I floated to heaven and crashed to Earth while the sky darkened above me.
Deception
Peace could be more insidious than poison, stealing into a breathless silence with no warning. No escape. I would never be able to erase this moment or deny the emotions sowed with every breath spent lying naked beneath the stars—even if the person holding me in his arms contained a million secrets unwilling to be shared.
I was content.
Though I should have been worried that, any minute, someone might intrude upon our hidden space and find us. Dublin didn’t seem concerned by the prospect, either. His only movement was to rake his fingers through my hair and guide me to face him.
“Drink.” His bleeding wrist found my mouth before I even had the chance to question.
I obeyed, lapping obediently at my “meal” while my stomach churned for more. When I finally came up for air, he was already on his feet, still brazenly naked. His skin gleamed silver in the moonlight, enhancing the muscles rippling in his back as he retrieved our clothing from near the bench.
After observing the ruined state of my dress, he tossed me his shirt instead. “Put it on.”
The soft fabric smelled like him. Like ice. Like winter.
“I still don’t forgive you for lying about Georgie.” I felt the need to tell him that even as he approached me and crouched to slip my shoes on.
Without a word, he took my hand and led the way into the dark until we exited from the door we’d entered through.
The corridors remained empty, though I swore the shadows flickered, betraying unseen figures lurking in our wake. Spectators, I suspected, spying in silence as the powerful Cael paraded his little mortal prize right past their noses. If Dublin sensed them as well, his expression didn’t reveal as much. Serving as my stone-faced guide, he steered me through the hostile elegance. It was only as we entered the chilling interior of the bedroom that he spoke again.
“What would it take, should I be inclined to return to your good graces?” he wondered as I crossed to the bed.
I looked over my shoulder and found him watching me, stroking his chin in serious contemplation. As our gazes met, his tongue flicked between his lips and I choked. Something told me he enjoyed my anger far more than he should have—namely the possibilities that said “redemption” might present to his benefit.
It was surprisingly easy to come up with something nonetheless. “You could let me string you up by your toes and heed my every command and even then…I’d only consider it.”
“We can add that as leverage,” he decided. Suddenly serious, he averted his gaze and withdrew something from his pocket. Whatever it was, he kept it concealed between his fingers. “I propose another bargain—Raphael insists that no mortal knows the location of his precious little sanctum, and I do believe we have overstayed our welcome.” He grimaced and opened his hand, revealing the small vial. A dark liquid glinted within as he held it up to the firelight, a deeper scarlet than even his blood. “Getting you out of here without catching his notice will require some drastic measures.”
I smoothed my fingers over the front of his borrowed shirt, drawing it tighter around myself. “Like what?”
“Smuggling,” Dmitri prompted, uninvited.
I spun around and found him near the door, leaning against the gilded frame. Just for how long had he been there, watching? His smug grin revealed no answer. “Raphael will not willingly allow you to leave. Especially not now.” His gaze drifted down to my belly. “Not when you present an untapped well of time belonging to his most favorite of toys. So we must slow your heartbeat, and then act quickly before he and his spies notice the silence.” He pointedly tapped his earlobe as if for emphasis. “The drug will help, but it is not infallible. Luckily, I mentioned how convenient it might be if we could disguise you beneath enchanted fabric designed to suppress the stench of your charming mortality. Not
even Raphael would be able to track us in time.”
“Enough games. Is she here?” Dublin demanded, turning to him.
Dmitri shrugged. “I think I heard someone screaming in French near the grand foyer. You must be such a lax master for her to rage so indignantly at being summoned. I, on the other hand, always kept her disciplined—”
“And you remember your boundary,” Dublin warned in a tone so biting that I flinched. “You so much as look at her. Touch her. Think of her and I swear I will cut you down where you stand.”
“Hmph.” Dmitri pursed his lips, but the bravado was purely for show. The pointed glance he shot Dublin’s fingers revealed just how seriously he took the threat. “I suppose. But we really should be hurrying this mad scheme along. Time is of the essence. Especially if you still plan to hunt down that devious little witch.”
“Eleanor,” Dublin returned his attention to me and captured my chin in his free hand. “I need you to drink this.” He nodded to the vial in his grasp. “It’s a mild sedative, but it will render you unconscious. Just long enough for me to get you somewhere safe. It won’t harm you,” he insisted. “And this way, I can arrange our…escape may be too dramatic a word. Let’s call it, fashionable departure.”
Warily, I took the flask. One inhale of the liquid contained within and I forgot my doubt. It smelled like him—spice, ice and winter. After a hesitant sip revealed nothing alarming, I downed it entirely. Before I’d even finished swallowing the last drop, the flask fell from my grip.
I staggered, too sluggish to catch it. My eyelids were heavy as well, my body weighed down.
And before I knew it, I fell into oblivion.
She who Dares to Question…
Reality reasserted its presence with the aid of a million unnerving sounds. Wood creaking. Fabric swishing. A man pointedly clearing his throat.
“The drug should have worn off an hour ago,” he remarked, sounding somewhere between bored and concerned. “So either you’re ignoring my attempts to wake you or you’re really in mortal peril and require some lifesaving remedy. Either way, your lover will threaten to kill me if you don’t show signs of life soon.”
