Coldest Fire (Dominion series)

by Juliette Cross

  Right when I thought I’d empty the contents of my stomach at my feet, a familiar current rippled in the air.

  “Well, fuck me,” said Yorick, which sounded strange in his lilting, civilized voice.

  I smiled. “Archangel power.”

  Uriel’s skin began to glow gold with the innate magic flooding through his veins. Garrote hissed, still holding onto his wire and squeezing tight, but his pale face reddened and pinched in pain. Uriel continued to say some words I couldn’t hear, his mouth moving swiftly through some old incantation that made him shine with a luminescent light.

  The crowd became silent. Even the orchestra had finished their choral piece, and the maestro hadn’t started another. He simply stood beneath the stage in the orchestra pit, watching the battle onstage.

  Gibbon snapped another picture, then stopped. Riveted. Uriel dropped his other blade, reached behind him, and grabbed hold of Garrote’s hair. Ducking low and lurching forward, he flipped the lanky demon onto his back and slipped the wire from around his own neck. Still holding it in his bloody hand, dripping onto the stage, Uriel had a knee on Garrote’s chest, the noose now around Garrote’s neck and his palm pressed to the demon’s forehead.

  His chanting grew louder. A stream of unintelligible words, had I even understood the language, spewed out in growing violence. The vibration of force rattled the chandeliers above us, tinkling as if an earthquake were readying to crack this place open.

  Then Uriel made a sharp movement with the hand holding the end of the wire, pulling taut at the same moment he stopped his chant and the vibration ceased with a clap of thunder. He stood with the severed head of Garrote in his hand, holding it up for the audience to see. I couldn’t help but glance at Gibbon who had his cell phone back up, probably videoing.

  Someone screamed below. The head flew over the audience, black blood spraying in a pinwheel arc before it landed on the lap of a demoness who scrambled to get away from it. Even from here, I could see the head was smoking, as was Garrote’s still body on the stage, burned from the inside with archangel magic.

  Without fanfare, Uriel walked over and picked up his blades, re-sheathed them at his biceps, then sprinted toward the audience, lifting into the air just as he leaped out over the orchestra pit. Another few screams and some demonic laughter at the gory finale to their show. I watched with my heart in my throat as Uriel beat his wings, coming straight for us. For me.

  He landed on the balcony ledge right in front of me, looking down at Yorick. I imagine he was looking down on him in more than one way if the fiery glint in his eyes told me anything. Blood dripped from the wound in his hand, landing with a tiny splat on the balcony railing. His gaze swiveled to me before he said in a raspier tone than his normal silky one.

  “Time to go, domina.”

  Another shiver traveled up my spine, but it wasn’t out of fear this time. I stood, turning to Yorick and his gawking followers.

  “Thank you for this opportunity, my lord,” I said with all the deference I could manage, because I wasn’t sure if the sharp-eyed look he was giving me now meant anger or interest. “Please relay to Skaal that we’ll be awaiting instructions for the next circuit.”

  Yorick stood, took my hand and bowed to kiss my knuckles. “My pleasure, darling.” He grinned at me, then winked at Uriel. “Thank you both for a most unforgettable night.”

  I nodded and started to walk down the aisle, but strong hands scooped me up from behind. I yelped as Uriel resettled me, one arm under my knees, the other behind my back, then he flew with me cradled in his arms above the crowd toward the balcony exit.

  “We could’ve just walked,” I said, noting his granite expression was harder than I’d ever seen it.

  “No. Not taking a chance that the bloodlust in the air won’t make some of these assholes break the house rules.”

  Yorick’s voice came over the speakers. “That will be difficult to top, ladies and demons, but let’s give it up for our beautiful burlesque girls, the Redlips.”

  I groaned, not even wanting to know if they were human or demon. I closed my eyes against Uriel’s sweaty chest. Two seconds later, he landed next to the exit, put me on my feet, and ushered me through with a hand on my back, the metal armor on the top curve of his wing clanking against the door.

  Blood still dripped from his hand and leg. “Are you—”

  “I’m fine. Move, domina.”

  He kept up the facade in case anyone overheard us. Even though we were pretending, the thought of me playing his domina stoked a nest of hot desire inside me. I felt the word spiral heat down between my legs. But he didn’t let me catch my breath, pushing me with increasing urgency down the stairs.

  There was only one couple out in the foyer, going after each other in a shadowed corner. I glanced away, thankful that Yorick’s burlesque show would keep the mob busy while we got the hell out of there. Uriel had an arm around my waist, practically carrying me toward the door, both of us hoping no one would try to stop us. I was actually shocked when no one did.

  He pushed open the doors, the cold night air a welcome feeling against my heated skin. A rumble of thunder above a canvas of low-hanging clouds reminded me once more why the world had been shrouded in gray since the Great War had begun. The clash of angels and demons always sparked the air with electricity, filling the atmosphere with otherworld power. This battle, even inside the concert hall, had gathered storm clouds. They matched the tempest in Uriel’s eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I tried to take his bloody hand, but he swatted mine away and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling us flush against each other.

  “Take us home, Nadya.”

  “You want me to—?”

  “Yes. You know how. Just picture it in your head. I’ve got you.”

  “I don’t mind the blood.” I glanced toward the hollow in his throat, unable to hold his piercing gaze. Then I whispered, “Hold me with both arms…please.”

  A pause. My pulse skittered faster. Then his other arm came around me, his bloodied hand pressing firmly at the center of my back, our bodies fully aligned.

  “I’ve got you, beautiful,” he whispered, jolting my eyes to his.

  The heat simmering there could melt the Arctic in seconds. I gripped his shoulders, the tunic drenched with sweat beneath.

  “I’ve got you, too.”

  Then I took us home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Uriel

  I thought maybe the fire in my blood was all from my need for vengeance, the restrained violence I’d been holding back perhaps leaking over into other aggressive thoughts, and the only one in my immediate vicinity to receive those thoughts was Nadya. But after three fights and three victorious wins in the ring, my blood only pumped harder, faster, arrowing down into my cock, screaming for relief.

  I knew myself well enough to realize this had nothing to do with simple lust or the need to relieve restrained energy. This had everything to do with her.

  She sifted us out into the middle of the field near her cottage. Circe whimpered from her spot in the tree line.

  “Oh.” She looked around. “We’re too far from—”

  My patience almost spent, I sifted us to the edge of my own wards and let her go. I needed some space from her body, from her beauty.

  “Hurry.” She walked ahead of me. “I’ll get my stitching needles. I have a balm that will keep it from infection.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re injured.” She scowled over her shoulder, which only made me smile.

  We stepped into her cottage. Deimos uncurled and stretched from the quilt on the chair he was curled up on, looked at us, stretched and arched his tiny back, then circled and curled up again. Nadya dropped her long coat then ran to her bedroom.

  “Come in here,” she shouted. “I can stitch it qui
ckly enough.”

  Blowing out a sigh, I followed her voice into her bedroom, noting the simplicity of the room and the sweet smells that reminded me of her. A warmth bloomed at the center of my chest.

  “I don’t need you to stitch it up. Trust me.”

  “What are you talking about?” She came out of the bathroom with a small leather bag in her hands and set it on the trunk at the end of the bed. “Sit.”

  “I can’t. I need to take off the armor first.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  The wounds had stopped bleeding, but there was a messy trail of blood down my leg and covering my right hand.

  Turning my back to her, I asked, “Can you unhook the latch at the top of the bar connecting the wing armor?”

  I knew she might be confused looking at the complex but ingenious design by Carowyn.

  “I don’t quite see…”

  With my left hand, I swept my long hair off the nape of my neck so she could see where the chest armor lapped over my shoulders and melded into a small plate that held latches for the wing armor.

  “There’s a lever for each wing. Press the release on each side of the bar holding it in place.”

  I tried to crouch lower, but it was difficult with my wings and the plated armor dragging on the floor. One of her delicate hands clasped the bare skin on the inside of my armor on the slope of my neck. I couldn’t stop the tremor of pleasure from her gentle hand on my skin.

  “I see it.”

  Click. The armor on my left wing sagged to the floor. Then she released the other one. I stepped away from the surprisingly lightweight steel, still happy to be free of it, and flexed my wings wide before folding them tight against my back.

  I wasn’t expecting the look on Nadya’s face when I turned. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked dumbstruck or afraid for some reason.

  “I’ve never—” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like I did tonight.”

  Slipping the armor up over my head, I set it on her floor and glanced down at my hand. He’d nearly cut it in half with his thin wire garrote. Fitting name, that last one. As for the others, they were nothing but a pile of muscle and meat. Yorick’s champions were little more than show ponies. Sure, they might’ve done well against other demons in the circuit. But he should’ve prepared more for me.

  “Surely you saw fighting when you were with Vladek.”

  I swallowed hard at the wince of pain that crossed her face. I didn’t want to remind her of him. I didn’t want to be reminded of him. Not here, in her home, in her bedroom. With us, alone.

  “Never like that,” she admitted, taking hold of my forearm and pushing me backward.

  I let her guide me, though I didn’t plan to have her play nurse. Still, it was nice to have someone tending to me. It was always me tending to others. Not the other way around.

  “I have blood spatter on my tunic. I don’t want to get your bed dirty.”

  She glanced down, seeing the black demon blood and splatter of my own red blood in the mix.

  “Oh. Here then.” She pulled a wooden chair from the corner and set it near the trunk where her kit was. “Sit here.”

  I did, enjoying her attention. Such an unfamiliar but wonderful feeling as she held my large hand in her small silky one.

  “My God, Uriel. It’s to the bone.”

  “It is,” I agreed, marking the perfection of her moon-pale skin. Sitting in this chair, she stood a few inches taller than my head, bringing my gaze to the graceful curve of her neck and the key-shaped locket she wore on a chain.

  “Why did you tell me not to stitch it?” she asked, reaching into her open bag and pulling out a vial of rose-colored liquid.

  “Because I can heal myself, Nadya.”

  Her hands froze where she held my damaged one again, palm up. She stared at me with those beautiful eyes, her expression fixing to one of determination.

  “Yes. Of course you can. You’re an archangel after all.” She laughed to herself.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. I was just so…surprised by tonight. I don’t know how I forgot. Maybe it’s because when I knew you before, you were always so…”

  She bit her lip and dropped my hand, toying with the cork of the vial.

  “Helpless,” I finished for her. “Yes, I know. But I won’t ever allow that to happen again.”

  She continued to fidget, refusing to look at me now. “How did they? I mean, how did Vladek capture you? You’re so powerful.” Her gaze lifted to mine, expression grave with wonder and disbelief.

  “Arrogance,” I replied.

  “What?”

  Heaving a sigh, I confessed to her what I’d told no one else.

  “I’d drifted deep into Vladek’s territory. Working alone, as I normally did. One night, I wandered into a tavern in Vladivostok. The area appeared to be more of a wasteland, angels and demons cavorting about. No order to the place. No humans to be seen, except those who’d become pets of a demon or two. I sauntered up to the bar and started asking questions, not giving a damn who heard me. The night before, I’d interrogated a demon and discovered Vladek’s henchmen liked to hunt this area to fill the dungeons of Ivangorod. I was eager and angry. Overly confident. So I followed the bartender, a skinny little demoness, to her storage room where she said she’d tell me everything I wanted to know away from the prying ears of the tavern.”

  “But she wasn’t really going to give you information, was she?”

  I shook my head, staring at where she held my hand, frozen and listening to me. “No. The second I walked through the door, a jolt of pain punched into my chest and knocked me unconscious. It was black magic. A trap to obliterate my power for a fleeting moment. I awoke to Vladek standing over me, grinning like the fucking fiend he was. I was bound, literally and magically. I could feel his dark essence pumping heavily through my veins, clamping a vise around my will. I noticed the bartender holding a syringe and realized Vladek had actually injected his own blood into me.”

  Nadya winced, then began tending to my hand again, pouring her elixir to cleanse it.

  “So yeah,” I added. “I let my own arrogance trap me. It’ll never happen again.”

  “I hope not,” she whispered, her eyes on my hand as she set the vial aside.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It’s a cleaning tonic.” She cleared her throat of some emotion, her voice lightening. “Everything is all natural plus a little of my own magic sealed in it. But I suppose you wouldn’t want that. Or need it, since you can heal yourself.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want it?”

  Her brow pinched together in confusion. “Because it holds witch magic.”

  “Is it black magic?”

  “No!” She shook her head, her blue hair sliding over the delicate slope of one shoulder. “Of course not. It’s my magic.”

  “Then I want it.”

  Even as I admitted the truth, my heart drummed in my chest at the panicky sensation of trusting a witch. I quelled those fears and held out my hand.

  Gingerly, she stepped forward, holding a dry rag in one palm, which was shaking. “Set your hand here.”

  I did, glancing down at the clean gash that opened my flesh down to the bone. She poured slowly, letting the potion seep down inside. There was no sting at all. I stared at her while she poured and dabbed, her locket swinging to one side of her collarbone while she worked. She smelled like winter and spring rolled together as one, like a night-blooming flower that preferred moonlight to the sun. I wanted to inhale every inch of her.

  Her pulse beat under the tender skin at the base of her throat. I wanted to pull off her high-necked and long-sleeved shirt, to bare her beautiful silken skin, and worship it with my mouth. Worship her.

  My, how I’d fallen so fast. Tho
usands of years in this world and no mortal or immortal had clawed inside of me like the lovely Nadya. Her fingers still trembled as she lightly tended to my injury, her potion soothing the angry wound. I could feel her magic, a light sweetness blowing away the ugly violence of the act that had created it.

  She moved to the wound on my thigh, her hands shaking more as she pressed a rag against my inner thigh to catch the overflow of the potion. Bending over, her hair slipped forward and lightly trailed above my bare knee. To think such a soft touch could pump blood so fast straight to my cock had me exhaling a ragged breath.

  Forcing myself to focus on other things, I closed my eyes and whispered the old words, pulling energy from the ether and sending it to my open wound. Clenching my fist as the flesh and skin mended with archangel magic, I called more power to me and sent it to the other injury. Within minutes, the subtle stinging sensation that rippled with the spell of making subsided.

  Opening my eyes, I found Nadya staring at my leg, then my hand. Her face was unreadable.

  “Are you afraid of me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “But you are afraid.”

  “Yes.” She set the vial aside again and cleaned all the excess blood on my hand and wrist.

  “Don’t be,” I assured her.

  She met my eyes then glanced down. “Those demons…they were no match for you. But next time, it’ll be harder. They’ll be ready.”

  I laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll kill every one of them.”

  She bit her lip again, trying to still her quivering lip, staring down. I lifted her chin with my free hand. The deep fear rooted in her eyes made my stomach roll over with nausea. She blinked back unshed tears. I combed my fingers into her hair, cupping her jaw.

  “I promise you. No harm will come to you or to me.” Unable to resist, I pulled her head down closer until her lips were nearly touching mine. “I promise.”