His tight embrace promised me he’d wipe this night from memory as soon as we were snuggled back in my bed in Erzgebirge.
“Fly fast, Uriel.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple and did just that, soaring straight through the wind and rain, higher and higher until he broke through the storm clouds. Until all that I could see was the glimmer of the canopy of stars far above us, all I could hear was the sound of his heartbeat where I pressed my cheek to his chest, and all I could feel was pure, untainted, soul-claiming love.
Epilogue
Uriel
Blindfolded, she spun in a circle, her arms raised out.
“Come find us,” said Maddie, the dark-haired girl who Xander treated like his own. Carowyn had taken to her as well after realizing she was a seraph like her.
Carowyn and Xander were spread out on a blanket beneath a tree, watching the children play their game. Well, the children and Nadya.
A tiny blonde girl darted close to Nadya, her giggles infectious to the others. Another passed close, a boy George had found not long ago alone on a street in London. Nadya swooped low and wrapped him in her arms, swinging him high, his legs flailing. All of them erupted into giggles, attacking her. She tumbled back, her laughter bubbling up as she flung off her blindfold and started tickling each one.
“What the hell is all this?” asked Dommiel, jogging over.
“Language,” warned Anya from her perch on a balcony above us.
“Baby, there’s a tickle war going on down here. I think we need reinforcements.”
Anya smirked and shook her head right before she leaped off the balcony and flew down to them with one flap of her sapphire wings. By the time she landed, Dommiel was being overrun by three larger boys, one clinging to his back like a monkey.
“Why do I always have to come to your rescue?” she asked, marching over to jump in.
“That’s a lovely sound, isn’t it?” asked George, coming up to stand next to me on the back terrace.
“Indeed,” I agreed.
“It’s more than lovely,” agreed Kat, sitting in a chair with her legs tucked up under her chin. “It feels like a miracle.”
“It’s been two months since the battle at Ivangorod,” added George. “I’m not sure we’ve had this much peace since…well, since it all began.”
It was true. Now that Vladek was dead and gone, the hordes were scattered and hiding. There hadn’t been reports of major problems and no reports of enslavement. High demons like Skaal were back to their fighting pits and party dens, but that wasn’t outlawed. They could steep themselves in sin to their demon hearts’ content as far as I cared. But they couldn’t harm the innocents. Many of the archangels like myself had taken up diplomatic rule alongside the high demons of the territories. Like Axel and I. Basically, he kept his kind from killing and enslaving humans and angelkind. In exchange, I didn’t kill or expel his kind back to hell.
Nadya had freed herself from the children and strolled toward me, when something happened that I hadn’t seen since the gates of heaven and hell had opened up.
“Oh my God,” said Kat, staring up.
George wandered behind her, bending and wrapping his arms across her chest while gazing up. “I knew we’d see it again someday. If we didn’t give up.”
Kat peered over her shoulder at her man with a look I’d seen Nadya give me a number of times. “You always knew best, darling.”
Rather than look up, I watched Nadya. Couldn’t keep my eyes off her, because the effect of sunshine breaking through the clouds and spilling over her sylphlike form in her flowy yellow-gold dress nearly stopped my heart. She froze in her tracks when she realized she was feeling rays of sun on her skin. Something none of us had felt for far too long. She tilted her face upward, the brightest smile spreading across her face. To say she was breathtaking was an understatement. She looked like a Fae queen or a sun goddess, her fair skin and hair radiating a gold halo around her face. An angel. She truly was my very own. Far more beautiful—inside and out—than any actual angel I’d ever met.
That reminded me of our late-night conversations about eternity. And what that meant for us. I’d offered her a piece of it, if she wanted. She’d said yes, that she didn’t want to be parted from me, and my whole world became brighter than before. But we hadn’t taken that final step. The beaming sun was a sign. It was time.
The children clapped like a magician had done the best trick of all. To see the sun after being mired in the gray gloom since the night of the Blood Moon when this had all started was certainly magic. But looking on the woman who’d saved me from myself, from drowning in the need for blood and revenge and replaced it with the need for light and love, that was true magic of the most enchanted kind.
Not even thinking, I met her on the lawn, wrapped my arms around her and flew upward, carrying us to the top terrace of Thornton Hall where sunbeams washed over the sitting area off the bedroom we used when visiting our friends here.
She arched a pretty brow and cupped my face. “I know you’re their stoic leader, but we can’t always be unsociable, Uriel.”
“I’m not unsociable. We’ve been enjoying their company for over an hour.”
“Barely an hour.”
“And we’ve been here for an entire day. Ms. Stegemann’s daughter will be getting tired of kitty-sitting Deimos for us. Time to get home.”
“Not after just one day. You’re trying to keep me all to yourself.”
“Is it that noticeable?”
She laughed, squeezing my heart with the most loving fist.
“Fine.” I shrugged. “We can rejoin them all for dinner.”
“What will we do until then?”
It was my turn to arch a brow. “I have some ideas.”
“Some?”
“All right,” I breathed out shakily, letting my hands skim down to her hips, pressing my thumbs into the dip of her pelvis. “Many, actually.”
“But the sun just appeared after heaven knows how long.” She laughed, tripling my heart rate. “We should enjoy it.”
“Oh, I plan to enjoy it.”
I walked her backward through the double-doors into our bedroom and left them open. Sunlight bathed the blue damask comforter where I pushed her down. She went willingly, holding her hands up when I gathered her skirts and pushed the dress right over her head. Making short work of her bra and panties, I marveled at the beauty of my angel. I’d forgotten the look of sunlight on skin. And on hers, it was a wonder. Dipping over the smooth alabaster, a silky feast for my eyes. And my lips. Her arms still raised, she watched me watch her. No shame. No modesty lingering in the fathomless blue of her eyes.
“Are you going to actually join me in this bed or just stare at me all day?”
I huffed out a breath, stripping down to nothing in seconds. She laughed when I launched onto the bed, but her laughter vanished when I lowered myself on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, relishing her softness beneath my hard body.
Skating my tongue down her throat to the hollow at the base, I sucked and whispered, “Nadya.” I pressed a kiss to the pulse of her heartbeat. “My sweet domina.”
She was my mistress. Of my soul. My heart. My world.
She moaned in response, arching her neck and pressing her breasts up. I took the message and lowered, flicking the taut nub before sucking the peak into my mouth. She squirmed, rocking her pelvis up. I wrapped a hand around her thigh and kept her in place as I licked my way across to her other perfectly tight nipple.
“So beautiful.”
Her writhing body punched me up another notch, kicking my carnal appetite for her into the stratosphere. Slipping my middle finger between her legs, I stroked down then up her slick sex, circling the swollen nub. Her legs fell wider, opening for me. I chuckled, coasting down her stomach, licking a path down, down, until I was tasti
ng heaven.
She cried out when my tongue stroked over her clit, then rocked up against my mouth. I opened wide and devoured her, feasting on her desire, her ecstasy, her need for me. Arching her spine off the bed, she was so close, so fast. This woman. Divinely sweet. Insanely sexy. I slid two fingers down the cleft of her lips, then pumped them inside her. Two strokes and she was tumbling over, crying out with throaty moans.
I groaned against her sex, giving her one last long stroke of my tongue. “God, woman.”
While her muscles still pulsed with her climax, I crawled up her body, wedged my pelvis between her legs and thrust inside her.
“Yes,” she crooned. Her eyes slit with pleasure. “More.” She clawed my back, pulling me down as she thrust up, latching her ankles onto the back of my thighs.
I kissed her hard, swallowing her moans, clutching one thigh as I angled deep. “Always more,” I murmured, stroking my tongue and cock harder, wishing I could melt into this beautiful creature, my sweet witch, my heavenly woman. I’d never have enough. Not if we lived for a thousand years. And I wanted to live that long with her. Longer even. “Are you ready?”
Pumping slower, I let her come to the realization of what was about to happen.
“Are you sure it won’t hurt you?” she asked, concern in her eyes.
“No, love. Not me.” I stroked deep. Her eyes rolled back. “But it may sting you. Like any birth, there is pain.”
“I’m ready.” She nodded, cupping my face with her hands, squeezing her thighs against my hips.
Taking her mouth, I nipped twice, then licked inside, sliding over her tongue with sensual softness before I whispered the old words of making, of giving. I poured myself into her, pushing a burning force straight down her throat. The lash of archangel power pulsed from my chest to hers, the pleasure-pain sending me over the edge.
Pumping once more, I held myself deep, spilling inside her. It didn’t feel like I was giving her long-life. It felt like she was stealing my soul, her own climax milking me, taking all that I had. I gave it gladly. I’d give her everything.
Her arms and legs wrapped farther around me, then she pulled my face into her neck, shuddering at the potent energy lighting us both up with a golden halo, pulsing between us like one heartbeat. Combined with the sunlight still spilling through the glass doors, the sensation was euphoric. This was my paradise. My heaven on earth.
I heard her heartbeat slow against my chest, slur to nothing before the power of making pulsed it back to life, lighting her up from the inside. Her skin glowed as my injection from the cosmos filtered through her veins, as she became one of my own kind.
“My God, Uriel.”
“No,” I murmured against her cheek, sweeping a gentle kiss. “Just an angel.”
She blew out a breath and a belated laugh. “Not funny,” she finally said, panting. “I feel…”
Peering into her eyes, I caught the emotion welling up in her glassy gaze. “I know.” I pressed my mouth to hers, licking softly, sweetly, tasting forever on her lips. “I feel it, too, Nadya.”
She combed my long hair away from my face and cleared her throat. “I can’t imagine what might’ve happened if Dommiel and Anya hadn’t brought you to my cottage that night. Back then, I was so afraid of you.”
I smiled. “I’m still afraid of you.”
“What?” She searched my expression, not finding the answer. Smiling, she asked, “Why?”
“Once upon a time, I lived to save the world from evil. Not one creature from hell could instill an ounce of fear in me. Then I met you”—a sweep against her pink, kiss-swollen lips—“and the thought of not having you by my side rips me apart more than any demon spawn ever could.”
She stared at me for a full minute before raising her hand to flutter her fingertips across my lips, then she combed her fingers into my hair, pushing it aside so she could see my face, as she so often did.
“And now you can let go of that fear.” She followed the movement of her hand as she tucked one wayward lock behind my ear. “Just like you washed away my pain, Uriel. I want to rid you of that fear. Because now,” she held out her hand, vibrating with a low glow of the otherworld power I’d given her, “I won’t be going anywhere. Not without you.”
I pulled out of her and rolled over, hauling her against my body. Completely content, we stared out at the lowering sun. Yes, the first sunset in what felt like ages. The world wasn’t swamped with as much gray as it was. Sure, there would be demon uprisings. There always were. There always would be. Then we’d be there to beat them back into the darkness again. None of it filled me with dread anymore. The world could turn and turn and do its worst to destroy itself, but none of it mattered. Not in this pocket of sunlight where I held my lover in my arms. My love in my arms.
“No matter what happens from here, Uriel. Know that I love you.”
“Yes, love. No matter what.”
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Acknowledgments
Thank you once more to the lovely Jasmin Stegemann for helping me land on the perfect locations for the fighting pits. Setting was crucial to this story. Also, without you, my German native friend, Axel’s crew wouldn’t be nearly as authentic. Thank you to my amazing beta readers, Christina Gwin and Angelique Hazen. I appreciate your time and honest feedback. It means more than you know. Finally, to my readers of this world—both Dominion and the Vessel Trilogy—it’s always bittersweet to come to the end of a series, but I’ve enjoyed every step of the way. It wouldn’t mean much without you to share these characters with—their struggles, their joy, their pain, their love, and yes, their happily-ever-afters. Above all, I appreciate your kind messages, your encouragement, and for joining me on this wild and wonderful journey. XO
About the Author
Juliette calls lush, moss-laden Louisiana home where the landscape curls into her imagination, creating mystical settings for her stories. She has a B.A. in creative writing from Louisiana State University, a M.Ed. in gifted education, and was privileged to study under the award-winning author Ernest J. Gaines in grad school. Her love of mythology, legends, and art serve as constant inspiration for her works. From the moment she read Jane Eyre as a teenager, she fell in love with the Gothic romance—brooding characters, mysterious settings, persevering heroines, and dark, sexy heroes. Even then, she not only longed to read more novels set in Gothic worlds, she wanted to create her own.
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