by Zoë Archer
“Cass. My fearless lady.”
He tipped her head back and kissed her deeply. She wasn’t certain if he trembled, or she did, or if they both shook. It didn’t matter. They were here together and the sensation of each being held by the other overrode all delineations of self.
Vicious water monsters. Swarming bees. Murderous Heirs. None of that shook her as profoundly, as completely, as this man. Her warrior. Her lover. Hers.
Chapter Nine
She felt herself suspended in a dream, and yet she never felt more alive, more awake, than she was at that moment. As she and Sam continued riding on toward the sorcerer Voisin, her mind drifted miles back to the glade. It had been a pleasant patch of sun-dappled grass; it became a place of vengeance, a proving ground.
Both she and Sam had emerged safely. The Source rested in her pocket, and soon, no one would be able to exploit or misuse it again. Her second mission for the Blades of the Rose was almost complete.
With that nearing goal, resolution took hold.
They cantered down a lonely road into increasingly isolated stretches of country. Voisin had selected for himself a place of seclusion, far from railroad lines, and, in truth, other human habitation. Tall trees lined the road—more of a slight depression in the earth than a road—and the setting sun threw a veil of purple shadow across the land. Night would follow soon.
Cassandra pulled up on the reins of her horse, slowing. Sam, with a puzzled frown, did the same.
“What is it?” He looked around, immediately on alert. “More Heirs?”
She shook her head. Saying nothing, she guided her horse off the road, into the dense forest. Trusting Sam to follow her.
He did. Almost as if he understood what she wanted, what she meant to do. Energy thrummed through her body as she picked her way through the woods and heard Sam behind her. She did not know precisely where she was going, only that she would know her destination when she reached it.
Instinct told her when and where to dismount. Somewhere deep in the forest. A trickling stream chimed nearby. Soft bracken covered the ground. She tied her horse to a sapling and waited as Sam did the same. Her heart raced, its pace matching in intensity how she’d felt during the battle with the Heirs.
This wasn’t battle, but the stakes were just as high.
Sam finished tethering his horse and unslinging his sword from his back, then turned to face her. Almost cautious—such a contrast from the bold warrior he’d been less than an hour earlier. Yet something about her caused him to hesitate, as if he doubted the reception he would receive.
She let her eyes move over him in a bold perusal. No dissembling. She wanted him, and let her face show this truth.
Registering this, he strode to her with an expression of dark hunger. She saw that his numerous wounds were repaired, with only a few faint lines indicating where they had been. His clothes, however, hadn’t the same power. They hung on him in tatters, but it provided her with glimpses of his skin, his sculpted muscles that she wanted to touch and lick and learn as intimately as she knew her own self.
They met in a devastating kiss, both ferocious and tender. His hands journeyed all over her back, then lower, cupping the curves of her arse and hauling her close to him. She let her own hands roam over him, savoring his taut muscles, the need that vibrated through his tight body.
“Wild woman,” he murmured into her mouth. His deep voice sent waves of desire through her. “Danger excites you.”
She realized this was true. Once the fear dissipated, arousal took its place. “No wonder I was never suited to being a gentleman’s wife. Nothing dangerous or exciting about planning a dinner party.”
“Depends on the guests.”
“And what you’re serving.” She slid her hand down his broad chest, then lower to stroke his hard length through his trousers. He hissed in appreciation. “This will be delicious.”
She drew her hand away, and his lust-glazed eyes tried to focus on her. “But it’s more than the aftermath of danger that makes me want you now.”
He struggled to clear his mind, gazing down at her. A growing understanding sharpened his attention, and he looked wary but intrigued. “More,” he said.
“Sam.” She stared into his eyes, knowing her own were unreserved, unguarded. “I love you.”
For a bare moment, hope and need flared in his gaze, before he glanced away. His whole body tensed, and a muscle in his jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t.”
This was not precisely the response she’d been hoping for, nor was it entirely surprising. She gripped his chin and turned him back to look at her. “I will say this one more time. I don’t care what you are.”
“An undead monster.”
She resisted the impulse to scream in frustration. “All that matters to me is who you are. Sam Reed. Not the boy I chased after. Not the fantasy of a lover. Not the living dead. You. Honorable. Courageous. Passionate. The only man who has ever fully accepted me for who I am.”
“You deserve someone who accepts you.” Azure fire lit his gaze. His voice deepened further to a low rumble. “Had I been anything else, I would have claimed you for my own.”
Heat flooded her. “I want to be yours. And I want you to belong to me, and me alone.”
“Damn it, I can’t do that to you.” He broke from their embrace to stalk away. “You say you don’t care what I am—”
“I don’t.”
He went on, shouldering her words aside. “But the rest of the world does. You’ve seen it yourself. I terrify people. They don’t even have to know that I’m undead—they hate and fear me. I can’t stay anywhere for too long. I have to live in darkness. I’ve no home. No family. Not even a goddamned heartbeat.” He rounded on her, savage. “And I bloody well refuse to subject you to that kind of life. You need better than that.”
She marched up to him. “Presumptuous bastard! Don’t dare tell me what I need. That is my choice. Not anyone’s. Including yours.”
“Stubborn,” he growled.
“And honest,” she countered. “Good thing, too. When I say that I love you and want us to belong to each other, then I sure as hell mean it.”
They glared at each other, panting with anger and…desire.
She shook her head. Leading Sam to this remote corner of the forest was not about anger or self-denial.
Her black humor fell away as she might cast aside a brittle husk. He saw this, and his own expression cleared to something waiting, marveling.
Sliding her arms around his neck, rising up onto the tips of her toes, she whispered, “Let me show you.”
He held himself back. Only a moment, then his hands came up to stroke along her arms, reverent. At his touch, her desire grew yet stronger, gathering within.
Drawn together by mutual need, they kissed. Not the ravenous consuming of earlier, but slowly, savoring each other’s tastes and textures. A leisurely exploration, yet no less hungry. Lingering, thorough discovery, and she felt in herself and him the demands to let their mouths and hands and bodies demonstrate precisely how much they needed, wanted, each other.
They pulled and pushed at one another’s clothing. The sensation of bare skin to skin became essential. Each layer fell away, dropping to the ground in whispered folds, and, as garments disappeared and flesh emerged, she touched and caressed Sam everywhere, just as he ran his hands over her body. Exalting and carnal.
Together, they stood naked in the forest.
“I love the feel of you,” he growled, gathering her uncovered breasts in his hands. He bent his head and licked the peak. She felt his wet touch all the way down between her legs. “I love the taste of you.” His tongue swirled over her nipple.
Her fingers threaded into his thick, dark hair, drawing him closer, ablaze with pleasure. As he continued to tease and lap at her breasts, she became both languorous and demanding. Her hands played over the bunching muscles in his shoulders, down his back, even stroking the tight curves of his buttocks. He was hard and satiny, an
d everywhere she touched him, he warmed further, just as she heated.
Against her stomach, his cock curved, firm and full. Answering slickness grew within her. He could do that to her—call forth her richest arousal, the likes of which she’d known only with him.
He’d given her more than arousal. He had awakened the fullest essence of who she was meant to be, and her heart ached with abundance.
She gently moved him back from her breasts. “I will taste you, too.” And when she knelt before him, the bright blue fire of his gaze told her how much he needed, wanted.
Cassandra gazed at his cock, thick and reaching upward, and a smile of appreciation curved her mouth. She had touched it with her hand, felt it within her body, and knew it—Sam—gave her the most profound pleasure she’d ever experienced. She loved this part of him, as she loved all his body, but this distillation of his most masculine self made her want to worship him like a pagan, celebrate the flesh and all the life it represented.
She looked up at him. He was all things hard and hungry, male. And hers. Hers.
When she grasped him in her hand, he groaned. And when she took him in her mouth, hoarse, guttural sounds broke from him. He shook. She dipped her head lower, taking more of him into her mouth, stroking her tongue along his shaft, and the feel was exquisite. He tasted luscious, the best kind of sweet. Unlike sweets, however, her appetite grew the more she consumed.
His large hands cupped the back of her head as she licked and sucked him. He couldn’t seem to stop his hips from moving, plunging his cock into her mouth as he watched her, and this sent her own arousal into a fever. She lavished him with her tongue, gentle and greedy at the same time.
She tasted the salty beginnings of his release, and sucked harder, wanting that. But he pulled her back almost roughly.
“Not yet,” he growled. “Want to last…forever.”
The forest floor was cool and soft on her back as Sam gently pressed her down. Then he knelt between her legs, his expression verging on feral. Yet beneath the animal desire, he gazed at her as though nothing in the world mattered more.
Fierce—and tender.
Then he bent to her. He held her thighs, spreading them slightly, and lowered his mouth with a growl. Her breath caught in her throat. The first lick made her arch up with a cry. Another. And another. Learning her. He traced her with tongue and fingers, and both he and Cassandra groaned. Awareness ebbed so that she knew only the feel of his mouth on her, adoring her, decimating her. The pleasure was so sharp and exquisite, it couldn’t be borne. Yet she did, because he demanded it of her.
She bowed up again as she came, the contractions wracking her, her thighs locking around him. He pushed her further, continuing his sensual onslaught. Her climax rose and fell in waves, then built and exploded once more until she was dimly amazed she did not simply shatter apart to lie in trembling shards across the bracken.
“Now, Sam.”
He covered her in less than a second. His lean, strong body shook, and his face was a study of tortured desire. Along her soaking folds, he ran the length of his cock, drenching himself in her need. Then, with one sure plunge forward, he sank into her.
Her legs wrapped around his waist as she pulled him fully within, her arms around his shoulders. For a moment, he held himself utterly still. He drew back, slow, slow, then just as slowly thrust back into her. She felt every slide, every inch. He filled her completely.
She bucked against him, wanting. Faster, harder. Throw her right over the edge with the speed and heat of a falling star. Yet he held back, taking her in deliberate strokes that, she saw through hazy eyes, cost him as much as her. He shuddered as he thrust deeply, and hoarse rumblings climbed from his chest.
“Take us over,” she pleaded.
But he clenched his jaw. “More…pleasure for…you. As much as you…can take…”
He would kill her with pleasure, because it possessed her entirely. And she understood with gem-bright clarity what he was doing. Giving her this ecstasy with his body because he felt it was all he could provide.
With this bittersweet realization, another climax overwhelmed her. A scream ripped from her throat. She dug her nails into his back as she arched upward, lost. This was the beginning of the world and its end.
Her climax pushed him into a frenzy. His strokes drove even deeper, his pace quickening. A groan, a curse, and a blessing. Then he froze as he came in hard, wringing pulses. Her name tumbled from his lips as if the word encapsulated everything that ever could, and should, be said. Then he sank down, wholly depleted.
Murmurs and kisses as they stroked each other’s faces, brushing back strands of hair. They rolled to their sides, but he remained within her, and they lay like that for a long time. Overhead, the sky turned lilac, then a deeper violet. Stars began to emerge. A cool evening breeze danced across her damp skin and she shivered.
Gradually, unwillingly, they disentangled and dressed. Neither spoke, though they stopped often during the process to kiss and touch one another. When they finally rode out of the forest and were back on the lane that led to the sorcerer, Cassandra understood that he’d given her the pleasure of his body. Yet his soul remained as remote as a distant dream.
Achille Voisin’s cottage sat at the very edge of a windblown moor. By the time Cassandra and Sam reached it, the moon had risen, so that the roof seemed thatched with silver. A light gleamed in one of the small windows.
As they approached, what had been a faint tinkling sound grew in volume. Cowrie shells hung in strands from the eaves, and ribbons fluttered beside them.
Cassandra placed her hand over her pocket. “I feel the Source stirring.” It gave off pulses of energy, sensing kinship magic close at hand.
Grim-faced, Sam dismounted and then, when she did the same, strode up to the front door.
It opened before he could knock.
Standing at the threshold was a dark-skinned man of indeterminate age. Candlelight behind him limned him in gold, and he stared at his visitors with eyes both clear and ancient. He drew on a pipe then exhaled fragrant smoke.
“Monsieur Voisin—” Cassandra began.
“You have it with you?” His voice was also ageless, yet musical.
When she nodded, the man waved them in. Once inside, she saw that the little cottage abounded in color—small shrines of brightly painted pictures, candles, and offerings covered every surface.
“How did you know we were coming?” Cassandra asked. “Honoria told you, somehow?”
The man tipped his head toward a bowl of water sitting in the middle of a table. Black candles surrounded the bowl, and their flames reflected in the water’s surface. “The loa tell me what I need to know.”
“You’re a sorcerer,” Sam noted.
“Men such as me, we are bokor,” corrected Voisin. “We serve the loa—spirits, you call them—with both hands. The dark and the light. Some of us make the zombi.” He glanced at Sam. “No bokor made you. Some other, stealing the power of the loa.”
“He’s dead now,” Sam answered flatly. “I killed him.”
Voisin looked at him with surprise. “You were able to break the chains of the one who created you? Freed yourself?”
Sam gave a curt nod.
The sorcerer plainly marveled. “No one, in all the lore, has ever done the same. I think you must be a man of great strength.” When Sam did not respond, Voisin nodded, approving. “It is just that it is you and this fierce woman should put right the loa’s magic.” He turned to Cassandra. “Show it to me.”
She took from her pocket the little pouch and set it on the table. As soon as she produced it, Voisin inhaled sharply, then whispered a string of French as he gestured over himself. The candles beside the bowl of water flickered, the flames changing from yellow to green.
“The Dark Gift of Baron Samedi,” he breathed. Reaching forward with one shaking hand, he brushed the tips of his gnarled fingers just above the top of the pouch. “He is a loa of the dead. A great and po
werful magician, a judge of excellent wisdom, a fearsome spirit of sex and resurrection.” Voisin pointed toward one of the shrines.
Cassandra looked, and shivered. Baron Samedi was depicted as a skeletal man in funereal clothing, yet he grinned with shadowy knowledge as he clutched a gravedigger’s shovel. Black candles surrounded his shrine, as well as plugs of tobacco and a bottle of some kind of liquor. Offerings to the terrible spirit. She edged closer to Sam, whose arm came up to wrap around her shoulders.
“Long ago, the Dark Gift was taken from a priestess of the vodou.” Voisin’s voice hardened. “A white man took it, stole it away, and no one knew where to find it. Since then, the balance has been disturbed. Too many zombi made. Bokor, priests, and priestesses have all tried to reset the balance, but, without the Dark Gift, our efforts were in vain. Until now.” He smiled at Sam and Cassandra, though she felt little comfort in it.
“You can make things right.” Sam glanced intently back and forth between the pouch and the sorcerer.
“Yes—I will send the Dark Gift back to its homeland, back to Haiti and Baron Samedi.”
“Will it be safe then?” Cassandra pressed. “The men who took it, they might try again.”
Voisin bustled around the cottage, gathering objects: several figurines, more candles, vials of liquids that Cassandra could not, and did not want to, identify. “The Dark Gift shall never again be abused. Not by the white men, not by anyone. All will be put to rights.”
As the sorcerer collected what he needed to perform his magic, Cassandra’s heart began to pound. A strange sensation of dread crept over her, but she could not understand why. She was so close to completing her mission for the Blades, so near the achievement of what she and Sam both pursued.
She reached down and gripped Sam’s hand. His grip was just as strong, and, as she chanced a look up at him, she saw his brow lower, his expression grim.
“Now, we have all that we need.” Voisin surveyed his gathered items and then placed them in specific patterns around the shrine to Baron Samedi. He uncorked the bottle of liquor and poured it into a tin cup. The smell of rum wafted through the air.
