by Jenn Stark
She grinned at me as I frowned, confused, and tapped her head. “You forget, I can see what you see, dollface. You’re worried about Armaeus. Go.”
I went.
Chapter Twenty-eight
After a brief stop at the Palazzo to wash off the evidence of my interstellar roller derby and follow-up demon defense, I kept my mind carefully shielded on the way to Prime Luxe as I tried to work out what to do when I saw the Magician again. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a clue by the time I punched the elevator button for the ride up to Armaeus’s domain. Oh well.
The elevator doors opened with a soft whoosh into the Magician’s office, the acre of cool carpeting flowing out before me with familiar welcome. Armaeus was sitting at his desk, but no computer blinked in front of him, no stacks of printouts detailing the state of the Connected world. The desk was empty save for the horn of Mim, and as Armaeus lifted his head to watch me enter, I realized that his hands were cupped before him. He’d been praying. Or meditating. Or holding his head in his hands.
None of those sounded very good.
He watched me approach without getting up, his enormous desk serving as a physical barrier between us. One, I realized with sudden dismay, he needed more than I did.
“Why are you here?” he asked, and his voice was rough, too rough. He seemed to notice it and paused before speaking again. “You’re not hurt.”
I winced. “I’m allowed to visit you without having the crap beat out of me, you know.”
“True.” He sat back, watching me approach. “But you don’t.”
“Well, maybe I want to change that.” Okay, I didn’t have to make a production of this. How many times had he healed me—completely? This was the same thing, only in reverse. It didn’t need to be a big deal. It simply needed to happen.
I stopped at the collection of couches and chairs in front of his desk and pulled out my remaining stars. I laid them carefully on the couch. Then I pulled off my hoodie.
“Miss Wilde.”
“Don’t mind me.” I hadn’t planned for a striptease, but I could feel Armaeus’s attention sharpen as I leaned over and unbuckled first one boot, then the other. I sat on the edge of the chair and worked the things off, letting my gaze lift up to meet his.
He was gripping the edge of the desk.
Okay, maybe it could be a little bit of a big deal. “You doing anything this afternoon?”
“What exactly is your intention here?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I grabbed the end of my tank top and pulled it over my head. The cool air-conditioning of his suite pebbled my skin, and I shivered a little as I stood, working the clasp out of my ponytail so my hair fell down around my shoulders. All the while, I kept my gaze on Armaeus’s face.
My technique wasn’t going to get me fast-tracked to any Vegas stage, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Armaeus stood, shoving his chair back as I reached for my pants.
In three quick strides, he was in front of me, his hand gripping my arm to stop me. I shivered at the jolt of electricity that fired from his fingers.
“Why are you doing this?” he gritted out.
“Because I can.” I lifted my left hand to his face, drifting it along the deeply bronzed skin of his cheek. He closed his eyes briefly, as if steadying himself, and a new, curious thrill danced through me. “Because I want to.”
Armaeus released a tight sigh, but before he could speak, I lifted up on my toes to brush his lips with mine. He froze, and I pressed closer, twining my hand behind his neck to anchor myself against his body. His left hand slipped around me to palm my lower back. He pulled his own head up and away. His eyes glittered dangerously.
“You’re doing this to heal me,” he said. His words brooked no opposition. “It is a dangerous attempt.”
“Not so dangerous right now,” I said. I shook off his hand. “It actually feels pretty good.”
And it did. All my latent fear and panic, emotions that should be there, must be there, had been replaced by an ache so strong, it seemed to erupt from my very bones—a simple, pure ache of needing. Of wanting. I lifted my hands to either side of Armaeus’s face, reveling in his broken groan as I kissed him again, more firmly this time.
He felt perfect, true, and as he surrendered to the kiss, he surrounded me with a web of magic that seemed etched into the very air. My third eye opened, and once again I saw the world as I had before under his guidance, myriad streams of light overlaying each other, each vibrating with deep and primal power.
And in the center of all that power and light…was simply us.
Armaeus deepened the kiss, his tongue pressing into my lips, forcing my mouth open in a sensual assault, and then pressing further, the intrusion driving a bolt of need straight through me.
At its urgency, a hint of old panic surged up—and disappeared like smoke. There was no fear, no hesitation. I half sobbed against his mouth, and he seemed to touch everything at once, and I realized he was inside my mind again. Suddenly, there were no secrets between us, no barriers needed. He flooded my thoughts with every essence of himself—and I let him in fully. Completely. He must have realized the moment that the last of my barriers fell away, because he drew in a deep and shuddery breath. His eyes glowed with an internal fire as he drew back to look at me.
“It’s begun,” he said roughly, wonder in his expression. “The healing.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard.”
Desire warred with concern in his gaze, and I shook my head. “You told me that when I wanted this, truly wanted it, you would be here for me. I do want this, Armaeus. I want it more than anything.”
Without speaking, he reached to the strap of my bra, drawing it over my shoulder and watching its trajectory as if he’d never undressed a woman before. When it had slipped low enough that the bra fell away from my breast, he murmured something else, a word I didn’t know.
I blinked. All my clothes were gone. So were his. “Well, that was efficient.”
Armaeus pulled me against him, and I braced myself against his arms. They were trembling with exertion.
“I cannot turn back from this,” he gritted out. “Not from this, Sara. I can’t. The path goes but one way.”
Something about his words nagged at me. They sounded too profound, almost ritualistic. But the Magician’s abilities were deeply rooted in the almost mystical power of sex, and I was inclined to cut him a break this time.
“I don’t want to stop, Armaeus,” I said. And I didn’t. Not now. Not with his arms around me and his body heavy against mine.
He bent his head to my breasts, and I arced beneath him, willing my brain not to explode. Magic coursed and flowed over and around us as he brushed his lips over the curve of my right breast, his hand capturing the other as I gasped. My cerebral cortex lit up like the Fourth of July at the dual assault on my system. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I planted my hands on his chest and pushed him back.
Whether out of surprise or because he was simply humoring me, Armaeus fell away easily, and I pursued him as he toppled to the floor. I sprawled over his thick chest, which was scored with scars, and slid over his knotted abs. My gaze dropped farther, and I couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. I reached down and took his shaft in my hand, reveling in a surge of primal power as he hissed. The kinetic energy between us was almost electric, and I had no interest in how perfect or powerful or pure the act of making love with the Magician was supposed to be. I just wanted to be in the middle of it already.
“No. you should—” Ignoring whatever warning he was going to sling at me, I levered my body up and sank down on top of him.
I couldn’t hear the rest of his sentence because my brain was blowing apart.
A sense of completion so strong it nearly consumed me roared into my consciousness, the feeling that this was what I was made for, this was the answer I sought. With that realization came a wave of such unexpectedly knee-knocking fear that I was caught up short. What am I doing, what am I
thinking? Why was Armaeus here, with me, and why had I feared him so much? There had been a reason—what was it?
Directly on that surge of panic came another need, one more primal and, if possible, yet more desperate, made up purely of Armaeus and me, and the connection we were forming. A bridge of a million jolts of energy that were so much greater than anything I could have imagined. It was as if my body was no longer mine but a conduit between the ancient magic of the rioting ley lines beneath us and the magic of every Connected on earth around us, to the latent magic that was hidden in the stars above us, dimension on dimension, layer upon layer, bone upon skin upon breath upon soul.
“Sara,” Armaeus cried out, and I held on as he surged up, burying himself in me more deeply, my body bucking as it stretched and writhed in reaction to the unexpected pressure, the pleasure-pain of an act that had no connection to anything that had come before it, nor to anything that would come after. I pitched forward, bracing myself on his chest, and was mesmerized by his face as his hands came up to anchor themselves on my shoulders, the two of us moving in perfect synchrony, as the pressure within us built to a raging crescendo. I saw Armaeus’s awareness of how close he was to the brink hit him, and as he tried to shift away, I pursued him, pressing down over him as my mouth found his again.
“Kiss me, Armaeus,” I said, my lips an inch from his. “I want to feel your mouth on me till the end.”
With a guttural growl, he moved his hand from my shoulder to cup it around my head and pulled me close, his mouth trapping mine as he pinned me against his body. I felt my own climax build inside me at the simple touch of his kiss, felt his palm splayed on my backside as if he thought I could escape, as if he thought I could do anything but ride through this storm of electricity and emotion and need.
With white-hot chaos, the wave crested, and Armaeus bucked beneath me, his head falling back as his entire body seemed to explode from the inside out, every molecule separating and snapping back in the same moment, the human equivalent of the Big Bang. Except an entire universe hadn’t shattered—only mine.
I collapsed forward, lungs heaving as he slowly brought his gaze back to mine. The naked vulnerability in his eyes caught me up short, and in those eyes there was so much pain and emotion and loss that I couldn’t help but stare, couldn’t help but bring my hand to his face, to comfort when I had no idea what I was comforting for.
The touch of my hand seemed to recall him, and he shifted his body to lie beside mine on the plushly carpeted floor. He sighed, pulling away from me to rest his forehead against mine. What would normally be a simple gesture, almost a respite, had the opposite effect for me.
Because my third eye was open.
And I saw him.
A fiery cataclysm opened up before me, screams of terror in the night, and Armaeus was there, running, searching, screaming for someone who would not answer, could not answer. They were dead, he knew they were dead, there was nothing he could do about it, and—
Armaeus chose that second to pull away, and I shifted my gaze off to the side so he couldn’t see the well of reflected sorrow that had opened within me. I didn’t know when or where he’d experienced that pain. He’d looked the same age as he did now. But the fire had been everywhere, and everywhere had been death, destruction…and madness. Utter madness.
How much did I truly know about the Magician and the decisions he’d made? The lives he’d touched…or taken? And those who’d been taken from him? Further, I realized that, though I knew I’d dropped my own barriers, Armaeus didn’t realize I’d glimpsed into his past. He didn’t know I’d sampled a portion of his pain.
For now, I needed to keep it that way.
I closed my eyes and steadied myself. “You have to return to your immortal self, Armaeus. You’re healed.”
“I am definitely that.” He sighed in contentment, and I felt a surge of protectiveness for this impossibly strong being who…for the moment…was a man. Simply a man. Lying here on the floor, a cocoon of safety surrounding us. As I watched him, though, he shrugged. “There is yet time.”
I looked from him to the Nordic cup still prominently displayed on his desk. “But why wait? You are stronger as an immortal, and a full member of the Council. You need that strength.” I thought of what the Hermit had said, his patent concern for Armaeus. “You need it now more than ever.”
“Yet as an immortal, I cannot do this.” He reached out one arm and gathered me close, the immense strength of him seeming to block out all other considerations. “I cannot do this.” He drifted a kiss on my hair, and I felt the stirrings of want again, of need.
“Not true. You kissed me plenty before today,” I managed, trying to block out the torrent of loss, of pain that I’d seen trapped within him. All this time, he had been determined to learn more about me, and I’d not given any thought to learning about him. Arguably, I’d been busy. But what were the secrets that Armaeus Bertrand was hiding from me? What paths had he walked that he didn’t want me to know about, let alone share? What decisions had he made?
And was the real reason of my fear of him truly that he was immortal…or was it something different? Something that being immortal allowed him to do, that he couldn’t do when he was mortal? Kreios had said as much, but he’d explained without explaining, leaving me wanting more.
A small measure of the fear I’d come to dread crept back into my heart. Armaeus was dangerous to me, but not in the way I’d thought he was. As a mortal, he was safe…as a full Council member, rich in his immortality, he could do things that could harm me, could transform me, could destroy me.
Why did I want that suddenly, so badly? When I knew that I would blank with fear once he returned to his immortal state?
“I’ll be leaving soon,” he said, interrupting my racing thoughts by running them into a brick wall. What? Leaving? I carefully shuttered my mind again to block my completely unreasonable spike of panic. His brows lifted. “You don’t need to hide your reactions from me.”
I gave him a winning smile. Oh, yes I do. “Where are you going?”
“With Viktor returned to the fold, I am reminded of the need to reclaim all the members of the Council. Especially those who do not wish to be reclaimed. Viktor is dark, and there is light that is needed on the Council. Light that has been sorely missed for too long.”
I frowned at him. “Who’s left?” I ran through the Council members in my mind. Of the twenty-one Arcana, not all were directly translatable to human forms, I was certain. The Star and the Moon, for instance, didn’t have a clear mortal incarnation.
So I started with the obvious choices. “Temperance, Justice—maybe. The Hierophant, Lovers…” I stared at him. “You’re getting the Lovers? Because that’d be two for the price of one, right?”
Laughter rumbled in Armaeus’s chest. “I do not seek the Lovers. Theirs is a twisted path.” He fell silent again, and I poked him in the chest. He opened one eye.
“So, who?”
“It can wait, Miss Wilde.” He turned over onto his back, pulling me close, so close I couldn’t hear his words too well. When I lifted my head, he grumbled. I pounded his arm. “Who?” I demanded again.
“The Hierophant,” he said, pulling me close again.
I considered that. “The Hierophant. As in the pope. But not actually the pope, pope, right? Because he’s seriously old. And sort of busy.”
Armaeus propped one arm behind his head, impossibly gorgeous, impossibly content. “Not the pope, no. The being I seek is far older than that.”
My eyes went wide. “Who?” I searched my internal Google for Connected: Ancient History Division. “Old, religious, orthodoxy, tradition, not a pope…” My eyes bugged. “Don’t tell me you’re going after Solomon.”
He smiled, and it was a thing of beauty. I’d never seen the Magician so relaxed, and something shifted in my chest. This. I wanted this. Someone to talk to, someone to hold me. Someone to share the day’s conversation with, when all the bluster and fury had passed
.
Someone to stop playing twenty questions.
“Not Solomon.” Armaeus shook his head. “But you’re getting closer, in a manner of speaking.”
“You really suck at this.” I propped my elbows on his chest and stared at him, hard. He gazed back at me, completely unfazed. “Okay, so he’s biblical. Moses.”
“No.”
“Isaac. Abraham.”
“No and no.”
“God.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I waved off his censure. “Kidding.” I shook my head. “I give. Who?”
“If I tell you, will you give in to your body’s demand for sleep?”
“I’m not—” As I said the words, the wave of drowsiness spilled over me, an overfilled cup of sleepy. I shoved at his arm. “I can tell you’re doing that, you know. You’re not sneaky.”
He sighed expressively. “One can but live in hope.”
“Fine. Tell me who it is, and I’ll let you sleep.”
“Good.” He laid his head back and closed his eyes. The darkness encroached further, a comforting hug, and I gave up trying to fight it. I was tired, and tomorrow was another day. The Magician would be leaving soon, he said, and the way he talked, he was going alone.
I’d almost fallen completely under when I realized I still didn’t have the information I’d asked for. “Who, Armaeus?” I prodded.
He grumbled in his sleep, then almost sighed the words. “He is most commonly known as Michael.”
His words hit me square in the face. I popped up like a cork in the ocean and stared at him, goggle-eyed. “Um…as in the archangel Michael? You’re serious? He’s really a thing?”
“Yes, Miss Wilde, he’s really a thing,” the Magician said. His eyes flickered open, fixing me once more with their gold-and-black gaze, glittering with a twist of grim amusement. His lips quirked into an enigmatic smile. “But it’s going to be Hell to find him.”
Wicked and Wilde
Coming May, 2016!
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