“You’re so hot, you’re practically steaming.” He breathed against her open slit. Shivers of helpless pleasure raced down her thighs.
“Dear God in Heaven,” she panted.
The floor trembled beneath her. Warm water slopped over the basin to roll across the tiles.
“Must remember,” he muttered, “not to do that.”
Overcome, she reclined on the brilliant mosaics, propped on her elbows, hair spread around her. Knowing there was no part of her he couldn’t see, overwhelmingly exposed and vulnerable. Moisture pooled at the mouth of her channel. His breath tickled her soft flesh, so close he must smell the musky arousal rising from her.
Still he hesitated, her body spread like an offering before him. The tension built within her, coiling tighter. She could barely breathe for wanting him.
Her face burning, a vortex of need swirling through her, she closed her eyes and raised her hips, begging him without words for release.
With a breath like a sob, he swept his tongue along her channel, spreading her with her own dew. When his tongue flicked across the tiny pulsing pearl of her pleasure, her pleading cry echoed from the damp walls. The satisfied rumble of his laughter rippled against her thigh.
“Linnet, you are such a treasure,” he whispered. “A gift and a blessing. Do you still want more?”
She did. His teasing tongue circled her clitoris, sending jolts of pleasure through her, all the way to her fingertips. She writhed on the floor, head tilted back, catching fractured glimpses of soft purple twilight between the pillars, the first stars coming out in silver pinpricks against the dusk.
Through the gloaming, the jewel-bright frescoes stood out—schools of glittering fish, swirling curlicues of seaweed, the delicate fins of ocean coral. She was floating, suspended in a sea of pleasure, a tide that ebbed and surged at Zamiel’s command.
In the end, she flung her arms overhead and drowned in it, beyond herself, her desperate cries ringing from the walls.
When the tide receded, she lay beached like a shipwreck on the shores of passion, wrung out and tingling. Still, transported though she was, she knew Zamiel hadn’t shared that glorious release.
Blindly she reached for him, their fingers linking—a sensation of breathless intimacy without the barrier of his gauntlets. Gently she pulled him toward her.
He slid up the length of her body until he straddled her. Braced on his elbows, he peered down at her.
He was violently aroused, his rampant length jutting before him. His eyes, mauve and silver, glowed faintly. In the twilight, she could almost see the dark flames writhing above his pale brow, raven hair streaming around him in the celestial wind.
Heavy with lassitude, her land lifted to caress the sharp plane of his cheek.
“Ye’re becoming more,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she said. “Zamiel, I think yer divinity is returning. Should we—should we do this?”
Momentary confusion flickered across his features. He glanced down at himself. The shadow of black wings spread behind him, limning his supple nudity.
When she blinked, she could glimpse the silver scales of a warrior’s armor, glinting with sparks of emerald and cobalt. The sword he wasn’t wearing flickered like a streak of lightning at his hip.
Slowly, her gaze drifted to the dusk beyond the streaming draperies. Above the glittering expanse of the ocean, the moon was rising, round and swollen as a pearl.
There, for a heartbeat, stood a tall figure with cropped golden curls, clad in the high boots and ruff of a young gallant. Leaning against a pillar, the figure stared out to sea, the folds of his mantle wrapped around him like wings.
When she blinked, the illusion was gone.
Zamiel uttered a hoarse cry, his body stiffening.
“Zamiel?” She reached for him.
Wildly he thrust her away, recoiling as though she’d burned him, and scrambled to his feet.
Heart pounding, she sat. “What is it?”
He made a violent gesture, as though he could not speak. Casting about, he spied his garments piled behind a pillar and wrestled the shirt over his head.
Alarmed, Linnet scrambled upright, fear of intruders and assassins flitting though her brain. But the figure she’d glimpsed had vanished. The moon-drenched portico was empty.
Zamiel was dragging his breeches up his legs. Watching him, her flesh still dewy with passion, she wrapped her arms around herself, painfully conscious of her nakedness.
What had possessed her to behave so wantonly, with such utter lack of decorum?
If virtue alone wasn’t sufficient to govern her, surely pride should have stayed her. She was too tall, too slim, her breasts too large, her bottom too round. He hadn’t wanted to touch her, yet she’d practically flung herself at him, a brazen act of lechery that scalded her with shame.
Fumbling, she found her abandoned gown and drew it over her nudity with shaking hands.
He was tugging on his boots, his face distracted, a furrow of concern between his dark brows.
She fumbled with her laces and twisted her tumbled curls into a tight knot at her nape. Feeling she must say something, she moistened her lips.
“I—I’m sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry.” He cut her off with a quick, dismissive gesture. “I should never have allowed this. You’re not meant for me, Linnet, nor I for you.”
His curt rebuff brought hot tears flooding to her eyes. Her heart twisted. Ah, this was heartbreak, the very outcome she’d known must result if she yielded to this unsuitable, misplaced passion.
At least she hadn’t made an utter ass of herself by telling him she loved him. She’d been spared that ultimate rejection.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, faintly. Leaving her sandals abandoned on the mosaic floor, she fled, so he wouldn’t see her weep.
Chapter Fourteen
He’d handled that moment badly. Even as he stumbled through the corridors of Tintagel, garments twisted around him, boots slapping noisily against the flagstones, Zamiel castigated himself for his reaction.
Jehovah guard him, the look on Linnet’s face as she fled, crimson with mortification, her eyes flooded with unshed tears! He was a self-centered beast and a monster, no better than his infernal father.
Tugging on his gauntlets so hard his fingers tingled, he cursed himself for a fool. He’d never meant to let matters proceed so far. Certainly he’d never meant to do anything to jeopardize his redemption, or Linnet’s precious plan to marry some stuffy prick of a peer.
But when she’d come to pieces so beautifully under his mouth, the honey of her arousal flooding his tongue, he’d lost his head. He’d forgotten everything except the driving imperative to claim her, to lodge his aching cock in her wet heat and swive her until they were both blind with passion.
Then, by all the high holies, he’d seen the rising moon. He’d glimpsed the solitary, sorrowful figure haloed in its light. Awareness of himself, his plight, his utter peril had come rushing back and jolted him to his wits.
Another moment in her arms, and he would have fallen.
The corridors of Tintagel stretched empty before him, moonlight streaming through the narrow windows. No doubt they were all in the fields, dancing before the fires for their pagan Goddess.
When he found a narrow stair that twisted upward, he launched himself onto it and took the steps three at a time, ricocheting off the walls like a drunkard. He exploded through a door and found himself abruptly on the heights.
Around him rose the slim spires and turrets of the keep, pale banners streaming in the seaborne breeze. The vault of Heaven arched overhead, scattered with the glittering dust of the cosmos, strange constellations glowing like jewels against the velvet night. Over the sea’s vast expanse, the moon floated—rising from the west instead of east where it should.
Strange moon, strange stars, all of it Faerie magick on this high pagan holiday. The very air was thick with enchantment.
The moon stretched a shimm
ering finger across the sea to touch the battlements.
Propped between the crenellations, wings folded gently around her, one booted leg swinging free over the abyss, the Angel of Mercy stared out at the moonlit night.
“Gabriele,” he whispered.
Slowly her head turned toward him. The moon cast the pale oval of her face in shadow, but haloed her white-gold curls. Silver-blue angel fire glowed in her gaze.
“Hast thou any intention,” she asked, “of regaining thy place in Heaven? Or is it thine intent to fall?”
Heat climbed into his face. Of course she would think him blissfully indifferent, after finding him fully aroused between Linnet’s thighs.
“I intend to return—if they’ll ever let me,” he said bitterly. “Time means nothing to you, Gabriele, but five months have passed in the mortal realm with me trapped in this body.”
The Archangel drew her knee to her chest and wrapped a pearlescent wing around it. “Thou art a curious sort of prisoner. Thou dost carouse and carry on like a Roman Caesar, dabble in Faerie magick and linger near the Summer Lands, where I can barely manifest. What is thy desire, Zamiel, with this mortal woman?”
Sternly she eyed him, like a celestial judge. Zamiel tugged his jerkin straight and tightened his sword belt, all in disorder from his hasty flight.
“Are you asking as Archangel of the Presence, or as my friend?”
Gabriele sighed. The breeze ruffled the translucent fringe of her wings.
“I am ever thy friend, Zamiel, though thou art never easy to befriend. ’tis thine own stubborn pride, like thy Father’s, and thine own love of solitude that separate thee from the heavenly host. For thou dost embrace rebellion and anarchy, and welcome them like lovers. No place remains for the rest of us in thy cold embrace.”
He barked a bleak laugh. “I am Death, sister, or do you forget? There’s nothing but Death in my embrace. If I stand apart from others, it’s for their own protection.”
“Thy mortal hast not found it so.” Gabriele rested her chin on her booted knee. “Again I ask. What is thine intention with this daughter of kings?”
“To protect her!” The words flashed forth, ringing with rebellion.
Filled with restless energy, Zamiel vaulted to the battlements and paced on the dangerous edge, the drop plummeting hundreds of ells to the heaving sea below. “I’ll never stand idly by and let her enemies harm her. Why should she pay the price for my sins? If that’s what Metatron wants, he can take my act of contrition and shove it up his celestial arse!”
Swinging his head back to glare at the heavens, he bellowed, “Hear that, you bastard? I defy you!”
“Zamiel.” Eddies of shock rippled from the Archangel’s pensive frame. “Must thou be always the anarchist?”
“It’s my nature,” he muttered, feeling distinctly sulky. From his perch above the world, he scanned the coast below.
Along the shore bloomed the festival fires, brilliant flowers of crimson and gold. The largest blazed in the high meadow outside the gates, where Catriona had gathered her poppies. Dark figures leaped and cavorted around that fire like imps in Hell.
Soon the dancers would join together and fall embracing to the grass.
The thought of Linnet among them—forced to beg from a stranger what he should have given her from love—ate at him like a canker. He ought never to have left her, and certainly never left her in such a fashion.
But what else could he do, beneath Gabriele’s very nose?
Sighing, the Archangel unfolded her long limbs. She stood beside him, carelessly perched on the crumbling lip of the precipice. Her wings streamed behind her in the breeze.
“Thou hast cursed and shaken thy fist at the Court of Heaven, as is thy custom. Now wilt thou listen?”
No, he wanted to say, giving way to his grief and fury. I’m through listening to the Court of Heaven.
But Gabriele had manifested for his sake, though it must pain her to linger here, on the very border of the Summer Lands, with the misty Veil rising from the earth below. As long as the moon rode the heavens, she could remain, but the effort would drain her. He owed her courtesy, at least.
“I will listen,” he said unwillingly, “but I will not see her harmed.”
Gabriele bowed, a courtly gesture that suited the young gallant she appeared. “I have spoken for thee at the Court of Heaven. All is not well there, Zamiel.”
“Right.” He frowned. “You haven’t seen Jehovah in eons.”
When he spoke the Name of God, the heavens darkened, as though someone had blotted out the stars. Below, the sea heaved, spume spraying high against the walls. Nearby, a cracked merlon split from its base and toppled slowly into the ocean.
“Must remember not to do that,” he muttered.
“It is worse than it was,” she said. “After we spoke, I ventured to the Seventh Heaven to see Him. The Thrones would not let me pass.”
“What?” Startled, he swung toward her. A tiny chunk of stone broke away beneath his heel and went spinning down into the abyss. “You’re an Archangel of the Presence. Who would dare refuse you? Surely He would intervene.”
“I did not see Him,” she said sadly. “I raised my voice to the Cherubim and Seraphim, but none of the high Choirs would heed me. I was forced to withdraw, or risk...confrontation.”
Zamiel snorted. “Too bad I wasn’t there. I’d cause a bloody confrontation they’d not forget.”
“Angel against angel.” Troubled, she gazed at the rising moon. “Such an abomination has not occurred since thine infernal Father raised his rebellion. I would not have it arise at my behest. I sought to forget the matter...but found I could not let it rest.”
“I must be rubbing off on you. Did you curse and shake your fist at the Seventh Heaven?”
“I did not.” She spared him a censorious frown. “Once I might have gone to Uriel, as His enforcer. But the Angel of Vengeance resides still within the Faerie realm with his bride across the sea. There, Uriel is well and truly beyond my reach.”
“What about Michael? With Uriel away, he’s taken up the enforcer’s mantle with his customary zeal.”
“The Angel of War has no room in his soul for such doubts as I harbor in mine.” She sighed. “And Raphael is Raphael. What would he have done?”
Zamiel listened, alarm spiraling through him. “Hell’s Bells, is there no one left in Heaven to enforce His will? None but Metatron and that ilk?”
“There is one.” Gabriele stirred, wings rustling. Unease rippled across her smooth brow. “I bespoke the Powers, but I have no allies there, and they would not heed me. Never have I been the sort of Archangel who leads the celestial host to war. So I appealed to the Dominions.”
He grunted in surprise, but had to admit the move made sense. As the mercenary Choirs in the heavenly host, the force that cast Lucifer and his minions into the fiery Pit, the Dominions and Powers were the muscle up there.
But they’d never been leaders. They relied on the Archangels for that. And if the Archangels would not lead...
He shook his head in dismay. “They’re hardly what I’d call free thinkers, sister, nor known for their independence. They work best under a strong leader, like Michael during Lucifer’s rebellion. Who among the Dominions would rebel and risk my fate?”
“There is one who would lead them, one of their own they would heed.” The Angel of Mercy turned toward him, her eyes spilling light, twin stars in her youthful face. “Angel of Death, they would listen to thee.”
Zamiel was so astonished he stepped back—into empty air. Only by twisting his body like a cat did he catch himself before he plummeted from the cliff.
Clinging to his perch with one booted foot and his fingertips, he levered himself back up. At last he stood upright on the wall again, heart pounding like a hammer against his lungs, dizzy with the spurt of terror flooding through him.
Gabriele watched him, one pale brow raised.
“If I’d fallen, sister,” he gasped, “would
you have saved me?”
She tilted her head. “I am the Angel of Mercy.”
“So you would save me.” Fondly he stabbed a gloved finger into her shoulder. “If I were gone, you’d miss me. Admit it.”
“Zamiel,” she sighed. “Try to be serious. Wilt thou intervene with thy fellow Dominions? We must understand why the Thrones have sealed the Seventh Gate, why the Seraphim and Cherubim within do nothing. We must know why our Father is silent!”
“It’s odd behavior, and borderline alarming—I’m with you there. But, Gabriele, there’s no reason under Heaven why the Dominions should heed me. I’m in disgrace, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Thou art the greatest among them. Whither thou lead, they will follow.”
Resentment and burgeoning anger sparked in the smoldering ember of his heart. “Gabriele, are you serious? I can’t even go to Heaven to address them. Do you see wings sprouting from my shoulders?”
“Yes.” Her reply stole the wind from his sails. “Just as thy mortal lover sees them betimes, with her Faerie Sight.”
The revelation left him gaping. “She does?”
Gabriele’s gaze turned distant, the far-seeing eye of the prophet who’d foreseen the Immaculate Conception and prophesied to the Virgin. In that way, too, the Angel of Mercy was unlike the rest of the celestial host. Alone among them, she could sometimes see forward in time, though she was forbidden to speak of what she knew.
“Tonight,” the Archangel murmured, “thy lady comes into her power. This precious peace between England and the Summer Lands, forged by Uriel and his half-mortal bride, dangles by a thread. An ancient evil is stirring while the Faerie Queene lies dying, and the strength of that evil is growing.
“It is the destiny of Linnet Norwood, daughter of kings and part Fae herself, to preserve the fragile accord between mortal and Fae—or perish.”
“Hell’s Bells!” His thoughts seethed. He’d known she must play some part in it, with the power and heritage she bore, if the enchantment that clouded her memory were lifted.
“This magick of hers,” he said, thinking rapidly, pacing the battlements with no care for their crumbling edges or the sea pounding the rocks below. “Is it this ancient evil that stole her memory?”
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 24
