The Angel of Mercy dipped her chin. “Queene Maeve’s greatest rival, bitter enemy to the peace she would forge, is her heir Morrigan. She is a great witch, Zamiel, a great priestess for her Goddess. She has already meddled with thy Linnet—and even with thee.”
“With me?” He stared. “The Devil you say!”
She lifted a slim hand. “More I may not say. Thou dost know we are forbidden to intervene in Faerie business.”
Impatient, he brushed away her restraint. “Have I met her—this Morrigan?”
Gabriele’s fair brows drew together in a frown. “Thou hast encountered her. She is mistress of air and illusion, for that is the greater part of her magick. Thou met her in the mortal realm as the traveling seer Morgause.”
In his astonishment, Zamiel reeled and nearly fell again. Instead, cursing, he jumped down to the solid stone of the curtain wall.
“Joshua’s Trumpet, I knew it! I told Linnet to beware.”
Grimly he recalled the gypsy girl with her tumbled black curls and knowing black eyes, the painted wagon so conveniently placed, the enchanted mirror that had shown Linnet her magick.
“Thou hast danced to her music,” Gabriele said, “since the day thy lady encountered the midwife Modron, at whose urging she embarked upon this quest. For the midwife too was Morrigan in altered guise.”
Zamiel swore again, notwithstanding the Archangel’s pained expression. “You mean everything we’ve done since Linnet left court has been at her behest? By the Seventh Angel—why? What can she hope to gain? Simply making mischief doesn’t begin to explain the trouble she’s gone to. Why did she lead Linnet here?”
“I am forbidden to know,” she said, a phrasing he found curious. As though she could know if she would, but turned her far-seeing gaze away from those truths. “’Tis Faerie business.”
“If it’s Linnet’s business, it’s my business,” he said stubbornly.
Gabriele shook her head, her face stern as stone.
“Thou art the Severity of God, not some mortal sybarite. Wilt thou appeal to thy Dominions?”
Frustration chewed at him, fueled by mounting urgency. He needed to find Linnet and warn her before she stumbled into whatever trap Morrigan had laid.
But Gabriele’s time here was necessarily brief. Reluctantly he applied himself to the crisis at hand.
“Even assuming the Dominions would heed me—an assertion I urge you to question, sister—what would you have them do? If He disregards you who stand closest to him, as Archangel of the Presence, surely nothing the Dominions say will sway him.”
“I do not ask them to act alone.” One hand rested on the saber at her hip. “I ask them to follow thee, as once they followed Michael, to restore order to the celestial realm. With thee and thy brethren at my back, the Thrones dare not oppose us. They must admit us to the Presence.”
Despite his gnawing concern for Linnet, a bolt of excitement sizzled through him. Here, finally, was someone willing to do what he’d been advocating for millennia. Someone willing to confront Jehovah and demand to know why He’d closed his ears to the suffering of the mortal realm. Someone to demand why He in his infinite Power had lapsed into lethargy. Why He’d been silent since Christ took mortal form and perished.
To think he might finally have an answer to the doubts that plagued him! The notion set him reeling, drunk with the intoxicating sense of possibility that finally, things could change.
He found himself pacing, hands locked behind his back, angel fire spilling from his eyes to illuminate the stones around him. By sheer force of will, he reined in his simmering excitement and applied logic to the matter.
“Even if this mad scheme of yours might work, assuming the Thrones don’t come roaring up in their fiery chariots to keep the Dominions out—even so, how do you plan to get me there? If I still have my wings, sister, I can’t use them. By celestial decree, I’m trapped here in the mortal realm.”
The Angel of Mercy leaped from her perch to alight beside him.
“Thy prison was always of thine own devising. Thou wert bound to this plane because thou—thine own self—wished for it. Thou yearned to rub elbows with these mortals, to live among them, without the curse of thy deathly Power to hold thee separate. Without our Father’s sanction, which Metatron had not, thou could never be bound here against thy will.”
“No.” In sheer disbelief, he laughed. “Gabriele, you’re dreaming! You’re telling me my so-called punishment was, what, some illusory farce dreamed up by Metatron, who saw this so-called chink in my armor? Because he knew I was sick to death of solitude, sick to death of being shunned for doing our Father’s will?”
“Even so,” she said quietly. Her cerulean eyes shimmered with compassion. “Thou art a creature of Heaven. Inevitably, thou dost yearn for love, and cannot survive eternity without it. Yet thou believe thyself unworthy of love, and so hast thou shunned it. Only here, in thine exile, hast thou found it.”
Wildly Zamiel shook his head, backing away from her outstretched hand. “No, no, no. You’ve got this all wrong, Gabriele, turned the truth right on its bloody head. Yes, I’m alone! Yes, I despair of it! But I’m spurned and detested for damn good reason. You bring Mercy with your touch. I bring only Death. For the love of Heaven, I’m Lucifer’s son!”
The raw pain in his voice shocked him, like the tears streaming from his burning eyes. So patiently she watched him, her hand extended. The sympathy that softened her cool features would be his undoing if he were weak and selfish enough to accept it.
“Don’t you get it?” he shouted at her. “I’m cursed! I’m not worthy of anyone’s love except the old serpent who sired me.”
Appalled, he fell silent. The ugly echo of his words rang from the heights. Until that moment, he’d never imagined he felt thus. He was a creature of Heaven, after all.
Yet he was also Lucifer’s. Nothing that came from the Prince of Devils could be ought but pure evil.
“And what of thy mortal lover?” Gabriele said gently. “For I vow thou dost love her, Zamiel, and no creature of evil could ever be capable of such.”
He barked a bitter laugh. “Yes, I love her. I’m Death in love with life. I’m cold and empty darkness yearning for the light. But she doesn’t love me. And the reason I know is because I asked her. I’m the opposite of everything she’s ever claimed to want.”
Fiercely he drove his fist against the wall and welcomed the red pain that burst in his knuckles. “Damn me to the pit of Hell! I’ve driven her away. This very moment, I promise you, she’s on her way to the festival fires and another man’s arms.”
Savage pain ripped through him at the knowledge, a thousand times more agonizing than the burn in his bruised knuckles. Face twisting, he gripped his head in his hands. How could mortals even think with this anguish clawing at them like demons?
The Angel of Mercy bore witness to his torment, as she’d borne witness to untold suffering. At last, gently, she laid her hand upon his head.
The soothing coolness of her touch flowed through him, her own angelic Power, a cleansing stream that quieted the churning maelstrom of his pain.
“If she goes to another,” she said, “is that not for the best? Thy place is in Heaven, my brother. Thou need only open thy wings and thy heart to soar there at my side. Wilt thou not come?”
His tortured heart was a hot coal in his breast. Beneath her words, it cracked wide. What other outcome could he ever have hoped for?
Linnet was Fae and she was mortal, alight with the fragile spark of life, a creature of magick and enchantment, shaped and destined for love. He was none of those things, none of them.
But he would be damned if he let the old serpent trick him into doing what Lucifer had never made a secret of wanting—his son beside him to ease his loneliness, with the fiery scepter of a Prince of Hell as his consolation prize. And that was where Zamiel was destined if he yielded to his own desires, if he stole Linnet from the good, wholesome life she sought as wise mistress of her
suffering people.
He drew a shuddering breath and raised his face, wet with tears.
“It comes to this,” he said. “I won’t see Linnet destroyed by my weakness. But I won’t depart this plane without warning her of Morrigan’s treachery. Her own mother’s leading her into a trap, damn the woman. I have to warn her. And—and bid her farewell.”
In Gabriele’s eyes, the cerulean light dimmed. “I do not advise that, brother. Seeing her again, with the state of thy feelings for her, can only risk thine immortal soul. Make no mistake, Zamiel. If thou lie with her, thou wilt fall, and lose thy wings forever.”
“I got that,” he said dryly, “the first time you told me. But that’s the deal, Gabriele, take it or leave it. I won’t depart this place without seeing her one last time.”
Her wings rustled as she studied him, her face pensive. “And thence to Heaven?”
“I’m offering you a bargain, sister,” he advised her. “Take it.”
“Thou art a rash, intemperate angel.”
“I’m as my Father made me,” he said flatly. “Zamiel the rebel, the rabble-rouser, the only angel in Heaven who’d lead a band of celestial insurgents against an entire Choir—or three, if the Seraphim and Cherubim are in on it—and laugh at the consequences.”
“So thou art.” She sighed. “Go to thy mortal. But return here, at any cost, before the moon reaches its zenith. When it sinks, my Power wanes with it. I cannot linger so near the Veil.”
“Fair enough.” He swept her an elegant leg, jubilation soaring in his irrepressible, troublemaking heart. To see Linnet once more... He’d warn her of Morrigan’s treachery, do what he could to protect her as he’d always done.
And he’d tell her he loved her, why not? He’d tell her and go, before he saw the gentle regret fill her golden eyes when she told him she could never love him back.
Chapter Fifteen
Midsummer Night on the starlit border between mortal and Faerie realms. Even for a virtuous Christian maid, the scene was pure magick.
Scattered across the meadow, festival fires bloomed in the velvet darkness. The exuberant strains of fife and lute, mingled with the music of laughter, floated on the balmy air. Dark figures, hair and garments streaming, whirled like windblown leaves around the fires.
Here and there, the long grasses swayed. In those places, men and women joined to worship their pagan Goddess in the ancient rite. Naked limbs slipped into view—an outflung arm, a flash of breasts, a searing glimpse of male buttocks entwined in a woman’s creamy legs.
The low tremulous cries of feminine passion shimmered in the air, mingled with the hoarse groan of masculine release. Somewhere else, a sharp cry of pain set Linnet’s heart speeding. But the sweet moans that followed made clear this sexual violation occurred with full consent.
The heavy sweetness of poppies drifted on the night, mixed with the musk of spilled passion. The perfume filled Linnet’s senses until she felt drunk.
She wandered among the fires, never drawing too near, but unable to look away as the dancers shed their garments and fell embracing among the flowers.
What if none of it was real? What if she wandered mad through the wilderness again?
She would never be free of this haunting fear of madness. It would destroy her life, as it had already destroyed her name and her marriage prospects, unless she could somehow wrest from the locked chest of memory the secret of those missing years.
Hidden in her sea-green skirts, Linnet’s hands balled into fists until her palms stung from the press of her nails. She would have given herself to Zamiel tonight, and gladly. The enchantment broken, her memory regained, her body given in sacred rite to the man she loved, and his own haunting fear of intimacy shown to be groundless.
She would have praised God to the heavens for such a chance.
But Zamiel had rejected her. He’d recoiled from her naked form as though she were a serpent coiled in his bed.
“You’re not meant for me, Linnet, nor I for you.”
He’d thrown on his clothes so swiftly he’d nearly torn the leather.
And she’d devoted every particle of strength she possessed to waiting until she was alone before she gave way to scalding tears.
Now, her tears spent, eyes burning but dry, she wandered among the fires. Her mother had told her how to lift the spell that blinded her. She’d be a fool indeed to let piety and a maid’s modesty rob her of this chance.
Since she couldn’t give herself to the man she loved, someone else would have to suffice.
So she drifted and searched for a solitary man who might suit.
Some were too drunk, falling down with wine. Some danced surefooted, but too lewd and leering for her to tolerate. Some were simply too young, as uncertain and untried as she. Clearly that would never serve. A few were too old, graybeards with knotted arms and hoary chests, furred like beasts.
None had Zamiel’s sleek sinewed beauty, his lethal predatory grace. None had eyes the color of twilight that gleamed with promise, a mouth that quirked with unquenchable mischief, a voice to make the very angels weep...
She’d be weeping herself if she dwelled on him. Firmly, she banished the Son of Lucifer from her thoughts and moved to the next fire.
This one, set apart from the others, might suit. It stood near the cliff, beside the path that led down to the cave, which meant it was close to private. Only a few dancers still circled the flames, and most seemed near to coupling.
Even as she watched, a young man with a lion’s mane of tawny hair and sculpted muscles embraced a voluptuous lass with milk-white skin and raven curls.
The girl was already naked. The man’s sun-browned hands rose to fondle her pouting breasts, knowing thumbs sweeping over her nipples until they tightened in response. Boldly the girl pushed down the breechclout that was his only garment. His manhood sprang free from a nest of golden curls to jut before him like a battle lance.
Linnet gasped aloud, one hand flying to cover her mouth and stifle the sound. Shameful stirrings of desire tightened her own nipples and dampened the hidden folds between her thighs as she watched the youth, like a golden god, close possessive hands around the girl’s pear-shaped buttocks and lift her.
The girl twined her arms around his neck and arched back, raising her breasts for his mouth. He suckled and teased the girl’s nipples—pausing, drawing back, making her lift and beg him for more. Open-mouthed, moaning, the girl wrapped her legs around his sinewed hips and thrust her Venus mound against him.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered her onto his swollen shaft. The girl shuddered and cried out, urging him on with words that brought heat flooding to Linnet’s flushed face. The lad lowered her to the ground and pinned her arms overhead. Hard and fierce, he started thrusting, taut buttocks flexing as he subdued her, covering her open mouth with his. The girl’s hips rose and fell, matching him thrust for thrust.
Watching, Linnet felt breathless, heart pounding too swiftly in her throat. Her nipples chafed the fabric of her gown. Barely aware what she did, her hands drifted upward to fondle and rub the tight peaks, just as Zamiel had done.
Sweet mercy, the way his tongue had felt between her legs, teasingly circling her pleasure-pearl, dipping into her channel to taste the honey brimming there...
Gradually she became aware of someone watching her in turn. There, across the fire, stood the lone figure who hadn’t already sunk down to the grass. Slim and wiry as a satyr he was, a mane of auburn hair streaming around his shoulders. His tilted green eyes smiled at her. Bare-chested, he glistened with a fine dew of sweat, barefoot in breeches that clung shamelessly to his erection.
Face burning, Linnet dropped her hands. She wanted to spin away—but she forced herself to stay. She wanted this, did she not? He was young, clean, handsome, their setting relatively private. If indeed she planned to do this, she would find nothing better.
Except for Zamiel, the exception to every rule. But he’d made it abundantly clear he didn’t want h
er.
She wanted to pray, but could think of no prayer suitable for such an occasion. She was walking straight into mortal sin.
She made herself move toward him, this young faun she’d chosen. He smiled and came forward with alacrity, more than willing enough for both of them, if she was any judge. Now he was reaching for her—
A ripple of blackness, sparking with emerald and cobalt fire, swept across her field of vision. A shadow detached from the night to slide between her and the auburn-haired pagan. For a single heartbeat, she thought the night itself had come alive to save her soul.
A familiar knife-slim figure with jet-black wings, fully spread and mantling, stood before her. A crown of black flames writhed on his brow. Raven hair streamed around him. A streak of lightning flickered down the sword at his side. His eyes were molten white, bright enough to make her own eyes sting, even when his awesome power was trained elsewhere.
Before that burning gaze, her auburn-haired pagan flung up an arm to shield his eyes.
“She is mine,” Zamiel growled like a snarling lion, raising gooseflesh down her arms.
That resonant bronze voice was nothing human. Yet the sound plucked at her, touching the strings of memory. The voice of a wrathful angel, she’d heard such before, but the memory was lost with so many others in the fog of oblivion. She must remember, must break the spell!
But the auburn-haired pagan was strong in the power of his heathen Goddess, here on Midsummer Night where the fires burned to honor her.
“You have no power here!” Rashly he challenged the winged form. “Nor does your sorrowful god of chastity, nailed to his tree.”
Zamiel threw back his head and laughed, the bellowing laughter of an immortal. His black wings opened.
Aye, wings! she marveled. Somehow his divine power was returning. Had God forgiven him?
“I am Death. There is no place under the sun where I do not triumph in the end. Foolish mortal, you cannot stand against me.”
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 25
