But now he must return to hell on Earth.
“I’m going back. For her. For her son. It’s time. Long past time,” he said.
The room was quiet except for the drip, drip, drip of the faucet in the sink.
Adam moved across the room to retrieve his bags. One held his sword. They would take a private jet to Targu-Mures in Romania, refueling as necessary. His work required that he keep transportation on standby. It was only now, when his efficient transportation network threatened Victoria’s safety, that he wished he didn’t have the world at his fingertips.
She could die.
She could live with the images of that compound engraved on her heart forever.
Either was unacceptable.
His hands tightened on his bags as he left his room to meet Victoria downstairs. He’d never hated his servitude to the daemon king more than he hated it at that moment. For a hundred years all he’d cared about was bringing an end to the Order of Samuel and freeing his soul. That had changed. He now cared about something—someone—more.
* * *
They rode silently in the vintage limousine to a small airport where a private jet waited. It was already whirring loudly in the dead of night. Though by the time Victoria was gestured to board, there was a pink tinge on the horizon. Turov wealth and influence was obviously a means of speedy transport. It had only been hours since they’d learned of Michael’s abduction. When they raced down the tarmac and the plane lifted into the air, the physical exhilaration of liftoff was dampened only by fear.
She wasn’t afraid for herself.
Adam moved from the cockpit back to the plush seat reserved for him near hers. His seat had been modified to accommodate a larger table that had a built-in computer monitor that flipped up automatically as he sat down. Pressure sensors? Or was it cued by movement? Either way, it was a graceful display of organization and well-practiced procedure.
He knew about storming castles. Or at least he knew about hunting monks and Rogue daemons.
“Shaken martini, not stirred,” Victoria mumbled. But no automated tray appeared with a calming drink for a wannabe spy with a daemon blade in her backpack.
“Could you please prepare Ms. D’Arcy a midflight cocktail?” Adam asked.
Whether he addressed the air or pressed a button she wasn’t sure, but in a short while a man in a crisp uniform carried her a drink that was citrusy but not too sweet, and she sipped it gratefully while her companion focused on his monitor and keyboard.
He was still dressed in his tactical gear and she saw why when he flipped open a cuff and seemed to download maps and satellite data onto a curved monitor that was molded to his lower arm.
“Enjoy the amenities while you can. We’ll only be able to go so far by plane. Once we land in Romania, we’ll switch to train. Then we’ll have to hike to the compound in the mountains. It’s steep. And we’ll have to keep up a fast pace. We can’t give them time to send out a welcoming committee,” Adam said.
He didn’t look at her. His gaze was on the data streaming across his arm. The glow of the screen reflected on his face. But it didn’t matter where he was looking—she could feel his focus on her. He’d heard her mumble about a martini. He’d noticed she was sitting on the edge of her seat instead of relaxing into it.
His attention caused her to feel even more on edge. The cabin of the plane was roomy, but confined enough to cause Adam’s Brimstone blood to heat the space between them. She was worried and anxious to get to Michael as soon as possible. That heightened emotion jangling her nerve endings made her want to lean into Adam’s warmth. She wanted to soak up his heat and strength to recharge her failing reserves of hope. She hadn’t wanted to sing since Grim had appeared in the cottage’s living room.
He didn’t offer. She didn’t ask. But he noticed every time she shifted in her seat or every time she sipped her drink. When it was empty, he asked the man in uniform to bring her juice and a silver tray of cheese and crackers.
He didn’t try to talk her out of going to the mountain compound again.
It was a long flight. She finally allowed the soft seat to claim her whole body. She couldn’t touch Adam, but she didn’t try to resist the buildup of Brimstone in the cabin. His warmth lulled her to sleep. She woke briefly during a refueling stop to find a blanket had been tucked around her. From behind drooped lids, she caught Adam staring at her across the aisle. Before he realized she was awake, his face was as raw and honest as she’d ever seen it.
And he was neither warrior nor sophisticate in that moment.
Fear for her shone in his eyes. The set to his jaw was pure marble sculpted by time and desolation and determination.
She stirred, pulled the blanket closer and pretended to sleep.
* * *
The train was something out of a time that civilization had forgotten. There was car after car of worn seats that had absorbed a century’s miasma of different government policies. But there were also private sleeper cars—also worn—for wealthy riders who could afford to bribe their way into a little luxury. Adam bribed. Victoria was happy to be shut away from the crowd.
But only until she realized that they were going to be on the train for hours in a much smaller space than they’d shared on the plane.
Adam left the car so that she could freshen up in private. There was a tiny sink with running water, although to call the meager trickle “running” was an overstatement. Still, she was happy to brush her teeth and wash up and have a short reprieve from Adam’s magnetism—Brimstone and otherwise.
When he returned, she did the same for him. She hiked to the dining car for a very strong coffee. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stop herself from mistaking every other passenger for an evil monk. In half an hour she had jumped at twenty false attacks and she retreated back the way she had come, hoping that Adam would be clothed and cooled.
He was clothed. He would never be cool. And the car seemed smaller than it had seemed before when she rejoined him.
There were two benches that faced each other near a window that looked out on the darkness of night as they passed hill and dale and all the towns and villages in between. The benches folded down into two bunk beds that came within a few inches of forming one bed. If it hadn’t been for their desperate mission, she would have thought she’d found herself in a romantic comedy.
She didn’t feel like laughing.
Victoria tried to breathe lightly, but her senses were filled with the sensual aroma of wood smoke and male. Even thousands of miles from his vineyard, Adam carried the scent of spice and berry from his pinot noir ever so subtly on his skin. He was sweet, smoky and salty. Total recall of the taste of his skin claimed her. She stood in the doorway, swaying with the movement of the train. And Adam looked up.
“I’d promise not to accost you, but I remember what happened last time I promised that and I’m afraid you’d think I was asking for more,” Adam said.
“I’m not sure how I’d react. If you asked for more,” Victoria confessed. He had called Ezekiel to try to stop her. It hadn’t been Adam’s decision to make even if it showed how much he cared about her safety.
“I won’t ask,” Adam said.
He stood and manipulated his bench into its bunk form and sank down on a travel pillow with a scratchy red blanket that had seen better decades.
It probably would have seemed a final rejection if her affinity didn’t feel the burn of his Brimstone grow brighter as she took the steps necessary to fold down her own bunk and settle onto it.
“I’ll die before I let them have him,” Adam said.
“I know,” Victoria replied.
The burn was unbearable. But her song was stuck. Wedged tight and impossible in her gut, all the notes he inspired atrophied in a hard, hot knot of impossibility. She could accept him dying to save Michael. But
she couldn’t accept him sacrificing his soul for her and she was afraid that was where they were headed.
Adam reached up to flick the switch, plunging them into a dark that was only slightly less black than the view outside their window.
“What if I ask, Adam? Would you hold me? Would you warm me and help me forget what might happen tomorrow?” Victoria whispered.
There were only a few inches between their bunks. Seconds after she spoke it seemed like a chasm, but then the muscular male body she craved rolled over the separation as if it was nothing.
“I serve a dark master, but he is not why I’m here with you,” Adam said. “Your song is a light I can’t quite touch. One that calls me away from the daemon king. I want to give you all the heat I possess. I may never regain my soul, but I sense the possibility of finding redemption in giving you all that I have left.”
His kiss silenced her objections over his offer of sacrifice. She couldn’t pull away from the lips she craved, and in the dark she hungrily devoured them more fiercely than she’d allowed herself to before. She sighed between deep plunges of his tongue. She reached to hold on to his shoulders and then to thread her fingers through his soft hair. When he rolled to press her under him and settle between her parted legs, she wrapped herself around him and held fistfuls of hair as their tongues twined.
The song in her chest was painfully constricted. She couldn’t express it. But his kiss nibbled away at her inability. He eased her ferocity. He reached back to take her desperate hands from his hair and he pressed them down onto the bunk. He held her immobile while he gentled the kiss. She gasped and begged, but he teased her tender lips. He licked. He nipped. He suckled her lower lip. Until she followed him into a long, slow, gentle exploration of the depths of his mouth and hers. It was rough and smooth and sweet. Their mouths tasted of mint and rich coffee and smoke and all the flavors mingled together into a sensual blend that melded perfectly with intimate textures and sighs.
She panted when he broke from her lips only a few millimeters to catch his own breath. She tried to move her hands, but he held her still.
“Shh,” Adam said. “Relax, solovey. This? I’ve got.”
He moved against her and she moaned. She’d already removed her jacket when they entered the sleep car, but she still wore pants, a T-shirt and boots. He rocked back and away from her to reach for one of her feet in the dark. It seemed an eternity before she could exhale along with the rasp on the zipper being released down to her ankle. He pulled and tossed the boot to the floor. Then he reached for the other. All the while, she lay still and ached while his Brimstone blood grew hotter. The other zipper rasped and that boot was also pulled free and dropped on the floor. Her socks followed.
“This can only get more and more interesting if you allow it,” Adam said.
“Oh, I allow. I definitely allow,” Victoria said.
His hands smoothed across her stomach, under her T-shirt, and she gasped again instinctively sucking in her tummy because the air was so chilled compared to his fingers. He found the zipper of her pants more quickly, but he pulled it down centimeter by centimeter until she was breathing shallow and quick when he finally came to the zipper’s end.
“I dream of your sweetness. Every night. I listen to you sing as I fall asleep and I dream of you rocking your release against my face,” Adam said.
Victoria grabbed handfuls of scratchy red blanket to keep from reaching for his hair again. But she couldn’t stop her hips from undulating with the memory of his tongue and he chuckled deep and low. The knot that had formed around her song in her chest loosened at the sound.
“So, so sweet. And your hum? Even sweeter. I want you to hum for me again,” Adam said.
“Adam,” Victoria said.
It was a breath, a sigh, but it was also a claiming. One she shouldn’t allow. He wasn’t hers. He would never be hers. He was a servant of the daemon king. He was a damned man and a hardened warrior through and through, but for now...she could be with him. Her song knew it. She felt it rise up to her throat.
“Yes. I’m here with you. Just you and me. The Brimstone burn and your sweet song,” Adam promised.
He pulled her pants off quicker than she’d expected him to. Maybe his teasing with the zipper had frustrated him too. She was left in her T-shirt and underwear, but not for long. He hooked his fingers under her shirt and lifted it from her body. She moved with his effort to allow the material to slide easily away.
And then a cell phone light came on.
Brighter than a candle but more intimate than the overhead lamp, Adam’s cell phone illuminated their bodies. He placed it on a nearby shelf beside the bunk and turned back to gaze on what he’d revealed. She didn’t mind. She liked to look at him too. His hair was disheveled. His tactical outfit, which he’d covered with jacket and jeans earlier when boarding and moving around the train, was now back in play. But that meant she had no idea how to undress him. He must have seen her confusion because he rose to stand beside the bunk and with several fluid moves he had undone hidden fasteners at his neck and wrists, hips and lower legs.
But when his clothes loosened she rose up on her knees to stop him from sliding the one-piece suit down. Instead, she worked the material down and off his body following its descent with her lips and teeth and tongue. It was her turn to enjoy his gasp, his hiss, his shuddering exhale as she came to the vulnerable and sensitive dips beside his hip bones.
His penis was fully aroused when she pushed the uniform lower to reveal it. He cupped the side of her face with both hands when she leaned down to reacquaint herself with its girth and length. She measured him with her mouth and tongue. She suckled and he jerked, but he was careful. Too careful. Between her thighs a throbbing heat nearly equal to Brimstone urged less caution. Please, please, please.
Adam seemed to sense her need. Or maybe it mirrored his own. They had pleasured each other before, but tonight they needed more. He stepped out of the uniform and left it crumpled and forgotten on the floor. He didn’t need armor with her tonight.
He stood naked in front of her, perfect for her because of his terrible scars. She wasn’t an ordinary woman, so an ordinary man with an ordinary past would have been too easily consumed by the fire her affinity called.
Adam could take the heat. He was the heat. And when he reached to pull the bra from her body, the lace gave way against his strength as if it was paper. Her freed breasts drew his attention and he pressed her back on the bed by taking them in his hands. He suckled one and then the other as she fell back. Her song burst forth in humming moans and he kissed her lips as she sang his name.
Her underwear was the last impediment and Adam tore them from her legs with a snap that stung, but he soothed the sting by distracting her with the hot length of his erection. He worked himself against her moist heat and she opened for him. She reached for his back and he didn’t pull away when she caressed over the ridges of his “wings.” He sighed into her mouth.
“I’ve dreamed of this too.”
He reached to help his penis find entrance, but she was so slick very little help was necessary. They joined as if their bodies had made the decision that they were meant to be together long before they allowed it. He buried himself in her and she rose to meet his thrust. Heat and song mingled so deep that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
He cried out as he plunged, shaking and quaking with the furious rise of his climax and release. She held on tight but then tumbled over the edge of her orgasm. She gasped, suddenly scared of the fall, but Adam grabbed her. He pulled her close, crushing her to his sweat-dampened chest.
He was damned. She was cursed by Samuel’s Kiss. They had created a temporary heaven in each other’s arms, but it couldn’t last. In the end, they were just a man and a woman on a train bound for hell.
Chapter 18
Their cabin had a sink, but no bathroom. The restroom was located off the exterior hallway and was shared by all the cabins in their car and the sleep cars directly fore and aft. Glamorous. But after midnight while Adam lay sleeping, Victoria was forced by necessity to brave the amenities.
She took her backpack with her.
The daemon king’s blade was warm beneath her hand even through the thick layer of the backpack’s sturdy waxed canvas. It was both soothing and frightening to think of his words when he’d given the blade to her.
This is my blade. This is my blood. By rights, my blood should flow in your veins.
Her mother had loved Ezekiel. It was hard to imagine. She’d been a tiny woman. Even more petite than Victoria was herself. Her rich contralto voice had always startled the audience when it flowed richly from her breast. She’d been small but ferocious with anyone other than Father Reynard. She had feared him. She’d told them it had always been like that, but Victoria had always wondered if she had been less easy to control before they were born. Father Reynard had known exactly what he was doing when he’d forced her to become pregnant. Anne D’Arcy worried over her daughters and how they might be used by the Order. It had eaten away at her until she was a shadow of her former self by the time she’d left them. Victoria had remembered a time when her mother was curvy, with rosy cheeks and a ready smile. In the end, she’d been frail and frazzled.
But her love of the daemon king had been as strong and as passionate as ever.
It is done. I am with you. Wherever you go, whatever threat you face, I am by your side. You’ll never be abandoned again.
She held the backpack close because the daemon king’s blade was dangerous to others.
Never trust a daemon.
It was advice her mother had always lived by even when she loved one.
Brimstone Bride Page 18
