Reaper's Dark Kiss (23 page)

“I think she likes you,” Viper said.

Oracle’s answer came back to Sky. “
In chaos is found the seed of dominion
.”

“And Vandar,” she said, “he’s a chaos Furie?”

“LaHaaz, Furie of Chaos,” Julian said. “Vazzago, Furie of the Labyrinth, is his counselor.”

“My brother Furies and I, our warriors who fell with us, we are Remnants, fallen from a world to which we may never return.”

Nearby footsteps sounded on winding paths. Somewhere water splashed over stone. From overhead, light fell through filtered glass in spears of violet and purple. For the first time, Sky noticed something about the people moving through the garden. It was so much a part of them, she’d overlooked it until now. They had the haunted look of exiles who had no hope of ever going home. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t sorrow for us,” Marek said. “With our fall into this world came emotion. In this place of dazzling light, we have discovered many wonders.” His face shaded with brooding sadness. He said, “I have come to believe the greatest of these is love. It has made our journey into damnation worth every pain endured.”

“Every pain,” Julian echoed softly.

After everything that had been taken from them, the Furies still believed in love. To Sky, that felt like the best kind of magic.

“The poison of the stone has dissipated,” Marek said to Julian. “It is time you consider the Dark Kiss, brother.”

“No,” Julian said. “I’ll kill Vandar before I do that to Sky.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Vandar pulled on his trousers and lifted Maggie from the back of the couch where he’d bent her over. He watched her settle into the soft cushions. She winced. He felt a shade of regret at how hard he’d taken her. He wasn’t used to such feelings.

To cover his discomfort he said, “Stay there,” and got up to pour her another glass of wine.

As the crimson liquid flowed, it occurred to Vandar that he had never waited on a female, never offered anything to anyone unless he knew he would gain from it. Resting the seventy-eight-year-old bottle on the marble tabletop, he searched himself for what he wanted from Maggie. What came surprised him. It was almost childlike. He wanted to be the hero, the lover Maggie had drawn.

An impossible thought. He was created from absolute darkness.

“You must allow into your heart that which you deem impossible.”

That was all very well for dreamers like Oracle, but Vandar was a warrior. His life revolved around what could be done, how it could be done, and what weapons he required to do it.

Maggie took the glass and settled closer to Vandar when he sat down. His mind circled helplessly back to Marek and the contract.

“What’s taking your thoughts so far away?” Maggie asked, setting her glass on the wood table before them.

In the Dominion War, he had fought his brothers and won, but only after grueling battles. And still, Vandar had the feeling, even as he’d celebrated with his exhausted men, that Marek had won. Now, with the contract looming so close, he feared that Marek would find a way to win. Unwilling to share any of this with Maggie, he said, “Come,” he said. “Walk with me in Light Town.” Another first. He rarely wanted more from a youngling than the use of her body. “And tomorrow night, we will go into the Village of Greenwich and buy you things worthy of your talent to draw.”

“I’d like if you let me draw you naked.” Maggie pressed her bare body against Vandar, sliding a hand down between his legs, kissing his throat. “Just you. Without me in the picture.”

“You may draw me any way you like. But now you will dress.” He pressed a light kiss to Maggie’s lips before pushing her away and standing up. “I’ll wait outside for you.” If he didn’t, he wouldn’t let Maggie dress. He would bend her over the couch again and stroke hard into her until the need she called forth in him was sated for a time. He would enjoy it, but she wouldn’t. He didn’t want that. He wanted Maggie to have as much pleasure as he did when he was buried deep in her.

If Maggie is the impossible, then I want the impossible, Vandar thought, going through the door. Was this what Oracle meant? A ridiculous idea. Soon fear would replace desire in her eyes. He’d seen it happen between one sunset and the next. Soon, when he called her to him, she would tremble. Soon after that, she would beg him not to hurt her. Then would come the tears. Then he would send her away.

His phone rang. It was Kraeyl.

“Yes?” Vandar said.

He listened, his eyes on the door, waiting to play his role of hero. “Why does a robbery in the Sun World concern me?”

His counselor was cautious with his answer, the kind of caution that rose from fear. “Why would Julian do that?” Vandar asked, moving aside, letting Maggie through the door.

From what Vandar understood, his phone was the smartest device on the market. But resting in his hand, blithely broadcasting news that went from bad to worse to intolerable, it seemed the stupidest thing in mortal creation. “Very well,” he said. “Come to me in Light Town.”

“Do you want me to wait here?” Maggie asked after Vandar ended the call.

“No.” Vandar slid his hand under her half T-shirt and gently fondled her nipple. She moaned softly. The look in her half-closed eyes told Vandar she was seeing the hero Maggie thought him to be. “I want you with me.” He would be what Maggie wanted for a few hours, and then, he knew, his life would come crashing back in. He pulled her T-shirt into place. “Kraeyl’s report won’t take long. After, we’ll talk of Michelangelo. He too enjoyed creating art naked, or was it naked art?”

Maggie gave him a look as if she wasn’t sure if he was joking, and then she burst out in a small laugh. Her laughter was far more pleasant than the fearful silence he’d come to expect from females. Feelings were indeed useless, but some were quite pleasurable.

In Light Town, Vandar was pleased to see that Kraeyl had so effectively spread the word. No youngling dared risk their lord’s wrath by keeping company with Oracle. Better to stay away from their little village entirely.

As Vandar walked, Maggie silent beside him, he thought over the phone call. The most dangerous act a Shade could do was commit notorious, open crime in the mortal world. Tonight, Julian had done exactly that.

“I’ve never seen it this empty,” Maggie said, interrupting his thoughts.

They were moving along a narrow curving way with no shops. Blue lights the color of a storm-driven sky lit their way.

Oracle melted from a stone wall and appeared on Maggie’s other side. “Your town of light is empty because your master has perfected the art of ruling through fear,” Oracle rasped from deep within his hood.

Maggie jumped and pushed closer to Vandar. He appreciated a moment of pleasure that a youngling who had shared his bed thought of him as a refuge. Perhaps he was a hero after all.

Oracle had stalked them in complete silence, a warrior on the hunt. Vandar disliked feeling like prey. “Your tricks are old,” he said, “and I am beginning to tire of your presumptions.”

Vandar pulled Maggie slightly behind him, shielding her without thinking. He’d had enough of Oracle. If it came to a fight, then so be it. Kraeyl glided up to them, his open face arranged in the role he enjoyed least but played best, that of peacemaker. He gave a courtly bow that was aimed squarely between Vandar and Oracle. “My lord,” he said. “I see you’ve found our guest.”

“A lonely guest,” Oracle said, “as your lord has deprived me of the wonderfully invigorating company of the young.” He crooked his head, making his hood gather on one brawny shoulder. “It
was
your lord who scattered the younglings to their day graves?” he asked. Before Kraeyl could answer, Oracle said, “Of course it was. I’m sure you’re far too careful to incriminate yourself by threatening those less powerful than your noble self.”

The one thing Kraeyl despised, the greatest insult to him, was to be called a criminal. Vandar looked to his counselor. Kraeyl’s eyes glowed crimson with rage. Oracle took a step back, his hands lowered but slightly in front of him, ready to draw a weapon and kill. Facing one another, they stood ready to make war.

Just then, Vandar would have given anything to be a hero in a tale of love, rather than an immortal standing on the brink of Armageddon.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Now that Julian had actually fed from Sky, the haeze was stronger, a blind, unrelenting urge to mark her, claim her, whatever the cost.

I will not let her go.

His beast would drive Julian into exile from the Creed, if that was what it would take to keep Sky.

Marek had known better than to argue about the Dark Kiss. After Viper left with him, Sky asked Julian to fly them up here, a dizzyingly high terrace. The garden lay far below them, its crooked paths making a toy maze. A glass pane almost directly overhead flooded the stone with violet glow. A recess was carved out of the wall, a kind of shallow cave. Sky, leaning against one side of the cave’s entrance, stared out over the gardens to the terraces opposite.

“Whose body are you in?” she asked.

Julian took his time thinking over his answer. The slower he talked, the longer he had to decide what to do with Sky while he went to take care of Vandar and end this. “Mine,” he said. “We’re made of darkness, invisible. The fall condensed us into solid form. But inside what you see is Azryal, a Furie. And inside that is a beast.”

“Beast?” Sky asked. “Like six six six, Satan?”

“Lucifer is a fool,” Julian said. “He should have known Michael would never come to his side.” He shook his head. “Yes and no. Every Furie has a beast inside. It’s what comes out when there’s no veil.”

“Did falling give you new names too?”

“A long time ago our names meant something to mortals. They would have thought we were demons. We had to stay hidden.”

Sky moved close to the edge and stood there for a time, not moving, her back to Julian. He took in the graceful curves of her body in the light bathing her from above. Her hair fell against her shoulders in messy curls. She was delicately balanced, fearless. It would be good to seduce her and have her, here on the ledge. He would lay her on their clothes, then—

“I can feel you inside me,” Sky said, her back still to him. “It’s incredible. Like you’re pulling me, drawing me to you.” She took a breath as if to breathe him in. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

He moved close behind her and put his arms around her. He ran his hands up her body, over her hard nipples, cupped her breasts before he caressed her throat. She arched back against him, moaning, utterly surrendering to his touch. Her scent surrounded Julian, made him hard, made him desperate to have her, drink from her again, feel her naked body against him. He kissed the hollow behind her ear. “You’re feeling the haeze,” he said. “You’re mine, Sky. Maybe it’s not right to say that in your world, but in my world, it’s the truth.”

Mine
, his beast agreed with a long purr. And she would forgive Julian for what he had to do before this day was done.

Her hands lightly on his, Sky leaned her head against him.

For a long while, Julian let himself think of nothing else but caressing her, pleasuring her. He kept a hand between her legs, rubbing against the seam of her jeans. He inhaled the scent of her desire, kissed her throat, her neck, while with his other hand, he toyed with her nipples.

Sky gasped and squirmed and must have forgotten she was on the edge of a precipice. She tried to step away, but he kept her close.

“Oh my God, Julian. Stop. I’ll embarrass myself.”

Julian could feel her wetness against his hand, hear her sharp breathing, feel her tense body against him. “You’re mine,” he said, rubbing harder, grinding his achingly hard cock slowly against her. “Enjoy it.”

Moments later Sky came to a shuddering climax. Julian turned her around and let her bury her heated face against his chest. She embraced him. He held her, letting her breathing return to normal, and knew, with no doubt, that the woman in his arms was worth whatever he had to do to keep her.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Sky murmured.

Julian found a laugh for her. “Say you’ll let me do that again later, and you’ll be naked.”

She stepped away and looked up at him. “I’m picking up some weird kind of feeling from you.”

He pulled her near, rested his hands on her ass, and rubbed his hard cock between her legs. “Nothing weird about it,” he said. “Promise.”

With a reluctant sigh, she pushed him away. He let her. “You’re hiding something. It feels like I should remember what it is.” She spoke in the slow, uneven tones of someone thinking out loud. “What’s the Dark Kiss?”

Her orgasm had pushed through the mild Influence Julian had used to make her forget what Marek had said. What he’d done was forbidden, and Julian was willing to pay. But not yet. He only had to evade Sky for a little while longer. He’d figured out a way to do what had to be done. The blood she’d lost would be making Sky tired soon. She’d have to sleep. Then he could leave her with Viper. When she woke up, she’d be madder than a Furie in sunlight, but that would pass. “This isn’t the highest terrace,” he said. “Want me to take you higher?”

“Tell me.” Sky pinned Julian with a hard stare. “There’s a way out. What is it?”

This was Julian’s fight, and it had been a long time coming. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Nothing to tell,” Sky said, “or nothing you’re willing to say to me?”

“I’m a warrior, Sky.” Julian turned his back on her. It was his turn to stare out over the gardens. “I do things I’ll never tell you.” He felt her withdraw into hurt silence. “In my world,” he said, trying to explain as much as he could, “we don’t put our females in danger.”

“You can’t protect me forever.”

A snarl ripped out of Julian. He whipped around to face Sky. The guttural voice of his beast spoke. “Yes. I. Can.”

Sky didn’t so much as flinch. Getting right in his face, she said, “No, Azryal, you can’t.” She held his gaze a moment. “Is your beast done growling? Because I want an answer. What’s the Dark Kiss?”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Knowing Kraeyl had staked younglings at dawn for less than the insult Oracle had uttered, Vandar said, “It’s too early in the day for a war. I prefer to confine ruin and carnage to the sunless hours.”