by Bella Klaus
Valentine rose several feet into the air, keeping a distance of a few feet. “We have to hurry. The Council is debating on what to do about this breach of the Supernatural Secrecy Act. I left before they reengaged the lockdown, but we need to get you out of the country.”
My eyes bulged. It was as bad as I’d thought.
“Can you shift back?” He gestured down toward a thatch of trees below. “I brought a spare cloak to hide you from the cameras.”
A surge of gratitude thickened my throat, and my vision blurred, but I managed to nod through my tears. Pulling back my wings, I stretched out my talons and landed on the frosty ground with a gentle thud.
Valentine drifted down beside me, holding out a black hooded cloak. A few helicopters swooped close, making my heart sink. At this rate, they’d capture footage of me while I got changed.
“Use the trees as cover.” He walked beneath their canopy. “If you keep your head down as you shift, they won’t capture your face.”
Nodding, I pulled back my flames. Before I could even feel the kiss of the frost against my skin, Valentine had encased me in the cloak and swept me into his arms.
“Thought he had killed you.” His lips descended on mine in a gentle kiss.
My hands rose to cup his face. I was about to assure him that I was alright, when he raced out of the park at vampire speed, making my stomach lurch. London whizzed past in a blur, and the air chilled to nearly freezing.
I clenched my teeth, holding down my stomach against the heart-wrenching rollercoaster effect of his speed, and not speaking until he stopped within a mahogany-lined cabin of a luxury train.
My nostrils filled with the mingled scents of leather, champagne, and beeswax polish. I blinked over and over, taking in the 1920’s decor, wondering if we were in the set of Murder on the Orient Express.
To our left was a half-partitioned room containing a king-size bed with a gold-embroidered comforter illuminated by matching table lamps. Between a wall of square windows and where Valentine stood was a table for two with golden dining chairs upholstered in burgundy velvet.
I glanced over my shoulder at a plush sofa, and on our right, an entire wall of cabinets displaying crystal glasses and alcoholic beverages in fancy bottles. “Where are we?”
“The Phileas Express,” he replied, still cradling me to his chest.
My brows drew together at the familiar name. “Have you told me about this before?”
Valentine shook his head. “It’s an underground service to transport daylight-sensitive supernaturals around the world. Where have you been this entire month?”
I reared back. “A month?”
Valentine stared down at me with a deep frown. His skin was paler than usual, and his features were a little more chiseled. If he was still preternatural, I would have said he was in need of blood, but it looked like he hadn’t been taking care of himself.
“You’ve been gone for twenty-eight days.” His voice quivered. “How long was it for you?”
“A day?” I bit down on my lip and paused. “I fell unconscious, but I woke up, got swallowed by a snake, and Kresnik rescued me. Then his brother turned up and set an eagle on him, but all of that took place in less than two hours.”
Valentine gaped down at me through wide eyes. “Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head. “He was surprisingly nice, but then he needed my tears to leave the Realm of the Gods.”
A long breath escaped his lungs. “Let me get you into the bath, and you can tell me.”
“No.”
“Mera?” He made one of those slow blinks people made when they were completely baffled.
Maybe my mind was jumping all over the place and I wasn’t telling the story right. I hadn’t given myself time to process everything. My body had shattered into pieces at least twice, I’d been abducted by Kresnik, swallowed by Python, and sexually harassed by Epimetheus and his oversized eagle. That wasn’t even counting waking up surrounded by emergency services.
“My skin is covered in digestive fluids.” I wriggled out of Valentine’s grip. When he set me on my feet, I shoved off the cloak, letting it fall to the floor. “The only way to kill a god is by using the blood, bone, or bile of another god.”
He drew closer, his brows furrowed. “Where did you learn that?”
“Epimetheus,” I blurted. “Kresnik’s brother.”
Valentine’s lips thinned. “Can you trust anything he says? He’s known as the god of hindsight and excuses.”
The train rolled forward and accelerated down the tracks, and I walked to the other side of the room, looking for the door. As I reached for the brass handle, Valentine placed a hand over mine and steered me toward another door.
“If you’re looking for the bathroom, it’s here,” he said.
“Thanks.” I pushed the door open and stepped into a marble room the same size as our cabin, with a clawfoot tub on the left. Light streamed in from recessed ceiling lights, illuminating the basins atop a counter on the right.
The train company had provided a range of toiletries for its passengers, including a glass jar containing cotton buds. I glanced around for another container, and not finding anything better, emptied its contents.
“Mera.” Valentine placed his hands on my shoulders. “Are you alright?”
I peeled off a strip of gunk that had dried on my skin and placed it into the jar. “The blood, bone, or bile of one god kills another.”
“According to Epimetheus?” Without needing to be prompted, Valentine eased his fingernails beneath some encrusted digestive fluids on my back and added it to my collection.
“Well, Kresnik killed Python with a stone he’d dipped in his own blood.” I reached into the hollow of my collarbone, scooped up some crusty fluid, and dropped it into the jar.
“Are you referring to the snake or the son of Gaia and Uranus?” Valentine worked something flakey from my back.
I turned to meet his concerned gaze. “He’s both.”
Valentine pressed a kiss on my forehead before continuing to help remove as much of the snake’s digestive fluids as he could find. He didn’t say a word as I told him what happened after Kresnik had abducted me, sometimes staring at me with a stillness that made me think he’d stopped breathing. Pain shone in his violet eyes, which glittered like freshly cut amethysts.
It was hard to witness the intensity of his emotions, even harder to see how much he’d suffered. I placed my palms over his broad chest. “I can’t imagine being separated from you for so long.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m sure it was comparable to when I was dead.”
“But at least I had your body and soul keeping me company until we could be together, and a plan to restore you to life. Did you think I’d died?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “The fate I feared for you was more gruesome than death. Once again, I failed to protect you.”
“That’s not true,” I murmured.
His eyes opened. “You exploded in front of my very eyes, and when you re-formed, Kresnik took you.”
“Because I refused your constant attempts to keep me safe.” Guilt twanged at my heart with a tug so fierce I felt it in the back of my throat.
Every version of Valentine I had encountered had, in his own way, tried to shield me from Kresnik, and I’d resisted their attempts out of a misguided belief that I wasn’t a damsel in distress. Maybe it was time to accept my limitations and allow Valentine to take care of me.
I lowered my gaze to the marble floor. “This is my fault. I’m always trying to wriggle out from under your protection, and when I prove myself wrong, you feel bad for respecting my wishes.”
“Next time, I’ll keep you in manacles.” He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.
A laugh huffed from my chest. “You can try.”
Valentine cradled my face in his large hands. “Are you ready for a bath?”
I rocked forward on my heels, sliding my arms around his broad shoulde
rs. “Can’t wait.”
A muscle on the side of his nose twitched.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head, his gaze drifting away from my eyes. “It’s nothing.”
My breath caught. Did I put myself together wrong? “Valentine?”
The corners of his lips curled into a tiny smile. “I smell snakes and bile, and I can even tell you’ve been in a damp cave, but why do you smell of…”
I leaned forward, my eyes wide. “Of?”
“Dirty hair?”
Choking on thin air, I stepped back, my skin tightening with revulsion. “I need a hot shower with lots of bleach. Now.”
“Don’t you want to soak in a bath?” he asked.
“Not with that bastard’s beard grease all over my body.” I marched past the clawfoot tub to a shower cubicle at the end of the bathroom and turned the brass valve on the wall to maximum. Hot water streamed out of a pair of old-fashioned shower heads, filling the cubicle with steam.
“Mera?” Valentine’s voice was muffled as I stepped beneath the spray.
“Kresnik’s brother had this filthy old beard that was at least eight-foot long and trailed on the ground.” I fumbled at the marble corner shelves and grabbed a shampoo bottle. After flipping off its lid, I poured half its contents over my head.
“Let me help,” he said.
“But I stink.”
Valentine removed his clothes and stepped in after me, wet and naked and glistening like he’d been rubbed down with baby oil. The sight of those broad muscular shoulders, defined pecs, and tight six-pack was just about enough to wipe away memories of Kresnik’s too-small tunic and absolutely everything about his ghastly brother.
“Let me take care of you,” he said in a smoky voice that curled around my nipples and settled low in my belly.
My heartbeat skipped several beats, and a lock of shampoo-soaked hair flopped into my eyes, making me squeeze them shut. “Alright.”
As the hot water warmed my skin to a boiling point, Valentine massaged my scalp with his thick fingers. Pleasant shudders trickled down my spine, turning my muscles into mush and making the pulse between my legs pound.
He wrapped a strong arm around my back, holding me flush against his broad chest. “There wasn’t a minute I didn’t think about you the entire time you were gone.”
I rested my head against his shoulder and sighed. “I missed you, too.”
“You said it was hours,” he said.
“Until that rift reopened, I had no idea if I would ever see you again.”
Valentine worked the shampoo down my hair, separating the strands with his fingers. “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”
“What?”
“From the way you described the Realm of the Gods, it sounded like it had been deserted for thousands of years. If all the phoenixes were long gone, how did Kresnik’s people find yours?”
I tilted my head back, letting the hot water rinse the shampoo out of my hair. “Do you remember Father Jude?”
“Yes,” he replied, his voice tight.
“He had this thing about him that distorted time,” I murmured. “You could spend ten minutes with him and lose an entire night. He also told me he could enter any realm.”
“You’re saying he could travel to the time before this Great Divide?” Valentine poured shower gel onto a washcloth and worked it over my skin with firm strokes.
I slathered some of the slippery liquid in my hand and rubbed it over his hard pecs. “That would explain a lot, don’t you think?”
He stared down at me with his brows raised and a smirk playing on his lips. “I don’t need bathing.”
“What if I wanted to rub my soapy hands all over your glorious body?”
“Try not to distract me while I’m getting you clean,” he said with a chuckle.
“Or you’ll lift me off my feet and take me where I stand?”
“Is that what you want, Innamorata?” he purred. “For me to lift you up and take pleasure in your gorgeous little body?”
I licked my lips. “Everything involving you sounds appealing.”
His low and deep chuckle sent pleasant tingles across my skin, promising he’d give me everything I wanted and more.
As I slid my soapy hands over his chest, over his shoulders, and around his neck, Valentine reached down the contour of my waist, lighting a line of fire with his slippery palms.
“I’ve missed touching you.” He pressed a gentle kiss on my lips. “I’ve missed seeing you.” And then another. “I’ve missed your scent, your touch, and your taste.”
The slow sensuous slide of his large hands over my bare skin punctuated those words. This moment was too perfect. Part of me felt this was a dream, and part of me wondered if I was stuck in an illusion, because here I was in the shower of a luxury supernatural train, being spirited out of the country and away from danger.
Valentine peppered my lips with butterfly kisses, each touch like tiny explosions of ecstasy. It was wonderful. It was everything I had wanted while trapped in the Realm of the Gods. It was too good to be true.
“Is this real?” I asked.
He drew back and frowned. “Innamorata?”
“When I landed in the park and was unconscious, someone from the Council should have been there to arrest me for uncovering the Supernatural World. Instead, you came at the right time, with a cloak to shield me from the cameras, and a ticket on a magical escape route.”
Valentine’s hands around my waist stilled, and he stared down at me for several moments. “The month I spent not knowing what Kresnik was doing to you was a waking nightmare. The enforcers surrounding Hyde Park were more concerned with apprehending Kresnik while he was unconscious than arresting you.”
I bit down on my lip. It sounded reasonable. Maybe recent events had dialed up my paranoia to eleven, but a little voice in the back of my head reminded me that Jonathan had once invaded my dream and tried to fool me into believing he was Valentine.
“Let me prove to you that this is real,” he growled.
“How?”
“Did you know that a powerful climax can break a person out of any illusion?”
A laugh bubbled up from my throat. “Did you just make that up?”
“Can you think of a more pleasant way to test reality?” His smoky magic curled around my body, wrapping around my neck, my nipples, and my nether regions. Valentine pressed me into his hardness and growled.
Heat flooded my core, and my already slick folds became wetter than the water cascading on our heads. My entire body seized with a bone-deep shudder of desire. Maybe I really was paranoid and overthinking this illusion crap. Nobody’s magic but Valentine’s ever caressed me so… thoroughly.
His power explored every inch of my skin, teasing, caressing, lavishing me until my nipples tightened and my swollen clit pulsed with the rapid beat of my heart.
Desire flooded my veins, my breath quickened, and I dug the pads of my fingers into the muscles of his neck. “If you don’t make love to me right now, I think I’ll die.”
“Then allow me to be your salvation.” He hooked his fingers under my thighs and pulled me up to his waist.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, crossing my ankles behind his hips. It took a few heartbeats to get comfortable. My elbows rested by his collarbones with my forearms over his shoulders, my heels settled on the curve of his ass, and my sex lay flush against his erection, which thickened and pulsed at my touch.
Pressing my weight onto his shoulders, I tried to hoist myself up a few more inches so I could engulf the bulbous tip of his length, but Valentine grabbed my ass cheeks, holding me in place.
“Not yet,” he whispered, his voice breathy.
“Why not?”
“You haven’t yet climaxed.”
“But I will.”
He shook his head. “A gentleman should always satisfy a lady before taking his own pleasure.”
“You didn’t say that when y
ou were a preternatural,” I murmured.
A growl reverberated across my chest. “I was little more than a slavering beast.”
Leaning forward, I pressed a kiss on his full lips. “A beast who loved and protected me.”
He met my eyes with a determination that seemed a little too intense for our situation. “These weeks you’ve been gone, my memories have settled, and I’m both shocked and appalled at how I treated you. I don’t deserve your devotion, and will always be grateful that you never gave up on me, even when all I offered you was disrespect.”
I placed a kiss on one corner of his mouth, followed by another. One day, Valentine would look back on the past few weeks and realize that nothing that happened was his fault. Maybe he’d feel better about it after killing Kresnik. “I don’t regret anything we did together, and I loved that you expanded my outlook on sex.”
His chest made a satisfied rumble. “I love you to the very marrow of my bones. Even those times when I believed you to be my property, I adored you in my own twisted way.”
I threaded my fingers through his wet hair. “That was the only thing keeping me going while I worked toward getting you whole.”
Still holding onto my ass, he ground his erection against my clit, making it explode with sparks of sensation that reached my nipples and travelled down the inside of my thighs. I sucked in a sharp breath.
“You like that, Innamorata?”
With an eager nod, I circled my hips, kneading my clit against his hardness and making him clench his teeth.
“Mera,” he said through panting breaths. “I love the way you move against me.”
I clamped my lips around his earlobe and sucked, causing his entire body to shudder. After a few heartbeats, we worked up a rhythm that heated my core and had my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
Pleasure built around my throbbing nub, encircled my hungry core, and squeezed with the strength of a constrictor. Half of me wanted him to put an end to this sweet torture and pound me to a shuddering climax. The other half never wanted this to stop.