Coldest Fire (Dominion series)

by Juliette Cross

  Stepping to the edge of the sofa, I recognized the hostility I’d laid out after she’d been nothing but polite. Forcing myself to stop, I clenched my jaw before adding, “Thank you for the meal. I’ll return in the morning to see if you have news.”

  When I swung the door open, the snow washing the landscape white, she spoke in almost a whisper.

  “You’re wrong, you know.”

  I paused, one hand on the door, the other on the frame. Waiting. Wanting to hear whatever she had to say. Longing for her to contradict me, in so many ways. That alone should’ve been some kind of warning. I’d not cared what anyone thought or felt or said in months. Many months.

  “I did find happiness in taking a great risk…that jeopardized my life once. It’s just that…sometimes…the past can leave scars that dig too deep. That can never be erased. And so, we have to be content with a half-life once we’ve flown our course and made it through to the other side without burning.” The truth of her words punched straight through my solar plexus, piercing with a jagged blade. “We aren’t all as pure-souled as Icarus,” she added in a whisper.

  Indeed. We were not.

  I closed the door on the beguiling woman and her serene, yet sad, presence that stirred too much in me. Shut away thoughts that had no business cluttering up my mind.

  “Veni, Circe,” I whispered into the whirling gale.

  She must’ve been close by, descending out of the wispy cloud cover and landing in her nesting spot from the night before. I strode toward her and put a hand to her warm muzzle. She purred, the fire inside of her vibrating heat in a halo around us both. Glancing back at the cottage, I’d thought to sift away to my own home for the rest of the day and the night. But now…I couldn’t leave.

  Not sure why or how. I always followed my instincts. Mine told me to stay put. To watch over her. Growling against the protective urge that kept me here, I battled with myself for another minute. She had no wards of protection. A vision of an intruder finding his way into her cottage while I wasn’t here licked a searing line of fire up my spine, engulfing me with sudden and shocking rage.

  Where had that come from?

  Begrudgingly and half hating myself for it, I settled against Circe’s shoulder, crossed my arms, and took up vigil like the night before, wondering when the bloody hell and how in all that’s holy I’d become tethered to this sylphlike witch.

  Chapter Five

  Nadya

  I’d taken a bath doused with oil of summer wind, my potion of vetiver, bergamot, alpine lilac, and brook water from the first melt of spring—all infused with an hour’s chanting during midday of the summer solstice. Even with the powerful infusion soaking into my skin, I needed more to calm my nerves. Whispering the old words my mother had taught me, I’d basked in the electric heat generated by my genetic lineage to sisters of witches dating back to the middle ages. The bathroom lit up with the faint greenish-gold light illuminating my skin.

  Yes, I was human, but I was a little more. My connection to a sixth sense, a magical sense, touched by nature and amplified by will—or sometimes by black rites I never chose to practice—was still a powerful force buried within me. Of course, my magic wasn’t as strong as a high demon’s or an archangel’s. But it was enough to make me feel of value to others outside the otherworlders’ realm. Vladek had made me feel…

  I couldn’t think of him. I’d spiral back to that dark abyss, and I told myself, promised myself I was never going back.

  Uriel.

  Conversation with the archangel had rattled me to the point that I couldn’t sleep even if I’d tried. Not just the conversation, but just being around him. As much as I pretended to deny my admiration—no, my attraction for him—let’s face it, I couldn’t. He might give off this icy vibe, but Anya had told me what kind of archangel he was. The kind of self-sacrifice he’d given, time and time again, to help those in the crosshairs of demons. He was the exact opposite of Vladek. And there simply was no way of escaping how completely attractive that was to me.

  The calming bath and commune with my magic surrounded me in a serene shell of my own making, but it was barely enough to ease my nerves and bring me the peace I sought. After dressing in my long-sleeved nightgown, I’d crawled into bed, the snow still falling steadily outside. I drifted off with Deimos snuggled up in a fluffy white blanket at the foot of the bed.

  I usually didn’t have dreams. Or any that I could remember. My magic protected me from the dark wanderings of my mind. But tonight, I did. I stood before a long, shadowed hallway while a man called out to me from the other side. Peering toward the light, the silhouette of a hazy figure ringed in gold solidified into Uriel, his majestic wings stretched wide as he walked toward me. But his voice was off. And why would he call me—

  “Frau Nadya!”

  Jolting up in bed, I gasped. The pounding on my front door stopped as someone pushed it open and stomped through my living area toward the bedroom. In a swift move, I snatched the blade I kept beneath my pillow and crouched on the floor behind the bed.

  “Frau—!”

  Bang. A slam as if the front door swung wide and hit the back wall. The sound of a long stride pounding my wooden floor across the living area then a scuffle, a squeaking of a man—no, an adolescent—and then silence.

  Oh, God. I knew that voice who’d called out. It was Klaus, the eldest son of Frau Stegemann in town.

  Rushing into the hallway, I readied to defend Klaus from the intruder, my sleep-hazed brain not puzzling out why he had barged into my home or how I’d managed to leave it unlocked. Against the wall, outlined in shadow and the very dim light of the embers still in the hearth, was Uriel with his forearm pressed to Klaus’s throat. He had the teenager a foot off the floor, his face inches from the horror-stricken one of the boy’s.

  “Uriel!” I dropped the knife and lunged forward, wrapped my hands around his bicep and pulled. Or tried to. His iron grip wouldn’t budge. “I know him! He’s from the village.”

  The archangel’s expression was a stone-like mask, his jaw clamped tight. Power radiated off of him in furious waves that sizzled against my skin with a lapping sting. He was in his own world, determined to kill the boy. Klaus’s mouth gaped, not making a sound, his face mottled purple from the blood rushing to his head, his eyes round with horror. I didn’t understand the murderous fury that had the archangel in a vise. Why had he attacked? Where had he come from?

  “Uriel!” I scrambled to his other side where he splayed his left hand to the boy’s chest. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and squeezed, pressing close to his side. Conjuring my magic, I whispered an incantation, summoning wind, asking the elements to help me awaken him from whatever madness had gripped his will. “Please.” A pulse of green light blinked with a spark where my hands gripped his thick wrist and my body aligned along the side of his.

  He released the boy to the floor, one hand still on his throat, while the other snapped out and gripped my wrist. He turned his face down to me, his icy gaze cutting straight to my heart. I sucked in a breath at the frigid fury skating behind those soulful eyes.

  “Uriel,” I whispered, “please let go of him.”

  With a sharp movement, he snapped his wings tight to his back and stepped out of the way at the same time. Klaus coughed and gripped his throat, sliding partly down the wall. I grabbed his shoulders to keep him on his feet.

  “Klaus, I’m so sorry. He…he didn’t know you were a friend.”

  For that’s the only reason I could imagine he’d attacked the boy with such swift violence. I didn’t have time to wonder where he’d been to see the boy come into my house or why he’d behaved so aggressively.

  Uriel didn’t make a sound. Silent and still pumping off waves of rage, even if it had dimmed.

  “Mama,” the boy choked out, his gaze frantically darting over my shoulder then back to me. “She needs you.”
<
br />   “It’s time?” I asked.

  He nodded, still gulping in deep breaths. “She’s—” He shook his head. “Something’s wrong.”

  No time to dress, I hurried to my bedroom and pulled thick socks from my drawer and slipped them on, then my lace-up boots.

  “Where are you going?” asked Uriel standing in the doorway of my bedroom. His wings, too tall for the entrance, jutted out above the frame into the hallway.

  “To Frau Stegemann’s. She’s having her baby.”

  “Why do you have to go? Where’s the doctor?”

  “There’s no one else.” Lacing up the second boot, I grabbed my thick wool cloak with the hood and clasped it on. “There are no hospitals in operation. The nearest clinic is too far away, and she can’t leave her house anyway.” Meeting his cold gaze, I further explained, even knowing he was fully aware of the fact that, “Humans can’t move around like angels and demons, sifting wherever they want go in seconds.”

  He watched me gather my small medical satchel and loop it on my arm.

  “You’re a midwife?” he asked.

  I stood in front of him, needing to get by.

  “I have the skills, yes, but I do whatever I can for anyone in need of medical treatment.”

  He tilted his head, his expression insanely calm. “You’re a…a healer?” He sounded absolutely dumbfounded.

  With a stiff nod, I gestured, unable to remove his body or get around him. “If you’ll step aside, I need to go.”

  After another uncomfortable pause and a slow blink of his eyes, he moved to let me by, but then followed close behind me. “I’ll take you.”

  Shocked, I glanced up at him over my shoulder, still moving for the door. “You don’t have to do that. I’m sure Klaus has his cart.”

  I stepped outside to find Klaus already sitting on the bench of his cart, the two mules’ heads lowered. He’d bundled his coat and scarf to cover all but his eyes, which watched Uriel with trepidation. Poor boy. Though the snowfall had slowed, the wind cut through the air in sharp gusts.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” said Uriel, close behind me. “I can get you there in a fraction of the time. If the mother needs you now, I can get you there faster. Let me take you.”

  He was right. No reason to argue with him. Klaus watched us, waiting. I considered for only a split second. “Klaus, we’ll go on ahead. I’ll meet you there.”

  Before I could turn and ask Uriel how he planned to carry me, his strong arms were around my waist from behind, pulling me against his body, his legs bent, and we rocketed into the air with a great beat of his wings. Gasping at the sudden weightlessness and the shock of being so close to him, I clutched at his forearms to have something to hold onto.

  When we’d sifted before, he’d kept me at arm’s length and touched me as little as possible. But carrying me in flight required more tactile control. His strong hold and his warm body unnerved and electrified me in a way that was frightening. I didn’t allow men to hold me this way—in a binding hold where I couldn’t control my escape. The thought spiraled, my heart pumping faster at the realization I couldn’t get free if I wanted to right now. Reaching up, I pressed a hand to my neck, feeling the lump of my locket next to my skin. The secret vial it contained hidden within calmed me.

  “I can’t sift if I’ve never been there,” his voice rumbled close to my ear. “You’ll have to steer me.”

  I’d been in such a blind panic at being pressed so close to him that I hadn’t even noticed how fast he soared above the forest. The church’s steeple came into view, the entire village covered in a blanket of white with the snow still coming.

  “Follow the road to the left of the church.”

  He did, banking hard left and lowering to skim above the buildings so I could see better.

  “That yellow apartment building on the corner. Right there.” I pointed to one of the few with the chimney puffing out clouds of gray smoke.

  He dropped down and flapped his angel wings to lower us with gentle grace. The flight was short and as he’d promised, he’d gotten us here much faster. I was so wrapped up in my sudden fear of being held tight and controlled in a way I couldn’t escape that I hadn’t noticed the sharp sting of the wind on my cheeks till now. My breath came out in little white puffs of air when he set me on my own feet and turned me by the shoulders to face him.

  “What’s wrong? Your heart rate is speeding like a frightened animal.”

  I choked on a laugh. That’s exactly what I felt like. The panic rising in my sternum was a physical reaction to being bound by him. By anyone. And he hadn’t even intended to constrict me. It was just the circumstance of being trapped in his arms for the short flight. I hadn’t thought I’d react this way.

  “Nadya,” he said softly, easing closer.

  I flinched back, breathing out a bigger puff of air. Seeming to recognize what this was, he eased his grip on my shoulders but didn’t let go, giving me more space.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Unable to do anything but obey, I squeezed them closed. The dark immediately gave me a sense of calm.

  “Breathe in…slowly.” His deep timbre had dropped even deeper, silky smooth, drifting over my skin like a balm. “Now out.”

  He repeated this three times. I followed his instructions like it was the most normal thing in the world for an archangel to be talking me down from a panic attack. It didn’t take long for my breathing to even out and my concentration to focus elsewhere, like Frau Stegemann in apartment 303.

  “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”

  Opening my eyes, I was surprised to find the chill had left his gaze. The fury from before, too. Replaced with what I could only describe as compassion. Well, almost. His eyebrows were still pinched together in a frown.

  I shook my head.

  “I think you should,” he said quietly, his gaze sweeping over me with deep concern. “If I can help, I will.”

  For the first time, I wanted to. I yearned to tell someone my dark secret, my shameful sin. No, not just anyone. Him. Only him. But what was even more shocking was that this small intimate moment, standing in the circle of his embrace, in the halo of his body heat and the kindness vibrating from his voice, I felt safe. No man had ever made me feel safe. Soaking in his serenity, I considered opening up to him.

  Then a wailing cry carried from the upstairs apartments.

  “Frau Stegemann,” I said, pulling out of his hold slowly before I hurried inside and up the stairs.

  The few tenants in the building kept apartments on the third floor since heat traveled up and it was safer to be off the street level should otherworlders or even human criminals be on the prowl. I rushed up the stairs, eager to tend to the mother about to give birth and even more eager to get away from the confession I wasn’t sure I was ready to give. Something about that archangel made me want to confess, to tell all. And that would reopen wounds I’d successfully buried.

  Or so I’d thought.

  Chapter Six

  Uriel

  I waited in the small den while Nadya tended to the woman giving birth in the bedroom. Through it all, my attention was riveted to the soft, encouraging words murmured by the witch in the next room. Occasionally, I sensed her using magic. It was a strange sensation. Not a striking pulse like the power of angels or demons, but a gentle nudging, a tender caress in the air. It was mesmerizing in a way that put me on edge. She was, in a word, beguiling. And I didn’t like it. Not at all.

  Witches were human, but…more. They’d been born with a sixth sense of sort to connect to the ethereal, the elements by tapping into that innate magic. The only one I’d had any dealings with was Lisabette, and she’d left a conflagration of rage in her wake. She’d also jaded my view of her kind. When Dommiel had mentioned the witch who’d helped them get into Estonia to find me, I was distrustful. Even kno
wing what she’d done to help get me out. The moment I set eyes on her, I remembered her from that hellish palace that was Lisabette’s playpen. I remembered she’d helped me once, then she’d left. Escaped.

  I’d resented her for it. Not because she’d gotten away, but because she’d left so many of us behind. She was one of Lisabette’s favorite companions, always calling her to sit close during feasts. This witch had witnessed torture after torture for the pleasure of Lisabette and never used any of her influence to help one of us chained in that glittering dungeon. Obviously, she didn’t care for Lisabette’s lifestyle, because she’d gotten away. I imagine Vladek wasn’t pleased, as she would’ve been one of his collection of creatures. I only saw Vladek once after the night he’d captured me. That still stung, inflaming my fury again.

  Standing in the corner, looking out of the window at the steady snowfall, I waited for Nadya. She was my key to getting back into Vladek’s circle. That alone made being her protector first priority.

  The boy Klaus had returned not long after we’d arrived, giving me a wide berth and a warning glare. Fear rested behind his threatening gaze. I wasn’t proud of putting that terror into him, but maybe it would make him more alert. He was obviously the man of this house, two younger sisters helping Nadya in the bedroom. He needed to be more aware of his surroundings. Life tucked away hidden in these mountains had given him a false sense of security. The truth was, there was no safe place anymore.

  I’d remained on alert, as always, from the edge of the woods near Nadya’s cottage. I couldn’t explain my visceral reaction when I saw a strange male figure at her door who then burst inside her home. I didn’t think, I just acted. All I could think was, protect Nadya. It burned through my blood like a spell. Hell, maybe I truly was bewitched. I’d nearly killed the boy and certainly would have if she hadn’t touched me with her magic to wake me out of my murderous stupor.