“We are of Mab’s blood?” Sweet gods, Sin would be ill.
“The Evernight’s and the Ellis sisters are elementals, born ages ago of Mab’s blood. Now, Eliza is the most direct of Mab’s heirs, which is why Mab is desperate to control her. Because Mab is weakest against those of her blood.” Augustus paused and stared at Sin. “You, however, have the distinction of being of her blood and able to control all the elements. What is more? You were born of Isley, a powerful demigod akin to the angels.” He smiled, this time with a strange sort of anticipation. “An Egyptian-based god at that.”
“Why,” Sin ground out, “does that matter?”
“Tell me,” Augustus asked, “did Archer ever mention how he’d been cursed?”
Sin swallowed, his gaze darting over Augustus’s face. Archer had drunk an elixir, and it had cursed him to a strange living death, locked into immortality while slowing turning into a being of… “Ice,” Sin croaked out. “He described himself as looking as though his flesh had been carved from ice.”
Augustus’s smile was slow and broad. Again, before Sin’s eyes, he shifted, his flesh becoming crystalline and pure. It was beautiful and unearthly. “Not ice, but altered. He was not cursed but becoming Judgment.”
“Judgment?”
“Yes. A select group of warriors who possess the ability to judge a soul and send it to the afterlife. Archer did not know what he was. Thus he feared it and never learned the ability to control it.” Augustus’s lashes swept down, and he frowned. “The fault was mine. My acolyte Victoria was damaged, mentally, and she’d stolen my secrets, giving her the knowledge to create others without proper care. I did not know until it was too late. Nor did I know about Archer’s change until he was already free of it.”
“Have you told Archer?”
Augustus’s shake of the head was almost undetectable. “No.”
“Why the devil not?”
With a sigh, Augustus sat back. “He is no longer Judgment. Therefore, he cannot know unless he was to take up that task once more.” A look of melancholy filled his eyes. “Why would he want to when he has Miranda now? When his life is settled.” He gave a bracing sigh. “But enough of that. It is you of whom we speak tonight.”
“You want me to become Judgment.” Sin laughed. “I’m hardly fitting for the task. Nor do I have the ability to alter my flesh to…” He waved a hand in Augustus’s direction. “Do that.”
“But you could. Become Judgment, St. John.”
This time, when Sin wanted to surge to his feet, he was free to do so. He paced away from the fireplace and then turned back toward Augustus. “And Mab? She owns me. As surely as if I were a piece of furniture.” He slammed his fist against a sideboard for emphasis, and the knickknacks upon it rattled.
Augustus did not blink. “You are blood bonded. Take the elixir and your blood will be irrevocably changed. The debt will dissolve.”
“Convenient that.”
“It is.” Augustus smiled. “I know things that that bitch cannot begin to fathom.”
“Then kill her yourself.”
“Alas, I cannot. We all have our crosses to bear. Mine is that I can no longer act as Judgment but merely guide those who choose to serve.”
“To do your dirty work.” Sin ran a hand through his hair and picked up pacing again. “Even if I were to do this, there is no guarantee that I could destroy Mab. Holly managed to destroy her human body but Mab merely popped up again a few months later.” Sin could only be thankful that Mab had decided to stay far away from Holly. He supposed she was still smarting over Holly slicing her to ribbons with iron bars.
“Dear boy, there are few more powerful things on this Earth than Judgment. And one with the power of all the elements?” Augustus gave a small shake of his head. “She hasn’t a chance. Even better? She’ll never see you coming because she believes she is in utter control over you.”
The very idea was a whisper of seduction along Sin’s skin. To be free.
“Think, St. John,” Augustus said quietly. “A chance to live a life of pride, to do good, to be with Layla.”
Sin’s gaze snapped to the man sitting in the chair. “Yes, what of Layla? Why do you guard her?”
“You do not get to know that until you are Judgment.”
Sin ground his teeth. The bastard was blackmailing him. And Sin would fall for it, because if there was one true thing he held on to, it was the thought that Layla Starling, his childhood friend, lived safe and happy in this world.
With a sigh, Augustus stood. Slowly he walked to him. “Let me give you this.” Before Sin could speak, Augustus whipped his own palm across his mouth, tearing the flesh open with the tip of a fang that had suddenly descended in his mouth. Sin didn’t have time to flinch as Augustus cupped his cheek, smearing hot crimson blood over Sin’s skin. “By my blood,” he said, looking into Sin’s eyes, “I swear what I say is truth.”
Sin felt himself sag, his will crumpling. Perhaps he’d regret this even more than his other mistakes. Perhaps he was consigning himself to more misery. Sin closed his eyes tight and let fate have its go. “Tell me what I must do.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Eliza stood in the little living room of the cottage that Adam had secured. It was a warm, tidy room with a separate sleeping room and a good-sized bed. For two. She’d resolutely not looked at that bed when they inspected the place. But she was glad to have a haven to stop and rest for a while. Her stomach tightened; they also needed to eat.
But Adam had yet to move from his chair by the hearth. Firelight painted the strong lines of his face in warm gold. But his hair was so raven black that it absorbed the light. A lock of it fell over his brow, dancing just over the bold curve of his nose. Eliza fixated on that sight, waiting for him to brush the tendril away. Yet he never moved. Her fingers began to itch to do the job for him. Perhaps stroke his hair and see the deep lines along the corners of his eyes ease a bit.
Repressing a sigh, she moved toward him, noting the way his shoulders tensed and his wide, mobile mouth thinned. Oh yes, he might have been looking off into the fire, but he’d been aware of her the entire time.
Drawing a footstool with her, she sat and waited, knowing he’d be unable to ignore her for long. He never could.
Soon enough, his gaze sought hers out. And she flinched inwardly. Here was not the arrogant ass who’d chained her, nor the proud yet pained man who’d been chained himself. Not even the sly charmer who’d wrangled a kiss from her this morning. This man was pensive, lost.
Without thinking, she touched his forearm, where the muscles clenched like iron beneath the homespun linen. “What troubles you?”
Adam’s gaze slid away. “They recognized me. When we let the room.”
“Of course they did.”
The GIM had watched him with awe. The innkeeper had insisted that Adam take not a mere room, but led them out to a small but charming cottage a bit of a ways from the inn. “For privacy and true comfort, my lord.” Eliza suspected that it was the innkeeper’s home and thought Adam realized this as well. But the innkeeper would not take no for an answer.
Eliza had noticed Adam’s agitation then, but had thought it had been directed at her.
“You are their sire,” she went on. “How could they not know you?”
He made a dry sound. “They expected me to have power. To help them.” His wide chest lifted on a sigh. “I don’t know who I am anymore. For thirty years of my human life, I served God with blood and blade, convinced that I was not a murderer but a champion of Christian right and virtue.” He blinked, the thick tips of his black lashes gleaming in the flickering light. “A mere blink of time when considering my life as Adam.” A soft snort left him. “I thought, here is a chance to make up for all the lives that I’d cut down. To make life anew. It was such an elegant solution, saving souls while searching for yours.” He glanced at her, then away. “But part of me feared, would I be punished for my actions?
“And though I’ve s
een Hell, angels, even played cards with the being you call Lucifer, I’ve never, not once in all those endless centuries, seen God.”
He turned and pinned her with his deep-set eyes. Weariness lined his handsome face, and something close to sadness. “No one has. Not even the angels.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “What is one to make of that? Here I am, a man who has all but played God himself, deciding who may live forever and who will stay dead, acts of utter blasphemy, and where is God? Why hasn’t He come to smite me for my sins?”
Eliza felt wooden inside, incapable of movement, unable to feel anything other than a strange heaviness. “I don’t know.”
He bent his head and the lock of dark hair tangled in the long length of his lashes as he blinked. But he didn’t attempt to brush it away. Instead he slowly shook his head. “I am nothing now. Not Templar, not Adam. I’ve no purpose.”
Eliza wasn’t aware of moving, not until her fingertips brushed over the back of his hand. He did not resist but let his fist uncurl as she twined her fingers with his. “My grandda used to say a person hasn’t truly lived life to the fullest if they haven’t had cause to reinvent themselves once or twice.” Gently she squeezed his warm hand. “I figure, you’ve just arrived at another crossroads, and it’s time to make yourself over once more.”
Adam was silent and still for a long moment. When he finally faced her, she wondered if she’d ever become accustomed to the impact of him. He saw too much, made her feel too much. Always. Her stomach clenched, a hot, pleasurable, yet achy sensation that had her breath catching.
But for once, he didn’t appear to notice. Instead he studied her, frowning a bit, as though concerned. “And what of you, dove? What do you want of life?”
That was easy. “What I’ve always wanted. To live it. As a man might. Unfettered and free to roam as I see fit. I think I should like to see the Great Pyramid of Giza, if we’re being particular.”
His lazy, tilted smile returned as his free hand raised to cup her cheek. His skin was rough and warm, and she felt it down to her toes. “And who’s to stop you now? Miss Eliza May of Boston, the most stubborn, willful creature I’ve ever met.”
Her mouth quavered, torn as she was between a laugh and a scowl. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”
His voice lowered as he drew her closer. “Because it is.”
Ignoring the quiver inside of her belly, Eliza squeezed his hand. “Come. Let us go to dinner.” She rose, giving him a little tug to prompt him to stand. “Some hot food and a bit of wine, and you’ll be square as a quilt in no time at all.”
A smile played about his full lips. “I do not believe I’m familiar with that saying.”
“That’s because I just made it up.” Eliza walked to the door, Adam still holding her hand as though she were his lifeline.
Once in the dining hall, however, he did not brighten. They ate their meal in relative silence, the good-natured laughter and conversation of their fellow patrons surrounding their corner table but never quite touching it.
Adam’s expression remained pensive, his attention on his meal. Thus it was a surprise when he at last spoke.
“I used to watch that sort of thing, you know.” With a jerk of his chin, he gestured over to where a young couple nuzzled each other, uncaring of any attention they might receive.
“You watched people…” She trailed off, horrified. But he merely shrugged and took another bite of his beef.
“I was bored. And it wasn’t as though it affected me. Not in any lustful sort of way.” He sipped his wine.
“It’s perverse,” she insisted.
Adam lowered his silver and sat back in his chair with a negligent air. “It was a glimpse of life that I’d been denied. And yes, it was wrong.” He looked off, his long lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Such a harsh profile, yet his lush mouth and pretty eyes softened him. “Eventually, I stopped. What point was there to watch what I could not have?” A frown marred his countenance and then was gone with his next breath. He turned back to her. “I’ve seen intercourse performed in so many ways and scenarios, I’ve lost count. Love, the birth and death of it, played out over and over again.”
The wooden chair that held his large frame creaked as he leaned forward, bracing his forearms upon the battered table. “Would you care to know what affected me the greatest?”
Would she? Eliza was afraid she did, and she found herself nodding, even as her breath quickened.
“It was in the year 1373. A crofter and his family lived in a one-room cottage. I don’t know why I was drawn to their little house, perhaps it was my being in the cold dark and seeing the firelight flickering from their small window. Whatever the case, there they were, four children and their parents, all bundled together in the family bed, limbs intertwined, bodies higgledy-piggledy. They held on to each other in sleep with such perfect trust.”
Eliza thought of him, huddled in a dark corner of those long departed crofters, watching them with the same longing that graced his hard face now. Did he know it then? How much he longed for love? She rather thought he knew all too well. It made her heart ache to think of his loneliness. Would she have survived nearly a millennium of such isolation? Of never having felt loved or cared for?
His voice turned soft, reflective. “It struck me that I’d never known that sort of connection to another. Just the simple act of loving for love’s sake.” Golden eyes framed by black lashes stared at her. “I became a knight to protect the promise of that type of love. Yet all I saw was death. Cù-Sìth, the hound of death. That is what they called me.”
“Is that how you see yourself?” she asked, quiet in the shared space between them. Not waiting for his answer, she shook her head, and it felt unbearably heavy. “You are so very wrong. So blind.”
His thick brows drew tight, that bold, stubborn nose of his lifting in defiance. “On the contrary. I see myself far too well.”
The lively strains of a reel lit over the room. Eliza glanced toward the group of fiddlers who had begun to play and then back at him. Bracing her hands upon the table, she rose. “You are life. You create it from death. And it is lovely.”
His mouth fell open, a nearly comical expression on one so stern. She fought a smile as she extended her hand towards him. “Come, dance with me.”
The look of shock he wore grew. And then he blinked as if shaking himself out of a dream. “I don’t dance.” It was a croak from the depths of his chest.
“Pity.” Eliza shrugged. “As I love to dance.”
His darkly beautiful face twisted in a scowl. “Are you mocking me?”
Dear, confused man. “Far from it.” Eliza sighed. “You are life, Adam. I suspect that’s why you chose the name you did, even if you weren’t aware of doing so. You are life,” she said again with greater emphasis. “You simply don’t know how to live.”
Adam sat watching as Eliza May made her way to the crude dance floor in the space cleared before the fiddlers. Immediately she was welcomed into the fold.
His life was lovely? Was she bloody bamming him? Adam had expected platitudes. A bit of “but there is nobility in death” or “you did what you felt you must.” He’d have hated it, but at least he’d been prepared to react accordingly.
He rubbed at the tight knot forming beneath his breastbone and watched Eliza May dance. Light on her feet, her lithe form moved as if made to follow music. Cheeks pink and eyes like dark velvet, she smiled at a bloke who’d taken her in his arms. Together they twirled, her frothy skirts swirling about her slim ankles, the man’s hand snug on her neat waist.
A growl rattled about in Adam’s throat. He swallowed it down. He’d no right to interfere. He hadn’t lied. He didn’t dance. Because he didn’t know how, not any dance that had been invented in the past few hundred years, at least. And he’d be buggered if he’d bumble about, trying to learn here.
She laughed. The lovely sound brought his head up sharply. A waltz played now, melodic and haunting in the fiddler’s han
d. The big GIM hadn’t let her go. His hair was nearly the same shade as Eliza’s and, as they moved about, gliding and twirling, they seemed to glow, their heads glinting like gold in the low light. Perfectly matched.
Adam’s fingers dug into the arms of his chair. She ought to live in the light, as she was now. And he would not go to her, nor hold her. Eliza’s gaze never strayed to him as she danced her waltz. As if she’d forgotten him entirely. Wood cracked beneath his hands. Bugger, would this set never end?
The fiddler playing was an expert, his music haunting and pure, his instrument battered and well loved.
Despite his death grip on the chair, Adam could almost feel the smooth, cool surface of the violin and the bite of the strings against his fingertips. A distant memory. One he did not want to revel in. He’d felt too much already this day.
The GIM moved closer to Eliza, his hand sliding a bit lower. Adam was out of the chair in the next beat. With each step, the floor rose up to meet him. With each breath, a matching protest shouted in his head, Stop, stop, stop. He couldn’t. They belonged to one another, and he’d be damned if he let another man touch her.
Like gazelles in the plains, the dancers sensed him coming. Heads turned, conversations stuttered. Eliza’s wide, brown eyes stared up at him. Waiting? Wondering? He ignored her. One touch would undo him now.
The fiddler halted, his last note screeching unfortunately loud in the tavern. What did they think of their sire? Did they fear his wrath? Or merely wonder why he’d come to beg for scraps of attention from the woman who’d bewitched him? He was Adam, King of the GIM. He was supposed to be dignified, inspiring awe and respect from his subjects. A king did not humble himself.
Though his heart pounded and sweat bloomed over his skin, he used his charm, giving a wry grin and a small nod as he prepared to do the one thing no one on this earth had seen him do. He gestured toward the fiddle. “May I have a go?”
Awkward silence grew and swelled before the man shook himself out of his gaping stare. The man handed over his fiddle. “But of course, sire.”
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