“You’ve read the prophecy, then,” he stated.
“Kind of?” She wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t know if we read all the way through before I passed out. I was pretty sick thanks to you, I think.”
He studied the moon as though it contained the answers to their predicament, and yet they both knew it didn’t. “Yes, you are the first living being to survive my touch.”
Well, didn’t she feel special? Wait… didn’t that mean he’d just tried to kill her?
“Why are you here, Aerin?” he demanded, turning from the incredible view and blasting her with a barrage of emotional strain that nearly knocked her off her feet. Regret, elation, deprivation, lust, and a sense of condemned hope confused and drew her at the same time. “If you read the prophecy, if you know what you’re going to force me to do, why remain here and tempt fate?”
“What the hell am I going to force you to do?” she demanded, throwing her arms out to the increasing wind. “I don’t really understand any of this, which is saying a lot because I’m a fucking genius. All I know is that I have three sisters I had never met, and a freaky ancient book made of human skin says that I’m from some kind of druid family fated to bring about the end of the world. You think I want that?”
“I don’t know you enough to speculate as to what your intentions are.” His voice as measured as the ingredients of an explosive charge.
“You’re goddamn right you don’t. I have a life. I have money. I have one of the most successful, lucrative cloud companies on the planet. Hell, I have untried magical powers. Who has time for the Apocalypse?”
To her surprise, his features relaxed into the ghost of a smile as his eyes, illuminated by the moon, traveled her sophisticated outfit with the languor of an immortal.
Which begged the question. Was he?
“I believe your intentions are good. But it is impossible to outwit the fates. The prophecy is iron clad, and so is our part in it.” Waves of sadness emanated from him as he said this with all the culture and poise of a royal decree.
This time, Aerin had to turn away, and when she looked down at the sea, though admittedly not as far down as her brain likely perceived it, she had to sit before vertigo had her pitching herself off the edge.
“Are you all right?” Julian followed her down.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I just, don’t deal very well with heights.”
“I see.” He reclined next to her, stretching his long legs to the edge of the cliff, and taking his gloves off, setting them neatly beside him.
Now that she’d caught her bearings, Aerin pressed for answers, trying to ignore the attraction that hung as heavy as the salty air between them, or the way he kept staring at her as though he didn’t believe she was real. “Why do you care whether I stay or go? Aren’t you all the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Isn’t ending the world sort of your job?”
“It is a duty we crave and dread all at once,” he replied cryptically. “It is almost impossible to convey what an existence such as ours is like. An eternity of servitude to the purpose for which we’ve been born. Like Nicholas, the manifestation of the very essence of life on this planet. An endless, ruthless reach for not just survival, but for advancement and supremacy. Because the strongest survive.
“And then there is Drustan. The embodiment of the masculine instinct. Destruction, domination, and vengeance. He and Nicholas work very well together. Some of the greatest human advancement comes from the carnage of war, does it not?”
Aerin nodded, unsure of whether to be entranced, horrified, or impressed. “What are you, exactly? Angels? Demons? Gods? Slaves?”
He looked like the question pleased him. “Our genesis is a mystery, even to us. Sometimes we dream of a life, of a past or a childhood, but whether that’s a memory or a wish none of us can be quite sure. We serve masters who never show their faces. We’re all being punished for crimes long forgotten. After tens of thousands of years, we know nothing more than whom we are, and what we’re fated to do. We are cursed. Cursed to end the world we call home at the whims of four elemental witches.”
“That’s…” Aerin groped for a word that could properly convey her sympathy and came up painfully short. “Shitty.”
Amusement flared in his eyes, then died like a defective match.
“You don’t understand what you will force me to do should the Seals be broken. Unlike Nicholas, who conquers the strongest, or Drustan, who devastates soldiers, but brings their families heroes and glory, I will walk as a scourge through the streets of this town and all cities like it. I will visit the hospital and the orphanage. The weak and the helpless will be the first to die. Then the compassionate, the caretakers, the mothers and the elderly. I will starve the hungry and bring suffering to the vulnerable.”
Aerin studied the way the moonlight slashed across his face with all the forgiveness of a silver blade. To say he was bleak would be like saying the sea was deep, or the sun was hot. True, and yet inadequate. Though he reclined, his profile remained powerful. He gave off the impression of a great jungle cat at rest, secure in his badassary enough to truly relax. He looked like someone you’d see stamped on an ancient coin. Hard and imperial.
His eyes met hers again, burning with a torment. “That is my curse. That is my power. I may not be death, but I bring death. Not with a sword, not with a conquest, but with inescapable suffering and madness.” Each word emerged as though he had to pull it out of him with herculean effort. “You cannot defeat a virus with diplomacy. You cannot reason with famine. Or beg a drought for mercy.”
“Um, what about Penicillin?” Aerin countered.
His eyes softened on her, and Aerin was more than a little confused by the way he seemed to find every one of her arguments endearing, or at the very least, amusing. Who did that? Men hated to be contradicted by a woman. If she’d learned anything in this life, it was that fact. So, what the hell was the matter with him?
“Mortals have been very industrious in learning to combat illness. It’s a sort of biological warfare. Survival, adaptation, rinse, repeat. However, I know it will all end. There is no cure for the devastation I will bring. It will be swift, and it will be thorough. No antibiotic will touch it. What is left of humanity after Conquest and War are done with it will be nothing but starvation and rot. They will suffer unimaginably. And then Bane will deliver the final blow.”
“Bane?” Aerin echoed. “Who is that?”
Tugging at an orange wild flower, Julian held it up in his large palm and they both watched it slowly shrivel as he explained. “You are the fourth de Moray to have arrived here in Port Townsend and are, indeed, very formidable.”
“Um, thanks.” The unmitigated tender way he delivered each word to her was starting to get under her skin—maybe deeper than that—to the part inside that she’d forgotten she had. Her heart. Her conscience. Whatever section of her gut manufactured pathos and caring. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“Our Fourth,” Julian continued. “Killian, is not merely formidable. He’s finality personified.”
“Death,” Aerin offered, a chill snaking through her as she watched the powdered remains of what had been a living plant only moments ago slip through his elegant fingers.
“To die is an action, one that the three of us facilitate in our own ways. He is everything that happens after. The entire awe-inspiring, terrifying, exquisite experience of what is beyond mortality. They say that you should be afraid to meet your maker. What they mean, is that you should be afraid to meet Killian Bane. The Fourth Horseman. The Final Seal. The line of demarcation for the eight of us. Once his Seal is broken, there is no going back. You are committed to the Apocalypse.”
“Yeah well, I have commitment issues,” Aerin mumbled. “And I don’t buy this destiny bull shit. I believe we make our own way in this world, and we are the masters of our own fate.”
Without warning, Julian leaned closer and reached out, pulling the pencil from Aerin’s hair away without
touching her, causing the long waves to tumble past her shoulders and down her back. It was the most intimate thing any man had ever done to her, and he still hadn’t touched her skin.
“You speak so boldly, Aerin de Moray. You are such a strong, intelligent woman. I wonder, in the face of all this, in the aftermath of the prophecy, what is it that you believe?”
“I believe in nothing but myself,” she answered honestly. “It’s the only belief that’s gotten me this far.”
“What about your sisters?” he queried carefully.
“What about them?”
“Do you believe in them? Do you have faith in their love for you, and in their abilities? Do you believe that they will bring about the end of the world, or that they will work to stop it?” He was studying her now, less like an interested male, and more like a scientist. The distinction irked her.
“I don’t believe that is information I should be sharing with the opposition.” She quirked a pointed eyebrow at him.
“Fair enough.” His tender smile returned. “We came for you all last night, Nicholas, Drustan, and me. We were after the sword that Claire has in her possession. It is the sword of War, and belongs with him.”
Aerin frowned. “How come we didn’t know?”
“The Maison de Moray is warded. Those wards are stronger now that you all are together.”
“You could have just knocked,” she said. “Maybe we would have been able to come to some kind of compromise a la ‘Hey, may I please have my sword? I promise not to end the world with it, and stuff.’”
This finally brought a soft breath of laughter from deep in his chest. “I’ve lived long enough as who I am to know there is no escaping what is to come. Study the prophecy, Aerin,” he cautioned. “Learn what you can from the Grimoire before it’s too late. Because we’ll be coming for you again.”
A whirlwind of irate helplessness swirled about inside of Aerin, and she let out a sound of frustration. “Why is this happening now? What gives? Why would the powers at be, whoever the fuck they are, want us all to die?”
He held her gaze. “If you read any of the holy books written since the beginning of time, followed any of the dogma, you’d see that each of them predict that the worst possible thing that could occur is that mortals lose their faith in the Gods who created them.”
“No big disclosure there.” Aerin shrugged.
“They couldn’t be more wrong, Aerin.” His smooth voice took on a note of gravitas that sent shivers through her bones. “What is the worst, is when the Gods lose their faith in humanity.”
A cold terror licked at her insides. Such a thing had never entered into the realm of possibility. “Why?” she breathed. “Why would they do that?”
“Look around you,” he prompted gently.
Aerin glanced about, taking in the beauty of the sea-kissed evening.
“Figuratively, I mean,” he said with a chuckle. “The world is an overpopulated, unmitigated disaster. Your governments are all corrupt, incompetent machines run by money and special interests. Humans in the first world are overfed, entitled, heartless bureaucrats who prefer to be blind to the suffering of others so long as they’re entertained by screens and buttons and social diseases. They do nothing for those who are still chained by tyrants or starved and abused by those who call themselves holy men. The feminine divine is lost. Wisdom is falling prey to dogma. And fear, greed, and apathy is keeping everyone subservient while corporations threaten entire ecosystems, fish the oceans to emptiness, and turn the planet into their own rubbish heap. This planet was a gift, one you mortals have shit all over. So you tell me, in time, what will be left of this place to save?”
“Well…” Aerin rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you a fucking ray of sunshine?”
“That’s just it.” Julian sat up. “The Gods will scorch the earth and begin again. There will be a war out there for supremacy and power from the top to those who will fight over the dregs. It will be worse than anything you humans could do to yourselves, if you can imagine that.”
“Who do you think will win?” she asked.
“It’s hard to say. The tyrannical, monotheistic retaliator who claims all the glory for himself? The bloodthirsty ancients of the north? The prolific pantheons of the western worlds? Or the powerful, but mostly archaic, pagodas of the east? Most of them have moved on, but when the earth is again a field of limitless potential, ripe to begin again, they’ll pick her bones and bring all the wonders and terrors of the Other World with them.”
Aerin put a hand to her suddenly-throbbing head. “Jesus,” she moaned.
“Probably him, too.”
“Can’t you just—I don’t know—stop it?”
His hair gleamed as he shook his head. “Can the sun stop burning? Can the earth just stop in its rotation? Can the moon change its course in the heavens?”
Oh balls, so Pestilence was a freaking metaphorical poet was he?
“Yes!” Aerin exploded, pushing to her feet and wishing that his movements weren’t so graceful and fluid as he followed her. “Yes, the sun will eventually run out of hydrogen and expand until it becomes a bloated red dwarf and then explode.” She began to pace back from the edge of the cliff, gesturing wildly. “Yes, the earth could be impacted by something at the right speed and angle to stop its rotation, or wait for a few billion years for the tidal forces to slow it’s rotation to a standstill, and yes, the moon—”
She bounced off a hard, lean chest as Julian blocked her pacing, and stared up at him, open mouthed.
“You are most certainly a descendant of the Druids,” he laughed, a hollow, bemused sound. “They were scientists, you know, bent on advancing technology, just like you. Their disappearance cast this earth into an age so backward, you’ve never been able, as a people, to climb out of the hole.”
Standing this close, Aerin could feel more than just the emotions from within his ancient, extraordinary soul. She could smell his clean, arousing scent, something like almonds and ambergris. Could feel the warmth of his breath on her hair and sense the yearning he had to touch her.
“Things could have been so different,” he murmured, his voice filled with millennia of regrets.
Was he still talking about the druids?
“How did they disappear?” she asked, wanting to dispel the intensity of the moment.
His eyes glittered down at her, more black than blue now that he was cast in shadow. “To be honest, that’s a story I don’t think I can keep my hands from you long enough to tell.”
Need slammed into her. His. Hers. She couldn’t be sure. “You don’t have to,” she almost panted.
“Oh, but I do.”
“Why?” God, her voice had never sounded so plaintive. So… yearning.
He stepped closer, and then retreated. “You know you’re the only living thing that has ever survived my touch?”
“Exactly, so…”
“It made you sick.”
His concern touched her, and made her want him all that much more. “I know a thing or two about the symptoms I had. And if I am correct, chances are, I’m immune to you. Like the chicken pox. But sexy.”
Amusement haunted his lips. “Impossible.”
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s to not use that word in this situation.” Aerin took a slow step forward, like she would toward a frightened animal about to bolt. “Touch me,” she invited, though it sounded like more of a command.
“No.” He retreated one more step, holding up a gloved hand to ward her off.
“Then I’ll touch you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.”
Famous last words, Aerin thought as she lunged for him.
Aerin felt his entire body stiffen as her body surged against his and her mouth latched on to his lips. She made herself a burr, her arms snaking around his torso beneath his biceps, and her hips fitting snugly just below his.
Something else began to stiffen against her belly, and she would have smiled victoriously
had her mouth not otherwise been engaged.
She made her lips soft and wet and hot against the stunned hardness of his. She moved rhythmically, nipping and licking at him, driving their senses higher as she drove the curves of her body into the hollows and planes of his.
You’re the first woman to survive my touch. His words drifted to her through a haze of lust and need. She was the first woman to taste him. The first to kiss him. The first to run her hands into the thickness of his ebony hair and cup the blade of his pale, strong jaw.
He was uncharted territory, and she had all the possessive drive of a thirteenth century explorer with ships full of Spanish gold.
“Kiss me,” she prompted, between wet probes of his tight lips with her tongue. “Taste me, Julian.”
With an inhuman sound, his strong arms clamped around her, hauling her tighter against a body taut with strength, muscle, and lust. His mouth was astonishingly different when kissing than when speaking. His cultured accent and flawless prose had ill-prepared her for the raw, primal sin that was being kissed by Julian Roarke.
He didn’t just taste her, he devoured. He didn’t just kiss her, he claimed her. His lips were full of a promise that he wouldn’t merely someday get her naked, but that he would strip her bare. And for the first time in her life, Aerin was truly afraid.
Funny, though, how fear and adrenaline can prelude a savage lust as nothing else can. Instead of running from it, Aerin embraced it, wrapping her legs around Julian’s strong body and climbing him like a mooring post in a sea gale.
He secured her to him, one hand beneath her ass, the other around her waist with a strength that was nothing less than superhuman.
It astounded Aerin that a man’s kiss could be so supple and yet so full of aggression, of all the unrequited needs of countless lifetimes of desolation. Sure, he was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but he was also just a man.
And men needed to be touched. To be kissed. To be fucked.
Which Witch is Which? (The Witches of Port Townsend) Page 23