A Dance With Darkness

by Courtney Allison Moulton

  “I’ll write a copy to keep for myself,” he said. “If the relic guardian was killed recently, then the archangel Michael will need a replacement. He’s the one in charge of choosing the guardians. That decision is not for me to make.”

  “You will keep your copy safe?” I asked him.

  “You know I will.”

  I nodded, sure of my faith in him. I bit my lip and tried to push away the memory of his lips on mine, but it was fresh and merciless and I couldn’t let it consume my thoughts. As much as I wanted to return to his arms and drown in that love again, I couldn’t do that to him. Not any time in the near future. There was too much I needed to accomplish for me to get lost in love again. Love was where I’d made so many dire mistakes.

  10

  ALL NIGHT, I FELT SO ILL THAT MY HEAD ACHED, and when I woke I was sick again. Nathaniel was gone and I didn’t know where. I’d heard him leave just before dawn, probably to handle the responsibility of the grimoire and to gather supplies to make his copy, but deep down inside I feared it was because I’d hurt him. He had kissed me and I’d kissed him back in my moment of weakness, but I hadn’t reciprocated the feelings that had come with his kiss. In the end, remaining a platonic relationship was for the better. For both of us.

  The midday sun was high, though the autumn air was ice cold. My nausea hadn’t subsided. Reapers did not just fall ill and a new fear hovered in the back of my mind, pressing against my iron will not even to consider it. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t allow it.

  I didn’t know any angelic doctors, but I knew of a nurse named Constance who had saved a battlemate of mine from a wound he may not have survived on his own. I entered the Grim outside and leapt into the air to head for London, where I recalled the nurse lived. At this time of day I was certain I wasn’t likely to be followed by any demonic, but the Grim safely concealed my existence from humans.

  Constance operated out of a small hovel in one of the poorer sides of London. The smell of garbage and human waste masked the scent of angelic reaper blood so she could work without attracting the demonic. I knocked and a reaper opened the door to greet me with her pearly pink gaze and blond hair.

  “Hello,” she said pleasantly as she let me squeeze past. “What brings you here in the middle of the afternoon?”

  I laid a hand over my abdomen. “I haven’t been feeling well—awful, actually. Bad enough that I’ve come knocking on your door. You’re very highly recommended among our kind. Would you mind taking a look?”

  “Of course, child,” she said. Even though I was a hundred years old, I could sense Constance was at least another six hundred years older and to her, I was a child. She directed me to a straw-packed bed where I lay down while she examined me. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m …” I thought quickly. If I was pregnant, then I would find myself in an extremely dangerous situation. I remembered the story Bastian told me about his mother and father. I couldn’t let the news travel through the angelic population. Questions would be asked. Solutions would be sought. “Katherine. My name is Katherine.”

  She eyed me curiously. “Nausea, you say? That’s it?”

  “I ache sometimes,” I said. “My sickness has only begun in the last week or so, but it won’t subside.”

  “Well, there certainly is an explanation for your symptoms,” the nurse said. Her tone was far from grave as I’d anticipated.

  “Which is?” I pressed her impatiently.

  Constance’s smile was wide and beaming. “You’re going to be a mother.”

  I felt as though my heart had stilled and my lungs had lost their need for air. I felt suspended a mile above the earth and while the nurse continued to speak, I could not hear her. I drew a long, quivering breath and when I exhaled, all I could say was, “Oh.”

  “You understand how rare this is, don’t you?” she asked cheerfully. “Who is the lucky father?”

  A demonic lord. My voice was flat when I spoke. “Someone I loved very much.”

  “It is so rare for our kind to conceive,” the nurse said sadly, and then smiled. “The angels must have wanted you to have a child very much, particularly Gabriel. She is the angel who watches over mothers and their children. Perhaps she believes your child is destined for greatness.”

  My palm moved to cover my belly. Destined for greatness … “How far along am I?”

  “Several weeks, I’d say. If everything goes well, you’ll give birth in the spring.”

  I rummaged through my things and dumped out all of the currency I had—much of it foreign—onto the table in front of Constance. Every happy emotion in her expression compressed to surprise and trepidation. “This is all I have with me, but I have more at my home. You mustn’t tell anyone that I was here or what you discovered. I don’t want to threaten your life, but this is how dire my situation is now. I’d rather buy your silence than force it.”

  “Child,” Constance said, “you already gave me a false name. No, don’t look at me like that. The next time you lie about your name, don’t hesitate.” She touched my chin to lift my gaze to hers as she smiled. “And you don’t have to worry. I’m a nurse. I likely have more secrets than you have. In any case, you’re going to need that money more than I do. You’ve got a baby coming.”

  I stared at her until I confirmed the truth in her eyes. “Thank you,” I said, and scooped my money back into my bag, embarrassed by my actions.

  “Whatever happened to make you so afraid right now, or whatever will happen once this baby arrives,” the nurse said, “remember that this is a gift. Many of our kind live hundreds of years without bearing a child—many never at all in their long lives.”

  My gaze returned to hers and I held her eyes so that she could see the honesty in mine as well. “All life is a blessing and purposeful. If I am to have a child with the man I loved, then I regret nothing.”

  “Loved? Not still?”

  Her question stung just as Bastian’s hand on my cheek had, and I didn’t answer it. “Thank you for your examination and your confidentiality.”

  I slid on my cloak and put the hood over my head to conceal my face and hair. Instead of moving into the Grim and taking flight, I chose to walk. I moved among the humans, clutching my cloak tightly, and my mind drifted away. I was with child. Bastian’s child, a child who would be born both angelic and demonic like his father.

  I lost my balance and nearly tripped into a puddle, but a human woman caught my arm and held me up. I lifted my head to look at her dirt-splotched cheeks and tangled hair.

  “You all right, miss?” she asked, peering into my face.

  “I …” My gaze fell to the tiny child gripping the folds of the woman’s dress. He was thin and filthy and his eyes had grown huge as he shyly peeked at me from around his mother. I could not imagine myself with a child clutching to my own dress. I could not imagine holding a baby in my arms and dedicating every waking moment to his or her needs. I could not imagine being responsible for another life. I was a soldier, a warrior. I could not be a mother.

  I staggered away from the woman and her child and stepped into the Grim. She cried out in shock as I vanished before her eyes without a care. I was desperate to escape, to disappear from everything, specifically my troubles. I wandered all day through London hidden and undetected, until finally I headed toward Nathaniel’s house. There was a light on, as there always was when I returned, and I smiled to myself. Despite my terror, I had the small comfort of knowing that I wasn’t alone in this. I had Nathaniel and I would have a child.

  I pushed open the door, dragging my muddy skirts across the floor. “Natha—” But I stopped. Nathaniel was not here.

  It was Bastian.

  11

  NEITHER OF US SPOKE FOR WHAT FELT LIKE AN eternity. He stared at me, still and silent and cold as a dark winter’s night with his blue eyes. His power leaked from him like inky fog and crept across the floor toward me. I expected him to be angry, but that wasn’t the impression I got. He was hurt
, and the rawness was clear in his gaze.

  I was the first to break the painful silence. “How long have you known where I live?”

  “I’ve known for over a month,” he said. “I’m saddened that you never trusted me enough to tell me where you lived even after I invited you into my home. It was your home too.”

  I swallowed hard, trying not to think of the way things once were between us. “It seems as if I was right not to trust you. You followed me, spied on me, to learn where I live. Now you hunt me down.”

  His gaze fell on my mud-covered cloak and skirts, and he ignored my remarks. “You’re filthy. Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere,” I replied.

  “Nowhere was awfully muddy.”

  “This entire island is awfully muddy.”

  He made a low, impatient sound and sighed. “My love,” he said gently. “Come with me.”

  “No,” I said. “You have to leave.”

  “I know you took the book,” he said.

  I lifted my chin. “Have you come to kill me for it?”

  He exhaled and his brow furrowed as his lip trembled. “I love you. I have not come to kill you.”

  My heart skipped a beat and tightened. “Then have you come to ask to have me back, or the book?”

  “For you,” he murmured. “I want you back.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “You may want me back tonight, but tomorrow you’ll want that book. You’ve come too far to let it go.”

  He took my hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ve come too far with you to let you go.”

  I slipped my hand from his grip and held it close to my chest. “You hit me, Bastian. You struck me out of anger after you murdered my kin for something you will use to destroy the rest of my kin. Do not insult me by begging for my forgiveness. It is over between us, and that book is long gone. If you want it, then you can dig out its ashes in the hearth.”

  His blue eyes bugged and he stopped breathing for several moments. At last he drew a long, quivering breath and composed himself. “The grimoire was irreplaceable.”

  “Life is irreplaceable,” I shot back through gritted teeth. “Life cannot be returned. A book can be rewritten.”

  “You’re right,” he said, breaking eye contact. “But knowledge is also invaluable. And I know you, Madeleine. You didn’t burn the book.”

  I would neither confirm nor deny that, though my refusal to do so was enough answer for him. “Has Evantia discovered that you had the grimoire? And lost it?”

  Despite my callous comment, nothing in his face changed. I expected him to get angry, but he didn’t. “Evantia is dead. I killed her after I saw you last night. I am now the most powerful demonic reaper in England.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “You finally have what you want.”

  “I don’t have you.”

  “That is your own fault.”

  “Have you honestly lost all your love for me?”

  “Not all,” I confessed, “but enough to realize now that this will never work. I did love you, Bastian, so very much, and I will always have part of you with me.” My words were choked off by grief and despair, because he would never know the full truth in them. I could never tell him. If he knew I carried his child, then I could never escape. Even if he didn’t kill me, he would never let me go. I could not fight him, because I could not risk the life growing inside me. Bastian would take this child and raise him or her the way he raised Cadan: through brutality and cruelty. Unlike poor Cadan, my child would grow up knowing kindness and a gentle touch. My child would know what real love was like.

  “You must forgive me,” Bastian said, his voice raw as his vulnerability leaked through.

  “I must? I have no choice in the matter? I am not your property. I belong to no one.”

  “Please,” he said, forcing the word out of his mouth like dirt. “Please forgive me.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t forgive you this time. I’ve forgiven you for a lot of things, Bastian, but I have no more forgiveness left in me, for you have used it all up.”

  “Maddie, please—”

  “You must leave now. Good-bye, Bastian,” I said to him. I watched him go, and he paused before he shut the door, meeting my gaze with his beautiful cerulean eyes for what I knew would be the last time.

  When I was alone, something collapsed in my chest and suddenly I could barely stand. I forced myself to cross the room to my bed, where I climbed onto the mattress and lay down on my side. I curled my limbs close to my body and I looked at my belly. I brushed my fingers over the front of my dress where I knew my child grew safely. He or she would be safe as long as I controlled my fate. As long as I stayed far away from the demonic threat, away from Bastian.

  I woke to Nathaniel sitting beside me, pushing my hair over my shoulder and down my back, out of my face. The serene look in his gaze faded when he noticed the dried tears smeared over my cheeks.

  “Maddie,” he whispered. “What is going on?”

  “We have to leave,” I told him as I sat up. “Our location has been compromised.”

  “The demonic?”

  I pushed myself to my feet and started to pace. “Yes. They know about this house and that I took the grimoire. You can’t stay in London anymore, and I have to leave—hide. I have to hide. And if you came with me, I would be grateful. I need you to come with me, but if you choose not to, I won’t hold it against you.”

  “Hide?” he asked, standing. In his copper eyes, I could see his thoughts blazing. “You’re not one to run from a fight. What has happened?”

  “Something wonderful,” I replied, struggling to maintain my composure as my voice trembled. “But also complicated and dangerous. I’m happy, but I’m afraid.”

  He shook his head in confusion, and then his gaze lowered to my belly, and agony filled his expression. “You’re with child.”

  Hearing someone else say it made it seem more real and even more terrifying. “Yes. And I need your help, Nathaniel.”

  “Why are you in danger? Who is the father?”

  “I can’t tell you. And I won’t.”

  “Maddie,” he said softly, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”

  “Yes, you can. Promise me, Nathaniel, promise me you will never ask me who the father is.”

  “I promise, but I don’t know why I should.”

  “For my sake. For my child’s sake.”

  He studied my face for the longest time and finally he said, “All right. Where should we go?”

  My voice was distant and seemed to belong to someone else. “I should go north. Scotland. There are many remote villages in the Highlands. Maybe we should go to one of the isles.”

  Nathaniel exhaled and put a hand on my shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze. “Skye is beautiful. Every child should grow up in such a magical place.”

  I smiled. “The Isle of Skye it is.”

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  THE SEA RAVAGED THE EDGES OF THE CLIFFS, slowly tearing them down and carving the coastline over the course of thousands of years. I stood on the edge, letting the cold, salty wind whip through my hair and billow my skirts in the air. The gulls cried mournfully overhead and my child’s laughter echoed through the hills, bringing a smile to my face. I turned my head to watch William roll through a patch of clover and stop to pluck a fat, purple blossom. He climbed clumsily to his feet and ran over to where I stood.

  “Mama,” he said, and raised his hand, clutching the blossom, to present it to me.

  I dropped to my knees and scooped him into my arms, planting a kiss on his plump cheek and brushing his dark, wavy hair off his forehead. “For me?” I asked, and took the blossom from his fingers. “Thank you, sweetheart. It’s beautiful.”

  I began to sing to my son as I gazed into his sweet face, into the innocent whimsy brightening his green eyes. He melted in my arms and his little white wings folded at his back, the downy feathers brushing my skin,
his white wings that were just like Bastian’s. He had demonic blood running through his veins like his father, but he was angelic through and through. With each day, I could see a little more of Bastian in his features, but his heart, I prayed, would be like mine, as were his eyes. William would never know his father, and that was a tragedy. If their paths were ever to cross, years or centuries from now, they would be strangers or possibly even enemies.

  Nathaniel was as close to a father as Will would ever have, but he was careful not to be fatherly. He tried to assume the role of a big brother more than anything, because that was safe where I was involved. It put no pressure on me. He was in love with me. I knew this now. But even after five years, I was not ready to open my heart to anyone, even to someone so close to it, even to someone who helped raise a child by another man. The only love in my life now was my son, and I loved him more than I could ever love anything. He was my world.

  Still, I missed Nathaniel. He had finished copying Antares’s grimoire and now searched for a way to summon the archangel Michael so that the book could be passed to a proper relic guardian. Nathaniel didn’t want that responsibility. He was strong, but he wasn’t built to fight as I was. He didn’t live for it the way I did.

  Soon I would teach Will what I knew so he could learn to protect himself. Already I could feel his power flare sometimes, when he was happy or throwing a baby tantrum. He would have immense power one day when he was grown. It was guaranteed. I had great power for a young reaper, and Bastian’s strength was terrifying. Will had Grigori lords close to him on both sides of his family tree: Antares and Aldebaran. Constance had told me Gabriel must have known a child between Bastian and me would have a great future, but everyone’s definition of great varied.

  Will had the potential to be a celebrated fighter, perhaps one of the most powerful of our kind, but I wished he could live a life of peace. For the angelic, though, that was impossible. Not if there were powerful demonic reapers like Bastian gathering support against the angelic and making serious efforts to destroy the Preliator, our last chance at preserving the human race. The future looked grim and we needed those who were destined to be great. Perhaps Gabriel believed my little Will could one day determine our final victory or defeat in this war with the demonic. It was hard to believe now, as I watched him pull earthworms out of the ground at my feet, that he would be a warrior on the front lines someday.