Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  How the hell did I know that? Hunger was making me delusional, I decided. My stomach had long ago stopped its ominous rumbling and now was simply a hard ache.

  And I didn’t even want to think about how thirsty I was. I used to know the formula—you could live two days without water and two weeks without food. Even if I managed to find water, I was never going to make it two weeks.

  I probably didn’t need to worry. Beloch would kill us both long before then.

  The rap at my window was so unexpected that I shrieked, then clapped my hands over my traitorous mouth as Michael yanked the door open, reaching in to haul me out.

  “You want to scream a little louder, Victoria Bellona?” he said, back to his usual cranky self. “I’m not certain everyone in the Dark City heard you.”

  I didn’t bother trying to defend myself. I knew I was in the wrong. We seemed to be in the middle of a forest, with tall trees all around us, and in the distance I could see a large square building dark against the sky.

  “I don’t suppose you found me any food?”

  He took my arm and began hauling me deeper into the woods. “I didn’t have any choice,” he grumbled. “If I didn’t, I’d have to listen to you whining and I’d end up strangling you.”

  “I don’t whine!” I snapped. “And where are you taking me? Is this the Darkness?”

  He snorted. His hand was tight on my wrist, and I decided I should start wearing some kind of wrist guard. I was going to have calluses at this rate.

  “Not likely,” he said. “You’ll know when we reach the Darkness. It won’t be like anything you’ve ever encountered before.”

  “So this is only the slightly-darker-than-the-Dark-City. What do we call this—the Grayness?”

  “We call this a place to spend the night.”

  “Why?” I was immediately suspicious.

  “Because I’ve barely slept in the last forty-eight hours, and you’re exhausting. You can eat and I’ll sleep and we’ll both be happy.”

  “Where?” I was getting this monosyllabic thing down myself.

  “There’s a deserted barn up ahead with lots of nice, comfortable hay bales. You can keep watch while I sleep.”

  I stuck my tongue out at his back. While on the one hand I wanted to get as far away as I could from this wretched place, on the other I think if I’d had to spend another hour in that car I would have screamed.

  Well, I already had, hadn’t I? From now on I wasn’t going to breathe a word about food, rest stops, or questions he refused to answer, which was pretty much all of them.

  Which meant the rest of our time together would be conducted in dead silence. But if he could manage it, so could I.

  The barn was farther away than it had looked, and I was barefoot. I bit my lip and said nothing when I stubbed my toe on a rock. I kept moving as roots and twigs dug into the soles of my feet. The very last thing I was going to do was complain.

  Apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough for His Royal Holiness. He yanked, and I tripped, barely managing to right myself and avoid crashing into his body.

  “Can’t you keep up?” he demanded sourly.

  “Doing the best I can, Your Saintliness,” I replied. I didn’t want him thinking I was a whiner or a shrieker. A smart-ass was perfectly all right with me, and accurate to boot.

  He turned back abruptly, and this time I did plow into him, slamming up against his iron-hard body.

  A mistake. I didn’t want either of us remembering the effect he had on me. He was used to sex, even if he’d abstained for the last century. This was simple biology to him. It was everything to me. If I looked at him I felt hot. The sound of his voice, even when he was being deliberately rude, made me melt. The memory of his hard, naked body made me shivery and wet. Maybe it was simple biology for me as well. But it went way beyond the merely physical.

  I could come up with any number of perfectly logical explanations for my obsession. With one relatively straightforward act of coitus, he’d managed to jump-start my delayed libido, and now six or seven years of unfulfilled lust had finally broken through, making me look at Michael with insatiable desire.

  Well, not strictly insatiable. The other night he’d managed to sate me pretty damned well. The problem was, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted it. Wanted him.

  “Don’t call me that,” he growled.

  “Don’t call me Victoria Bellona. It sounds like a luncheon meat.”

  “It’s your name.”

  “My name is Tory. Use it.”

  He was standing too close to me, and we were both simmering with temper. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll start calling you Mikey, Your Saintliness.”

  He was still holding my wrist, too firmly, and he slid his hand up my arm, drawing me closer. “You’ll find that it’s not wise to wake the sleeping dragon.”

  We were almost touching. I could change that. I could take a step closer, press my body against his, put my mouth against his hard one. I wanted to, so badly.

  I could take one step back, break the spell. I didn’t move.

  And then the moment passed. He released me, turning away, and I wondered if he was going to abandon me in the night.

  “We’re here.”

  I looked up. The barn loomed out of the inky darkness, its shape barely discernible from twenty feet away.

  By the time I caught up with him, he’d managed to open one of the doors. There was a hole in the roof and I could see the pale light of the few stars. What kind of sky was I looking at? Was I even still on earth, or was it out there, winking at me? Had Sheol been on the same planet as the castello?

  “If you’re so hungry, what are you waiting for?” Michael’s irascible voice came out of the darkness. I couldn’t see him, but I moved toward the sound, only to be brought up short by a strong arm blocking me.

  “Sit. You aren’t going to be happy if you trample your food. And eat slowly or you’ll end up making yourself sick.”

  I sank down where I stood, ignoring the fact that I slid past the front of his jeans. I could only see shadows, but full light right now wouldn’t have helped, since everything was gray. My eager hands found a cold bottle of what I assumed was water, a loaf of bread, some kind of grapes, cheeses, and what was most definitely an apple.

  “God, I love you,” I breathed, and then froze, cursing my heedless tongue. I quickly scrambled for safety. “Of course, I’d be in love with Jack the Ripper if he brought me food like this.”

  There was a long silence in the darkness, and I would have given anything, short of the food he’d brought me, to see his face. “You love me or you are in love with me? Make up your mind.”

  “It depends whether you brought me wine or Diet Coke.” My hands were still busy discovering things.

  “You don’t like Diet Coke,” he said flatly. How the hell did he know that? “I brought wine and chocolate.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “In love it is, then,” I said, my hands finding a chocolate bar. And then I managed to forget all about him as I ate in blissed-out silence while he roamed around in the darkness.

  Eventually even I grew sated, and I reluctantly paced myself. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

  “I don’t have to eat as often as you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Stop looking for trouble. The Fallen don’t need food and drink as often as their—as the others.”

  What was he going to call me? His wife? His mate? His girlfriend? “Does that mean I get all the chocolate?” It was dark chocolate with pieces of crystallized ginger in it, and sheer heaven, but I was finally feeling pleasantly stuffed for the first time in what seemed like weeks. If I ate any more, I’d be sick.

  His hand closed around mine, plucking the half-finished bar out of my fingers, and I realized he’d been able to see me as I’d been wolfing down the food.

  “Just how good is your night vision?” I demanded.

 
“Better than yours. I’ve changed my mind—you can sleep for the first shift. I’ve made you a bed over in the corner. I suppose you need me to guide you to it.”

  Why wasn’t the starlight brighter? The last thing I wanted was the Archangel Michael leading me to bed. And leaving me there, alone.

  “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll run into it.” I rose and his hands settled on my shoulders.

  I held my breath, wanting to savor his touch. For a moment he simply held me, and then he gave me a little push, releasing me as I walked.

  It was a pile of hay bales with my discarded Truth Breaker robe on top, protecting me from the scratchiness of the straw. He’d piled them fairly high and I climbed up, stretching out on the cloth and staring up through the broken roof. The stars twinkled down on me, letting in the faintest light. Not enough to see him, just enough to let me know there was still a world out there.

  I shouldn’t be sleepy. I’d slept in the car, I’d slept in Michael’s arms, I’d slept in Beloch’s room. With Michael so close by, I couldn’t believe I could sleep again.

  But I did.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  MICHAEL STEPPED AWAY FROM her, trying to ignore the almost inaudible sounds of pleasure as she made herself comfortable on the hay bales. It had been bad enough watching her eat. He cursed his excellent night vision. He’d observed the sensuous pleasure on her face as she bit into the cheese, swallowing it with a rapturous delight. She’d licked her lips, and he’d wanted her tongue on him. Licking his lips. Licking his body.

  He wanted to curse, but he had no idea who to blame. Who was responsible for deciding who was his mate and who wasn’t? He’d survived two centuries with only one mate, and that was for a very brief time. Once he’d worked through his intense sexual discovery, perhaps fifty years of screwing any willing female, he had recognized the emptiness of it, and celibacy had been an easy choice. He had no illusions that it made him stronger. Sex was a healthy animal activity. If his desire had been great enough, he would have broken his fast. But no one had tempted him.

  Until he set eyes on Victoria Bellona. Tory, he corrected himself with a faint grin. Her recent habit of calling him “Your Holiness” and “Your Saintliness” amused him, though he wasn’t about to let her see it. He didn’t want her to have any idea how she affected him. How much he wanted her. Longed for her. Ached for her.

  He couldn’t blame that short episode in his bed. He’d been filled with ridiculous, powerful lust since she’d first entered the contessa’s drawing room, her hair dressed like a vestal virgin’s, her body slim and strong in that skimpy black dress.

  He’d ignored it. Fought it. It kept coming back, and walking away from her in the workout room, after she lost her bet, had been a Herculean effort. Finding her in his bed had been too much even for him.

  He could smell her skin. Hear the strong beat of her heart that grew faster when he got closer. Sense the fullness of her pulses, and he wanted to taste, to drink.

  He couldn’t. He’d taken a taste, a sip, just enough to appease whatever sadistic overlord was pulling the strings. But if he took her fully, she would be destroyed.

  He wasn’t going to give in to that craving. If she died, part of him would die with her. He didn’t want to consider why; he simply accepted it as the truth.

  He would keep his distance, at least from her blood. Blood-eater. The phrase echoed in his head, but his habitual aversion seemed to have faded. Disappeared, in fact.

  He could sense her desire—the heat of it touched his skin, pushed at his arousal. He’d taken what she’d offered, her lithe, strong body, and managed to survive. In truth, he felt even stronger. He’d lost nothing, gained everything when he’d climaxed.

  And he wanted it again.

  She turned on the makeshift bed, drifting into troubled sleep, and he wondered if he could ignore that burning need. He hadn’t been strictly truthful—he didn’t need to sleep right now. Wasn’t sure that he could, particularly since the last time he’d slept, she’d been stolen and taken to the Dark City. If he slept again, would Beloch find her? Take her?

  He built a pallet for himself on the far side of the barn and threw himself down on it. He wasn’t going to touch her.

  But he could sense her dreams. The restless way she shifted, the pounding of her heart.

  Would it make any difference if he took what he needed? She would still die. Would he be the cause? It would still trouble him, whether he ever touched her again or not.

  She sighed. Just a soft susurration, but it went directly to his groin, and he stifled an answering groan. If it went on like this, he was never going to make it through the night.

  He had no clear idea how they were going to get the hell out of this accursed place. No idea what kind of toll the Darkness would demand.

  He could die tomorrow. As a soldier he’d lived with that truth for his entire existence. It had never bothered him—it was his fate. And it didn’t bother him now.

  Except . . . if he was going to die tomorrow, then he was going to have her one last time.

  Not her blood. Never her blood. But he could bring her pleasure, lose himself in the tight sweetness of her body. He could have her. And if death came for him in the Darkness, he would meet it head-on, knowing at least some level of completion.

  She stirred again, and he thought of her gorgeous mouth. Beloch had hurt her, in the clever ways he could, leaving his victims confused and uncertain. She kept denying anything was wrong, but he’d looked into her green eyes and knew. If he took her, touched her as he so desperately needed, would he hurt her too? Or would he ease some of the longing and frustration that threaded through her body? He closed his eyes, and he could see the fantasy that played in her slumbering brain. Him. Going down on her.

  He wouldn’t have thought his cock could get any harder. If he just continued to listen in on her sleeping fantasies, he could bring himself off with a couple of quick jerks. But she still moved on the pallet, her hips rising to an unseen mouth, and he gave up fighting. He crossed the midnight-dark room to look down at her.

  He hated that dress. Garnet red and low-cut, it was a whore’s dress, a message from Beloch. It was no surprise that Michael wanted her out of it.

  He closed his eyes, breathing in her desire, and her fantasy came to him with riveting clarity. His long fingers cradling her hips as he tasted her, drank from her, made her explode. . . .

  A tiny shiver shook her body, just the merest tease of a climax, and it was the last straw. She deserved better than that, better than a sleeping twinge of satisfaction when he could give her so much more and ease that ache inside him as well.

  Her feet were bare. He frowned. For some reason he hadn’t realized that. Stumbling through tunnels and along forest paths must have hurt like hell. She hadn’t complained.

  In fact, she never complained. She demanded food when she needed it, answers that he couldn’t give. But she never said she was in pain, or that she was tired. In truth, she was brave, strong, the kind of woman who was more than a match for him. The kind of woman—hell, the woman he longed for. And could never, ever have.

  He couldn’t stay there and not touch her. The air was cool and clear, and it called to him. With one last glance at her restless, sleeping form, he stepped out into the night.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  I WOKE IN THE DARKNESS. I WAS ALONE in the barn. I knew it, even if I couldn’t see it. The stars overhead had blinked out, and I could see nothing. I’d dreamed about him putting his hands on my restless, aching body. Instead, he’d left. I hated this world of unending darkness, darkness without him. Hated His Holiness, the Archangel Michael, hated my own love-starved, traitorous body.

  Even dawn in this dark, dismal world was barely a change in light. It started slowly, shadows in the corner of the old barn resolving themselves into piles of hay, an antique tractor, a thick pyramid of milking cans. Did people really farm here? Did they live norma
l lives, eat and drink and work and play?

  They were dead, Michael had told me. Dead people didn’t do any of those things, did they?

  The lack of color hit me anew as dim light began to pour through the roof and the doors. In the darkness I’d forgotten about the black-and-white world.

  I moved my head, looking down at my body. Still in glorious color, when I felt drab and empty.

  I didn’t hear him come in. I looked up and saw him, standing motionless, looking at me out of hooded eyes, and I couldn’t read his expression.

  “Time to go,” he said. “We’ll reach the edge of the Darkness in a couple of hours.” He held out his hand to me. “Come.”

  I ignored it, of course, sliding off the platform of hay bales on the far side. I shook my skirts free and turned to face him. “I’m ready,” I said, somewhat needlessly.

  He dropped his hand without another word, turning his back on me, and I watched him, my mournful anger at being abandoned vanishing for one brief moment. That angel-beauty was so devastating, so perfect, that even his tall, strong back took my breath away. Not to mention his gorgeous, tight ass and long, long legs.

  It wasn’t just his astonishing physical beauty. It was his reluctant honor, his determination to lead his people to victory, the way he risked everything to come after me. The way he kissed me, his infrequent smiles, the intensity in his dark eyes, the sense that no matter how hard he fought it, he couldn’t stop caring about me. Even if he wouldn’t touch me.

  I didn’t have the same self-control. If he wanted me, he could have me, to my everlasting shame. But he didn’t. Not enough.

  If he could fight it, so could I. If His Fucking Holiness could resist me, then I could ignore him. I was just as strong, just as determined, as he was.

  I followed him out into the tepid daylight.

  MICHAEL BLESSED THE silence of the morning drive. He’d brought the grapes and cheese she’d missed the night before, but she’d simply set them on the backseat, ignoring him.