Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  It had taken everything he had to keep from going to her last night. He’d seen her dreams, her need, and he’d wanted her so badly he’d been ready to explode. But if he hadn’t kept his distance, he would have taken her blood. His willpower was only so strong.

  Blood-eater.

  He could hear the pumping of her heart, the soft pulse of blood through her veins. When he looked over at her, he could see the artery in her neck, smooth and plump and tempting.

  He’d never wanted blood before. He had taken it from the Source without thought, like someone drinking a tonic. Now, suddenly, he was obsessed with Tory’s blood. He didn’t dare allow his mouth anywhere near her neck or he’d take her.

  She was angry with him, though he wasn’t quite sure why. He didn’t care. It was easier that way for both of them. If they made it through the Portal, made it through the Darkness, she would still be furious with him if he continued to do his best to goad her. It was a good plan. It should have filled him with relief.

  He could hear the sound of rushing water up ahead, and for the first time in his existence he felt a prick of apprehension. Not for himself. He was incapable of feeling any fear—except when it came to Tory.

  There was no room for fear on the battlefield. Caring about her weakened him, when he couldn’t afford weakness.

  He brought the car to a stop, pulling out the brake. The river ran fast and deep, the color dark and ominous beneath the lacy froth of bubbles.

  He said nothing, just looked at the depths, waiting. She had said nothing since they’d left the barn, not a word. But he could outwait her. He had eternal patience. He wasn’t in any hurry to face death.

  It took a full ten minutes by his estimation, though he’d expected her to last longer. “All right, I give up,” she said in a cool voice. “Why are we here?”

  He nodded toward the swift-flowing river. “That’s the way to the Portal.”

  She screwed up her eyes. “There’s no boat, and with that current we can hardly swim across. We’d be dragged downstream.”

  “We’re not going across. We’re going under.”

  I didn’t know how to swim. It embarrassed me, and I’d done what I could about it. I’d followed swimming lessons on the Internet, practicing while I lay on the floor: the backstroke, sidestroke, crawl. I suspected that if someone dropped me into a calm, shallow pool, I could manage just fine, and wading into the ocean had felt strangely normal.

  But the idea of submerging myself in that angry river terrified me. “No.”

  He’d already started to climb out of the car, and he walked around behind it to my side. “There’s no choice.” He opened the door before I could think to lock it.

  “It wouldn’t have done any good,” he added. “I could’ve ripped the door off its hinges.”

  I wasn’t sure what angered me more, the fact that he had read my mind, or that he’d hidden just how strong he really was. I’d never had a chance in hell of beating him.

  “Stop reading my thoughts!” I snapped. “I don’t know how you do it, but just stop.”

  “I don’t need magic or bonding skills, Victoria Bellona. Your face is very expressive.”

  “And does my face express how much it annoys me when you call me that, Your Magnificent Angelness?”

  “I already know,” he said tranquilly. “Get out of the car. Putting it off doesn’t help matters.”

  “I’m not going in that water. I’ll drown.”

  “Maybe.”

  Incensed, I looked up at his golden beauty, his dark, intense eyes. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Don’t be irrational. I could have simply left you to Beloch’s tender mercies. Or I could have snapped your neck at any point since we left the castello. When you die, it won’t be by my hand.”

  Trickles of uneasiness danced around the solid core of terror that had pinned me to the car seat. “Why do you say when? Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “I know a great deal you don’t know,” he said. “If I had a few hundred years, I’d enlighten you. But you’re mortal.”

  “And you’re an asshole,” I said. “If you think it would take hundreds of years to enlighten me about your brilliance, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “Out of the car, Tory.”

  Okay, calling me by my name was an improvement, but not enough to get me out of that car. “I can’t swim,” I said sullenly.

  “It doesn’t matter. We won’t be swimming. The only way to get to the Portal is to let the river take us.” He reached in and scooped me up before I realized what he was doing.

  I fought like a wildcat, hitting, scratching, but he was impervious as he carried me toward that river of death. “Don’t do this!” I begged.

  “There is no choice.”

  A moment later I went flying through the air, screaming at the top of my lungs. And then the cold, dark water closed over my head, and I sank like a stone, down, down, as the rushing current caught me in its icy grip. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, as water filled my mouth and nose, weighed down my skirts. I kicked desperately, but I was at the mercy of the powerful river. I could feel thick muck at my feet, and I tried to look upward, but I was down so deep there was no light at all above me, and my feet were stuck fast. I strained upward, where fresh air had to lie, but it was as if my bare feet were encased in cement. Even the powerful current couldn’t free me. I was going to die, and I wasn’t ready.

  And then a strong arm went around my waist, pulling me free, and his mouth covered mine, breathing air into my lungs. I clung to him, not fighting, letting him take me with the deep, dark current, letting go, falling, falling into darkness.

  Something hurt. Like a dagger in my chest, sharp, burning pain, and light was filtering down from above. A moment later we broke through into the light, into the fresh, sweet air.

  He shoved me up onto the riverbank and we both lay in the grass, gasping for breath. I could still feel the deathly pressure on my lungs, still taste the water in my mouth and nose. Still taste the air he’d breathed into me as he pulled me free.

  He moved before I did, sitting up, and reluctantly I glanced at him. The water plastered his shirt to his chest, and I could see the line of tattoos snaking along one arm, twisting, turning in the fitful sunlight. He looked gilded, blessed by the light. “Your tattoos are moving,” I said, my voice raspy from all the water I’d swallowed. Near death had taken the starch out of me, and my hurt and anger faded.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He didn’t release my wrist. His hold was surprisingly gentle, and I had no idea if I could break it. I didn’t try. Something was happening between us, moving, like the ink-dark lines on his body, and I felt my stomach clench.

  Don’t be kind, I thought miserably. Don’t be nice to me. Don’t make me fall in love with you.

  But this time he didn’t read my mind. Instead he looked at me, his dark, dark eyes so deep I felt myself begin to drift, lost in his gaze. Mesmerized. And then he dipped his head toward mine.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  HE KISSED ME. I TRIED TO PULL back, but the grip on my wrists was relentless, and even though I jerked my head away he held me tightly.

  “Why are you kissing me?” I said in a deliberately cranky voice, hoping that would mask the pain. “You don’t even like me.”

  For a moment his blinding smile lit his face, and just that quickly all my resistance vanished. He shifted his grip so that he held me captive with one strong hand, while the other reached up to cup my face, so that I had no choice but to look into his eyes again. Fall into them.

  “Such a foolish little goddess,” he whispered. Before his mouth caught mine once more.

  It wasn’t a mercy kiss. It was hard and wet and full of carnal demand. His long fingers pulled my mouth open, and he pushed his tongue into me, demanding a response that I was helpless to refuse. I fell back into that dangerous world, throwing pride and caution to the winds, kissing him, lost in th
e sensual delight he wove around me with merely a look. I started to move closer, press up against him, but our hands were in the way.

  And then he wrenched himself away, and we stared at each other, breathing heavily. “Did you ever stop to consider there might be a reason I keep myself as far from you as I can?” he said in a soft undertone. “I want you. I want everything about you, including your blood.”

  “But you don’t care about . . . blood.” I hated even to say the word. It confused me, frightened me, horrified me. The thought of someone drinking my blood, swallowing it, was disturbing. And yet, beneath my horror and aversion ran a thread of arousal that made no sense.

  He brushed his mouth across my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids. “I want yours,” he said, moving his mouth to the side of my neck, just beneath my jaw. I felt him inhale deeply, and his tongue danced across my veins. And then he pulled away, still holding my hands. “We have to go.”

  I stared at him, bemused, once more lost in his darkened gaze. “Go where?”

  He jerked his head over his shoulder, and for the first time I looked around me.

  The river rushed beside us, though we were now on the opposite bank. Such as it was—the brown-toned landscape looked odd, unfinished, and then my eyes focused behind his head, and I froze.

  It was as if someone had painted a watercolor of browns and grays and then left it out in the rain. Walls of viscous light pulsed and throbbed like living things, and I skittered away in fear. “What the hell is that?” I demanded in horror. But I already knew the answer.

  “The Darkness.” His voice was flat, implacable.

  Panic sliced through me, and I tried to yank my wrists free. “I don’t—”

  He held me, refusing to let me go. “We don’t have a choice.”

  Man up, Tory, I told myself. I wasn’t used to being afraid. Then again, all the real danger I’d faced had been human, normal. I’d never faced anything with the malevolent force of this liquid wall of power, and it shook me to the bone.

  But I had never been a coward and I wasn’t about to start now. “Are we going to make it through?”

  I was hoping for reassurance, but His Saintliness wasn’t one for meaningless lies. “Maybe,” he said. “I can help.”

  “How?”

  “Trust me.”

  Those were notoriously dangerous words. I said nothing. The dismal truth was that I did trust him, and the last thing I wanted to do was tell him so. He already held too much power over me.

  “Good,” he said, and I wanted to snarl.

  “Don’t make assumptions!”

  His smile was faint, devastating. “I told you, everything you think shows on your face. You’d be a terrible poker player.”

  “I don’t believe it’s that simple.” He saw things too clearly for it all to be a matter of an educated guess.

  “We can argue about it when we get back,” he said. “In the meantime, we have to deal with the Portal and then the Darkness. Time passes differently in this world than it does in Sheol, and we have to get back before it’s too late. We need to concentrate on that.” He separated my wrists, holding each hand out from my body. “Don’t fight this,” he said.

  “Fight what?”

  I had deliberately kept my eyes averted from his beautiful chest, but something drew my gaze. The tattoos were shifting, sliding across his golden skin slowly, sinuously. I wanted to touch them with my mouth, lick the slowly moving marks, but he held himself too far away.

  “Hold still.”

  As if he were giving me any choice. His grip was merciless, and I watched as the line of tattoos twined across his chest, coming down the middle and swirling upward again in mirrored lines, up to his strong shoulders. They curled around his biceps, gliding down to circle his forearms, his wrists, and then across the hands and fingers that held me.

  I felt the first touch of them as a faint caress, almost a tickle, and I gasped, looking down as the marks slid up my own arms.

  It felt like a hundred butterflies dancing in my veins. They ran upward, disappearing beneath the short sleeves of the ruby dress, and then began to swirl across my neck and shoulders, dipping down beneath the gown to caress my breasts, and I let out an involuntary moan of pleasure.

  “There,” he said in a muffled voice, and released me.

  I fell back, but he caught me, easing me down. I lay in the grass, staring up at the colorless sky, and felt the strength fill my body. After a moment I managed to sit up.

  “That was amazing,” I breathed. “Better than sex.”

  There was no missing his wry smile. “It’s less work.”

  “Fuck you,” I said genially, twisting my arms to admire the sinuous tattoos. They moved on my skin as well, and the sensation was delicious. Empowering.

  “We’ve put this off too long,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet and reaching for his discarded shirt. My own dress had dried with surprising quickness, and wet denim no longer cupped his butt.

  I scrambled to my feet too. “What will these do?” I lifted my skirt halfway up my legs and saw them move across my thighs as well, a soft caress.

  “They’ll make you infinitely stronger,” he said, turning his back on me as he fastened his shirt. “They’ll make the pain more bearable, give you a fighting chance.” He turned back, taking my hand in his. “Come.”

  Something felt wrong. I had no idea what it was, but something had shifted, and despite my new strength I felt frightened as he drew me forward toward that malevolent, shimmering cloud.

  “What if we don’t make it?”

  He looked down. “You will,” he said, and pulled me into the cloud.

  I’d been expecting a veil, a thin wall that would hurt like hell and then be over, but it was thick, impenetrable, like Jell-O.

  And then the pain hit, like a thousand shards of glass slicing deep into my skin, and I cried out, shocked at the harshness of it, gripping Michael’s hand so tightly that if it had been anyone else I would have broken his bones. I tried to breathe my way through the shattering pain, remembering the movie scenes of childbirth, and I clung to Michael even more tightly, not sure if I could stand it.

  And then his words came back to me. “You will,” he’d said. Not “We will.” I would survive.

  But what about the archangel? He was stronger, he was immortal, nothing could touch him. But he’d said, “You will.”

  The pain grew, a living thing, the knives of glass digging deep inside, into my organs, my stomach, my heart, my womb, and I began to sink, losing this epic battle, and he was wrong, I wouldn’t—

  I was pulled up against a hard, strong body, but it was trembling, shaking, as he vibrated with pain.

  “Michael!” I screamed in sudden terror, and I felt something wrap around me like a blanket of feathers, shielding me, protecting me, and I stopped fighting, sinking against him, letting go.

  And then it was over. Silence, thick and deep, flooded my brain, filling it with marshmallow fluff. I didn’t move, feeling those magic butterflies dance through my body, healing, soothing, and I drifted, absurdly happy, wrapped in Michael’s strong arms.

  It took me a long time to realize that something was wrong. The skin beneath my head was cold, almost clammy. My head was against his chest, and his heartbeat, usually so strong, was faint, thready.

  Light blinded me as the protective blanket withdrew. He released me, and I realized his wings had been around me, protecting me, cradling me. That same feathery softness had covered us when we’d made love in his room. Blessing, protection. Love.

  But his arms had fallen away, his wings had vanished, and he lay still on the ground.

  A faint glow emanated from Michael’s body, a much stronger one than mine. I looked down at Michael, and I knew he was dying.

  His eyes were closed, his color pale beneath the cuts and bruises that hadn’t been there before. His shirt was shredded, and I gazed at him in horror.

  The tattoos were gone from his body—all the marks that
had danced across his golden skin. The wards and protections had vanished, and I knew that the Portal hadn’t taken them. They still danced across my arms. He had given them all to me, and had gone into the Portal with no protection at all.

  “You idiot!” I screamed at him. “Take them back.”

  His dark eyes fluttered open, but they were dull, fading. “Can’t,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Takes . . . too . . . much.”

  “Don’t you dare die on me, you asshole!” I said. “You can’t live for millennia and then die because of my stupidity.”

  “Not . . . stupid, Victoria Bellona.” It was just the trace of a smile on his battered face and I knew he was doing it simply to annoy me. Even as he was dying, he was still trying to irritate me.

  “I’m not letting you die,” I cried, my hands gripping his strong shoulders. They were cold to the touch—his life force was slipping away.

  “Nothing you can do.”

  I wanted to howl, to scream, to cry. He couldn’t do this. Not just to me, but to the Fallen. To the world.

  I tried to shake him, but he was too heavy. “Don’t leave me.” I don’t know where those words came from, and I didn’t care. “I lo—” Before I could finish the damning sentence, he reached out and caught my hand with the last ounce of his strength, pulling me down to kiss me.

  Then his mouth went slack beneath mine as he let go of life, abandoning me in the malevolent world of the Darkness.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  I KNELT IN THE GRASS BESIDE HIS LIFE-less body, and for the briefest of moments I wanted to scream and cry and rail at whatever God he supposedly served. But only for a moment.

  “No,” I said flatly, calmly. I had no idea what to do, and I could act only on instinct. Do what my heart told me. What my blood told me.

  I had nothing with which to rip my flesh, but if it came to it I would tear the skin on my wrist open with my teeth. And then I remembered the thin piece of metal I had hidden in the folds of my dress.