Possessed by the Fallen

by Sharon Ashwood

  She tried to jerk her arm free without success. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Away from this grave. It’s not safe to linger.”

  “I can help you.”

  “Do you really think so?” He quickened his pace, his long legs making her run. “No, sweetheart, helpful people don’t spy on me. They don’t lie and they don’t stab and they don’t disappear without a trace. How deeply are you involved in all this? Did you help burn down Headquarters, or are you one of the ones out to destroy the bride and groom?”

  Lark made a furious hissing noise, much like a scalded cat. It was a fey warning that raised the hair along Jack’s neck.

  “Don’t be a fool!” she spat. “Whatever else you may think, you know we have the same enemies. They did their best to kill us both, and now they’re here, killing our friends.”

  Jack didn’t answer. He just forced her along the road.

  Finally, she dug her heels in, forcing him to stop. “The wedding is almost here. Wake up, Jack. We have to work together.”

  Work together. The notion held promise—of time in her company, of an excuse to bury their differences for days on end, of accidental intimacy. He’d been down that treacherous path before, and he’d lived the wreckage. Worst of all, he’d fallen in love with her.

  But he knew better now. The past was over and done. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  Lark opened her mouth, but didn’t utter a word. He could see the memory of his demon written all over her finely boned face. Terror just made her more lovely—and the fact that he noticed it sickened him. She was right. He was slipping.

  Impatient, he shoved her forward. He was almost back to the car. He could see a sports coupe parked farther down the road—no doubt the vehicle she’d followed him in, complete with spells to hide the tail. More fey deceptions.

  “Jack, I...”

  “Save it.” There were few things that could burn a vampire, but Jessica Lark was as deadly and beautiful as the sun.

  He pushed her against the Escalade, spreading her feet apart as if she were any suspect. She suddenly seemed to lose heart, and stood quietly as he frisked her for weapons, taking the Smith & Wesson under her coat and the smaller backup in her thigh holster. His mood had gone icy, and it was possibly the first time he’d touched her without pleasure foremost in his mind. Then he grabbed her wrists, hooking them together with handcuffs that seemed huge around her slender bones.

  It was the click of steel that finally got a reaction from her. She struggled free of his grip and wheeled around, her eyes wide with panic. In a painful throb, he realized that despite an instinctive fear of his demon side, she hadn’t predicted that he’d take her prisoner. She’d trusted him more than he’d trusted her.

  “Jack, you have to listen to me!” she cried.

  There were a lot of things he could have said, but it was better not to give the fey words they could turn against you.

  So he kept it to one. “No.”

  Chapter 5

  Jack got Lark into the car and got the car back on the road. He was not going to let the woman he’d loved and lost in a thousand different ways make him crazy.

  No, no, hell no. Denial ran like a chant inside his head as he drove the Escalade back toward the capital city, bumping over back roads to stay out of sight. But try as he might, Lark was irrefutably there, growing increasingly angry with every passing minute. He could tell by the set of her lips.

  Jack mentally drew the blinds. He watched for headlights instead, but they were alone on the path that snaked down from the forested hills toward the resorts and beaches at the edge of town. Above the esplanade, he could see the gleaming domes and spires of the palace. His goal was to get to a safe distance from the blast just in case the attackers were picking off survivors, but there was an almost preternatural quiet.

  “Jack,” Lark began for the third time, venturing into the chill silence that was all but frosting up the windshield.

  “Don’t speak.” He held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  But of course she didn’t listen. That wasn’t Lark’s way. “I know what the Company means to you. It’s more your home than any of those fancy houses you own.”

  “Stop there.” He put steel into the words. “Don’t talk about my feelings. I’m not even human.”

  “Jack.” His name was barely a whisper. “That doesn’t matter.”

  Her words slid under his guard, wrenching raw places he hadn’t even acknowledged yet. He’d just lost friends whom he’d known for centuries, and after so many years it got harder and harder to share any part of one’s soul. True friends became rare and precious things.

  “Jack?”

  He didn’t answer. His brain was roiling, too much crashing through it. Destruction. Demons. Loss. But Lark’s presence cut through it all like a bolt of sorrow.

  I loved you.

  It had been the first green, fresh thing he’d felt for so long. Before she’d come along, he was sure he’d turned to stone—but Lark had taught him how his heart could still rejoice. And bleed.

  “What do you want, Jack?” She sounded impatient now.

  Jack gripped the steering wheel, glaring at the narrow strip of road. “I want revenge. I want whoever destroyed my...home.”

  Lark turned away, speaking to the window of the Escalade. When her voice reached his ears, it was strained. “Then, you should listen to what I have to say. I can help. Whatever else you think, you know I’m as good an agent as any member of your team.”

  He almost laughed. “There’s a lot I could say to that. You still count yourself a member of the Company? Then, how about this—good agents don’t go AWOL.”

  “I was caught in the fire when my atelier burned down,” she said. “It was bad. Fey heal well, but it takes time. We’re not like vampires or shifters.”

  “You could have sent word to the Company that you were still alive.”

  He finally looked at her, and she narrowed her eyes. For all its focus, the look was almost sleepy, reminding him of too many bedroom scenes for comfort. Especially with the handcuffs. “I had my reasons. You can believe that or not.”

  “Duty doesn’t care about excuses.”

  “You’re a fortunate man if you can believe in absolutes.”

  He couldn’t read her tone well enough to guess if it was sincere or mocking. He decided to play it straight. “I would have liked to know you were alive.”

  “So you could silence me?” She was looking out the window, avoiding his gaze. “Besides, I thought you were dead, remember?”

  He pulled the Escalade off the road and killed the engine, but it was a long moment before he could force himself to look at her. They were a few miles from the palace gates, still in the country, and it was dark. For a long moment Lark remained still, the lush fall of her hair a wave of shadow in the surrounding darkness. She looked as she always had in his mind’s eye: lovely and serene. He wanted to stay like that, with only the wind rustling outside the car. But then she turned, moving slowly as if facing him was painful. Moonlight traced the edge of her cheek, turning that thin strip of blood-warmed skin to silver.

  “The hospital called my family to come get me from New York,” she said. “I thought you were dead and I didn’t know who’d compromised my cover. The attack was real, Jack, and it was brutal. I just wanted to go home and heal.”

  He said nothing, hating the thought of her hurt and alone. And then hating the fact it bothered him so much.

  “I missed you, Jack. That was the worst, but there were other things. I missed our friends. The life we had. It was hard, you know, losing the fashion-design business,” she said, her voice oddly brittle. “It was supposed to be just a cover but I liked it. I had a knack.”

  Jack sat back, his leather jacket rustling in the silen
ce. “People pay fortunes for a Jessica Lark original, especially now that you’re dead.”

  She gave a stifled, bitter laugh. Her features remained in darkness, as if he was gazing at the ghost of his memories. Lark in her jeans and bare feet, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her studio; Lark walking into a room and turning every male head; Lark lying in his arms. In every image, she was bursting with life. He was—not. He was the hollow grave. A vampire, and worse. He swallowed hard, suddenly ravenous.

  She saw the look. He caught the surge of adrenaline wafting from her skin. Jack jerked his head away, reining himself in.

  “Listen. Very few things can destroy a site that quickly. With any normal blast, there would still be fire and smoke for hours. That’s not what we’ve got here. By all indications, a spell blew up HQ, and it left a stink,” Lark said suddenly, pulling them back to safer ground.

  The abrupt change of subject caught him off guard. “A stink?”

  “On the magical plane. Whoever wove that spell was Dark Fey.”

  Dead leaves swirled across the road. The tick-tick of the cooling motor sounded like an old-fashioned time bomb. “Explain.”

  Her voice was brisk, every inch the agent now. “An explosion that big would have rocked the city, and it would’ve been loud and bright. It wasn’t, so it was magic.”

  “And the magical, uh, smell?”

  “Fresh. Barely hours old.”

  “That fits,” Jack agreed. “It’s been long enough for the attackers to get away, but not so long that the shutdown has been detected. Otherwise someone would have noticed HQ was offline. That still doesn’t explain why you think it’s a Dark Fey spell. They’re not the only magic users around.”

  She angled her chin away, her expression stubborn. “I know the reek of the Dark.”

  “How? The gates to their kingdom have been locked for nine hundred years,” Jack said, his voice gruff with dread she was right. “I was there when the gates were closed, but you weren’t even born.”

  “Believe what you like, Jack.” Her voice grew sharp. “The Light Court elders kept artifacts of the Dark spells. An entire library. They made us learn the signs of their magic, and one of those signs is stink. And this is worse than anything I’ve ever encountered.”

  With that, she got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. For an astonished second, Jack watched her stalk away. She was rubbing one wrist while the other was still circled by the dangling bracelets. Of course, any agent worth their salt knew how to get out of cuffs. Whatever else had happened to her, Lark hadn’t lost her touch with a well-concealed lock pick.

  “By the devil.” Jack scrambled out of the car. He caught up to her in three strides, catching her arm. “What else do you know?”

  The force of his grip made her slender body collide with his. She shot him a look, temper mixed with wariness. “I thought you didn’t believe me.”

  Jack hesitated, measuring out how much he should say. “Dark Fey operatives made an attempt to open the gates less than a month ago, so I buy that they’re active. We barely stopped the ritual, and only because they couldn’t get all the ingredients to the spell.”

  Lark’s mouth turned down. “I know. Word has it you dropped off the grid a year ago to find out who is working on behalf of the Dark Queen.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The Light Court has its sources. They sent me to find you because they want to know what you’ve found out. Who is helping her?”

  Jack was barely listening. Their argument had stirred his hunger—but then Lark aroused him like no one else he’d ever met in his long existence. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her flesh seeping through her coat. Saliva filled his mouth, reminding him it had been a long time since he’d fed. Vampires his age didn’t need a constant flow of blood, but the desire to drink never entirely faded—and fey were a particularly delicious vintage.

  This wasn’t good—especially when the disaster he’d just seen had stirred his most primitive survival instincts. Summoning the last dregs of his will, he forced his fingers to uncurl from her arm.

  “The Light have stood on the sidelines until now. Why get involved?” His voice had gone rough with more than one kind of hunger.

  Lark studied his face, no doubt seeing the flare of appetite in his eyes. She backed out of his reach. “We’re on the same side. The Dark Queen has always been our enemy. You’ll need us now that the Company is...is in trouble.”

  “The Company is not defeated. Not as long as I’m still standing.” Jack looked down the sloping road toward the city. The palace stood on the hill at the center of town, the huge gates outlined in shimmering lights. It was a vision from a child’s picture book, made of fireflies and dreams, and it was the Company’s mission to keep it safe.

  And that mission came first. Not every agent could have been in the building, and those who were left had work to do. Jack would find those survivors—his friends—but as much as he wanted to start making calls, there was a protocol to follow. The first order of business was to maintain silence until he reported what had happened to the king of Marcari, the ultimate ruler of the Company and all its agents. King Renault had to be the first to know what had happened here.

  “You’re coming with me to speak to the king,” he said evenly.

  “Am I?” Lark asked with a hint of defiance. “Thank you for informing me.”

  Without even looking her way, Jack gripped her arm again. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight. “We need to warn him. You need to explain why you’re in town.”

  Lark squirmed in his grasp. “Aren’t you undercover? If there are spies in the palace, there’s no point in letting the enemy know you’re around.”

  “King Renault knows I’m here. I get around without anyone else seeing my face.”

  And there was his next problem. He knew plenty of secret passages in and around the palace, but he didn’t want to reveal them to Lark. If she was going with him, he needed another way in.

  Jack licked dry lips, hating his next words. “If we leave the car here, we can walk in under a cloak of invisibility.”

  A beat of silence followed. Then she gave a short, sharp laugh. “You, inveterate hater of fey magic, need me to cast a glamour for you?”

  He clenched his teeth. “I’ll like your magic better if it’s working for my side.”

  * * *

  Lark dropped her chin to her chest, feeling the sting of his words. “I’m on your side.”

  “I doubt that,” Jack said, pain and anger radiating from him like heat.

  Lark tried to ignore the jab, but her vision blurred with tears. She was devoted to her people, but she’d also worked with the Company. The agents were her friends, and someone had struck deep at their heart. The image of the blast site burned like a coal of fury in her chest, fueling the hot prickling behind her eyes. If she wavered for one instant, let that grief inside her unfold, she would start howling like a banshee.

  “I want revenge as much as you do,” she said. “If getting into the palace will help you, I’ll do it. But first, I need something from you.”

  His mouth twitched with some unspoken protest, but his voice was even. “What?”

  Lark sighed, regretting her words before she spoke them. “Kiss me.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Haven’t we done that already?”

  “I know it’s not the time... It’s all wrong, but if I’m going to share magic...” She trailed off awkwardly, then cleared her throat.

  She realized she was looking at Jack’s feet like some awkward teenager, and slowly dragged her gaze upward to look at him squarely. It was a fascinating visual journey. He stood tall and hard with muscle, forged at a time when men fought with broadsword and ax. Once she’d claimed every inch of that flesh. She knew for a fact that his s
kin was only slightly cool to the touch, and it would warm with encouragement. The truth was, Jack had conquered her the night they’d met. She hadn’t stood a chance. Talk about going for the bad boys.

  Except now his pale blue eyes, haunted and a little terrifying, froze her where she stood. She tried an apologetic smile. “I need to feel your energy. This is the fastest way.”

  She could see him resisting the idea, but there was nothing else she could do. They had kissed earlier, but that had been more a battle than a sharing. For the glamour to work, she had to merge their energies, and it had been too long since she’d let herself sink into the essence of him. That lapse could cost them, for even the subtlest error could cause the glamour to fail. “I know you’re angry with me, but I have to kiss you for your own good.”

  A corner of his mouth twitched—a hint of humor. “Men have wept for less.”

  Lark drew closer, resting her fingertips on his chest. Despite the low light, she could see the lines of tension in his face—no surprise given the devastation they’d just seen. Like so many of the warriors she knew, he let such things in a bit at a time, measuring it out so that he could keep on fighting. Such self-control demanded a price. She knew that Jack had nightmares—and a vampire’s night terrors must be terrors indeed.

  She ran her hand up the swell of his chest, her thumb brushing the collar of his jacket. He swayed slightly under her touch, but it was she who stretched up to take his mouth. His mouth was hard on hers—stiff for a moment but then greedy with a hunger that made her reel. Lark gasped, her senses overwhelmed as Jack’s strong arms pulled her close once more, her feet barely skimming the ground.

  It would have been so good to bury her face in his shoulder and weep for everything—for them, for the Company, for all the friends she’d lost and the secrets she kept. But he wasn’t there to give her comfort, even though his mouth was on hers again, brushing over her eyes, her brow, her lips and throat as his hands studied her form as carefully as if he meant to sculpt it. Desire rushed through her, and with it vivid remembrance of the times they’d shared. He was angry and despised her and was—let’s face it—at least partially a demon, but she also knew the beauty of his heart.