Judging by the robes and armor, they were in the far distant past. She took a second look around, examining faces more carefully this time. Sure enough, there was Jack, looking haggard and dirty and...human. Lark’s breath caught. Nothing about him was ever ordinary—that was just impossible—but as a mortal he looked oddly vulnerable. All of Jack’s features were the same, but the dark, fierce spark of his vampire side was missing. And yet...so was the steel wall he kept between himself and the world. This was his basic, unguarded self.
His eyes met hers, the pale blue bright in his deeply tanned face. Alarm crossed his features—almost panic—and he immediately came toward her. He wore a long tunic of chain mail that jingled as he moved, and over that a surcoat embroidered with a black hawk on a field of gold. He was clearly dressed for battle.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice sharp.
“I’m so sorry,” Lark said at once. “I don’t mean to invade, but we were both so exhausted. There’s not much I can do about it until one of us wakes up.”
He looked around the crowd, on the alert for—what?
“Jack, this is a dream. Nothing can happen.” Lark turned her attention back to the scenery. “You were really here, weren’t you?”
He took her elbow and began steering her though the crowd. “I was a third son. It was this or the monastery.”
That was a detail Lark had never known. Vampires tended to keep quiet about their human lives. “What did your older brothers do?”
“Squabbled over land. I got the fun-filled vacation with complimentary siege warfare.”
She moved her arm so that it was wound through his, turning his grip into something more companionable. “I never dreamed of actually meeting a knight in shining armor.”
That seemed to amuse him. “Well, I’d definitely avoid the ones covered in rust.”
Then he froze, staring at a figure who was idly fingering the wares of a knife maker at one of the colorful stalls. It was Jack again, but this version of him was pale as ivory and dressed in richly embroidered robes. Slowly, he turned to face them, a blade still in his hand. His graceful manner made Lark think of the black-feathered hawk sewn on Jack’s surcoat—beautiful and predatory.
“Ah. I see you’ve brought a friend,” this figure said to the knight. His bright, piercing eyes shone as if they were lit from within.
“Leave her out of this,” Jack said, stepping in front of Lark.
Lark, of course, immediately shifted so she could see what was going on. She had a sudden feeling she wasn’t the only intruder in Jack’s dreams. Whoever this doppelgänger was, she could feel power pouring off him in pulsing waves. Not human, then, but something else. Something very dangerous.
He held up the knife, the sun blazing along the blade. “A pretty thing, this. Most useful.”
“What do you want, Asteriel?” Jack snarled.
“I approve of your fey. Very lovely.”
Jack tensed. Suddenly his arm was rock hard, his muscles poised to fight.
The richly dressed double laughed, his smile as sharp as the weapon he held. “Does she know about my gift to you? Most important, do you remember what I said the last time we spoke?”
Lark felt Jack’s thunderclap of alarm. It threw her out of the dream and she sat bolt upright, fully awake with her skin prickling in fright. The position of the sun said they’d been asleep for a long time—far longer than the dream itself. The shadows said it was late afternoon. With a sense of profound disorientation, she pushed her fingers through her hair.
Jack was sitting up, too, his look one of utter horror. Slowly, his gaze focused on her face. “Are you all right?”
She gazed at him curiously, still trying to figure out what had just happened. “What was that?”
“A dream.”
A dream where nothing much had actually occurred. Still, the feeling of menace had sunk deep into her bones. “Who was your twin? Was that supposed to be someone real?”
Jack sank back to the ground. He pulled off his sunglasses and bent an arm across his face. “Yes. He just wears my face in my dreams.”
The words—and the way Jack said them—sent another chill over her skin. “What did he give you?”
Jack moved his arm but didn’t replace the glasses, simply shutting his eyes instead. The sweep of his dark eyelashes brought back memories of other times, and other beds. Lark’s throat ached with the memories.
“Treasure,” he said without expression. “Spoils of war. He made my fortune.”
Lark felt the balance of push and pull between them, of trust and secrecy. She’d seen something she shouldn’t have. The question was whether Jack would pull away or let her in. Lark could barely breathe, wanting to comfort but unsure whether her touch would be welcome after such an invasion.
She swallowed. “For someone who made your fortune, you don’t sound happy about seeing him.”
Jack’s face grew tight. When he spoke, it sounded strangled. “No.”
Taking a gamble, Lark leaned against Jack again. To her relief, he wrapped an arm around her waist. “The odd thing was that he wanted to make amends. He thought I could do good with all that wealth. He asked me to take it and relieve all the suffering I could.”
“But?”
“It didn’t work.” There was finality in his tone that closed the conversation, but she couldn’t resist pushing it one step more.
“Why did he pick you?”
Jack was silent for a long moment. “I’d seen too much death. I must have looked like a man who needed a respite from war.”
“But?”
“It turns out I’d only seen the tip of Death’s tail.” Jack opened his eyes, which held echoes of the stranger’s brilliant, unearthly gaze. “He showed me the rest.”
The sight of those eyes chilled Lark’s blood and she understood. “He’s your demon!”
And the figure in the dream had been holding the knife she’d used to betray Jack’s secret. Was that a message meant for her?
Chapter 18
Asteriel hadn’t lied when he’d said he and Jack were one. Their two souls had worn away over the centuries until they fit seamlessly together. It was hard now to tell whose memory was whose, or even if they could be pried apart. And yet, once in a while, Jack’s subconscious set the demon free of his mortal half’s relentless will—at least in dreams. That was when the nightmares came to remind Jack what was at stake.
Theirs had been an unusual bargain: gold for willpower. Jack got a fortune on the condition he used it for good works. In return, Asteriel got a chance at redemption—the real, get-to-Heaven deal earned with repentance and good deeds. The deal had appeared perfect. The fallen angel thirsted to see justice done in the world, and so did Jack.
And the chance to help an angel find peace? After seeing so much death and war, Jack couldn’t refuse that kind of wonder. All Jack had to do was take the creature with him when he left the desert for home—as a passenger inside his body. Good deeds had to be done personally to count toward redemption. Uniting with Jack—and Jack’s natural self-discipline—ensured the Fallen wouldn’t be tripped up by his cursed nature. After all, he’d tried to be good before, but something had always gone wrong.
True to form, the Fallen had failed to mention the consequences if Jack died. They had been murdered not long after reaching Jack’s home.
“What are you thinking about?” Lark asked, interrupting his reverie.
She was lean but soft, the curve of her fitting exactly against his chest. He knew her smell—so much like the woods themselves on a May evening, clean and sweet and beckoning to pleasure. The protective ache rising in his still heart was as pure as springtime. It was fey magic, or maybe it was just female. He held her like a talisman against his thoughts.
“The past,” he
said. The first time I woke up to that rattling, horrified gasp of air into my dead lungs. To that moment I realized I was fused into one being who was half human and half demon and thirsting for blood. Mortality had been the only thing keeping their two souls apart. In that moment of waking, Jack had understood that the Fallen were truly demons, and now he was a creature of foul hungers wearing a man’s face. Ordinary vampires had a touch of the demon inside, but he was more, made not from a bite but from something far more infernal. He was a vessel for one of the Fallen.
“Our past?” Lark asked. “Or a long-ago past?”
He allowed himself a half smile. “Memory is a strange thing when you get as old as me.”
Lark raised a brow. “You make yourself sound senile. Do you remember my name?”
“I can just about bring you to mind.”
He shifted his hands against her slender waist, the curve of her back inviting him to draw her closer. The shadowed light of the grove turned her dark brown eyes to near black. He knew there were a thousand reasons to walk away, to keep a brutal grip on his self-control, but holding her was too sweet. All caution slipped away in a receding tide. “Jessica,” he said softly, letting a sliver of his longing betray him.
One corner of her mouth curled up. “I almost don’t mind that name when you say it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not mine. Fey only ever take a first name to live among humans—or, rather, human computers. They go crazy without something to fill that data field.”
“Lark, then,” he said. “Though I think you’re too fierce to be a songbird.”
“We always sing at daybreak,” she said with a sly wink. “Vampires should find us frightening.”
She smiled, and it was like dawn—bright and fresh and untouched. Jack’s chest tightened. Seeing her face light up like that was like feeling an unspeakable burden lift from his shoulders.
“We find you terrifying,” he said. He couldn’t help himself—he kissed her soundly, rolling them both so that he was on top, the soft leaves and grass cushioning her from the ground.
“Jack, what are you doing?” she asked, her fingers feathering through his hair.
“Defending myself.” Neither her voice nor those teasing fingers indicated she wanted him to stop, so he kept going. That was one good thing about being dead—he didn’t need to come up for air.
Eventually, though, she broke the kiss. “Jack?”
“Shh.” He was exploring her skin ever so slowly, kissing his way along the clean angle of her jaw. All women had their beauties, but this was one of Lark’s. The soft skin of her throat met the delicate architecture of her ear just there, and the fine skin of her temple there, and the flare of her cheekbone there. The fey had skin that was almost translucent, and the fine blue tracery of veins was visible and tantalizing. In an instant, Jack was swamped by the tangled needs for flesh and food and affection. Hunger rose, as all consuming as a three-alarm blaze.
And then her lips caught his, and the pressure of them made him focus again, even as the taste of her destroyed any hopes of sanity. She was cinnamon and heat, and Jack began to feel his own flesh warming as her fingers dug into the muscles of his back and shoulders. As her teeth caught his lower lip and bit down, he felt his fangs begin to descend. It had been a long time since he’d tasted fey blood, and his control began to unravel.
“Be careful,” he murmured.
“Always,” she said, but that was pure fiction. The fey could not be Turned, and Lark had never denied him. Perhaps she had no idea of the damage a lust-crazed vampire could do—or didn’t care. The fey were wild creatures and regarded a slippery slope as a fun ride.
Vampires should find us frightening. Yes, absolutely. Everything that kept Jack himself depended on his control, and Lark could make him let go of those boundaries like nothing else. Mortal men could be driven to sweet despair by a fey lover, and Jack knew well that she could unmake him with a kiss.
Already he could feel the madness of her passion rising. It was ephemeral, like pheromones or electricity, but it acted on him like a drug. How much was magic or biology or just Lark herself was impossible to know, and it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter what else was going on in the world right then. He had to possess her.
He began with his hands, stroking her hip and feeling the flare and dip of her curves. The fey were willowy, but Lark had an athlete’s muscles. Jack had always liked the contrast of strength and fullness in her body, and moved upward with lingering touches to explore the arch of her ribs and the soft riches of her breasts.
Lark found the juncture of his T-shirt and belt and worked her hands beneath the cloth. Her hands were cold against even his flesh, and he flinched. She laughed, the sound becoming a buzz where their lips met, and then he was lost to the feel of her fingers against his back, urging him closer. A deep burn of need pooled in his belly. Even at his angriest, his body had missed Lark. Having her here now, alive and wanting him, was a dizzying relief.
His mouth slid to the collar of Lark’s shirt, tasting the salt of her skin and the musk of female beneath. She’d changed into practical clothes for the journey and was wearing a soft cotton work shirt over a tank top and jeans. He could still smell traces of soap in the folds, and that only added to a sense of comfort and rightness. She was everything he had to have. His hands found the shirt buttons and began working with determined speed.
The rise and fall of her breath pressed her body into his with every gasp. The dark pools of her eyes were wide, her lips swollen and parted and begging to be kissed again—but there was something he’d never seen in her before. She had always been proud, wild and fierce, and all of that was still there. Yet there was also uncertainty. They had been apart, and the road back had not been a smooth one.
He wanted to say something but faltered. Jack ran a finger down Lark’s cheek, tracing its smooth curve. He licked his lips, experiencing an uncharacteristic twinge of nervousness. Lark was strong, but he’d never seen her eyes so vulnerable before now. It changed every dynamic between them, even if just by a hair.
“I want you.” It wasn’t poetic, but it was one of the few things he was certain of.
Doubt flickered behind her eyes, as if she didn’t trust his welcome.
“I mean it.”
She put her hands on his face, tilting his head to look straight into his eyes. “Stop talking, Jack, and prove it.”
That would be a pleasure. Jack opened her shirt and sat back as she pulled off her tank top, unveiling a confection of pale green silk beneath. The notion of such daintiness hiding beneath plain cotton only made him hotter. He moved in, taking her in his arms once more. He had to taste the heat beneath that silk.
Still, as his fangs scraped against the lace, he made no move to tear it away. With an iron hand, he held his need to a slow burn, spooling out the experience a bit at a time, forcing himself to give as well as take.
He licked and teased, tasting her through the whisper of cloth. Her nipples pressed against the silk, roused and ready even as a sheen of perspiration began to slick her skin. She stirred beneath him, writhing and bucking as he reacquainted himself with all the moves she liked—and there were many. The scent of her desire filled him, extinguishing every thought save his need for her. Her fingers worked at his zipper, and the sudden freedom brought a moan of relief from his throat.
But there was something he needed first, an impulse so basic not even his will of iron could deny it. Inexorably, her pulse drew him to a vein. It slipped under her translucent skin, a running river of life. He needed it, wanted it, desired it as intimately as he craved every other part of Lark. His fangs—sharp, long and lethal as only the eldest vampires possessed—slid neatly through her skin. Lark murmured and arched against him, giving him better access to the fresh flow of her warm life. A vampire’s bite gave erotic pleasu
re few could resist.
Jack’s brain all but exploded at the sensation of her warmth inside him. The taste was sweet and velvety, but fey blood was as potent as strong liquor to his kind. He took no more than a sip, letting it slide down his throat. He didn’t need more, and she had already given blood to heal Ralston.
That was the wrong thought to have. A fierce pang of jealousy tore at him, causing him to take a second swallow. She was his, his, and the heat of her life inside him proved it. She shuddered beneath him, responding to his claim with a cry of completion. A dark fierceness deep in his belly filled with satisfaction as he held her, rejoicing in what he could do with just a tiny bite. There was so much more in his repertoire.
But one thing at a time. He pressed his mouth around the wound, licking it closed. Lark moved, blinking at him with pleasure-drugged eyes. She didn’t speak. There was no need. He was as hard as a spear now, and she was all but melting as he slid inside her. It had been too long since he’d felt such a powerful need, and he needed all his concentration as he pushed home, taking her all over again. He had drawn her essence into him, and it was time to complete the circle by leaving his with her.
The sun was failing, leaving him stronger. His senses were sharpening as the shadows lengthened, and he was growing aware of the rustling leaves and shushing wind. Tension hung in the air, but he was with his woman. He was a hunter fixated on his prey. The world might have been ending, but he had a mission to complete.
Somehow they’d shed half their clothes, and he felt the heat of Lark’s thighs against his waist as he moved. There was warmth and wetness and pressure building inside him. Jack changed his angle, and as he withdrew to stroke again, he caught the glisten of her fluids clinging to his skin. By all the evidence, her pleasure was at the triple-A rating.
Jack growled his pleasure and went for the gold star. She cried out, spasming around him, taking him greedily as deep as he could go. And Jack came. He roared, fangs bared, the leash of his control finally loosed as he claimed her again.
Possessed by the Fallen Page 14