She couldn’t allow that longing to thrive, so she took extra care with her party persona.
She freshened her makeup, brushed her hair and slipped on a favorite pair of shoes. She hardly noticed the faint light of a waning crescent moon or any movement in the garden as she left the cottage to follow the path to the mansion. She wanted to go to the party in spite of all the reasons she shouldn’t. It was the first party she’d wanted to attend in a long time.
* * *
She’d been dressed in gray and black, but her hair and lipstick had been closer to the truth of who she really was. He’d been mesmerized by the mass of curls under her hat, bright even in shadows. And her lips in soft light had been flush and full and painted boldly. They hadn’t matched the fear in her eyes. More than ever, he wanted to personally hand-deliver Father Malachi to the fires of hell and throw him in the flames. The Order of Samuel specialized in traumatizing innocents, yet they called themselves holy men. It was obvious they haunted Victoria D’Arcy. She was a bold woman shadowed by fear.
When he saw her enter the rooms he’d had arranged for her reception, his glass paused halfway to his mouth. The hat was gone. And her shapeless traveling clothes were gone too. She’d chosen bright crimson heels and she’d refreshed her lips in the same shade. Her hair was a richer, deeper auburn and more subtle in comparison. Against the black of her dress and her pale porcelain skin, those pops of color stunned. The myriad shades of red in her hair seemed almost iridescent in the shifting light.
It wasn’t only him. She entered quietly, but many faces turned her way. She had stage presence. No actual stage necessary. The whole room subtly shifted within moments of her becoming a part of it. It was no longer a miscellaneous gathering. It was a party with an anonymous star at its heart. She wasn’t a celebrity. She’d been away from the opera world too long and even before that her career had been held in check by daemon politics. She simply shone and everyone in the room unconsciously arranged themselves to bask in the glow.
This was the woman the Order of Samuel sent to bring him down.
He lifted his glass. He took a long swallow of Firebird Pinot Noir. He didn’t savor. He gulped. Because he’d rather fight an army of monks programmed to destroy than this one intriguing woman.
* * *
He watched her. She could feel his attention while she spoke to other guests. There were wealthy travelers, politicians, a celebrity chef, an aging rock star and a billionaire philanthropist—it was a posh gathering for an opera singer that had never been free to seek fame. They were here for Turov. He was sharing his guests with her. But he wasn’t being hospitable. She reminded herself that he used his sophisticated persona as a disguise for his covert activities. By and by, she was swept his way. Time and tide and Brimstone. When she took the warmed crystal stem from his fingers, she realized she’d abstained from accepting a glass of wine until she could receive her glass from his hand.
She sipped. And the room fell away. The aroma was delicate black cherry accented with a spicy hint of cinnamon. The flavor was of fruit and earth. But it was the texture that slayed. It was liquid silk on her tongue, soft and velvety. She savored. She swallowed. The rich, full-bodied vintage did soothe her throat and her spirits.
She wasn’t an expert on wine, but she savored this one with her eyes closed, well aware that it was one of the finest she’d ever enjoyed. When she lifted her lids, she met the deep blue of Turov’s eyes. He watched her drink as if her reaction to his wine mattered more than fire and Brimstone. She lifted her glass for a second sip, to savor and swallow again while he watched. His gaze tracked the movement of her lips and tongue and her throat. His intensity made her flush more than the pleasure of the wine or the effects of the alcohol on an empty stomach.
“You like it,” he said.
Though they danced a dangerous dance of deception, she was stripped to raw honesty by the expression on his handsome face. This. The tasting of the wine between them was not part of her mission or their mutual disguises. Her reaction must be honest and real. His art deserved no less.
“It’s beautiful. Pure pleasure on my tongue. I want to sing—and that is high praise. I haven’t wanted to sing for a long time,” Victoria confessed. This time when she swallowed, she also swallowed emotion. The lovely black cherry flavor lingered as a reminder of her honesty. She hadn’t told anyone the truth about her lack of desire to sing. Not even Katherine.
“You honor my family,” Turov replied.
His voice was rougher. Not as polished. In this moment, his disguise slipped. His face was both harder and more vulnerable. The set of his jaw was a tight line, but one made of marble that could be chipped if she wished it.
This man was the man she’d been sent to harm.
She swayed on her feet as if she’d forgotten to eat before a major dress rehearsal under hot lights. Turov snapped out of his trance. He took her glass and set it on a nearby table, urging her to patio doors that were already thrown wide. They walked through together with his warm hand on her back. Solicitous? Was he the host vulnerable to her enjoyment of his wine? Or nefarious? Was he the damned man who had sold his soul for success? There was no way to tell. Victoria could only step out in the cool air and breathe deeply of rich earth and growing things.
They walked out onto the broad expanse of a decorative-tiled veranda, framed by stone columns and a black slate rail. She leaned against it for support, but also to look out at the vineyards that stretched far into the night. Better to look there than to face her host. How could she read him when she was too afraid of what she might see? She needed to turn him over to the Order. To free their brethren. If he wasn’t a greedy man who had sold his soul for success, who and what was he? She couldn’t afford to care and yet she was intrigued by him. It was as simple as that.
“The Turov family has grown grapes here since they fled the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century,” Turov said. He had come to stand beside her. His profile was strong and proud. Anyone unaware of the Brimstone in his blood would assume he spoke of history rather than from personal experience.
“And you’ve built on what they established,” Victoria said, playing along.
“In Russia, there’s a saying. ‘You live. You learn.’ I have found this to be true,” Turov said.
It was a confession, but one that was revealing only if you knew his Brimstone secret.
He had refined Nightingale Vineyards’s pinot noir since 1918. He. Personally. He had overseen the process of living and learning for one hundred years.
Michael’s father had been much older, but he’d been a daemon, not a man. Standing beside Adam Turov was different. He wasn’t an immortal creature. He was a human whose life had been extended by selling his soul. How? Why? It didn’t matter. It would be wiser to see him as corrupt and leave it at that. She didn’t need to understand him. She needed only to betray him.
“Sometimes I feel as if I’ve missed a few lessons along the way,” Victoria said. “Opera is all-consuming. Life is more complicated. Reality is harder to navigate.”
“You’ll rest here. You’ll recover. There’s something about being surrounded by growing things. It rejuvenates. Even a jaded soul like mine,” Turov said. “Complications fall away. Simplicity reigns.”
She looked at him then. The house blazed with light behind him. The soft haze from a sliver of moonlight came from the cloudless sky. People laughed. A piano played classical jazz while glasses clinked and indistinct conversation whispered all around. She was most vulnerable when she was seduced into thinking it might be possible for her to relax. Always, after, she regretted her weakness. Her greatest enemy wasn’t someone trying to sell her safety and protection. Her greatest enemy was her wanting what they were selling with all her heart.
Nowhere was ever safe. Any haven was a lie. Her life would always be too complicated to set down roots.
“I look forward to relaxing,” she said. She’d played this role a thousand times. The ingénue. Young and naïve. It was impossible to tell what he thought of her performance.
A figure revealed itself, moving in the shadows of the grounds in between the house and the vineyard. From grass to walkway to grass again, the figure crept.
The transformation in Turov was absolute. In a nanosecond, he went from cultured host with a hint of the Carpathians in his voice to a no-nonsense ruler whose California kingdom had been breached.
“Go to your cottage and lock the door. Don’t let anyone in except me,” he ordered.
He easily vaulted over the rail, dropping a story below onto the manicured grass. The party continued behind her while Turov ran across the lawn. The atmosphere was no longer seductively normal. Now, she strained at noises and squinted at shadows.
Before Michael was born, she probably would have obeyed such an order. She was no spy. She was no warrior. Before the fire, she could sing. That was all. And now even that was in question. Instead of going back to her cottage, Victoria moved quickly to the stone staircase that led down to the lawn. She couldn’t afford to be the woman she’d been before she’d become a mother. She’d longed for love. She’d longed for life.
She still longed for those things, but now she wanted them for her baby instead of herself.
She’d recognized the stocky figure of the monk who was following her. She needed to stop Turov before he confronted the careless man, or her mission would be over before it had begun.
* * *
What could be more innocent than strolling through the garden, softly humming under the stars? Her heart pounded. Her steps were hurried and clumsy. She’d chosen her shoes for the party, not for a walk on the loose pebbles of a dimly lit path.
Still, she hummed.
She needed to draw Turov away from the monk.
The tune was scratchy and unused. A few bars from Romeo et Juliet. “Je veux vivre.” “Juliet’s Waltz.” Her hum was rough and unmelodic to her trained ears. She didn’t even know if it would work. She could only try. And pretend her effort was only about distracting Turov from the monk stalking her. The tightness in her chest and the heat of her flushed cheeks against the night air mocked that lie.
She had to keep Turov from finding out why she was here and inadvertently uncovering her ties to the Order of Samuel. She couldn’t allow him to confront or capture her evil stalker.
But she also had to know.
Would her music act as a conduit between her affinity and the power in his Brimstone blood in the same way that Katherine’s cello had called to John Severne?
From the moment when she’d first heard his voice tonight, she had to know.
She’d loved Michael, but his power as a full-blood daemon had completely overshadowed any she might possess. Their relationship had been fast and entirely based upon his fire. She’d been eclipsed and consumed by his daemon light.
And then that light was gone.
She walked and hummed in the darkness because she suspected there was a different sort of light to be found.
To be reclaimed.
Her own.
The night was silent as the soft noise of the party faded behind her. It was foolhardy to go too far into the darkness without telling anyone where she had gone. She wasn’t dressed for a hike. In addition to the handicap of the heels, her dress was thin and the air was chilled. This wasn’t the stage. If something failed, there wouldn’t be a props manager to fix it. If she forgot her lines, there was no prompter to help her. She’d had no rehearsal to prepare for confronting an evil monk alone in a deserted garden...or a damned man for that matter. What if she encountered Turov on the starlit path with no one else around?
The idea frightened her, but not only that—there was also a hint of awakening in her quickened heartbeat and her rusty hum. Its tingle felt like an adventure waiting to happen.
A hard figure crashed into her and a cry replaced her hoarse hum, cut short prematurely by a cruel hand over her mouth. She was held in the hateful grip of the monk who had followed her to Sonoma. She recognized his stocky build and bare head in the moonlight.
“I have a message for you, D’Arcy. From Father Malachi. You met him in Louisiana. I bet you didn’t realize you were talking to the best and brightest of us all. Father Malachi has chosen me to deliver another warning. We are always. We are watching. Do not distract or delay. Free our brothers before Lucifer’s Army comes with the waxing of the moon. You have one month. Or your son will pay the price.” His spittle-fueled voice dampened her ear. She was crushed breathless by his powerful arms. His words and the physical abuse of his bruising hold made her recall the madness she’d seen in his eyes.
“Release her and die,” Turov ordered from the shadows.
Gone was any hint of sophistication.
This was his truth.
He stepped into the soft glow of garden lanterns and starlight. The seriousness of his face was revealed.
Hard.
Fierce.
His jaw was no longer marble, but iron.
Adam Turov reached behind his shoulder and with a metallic rasp he drew a small sword that glinted, sharp and deadly with purpose.
“Remember what I have said,” the monk growled. He flung her away and Victoria fell, but even the sharp sting of gravel against the side of her face didn’t distract from the monk’s surprised scream. It gurgled in his throat and was cut off as his stocky body fell heavily, dead and headless. She heard a light, sickening thump as his decapitated head hit the ground and rolled to rest several feet away. She’d lived a much more violent life than your usual run-of-the-mill opera singer. Would a normal woman have recognized the sounds in the dark?
“I said release her and die. Not or,” Turov clarified softly, as if the dead man might question his semantics.
Victoria shifted to look toward Turov without being obvious. He wiped the blade he’d used on the monk with a pristine white handkerchief, rolling the silky cloth to cover the blood before placing it back in his pocket. Then he sheathed the blade at his back beneath his jacket. When he had finished the practiced moves of cleanup, his sophisticated costume was in place again. He straightened his cuffs and rolled his shoulders before he reached to help her to her feet. The monk didn’t move at all.
“Is he...?” Victoria said, although she knew the answer. The monk was dead.
“He gave up the right to your consideration when he hurt you,” Turov said. “My people will take it from here.”
The Order of Samuel was violent and ugly and murderers, all. And the man she was supposed to best had just dispatched one without a blink of effort.
Turov took her hand and led her back toward the house. She didn’t resist. Suddenly, her bold humming seemed reckless. This was a man with Brimstone in his blood. She couldn’t afford to play games with the affinity that even now made her tremble near him. That awakening in her earlier hadn’t been about anticipating an adventure. It had been a warning.
Adam Turov had killed the monk to protect her. But what would happen to her when he discovered she was on the Order of Samuel’s side against him?
* * *
A little over an hour ago she had left the cottage for a party. Now she returned with blood on her shoes. She didn’t notice the blood until they were inside, and even then not until Turov knelt to take her shoes from numb feet.
“I’m sorry. I’ll replace them,” he said. “I didn’t mean to spoil your shoes.” He tilted one shapely pump this way and that, as if appreciating its curves in spite of the blood. “From several years ago, I think, but I’ll manage.”
She backed away as he left the room to throw the shoes away like some bizarrely opposite Prince Charming. And, yet, he did have charm. Out in the dark, under the stars, wi
th blood dripping from the blade he’d used to save her, he’d been charming as hell.
“You followed me into the garden even though I told you to come back to the cottage. Why?” Turov asked when he returned. He didn’t stop inside the door. He continued with purposeful steps all the way to her. When she backed up at his continued advance, he followed until she bumped up against a bookcase. The scent of aged leather bindings filled the air to pair with Turov’s Brimstone heat.
She wasn’t afraid. Not of him. She was afraid because she refused to be a damsel in distress. No matter how distressing her life became.
“You may not be able to sing, but I heard you humming. I felt it,” he said. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
He didn’t touch her.
He didn’t have to.
The heat in his blood did.
The Brimstone that sealed his deal with daemons sang its own song to her music-starved ears. He’d made the choice to barter his soul. He wasn’t a knight in shining armor. Too bad for her that she seemed to prefer much darker heroes.
“It won’t happen again,” she promised.
He leaned down to catch her whispered words. She was sure the breath that propelled them from her lips bathed his. He was close enough to taste with only a tilt or a sigh. She held very still. Apart. Contained. While her former nature urged her to boldly tilt, sigh, move to join him.
She ignored the urge to sing. She refused the desire to touch her mouth to his.
He looked into her eyes. His were brilliant blue, so bright to have seen so much, so clear to have just killed in her name. Where was his damnation hidden? Where was his shame? He looked undaunted and strong and so damn noble it made her ache.
Brimstone Bride Page 3