She was silent, but constantly on alert. She seemed to watch every person in the city, including him, to judge whether they were a threat. The daemon blade was in her backpack. She clutched it close, as if she could shield the world from corrupt forces with the palms of her hand on the bag.
He wanted to take the burden of the bag from her. Instead, he ran through possible scenarios of how he could keep her from climbing the mountain as they drove out of the city. It didn’t matter that it was tantamount to planning his own destruction. He pushed thoughts of his mother’s spirit from his mind. She would wander. He would fall. But Victoria and her child would be safe and free. That was now his most important goal. It had surmounted his lifelong goal of destroying the Order. It trumped the importance of his very soul.
He would protect Victoria. He would save Michael.
He would accept the loss of his soul with no hope of reclaiming it.
Only that dead, hollow man could walk back into the Order’s compound and survive.
Chapter 19
Poprad-Tatry was a ski resort and major holiday destination. It was a small city with under sixty thousand full-time residents. Some parts looked like a picture postcard. Some parts were less than pristine. There were landmark churches and historic houses. There were also stray dogs on the streets and obscenities shouted by lost tourists from one car to another.
Adam managed to find another quiet alley—did he have them all memorized in every city and town?—and they left the car there. He said one of his people would pick the car up before it could be found and traced back to them by the Order. Were there monks out searching for abandoned cars? Victoria suspected that Poprad was the most dangerous place they’d been. Adam said they were only an electric tram and forty-five-minute hike from the monastery and castle-like compound the monks had claimed once it was deserted by Orthodox Catholics after the revolution.
She still waited for him to betray her. She expected him to try to ditch her at every turn. But they walked several blocks to the tram station without incident. He was wearing a hoodie and loose khakis over his tactical gear. She had pulled on her jeans, boots and leather jacket with a fresh T-shirt and underwear that morning.
Though she was sure they were nondescript, she felt as if every eye in the city was on them when they bought their tickets for the electric train that would take them as far as Štrbské Pleso. She carried only a backpack. Adam left one bag in the car, but carried with him a large soft-sided case. He was casual with it even though she knew the contents were deadly. She’d seen him use his sword the first night they’d met. She’d pretended ignorance, but he’d decapitated the monk who had stalked her without compunction.
Most of the other passengers were headed for the health resort that called the last stop on the tramline home. During other, colder seasons, the tram would have been packed with tourists and skiers. Maybe the others thought she and Adam were hikers without boots or poles. Inexperienced hikers. One of whom had a face that didn’t look inexperienced in the least.
“The compound is on the dark side of the mountain where it’s craggy and almost impossible to climb. There are switchbacks and rock slides only the initiates and monks know how to traverse. They exist in plain sight as a religious order too small and insignificant to be visited. Monks often avoid the tram altogether. Children are brought in at night and they’re often secreted away in shipments of supplies that are carried up the mountain by strings of mules,” Adam said. “I remember that long, cold journey.”
Victoria touched his arm. It was the first time she’d touched him since they’d made love on the train. He looked down at her as if startled from a memory that weighed heavily on him in spite of all the time that had passed.
“You can wait at the resort for me to return,” Adam said.
“I’m coming with you,” Victoria replied.
They exited the tram and moved with the flow of foot traffic until Adam took her arm and pulled her to the side where a narrow path allowed maintenance personnel to access the electrical workings that powered the trams up and down the mountain. He could have easily slipped away without her, but he probably knew she would try to follow.
He didn’t release her. Instead, he allowed his hand to slide down her arm and take her hand. They walked for a half an hour in the opposite direction of the resort. The mountain was green and pink where grass and wildflowers converged in a brilliant, lush landscape dotted by patches of boulders, which made footing rough and dangerous. In the distance, she could see the glacier lake and groups of hikers and tourists. Surreal to think her young son was in such desperate danger on the other side of the mountain from this lovely, peaceful setting.
They came to a small building that leaned from decades of breezes and snowfalls on its steeply pitched roof.
“We’ll stay here tonight. It won’t be safe to challenge the mountain pass in the dark,” Adam explained.
Victoria followed him into the tiny cabin. The romance of the train was lost. They were too close to the compound to escape in each other’s arms. But that didn’t negate the Brimstone and the affinity that drew them closer and closer together, even when evil tried to keep them apart.
* * *
The cabin was clean and neat inside and furnished with sturdy wooden furniture that seemed as old as the walls themselves. On a plain oak table in the middle of the room, someone had left a box of supplies.
“Your people?” Victoria asked. The anonymous, invisible people Adam employed around the world were really no laughing matter. He’d had decades to build a network of loyal employees who were obviously ready at a moment’s notice to aid him.
“My most loyal person. He’s seventy-five and he was once a novitiate. I helped him. So now he helps me and he agrees to stay this close to that accursed place that almost devoured him,” Adam said.
He had placed his bag near the bed in the corner. Set into the front wall was a small fireplace already laid with materials for a fire to keep the chill of the night away.
Victoria had stopped mid-rummage through the box hoping for chocolate and wine. She turned slowly to look at Adam although he had busied himself with removing his jacket after he had spoken.
“Your people are all the children you’ve saved from the Order through the years. Esther, Gideon...your chauffeur, the person who provided us with the car, the pilot of the plane. Gideon told me you’d given him the sun. They’ve grown up free and they help you because you helped them. Nothing to do with daemons and hell’s politics. You saved them. Again and again,” Victoria said.
He was uncomfortable with her realization and busied himself by lifting his bag onto the bed and opening it. He pulled a sword sheath from it and turned to lay it on the table beside the supplies.
“How many have you saved? How many people...all over the world...are alive and well and living mostly normal lives because of you?” Victoria asked. She came to his side to ask it. She placed herself in front of him so he couldn’t ignore her question.
Adam looked down at her. Stoic as ever but burning brightly inside. So brightly that he lit the universe—but with a dark, dark flame.
“I haven’t kept count, Victoria. There are many. Men and women who were boys and girls who didn’t have to sell their soul to escape the Order’s clutches,” he said. “I help them to disappear so that the Order can’t hunt them down once they’ve escaped.”
His vivid eyes gleamed in the light of the one small gas lantern he’d lit when they’d first come in the door.
“This time you’ll free Michael. And one day he’ll get a call from you for a car or a box of supplies or whatever you might need. He’ll provide it. But I’ll be the one who is eternally grateful,” Victoria said. “And you probably won’t call on me at all.”
She turned away from the emotion that created blue diamonds in his eyes. Her own burned
. The knot of song in her chest had hardened again. Unsung.
“I’m not staying behind. I don’t care if you’re the expert. I’m the mom. And I go too,” she said without facing him again. She focused on the box of supplies and forced her tears back to the unshed place they belonged.
Adam came to her. He stood close behind her as she unpacked a large insulated thermos, a container of fruit slices, and another of cheese and crackers. There was also a carafe, cups, spoons and bowls. Adam’s person in Štrbské Pleso had packed them a hardy picnic.
“I haven’t managed to save them all, Victoria. You should know that. I’ve failed before. The first was a boy named Thomas. We were novitiates together. I tried to help him, but he grew weak and sick. I waited too late to try to get him out of the compound. There had been so much snow that winter. It took too long to melt. My only consolation is that he died free beneath a blue sky in a patch of wildflowers,” Adam confessed.
He reached for the thermos and opened its lid. Aromatic potato soup filled the air with the scent of pepper, onions and cream. Victoria breathed deeply of the comforting smell to try to fortify herself against the lingering loss and despair her companion suffered.
“You must have been very young yourself,” she said as she set the table with bowls and spoons. There had also been linen napkins in the box and she placed those beside each setting. She placed the containers with fruit, cheese and crackers in between and Adam poured steaming soup into the bowls.
“By that time I was a young teen. I’d been a prisoner for seven years. I’d seen others weaken and die. I’d seen some die from beatings or from training battles intentionally brutal to weed out the frail and promote the strong. Only the ruthless survive. I was as ruthless as I had to be. You understand? I was not able to abstain or refuse. I maimed. I killed. I was bathed daily in blood. My own. And that of others,” Adam said.
He sat on one of the sturdy plain chairs. He picked up his spoon and bowed his head over his soup as if he prayed, but his white knuckles led her to believe that if he did pray it was not over the meal, but for the ability to punish and stop the monks who had tortured him and others for so many years.
“Father Reynard never took no for an answer. My mother, my sister and I led him to many Loyalist daemons over the years. We tried to resist. We tried to drown out their call with music. We didn’t realize that the music was actually part of our affinity. A means of expressing the magnetism we experienced with Brimstone blood, especially when we tried not to answer its call,” Victoria said quietly. They both dipped their spoons, blew on the thick soup to cool it and then swallowed. Bite after bite. It was soothing as well as necessary to fuel their hike the next day. The meal had been provided by a man Adam Turov had saved from the Order of Samuel. His gratitude made the soup even more delicious and eating it a profound experience. Now a thousand gestures and words from the cook at Nightingale Vineyards made sense. The lovely scarred woman served Adam as if it was a sacred responsibility to care for him because he had freed her from hell.
Victoria remembered her glimpse of Esther’s scars and she suddenly vowed to hug the woman when she saw her again. To survive such an experience with twinkling eyes and rosy cheeks and joy in tea and cookies... Victoria poured hot tea from the carafe into their cups. It was dark and strong when she sipped, a rich blend to steady her nerves and her heart.
“You were a boy. The blood on your hands is on their conscience. Not your own. You survived so that others might live. Hundreds of others,” Victoria said. She glanced from her cup to Adam. He’d poured tea for himself as well. He had gulped a cup of the hot brew as if it was already cold.
“After Thomas died, I dropped his body in a deep crevice in the mountain before the monks found me. They didn’t search hard. They’d already known he was dying. They took me back for punishment. I met Ezekiel that day. He was in the dungeon beneath the monastery keep. They had him bound with sanctified chains. I think that’s what made up my mind. They had no right to inscribe prayers in iron. I knew by then that they were no servants of heaven. Although I didn’t know that they served Rogue daemons who would war with heaven,” Adam said. “I learned that later so it doesn’t absolve me. I freed one of Lucifer’s Army because I wanted freedom and revenge.”
“It might be freedom and revenge that you sought as a teen, but you’ve brought salvation and justice to so many who suffered because of the Order,” Victoria said.
Adam had placed his cup back on the table and left his fist lying near it. She reached to place her hand over his, cupping her palm over his fist. It was simple commiseration until their skin touched. Then it became so much more. Her song fluttered in her chest as if it was an actual nightingale fighting to spring free from the cage of her ribs. She gasped.
Adam’s body stiffened and his chin jerked up. His eyes blazed as they met hers. Not with anger. It was the first time she’d seen the Brimstone flame in his eyes in response to her affinity alone. Her touch. Her song. He was ripped from his painful memories to a present that was more pleasure than pain. Although the arc of connection between them wasn’t easy. It roared through all of her nerve endings and brought them to sensitized attention and she thought from his body’s sudden tension that it had done the same to him.
“I’m no better than the daemons I serve. Their Brimstone burns in my veins. Ezekiel is my master and he wears Lucifer’s wings on his back. My mother’s soul doesn’t rest because she frets over mine. I have taken more lives than I’ve saved. You should know that before you waste your affinity to reach out to me. I am lost. I was lost long ago,” Adam said. He sat stiffly. His fist was hard beneath her hand. His angular jaw was clenched in a razor-sharp line and his shoulders were made of stone.
“You’ve been an angel of mercy to many. Esther worships the ground you walk on. That sweet woman would be dead if it wasn’t for you. I caught a glimpse of her scars,” Victoria said. She stood without releasing his fist and took the two steps necessary to bring her body against his side. When she pressed her softness against him, she could feel the shudder that quaked him and she marveled at his control. Her breasts were pebbled. Her heart pounded. She had gone to pulsing liquid from her heart to her knees.
“I’m more devil than angel,” Adam warned.
“So tonight I’ll share refuge with a seductive devil who has an angel’s heart. Do you hear me complain?” Victoria teased.
“Will your affinity protect you from the taint of my Brimstone?” Adam asked.
He finally looked up at her. He reached to cup her bottom and pull her even closer than she had pressed. His face brushed the side of her breast and she drew in a shuddering breath. She threaded her fingers into his wavy hair. It was one of the only soft things about him. His hair and the sensual curve of his lips. She gloried in the idea that they were hers, if only for tonight.
Victoria leaned to press her lips against his forehead.
“If Brimstone taints, I have been tainted since I was born. Stepdaughter to the daemon king. Hunter of daemons. Mother of a half daemon prince. And now, drawn to a man who burns so bright,” she said against Adam’s warm skin and soft hair. “But I don’t think it taints. Greed is what corrupts. Hurting others for power and gain. The Order of Samuel tries to taint everyone it touches, but it’s up to us to stay true to ourselves no matter what flows through our veins.”
“I’m damned,” Adam said. He kept stiff and still, but his respiration had quickened at her nearness. When she swiveled to lift her leg and settle onto his lap, he gasped and his hands lifted to hold her waist as if of their own volition.
“Your mother isn’t worried about your soul. And neither am I. You won’t be damned forever. You’ll have your redemption. I know it,” Victoria said. She trailed her lips down the side of his face to kiss along his stiff, clenched jaw. She stopped when she came to his lips, allowing a hair’s breadth of distance between their mo
uths so she could speak a mother’s truth she felt all the way to the marrow of her bones. “Elena’s soul isn’t at rest because she doesn’t want you to be alone. You’re surrounded by people, your devoted people, but you keep them all at a distance because you’re ashamed of your Brimstone blood.” Adam closed his eyes. From the truth she uttered or the heat of her breath on his lips, she couldn’t be sure. “I know your Brimstone. I feel it. My affinity craves your heat. You don’t have to hide it from me.”
Suddenly, Adam erupted. He moved one hand up to the back of her head to crush her mouth to his. She’d teased and tempted him. Now he took what she freely offered. The heat of his mouth melted her entire body. She met his questing tongue with her own, but she couldn’t keep up with the hungry, devouring plunges as he delved deeply to find the velvet heat of her mouth. Her every cell sang. But her song hummed in soft sounds of need and pleasure she uttered into his mouth.
He pulled her T-shirt up and over her head to reveal the practical sports bra she’d donned for this leg of their journey. He didn’t seem to mind the lack of lace. In fact, he pulled the bra from her to uncover her breasts so quickly that he might not have noticed the plain black cotton. She’d never seen a sexier sight than his dark waves of hair as they tickled against the pale pink skin of her areolas. Her nipples were already sensitive and distended, as if they perked to meet his tongue. He gave them what they seemed to beg for. Taking each one for long, torturous moments of suckling in his mouth as he laved them with his rough tongue.
“I will call you a devil if you don’t help me with these pants right now,” Victoria growled. He threw his head back and the grace of his full smile caused her breath to still in her lungs, her whole body pausing in response. She reached to place the pads of her thumbs on either side of his smile. She caressed the swell of his lower lip, so pink and flushed from their fierce kisses. “Your smile is more powerful than Brimstone to me,” she confessed.
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