by D B Nielsen
I would not speak first, forcing him to acknowledge me.
Rubbing a hand across his eyes in a gesture of infinite weariness, he asked, his tone flat, ‘Sage, why are you here?’
Not the most auspicious beginning. I hesitated. I could have played this several ways but I saw no purpose in dancing around the matter; we’d been doing the same dance for far too long.
‘For you. For us. But not for the Seed or the mithaq or your brothers or anything to do with the Wise One and the Garden of Eden. No, this time, it’s just us. You and me.’
Within his pockets, his fists clenched. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Your father banished me from being near you.’
I cut to the chase. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. My father’s just an excuse.’
A charge that St. John did not deny.
He didn’t want me here. I could see it in the tension held in his shoulders and back. But I was adamant. I’d fought for him. And now I was not going to leave without fighting for us.
Like a blazing comet lighting up the blackness of the night sky, the truth dawned on me. It needed to be said. He needed to hear it. Only then would St. John understand the faith I had in him.
‘You believe that you betrayed me, don’t you?’ I demanded. ‘You believe the children Belladonna was carrying were yours.’
He steadfastly looked out the window, though night was rapidly falling and the world outside was darkening, and didn’t answer.
‘You’re wrong. They weren’t.’
He turned around then to look at me – though he barely looked at me. His expression was wary and reluctant and shamed. I noted the finely drawn look of him, the strain around his haunted eyes. His body had recovered from the poison and torture inflicted by Belladonna but his mind had not – he was psychologically and emotionally tormented from what he believed himself to have done.
‘Belladonna was Semyaza’s daughter. She was also his handmaiden. Those children weren’t yours.’ I smiled gently at him, trying to bridge the chasm that still yawned between us. ‘You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did all you could to resist the poison. Her poison. I’m proud of you.’
He looked ineffably bleak. ‘Don’t be proud of me, Sage. That is a mistake.’
‘How could you even think that?
‘Because I don’t remember. I don’t remember. Don’t you understand, Sage? The poison–’ His cynical laugh was painfully harsh. ‘I healed myself, yes. But I cannot remember – God help me – I cannot be certain that I didn’t–’ His face was stark as he swallowed down the words which would shame him.
I reached up and placed my hands on his broad shoulders. Under the thin fabric, the tension in them was palpable. I asked reasonably, ‘And what if you did?’
He drew a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Sage, I am a monster.’
I understood. Always his fear – the belief that he was an abomination – that all the Nephilim were. A little silence fell between us as I contemplated his words. This was the distance that lay between us. Not me. But him. This sense of his own unworthiness.
‘No, you’re not. You’re more than Nephilim. You’re human.’ I stared back into the dense, pain-filled jade green of St. John’s eyes. The torment remained. Reaching up, I ran my fingertips lightly along his cheekbone. ‘St. John. You are not to blame for what happened to you when you were poisoned.’
‘I’d like to believe that, but it’s not true. I could have prevented it, if I had listened to Finn,’ he said, despairingly, accusingly. ‘Perhaps if I had used my powers earlier. But it’s over now. Too late. How can I possibly touch you when I know that? How can you not despise me?’
‘I don’t despise you. I love you.’ My heart was pounding as I said fiercely, ‘It was not your fault.’
He started to say something, but I cut him off. ‘There is no sin here. No betrayal. And, even if there were, I absolve you. It was not your fault.’ I paused to let my words sink in. ‘St. John, if I forgive you for whatever it is you think you did or didn’t do, will you promise me that you will forgive yourself?’
He didn’t say anything. His eyes were haunted, and I put my hands to his face to make him look at me.
‘I understand now. I really do.’
‘Understand what?’ he asked, gruffly.
My voice shook with emotion as I exhaled and the words came out in a rush. ‘Do you remember when you were telling me that freedom came at a cost – that any other Nephilistic Keeper and bodyguard would have chained me up for taking such chances, such risks with my life? Do you remember telling me how much you had endured for my sake? All so that I could be free from the burden of knowing?’ Not waiting for an answer, I ploughed ahead. ‘I understand now. I never knew it before, not really. But when Belladonna poisoned you, I suddenly understood and felt so blind, so incredibly stupid not to have known.’
His face was stark. ‘Known what?’
There was the faintest trace of desperation in my voice as I forced him to listen. ‘I can’t lose you. You were right, St. John. I wouldn’t have a life if I lost you. And Elijah was right too. He knew that I would have ventured into hell itself to save you. I would have paid any price – sold my very soul, if necessary – anything to save you.’ He gently stroked my hair but said nothing. I had shocked him. St. John lifted my chin and stared down into my anguished face. I looked back unwillingly, caught in the intense green of his eyes. ‘I didn’t know – I didn’t know love was like this – this feeling that’s all consuming – so intense – so irrational and out of control and hurts so damn much.’
St. John clamped his arms around my waist and pressed his face against the top of my head, his lips buried in my chestnut hair as he murmured my name over and over like a dying man whose only hope of salvation lay in this prayer.
We remained like that for many moments.
His voice was thick with emotion when he finally addressed me. ‘Mon cœur, I have felt so desperate. I thought I would go mad without you – not the madness of Belladonna’s poison but the madness of despair and loss.’
I could hear the suffering in his voice and it touched me deeply.
‘I have something that belongs to you.’ I reluctantly extricated myself from St. John’s tight embrace – shivering with sudden emptiness – and crossed to the occasional chair where I’d dropped my evening bag. Removing an item, I hurried back to where he patiently stood. Tears filled my eyes as I slid his gold signet ring back onto his finger; feeling like Portia in The Merchant of Venice, twice sealing her troth.
‘Sage.’ St. John’s expression was one of wonderment. His voice deepened. ‘I never expected in all my distant wanderings ... my whole existence ... in this or any other universe ... that the Creator would be so benevolent as to give me you.’
I felt incredibly humbled. ‘Then we’ve both been blessed, because I feel the same about you.’
St. John put his hands on either side of my face, caressed my temples and lobes and neck with gentle fingers, and the rest of my body began to flood with delicious, warm sensations.
‘Just kiss me,’ I said, and he slowly bent his head, his lips on mine; hot and sensual yet comforting too. He kept the kiss gentle at first, as if savouring the taste and scent of me, then deepened it. His tongue slid between my parted lips and touched mine. He wasn’t gentle this time, or comforting. Hungry, was the word, like a man who had been starving; so rapacious it roused my hunger, too.
After a while, his mouth left mine to trail a shower of soft kisses all the way down my vulnerable, exposed throat, making me swallow hard as I tipped my head back and quivered in his embrace. He continued to move his lips slowly and caressingly downwards, until he finally arrived at my breast. I was astonished by the sensations that swept through me at his touch. That little frisson of awareness that had always leapt in me at one sweet smile, one smouldering look, one breathless caress, was as nothing compared to the feelings that were swamping me now. My breath caught on a harsh, desperate sob.
He stoppe
d immediately, raised his head, and smiled down at me. ‘It will be all right, mon cœur, trust me. I want to share everything with you. I want to show you who I am.’
‘I know who you are.’ I nodded helplessly.
‘Not yet. But you will.’ His eyes were luminous green, flecked with gold, holding all the mysteries of the universe. He stepped back from me and, immediately, I felt the withdrawal of his heated skin.
St. John dragged his t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside. He paused to shoot me a burning glance.
Oh my God!
Desire pooled in my stomach. I almost forgot to breathe. He was perfection.
I let my eyes roam over his magnificently-crafted body possessively. His sun-kissed skin, his broad shoulders, his washboard stomach, even his shadowed navel. Let them drop to where his jeans rode low on his hips. His unmistakable arousal.
‘Sage.’ The stark need in his face spoke volumes.
And then it happened. Like a butterfly breaking through the chrysalis, incandescent, airy, feathered wings unfurled from St. John’s shoulder blades to glitter in the nimbus of white gold light. With the slightest movement of muscle, they extended to touch the high ceiling, yet still were not at their full expanse. Each feather fanned out with pure precision, weightless, flawless, mesmerising – I could only stare at their exquisite, breath-taking beauty.
His wings – their fragile strength – beat in time with his shallow breathing. A pulse, a pressure, and they enfolded me within his embrace like delicate petals folding around the precious heart of a rose.
‘St. John,’ I breathed, awed. We were enclosed within our own world.
Fingertips trembled, stretched to touch the softest, luminous down. Stroked the satiny texture like snowflakes landing on the tip of my nose and eyelashes when I was a child in Sweden.
I felt St. John quiver. I felt his response along the length of his wings; the tension in the hardness of his body. Taut, like a bow and arrow waiting to be shot. His hands reached out for me, touched my eyelids, cheeks, lips, so gently, as if he was memorising every detail, imprinting them upon his mind, his very soul.
His green eyes were piercing; their intensity held mine, more powerful than any human touch. He claimed my soul. Surrendered his own. I exchanged with him something infinitely more precious and intimate than our bodies.
Solemnly, he vowed, ‘Before the Creator, I plight thee my troth, Sage Rose Woods. I have forsaken all others and will cleave only unto thee. All my tomorrows are you. I see eternity in your eyes.’
He did not ask for my vows in return for his – I gave them to him before he even asked them of me when I had plunged the Mizrael into his heart to save him.
I looked up at him wonderingly, basking in his vibrant glow, feeling like a bride on her wedding night.
St. John gleamed like golden starlight above and all around me.
There was an air of breathless intensity. I wanted him so badly that it frightened and thrilled me at the same time. I wanted to taste him, to touch him, to fill my senses with him. I wanted to be one with him, fulfilled, satiated, at peace.
‘Trust me. I won’t fail you. I want to show you who I am. I want you to know me. Tell me this is what you want too.’
‘Yes,’ I whispered, one small word that held the world within it, as I submitted to tender and electrifying emotions.
St. John’s lips sought mine and a delicious warmth spread through my body as he gathered me to him. He was all muscle and taut skin and impossibly hard flesh and silken feathers.
Then I felt him. He was the promise. The essence. The potency. The timeless dream of paradise.
Flutteringly, at first. Expanding. Spilling outward.
I felt his light. In me. I was melting away in the purity of starlight. I was dissolving into him. He was everything. The sum of all things. The tree, the seed, the leaf, the bole.
And I was reaching for the light. His heavenly light. His power. The light that beat back the darkness, spreading its golden warmth like the sun, overwhelming the edges of the universe. And there was nothing between us, no end and no beginning, no him and no me. And I opened to receive him, me, us. Like standing in the eye of a storm, the perfect stillness, the surety. Every atom of awareness, the speed of light, the supernova, the hush of a new dawn.
And I held the knowledge of him within me.
We were one.
“L’amour est l’emblème de l’éternité, il confound toute la notion de temps, efface toute la mémoire d’un commencement, toute la crainte d’une extrémité ...
Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time, effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end ...”
Madame de Staël
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STONE: Part One of the Keepers of Genesis Series continues the story...
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About the Author
DB Nielsen was born in British Hong Kong and immigrated to Australia in childhood. DB likes to travel the world with family; dividing time between residing in Sydney and visits to the cathedrals, crypts and museums the world over, doing research for new projects. The author is a university lecturer in Linguistics and Semiotics, and continues to teach English Literature and Language whilst writing. DB’s passion is for throwing elaborate dinners and themed parties (such as medieval banquets), and reading anything and everything. DB’s dream project is to do a series of book tours in the Champagne region of France.
DB Nielsen loves to hear from readers. You can contact the author through www.dbnielsen.com, facebook page db_nielsen.author or Twitter @db_nielsen
Also by the Author
Keepers of Genesis Series
SEED: Part One
SEED: Part Two
SCROLL: Part One
SCROLL: Part Two
SWORD: Part One
SWORD: Part Two
STONE: Part One
STONE: Part Two
Hallowed Eve
Christmas Seasonings
Praise for Keepers of Genesis Series
‘Reading this book is a sensory experience. You feel you are experiencing the action along with the characters. I wanted to keep turning the pages and yet, I did not want this masterpiece to end. What an amazing tale! Wonderful. Cannot wait for the next.’
Renita D’Silva author of The Forgotten Daughter
and A Mother’s Secret
Nielsen's beautiful, lyrical writing and descriptions were just as wonderful in this book as in the first, and the pace of the plot, was, if possible, even faster than Seed. This is a real rollercoaster ride of a novel that you just CAN. NOT. PUT. DOWN.
H. Chim
‘AT LAST! TWO STRONG FEMAIL PROTAGONISTS! Saffron in particular is just so refreshing to read, as within these books, time and time again, we see that Saffron and Sage show us all that there can be exciting and action packed books with the main focus being on strong women’
R. Palmer-Willmot
Acknowledgements
As always, to the many archaeologists, historians and curators whose preservation of artefacts, artworks and monuments has made my digging into the past much easier, I owe a special thank you. Any mistakes within these pages remain, unfortunately, my own.
I would like to give special thanks and credit to the deceased R. Campbell Thompson whose translations and transliterations of cuneiform texts from Babylonian tablets have permitted the ancient ‘voices’ heard by Saffron to be an accurate record of the incantations of Assyrian demonology.
I would also like to pay respect and give thanks to the Aboriginal t
ribes of Australia whose Dreaming brought Saffron wisdom and spiritual enlightenment.
Big thanks to all my friends and fans for becoming my ‘beta group’ – with particular thanks to Cindy, Qim, Chris, Timothy and Hannah – once again, emotionally and editorially your support has been invaluable. And to the lovely and talented female writers, Renita D’Silva and Adina West, a heartfelt thank you for all the nice things you’ve done in support of the KEEPERS OF GENESIS series.
To the #IndieBooksBeSeen movement, a special acknowledgement (especially to @MarkTheShaw and the various booktubers and my wonderfully talented fellow writers) for the amazing support given to Indie authors and books.
My gratitude and appreciation to Lorella Belli for the insightful advice and collaborative effort to get this series published, many kindnesses, legal and administrative wrangling, and for loving my novels almost as much as I do. I can’t thank you enough – but I’ll keep trying.
Thank you to all the book bloggers, booktubers, Facebook friends and Twitter followers for being there for me, encouraging me, and helping me to envision this world and these characters. I hope the quest has become as real for you as for me, and that you’re enjoying living it with Sage and Saffron.
Lastly, but most of all, thanks and love to my family for all their support, continual encouragement and commitment to the dream – in particular to Alain for his act of faith and tireless enthusiasm and endless promotion (for all the above and everything else besides).
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