The next four tithes passed easily and without me taking another punch to the face.
We tried to escape notice by spreading our choices out. Four or five tithes passed unhindered before we chose our next mark, keeping the commotion spread out and under the radar.
Each one of the tithe-bound we chose opened their wounds for our cause without question. Each face was more beautiful than the last, determined as they joined the battle against Belias.
I had a feeling it was easier to join a rebellion when the enemy had destroyed your life. No love was lost between the tithes and Belias. What a sad state of affairs when the very people who helped sustain her were so ready to turn against her.
By the time we reached our sixth and final tithe, daylight had begun to dim, and the steady flow of black-robed pairs had trickled to a near halt.
We executed our sneak attack, shoving the final tithe and her bodyguard into the alley just as we had for each before. Dom and I removed our hoods, our move for proving we meant no harm, and Dom offered a bright smile to the cloaked figures.
Then the tithe began to scream.
Dom leapt forward to clamp a hand over the girl’s mouth. The bodyguard backhanded her, sending her sprawling to the cobblestones. I growled and slammed him into the brick wall with my shoulder.
But it was too late. Distant shouts of alarm rang from the nearby Square. The ground rumbled beneath my feet in the telltale rhythm of heavy, ice demon boots.
“Abort!” I barked at Dom, releasing the bodyguard. As he slipped down the brick wall with a pained groan, I leapt over his legs and sprinted for Dom.
I grabbed her hand and yanked. She scrambled to her feet, finding her balance. Then we raced from the alley.
For a while, there was nothing but the hard beat of our boots on the packed snow and the puffs of air coming from our lungs. I knew the area better than Dom and led her down street after street, turning left then right then left, attempting to shake the ice demons.
But the thugs were never far behind us. I couldn’t help but flash back to the day they had chased Liliya, and my battle to save her. There were a lot more this time, and they were pursuing me, so a sneak attack to pick them off wasn’t an option. Considering I still didn’t have a new bow, just the shitty dagger at my hip, I was at a loss.
If all of that wasn’t enough to shit on our day, I made a wrong turn somewhere, and we ended up at a dead end between two abandoned buildings.
“I thought you knew this area!” Dom snapped.
“I do!”
“Oh, really? They just added this building recently?” Dom groaned with disgust and unsheathed her blade. “If I die today, I’m going to kill you.”
“If you die today, I’m dying with you,” I pointed out, yanking my dagger from its scabbard.
She laughed that honest, husky laugh that danced across my skin like a caress. We squared off, preparing for the appearance of a dozen ice demons at the opening of the alley.
But I realized the biggest danger I faced wasn’t the ice demons; my biggest danger was falling for Dom.
If we lived long enough.
18
Fighting the ice demons and dying for our trouble apparently wasn’t in our cards.
As a solid wall of ice demons rushed us in a neon-flashing, imminent death scenario, the ground disappeared.
I hovered weightless a long, interminable moment. An ice demon met my eyes, his expression comically confused on his angular rock face, and then I tumbled down.
Dom’s shriek followed me. I reached for her mid fall and caught her against me with the intention of protecting her with my own body from our impending landing.
Except we didn’t land. We didn’t hit anything at all. Our fall gradually slowed until we hovered a couple feet off the ground. A brilliant white light cocooned us—the glow of magic, illuminating Yulian. He held his hands out, obviously in control of the white light. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
Dom clutched my robes, her eyes squeezed shut and our legs tangled together. She hadn’t seemed to notice we were no longer falling.
I gripped her waist to anchor her and twisted to place a foot on the floor. As I placed my second foot down and got my balance, Yulian let the spell go.
The old man stumbled back against the concrete wall of the tunnel, breathing hard.
“Father!” Dom’s warmth disappeared from my arms as she ran to him. She cradled his elbows and helped him sink to the floor.
Yulian waved her away, but settled more comfortably against the concrete wall. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Spell took a bit out of me, that’s all.”
Dom half turned and addressed me over her shoulder. “Gad, could you find his water?”
I spotted Yulian’s pack on the ground behind me and dug into it for his flask. “That was incredible. How did you find us?”
“I always know where Dominika is,” Yulian said, a smile in his breathless voice. “It’s my job as her father.”
My heart constricted—I had no idea where my daughter was now. I offered him the flask. “Drink.”
Dom leaned her head against Yulian’s shoulder. “Remember how I always complained about the way you stalk me with magic?”
“Yes, quite well, in fact,” Yulian said before taking his first drink.
“I take it back.”
The old witch chuckled and turned his face to kiss the top of her head.
After a few moments and a couple of long swigs, the color returned to his cheeks and his breathing slowed to normal. He handed the flask to Dom and took a steadying breath. “I sensed danger. I’m thankful you were directly over this tunnel. If there had been more earth between us, I might not have been able to pull you through.”
I glanced up at the tunnel’s ceiling, high above and barely visible in the light of Yulian’s torch. The concrete appeared untouched. If I’d thought Zia’s innocent telekinetics at home were amazing, this blew my mind.
Dom set about wetting a rag and wiping her father’s brow. “We’re lucky you were there to get us out in the nick of time.”
“We were about to be ice demon punching bags. So thanks for that.” I waved at the ceiling. “You passed our bodies through concrete?”
“No, no. I opened the concrete to let you fall through. I’m not God. I can’t manipulate your bodies like that.”
“You can just literally part the earth like some kind of magical Moses of the land.”
Yulian chuckled. “My dear boy, how do you think Moses parted the sea?”
“Not by the grace of God, I guess.” I threw up my hands. “My life is a lie.”
“Magic is a God-given talent, Gadreel. The two can exist hand in hand.” Yulian swatted Dom’s hand away as she tried to pat his face again with the rag. “I’m fine, Dominika. Do stop your fussing. How did it go? Were you able to get all six?”
Dom groaned and fell to her butt next to him. “No. We have five. The sixth raised the alarm, and we had to run.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“What are we going to do?” Dom asked her father. “We’ve run out of daylight. Tithing is done for the day.”
“And time ticks away,” Yulian murmured.
I hovered over my two partners and racked my brain for a solution, something to get us back on track before the day ended and we ran out of time. Dom seemed more worried over her father than over the tithe, as she forced him to take another drink of water from his flask. I was struck again by her kindness and grace, that deep-seated need to care for her father.
Watching her administer aid to Yulian brought me an epiphany. I put my foot firmly in my mouth and said, “Dom, you’re human. Are you pure?”
Both Dom and Yulian swiveled to stare at me—Dom shocked and Yulian amused.
Dom’s shock quickly contorted into an ugly mask. She stood, no longer the sweet daughter doting upon her father, but a vengeance goddess fixated on destroying me. “How dare you? You don’t ask a woman that!”
I took a step b
ack, away from the very physical sensation of her anger. The blow of her words landed no different than a real slap to my face.
“I-I’m sorry,” I said earnestly, tripping over my words. “I’m not trying to be rude. Whether you’re pure or not makes no difference to me. But if you’re pure, we can use your blood to complete the set.”
“Fuck you.” Lightning fast, Dom reared back and punched me in the nose.
A burst of intense, sharp pain took my breath away. I clapped my hands over my face as a hot trickle of blood snaked down my lip.
Before I could attempt another apology, Dom stomped away and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.
I turned my astonishment on Yulian.
The old man sighed and used the wall to ease to his feet. “She only gets that defensive when she’s embarrassed.”
I wiped the blood away with the edge of my robe and started to follow after her.
But Yulian took hold of my arm and shook his head. “Let her go. She’ll cool off and be ready to talk when we return to the cathedral.”
As Yulian gathered his pack and water flask, I peered into the empty tunnel. I had to trust his judgement when it came to the daughter he had raised, but the thought of her alone in the deep, dark underground chilled me to the bone.
We returned to a cold, silent cathedral. Dom was nowhere in sight, and our fire hadn’t been stoked, but her hooded cloak lay in a pile near her blanket. So at least the underground hadn’t eaten her.
Yulian had shuffled slowly and painfully all the way back, so I picked up a stack of cardboard and began ripping to build a new fire for him.
Yulian tried to extract the dusty box from my hands. “Go. She’s upstairs somewhere, staring at the sky.”
I clutched the cardboard tighter. “I can do this. You need rest.”
A smile teased across his face. “You were never good at hiding your feelings for Catie, you know. From the moment you came into our lives, I knew you worshipped her.”
Pain sharper than my aching jaw and nose touched my heart. “I do. Always have.”
“You did, Gadreel. You did worship Catie.” He tugged the box away and gave me a shove. “And you still aren’t good at hiding your feelings.”
As Yulian suggested, I found Dom in the ruined tower, her arms wrapped around her black tithing robe as she gazed over the crumbling remains of the wall. Kremlin Circle spread around us, dark beneath the ever-cloudy sky, but lit intermittently by torchlight. The only visible artificial light came from the watchtower, thankfully out of sight from this snowy room.
Snowflakes had settled on Dom’s shoulders and eyelashes. I had no idea how long she’d stood there, lost in thought before Yulian and I returned. Her profile seemed so regal, her body taut with stress and irritation.
“I’m not old enough to remember life in Kremlin Circle before Belias,” Dom said without turning, her conversational tone acknowledging my presence. “But I’ve heard it was beautiful here. I’ve heard it’s always been cold and snowy, but we had summer and sunshine, too. I’ve heard the city was magnificent then, full of people with plans, aspirations, hopes. People who could travel the world any time they wished.”
I sensed she was going somewhere with this, so I stayed silent.
“Belias took all of that away from us,” Dom went on. “Not just getting stuck here because of the curse, but the ‘hope’ part, too. We have nothing to live for here. Why bother falling in love when one of your children will have to live under a cloak the rest of their lives to keep your family safe? This isn’t the kind of world I’d want to bring a child into. A world that decides her cold fucking fate for her.”
Dom still hadn’t turned to look at me. A sharp breeze rustled her long dark hair, brushing strands over her face. She closed her eyes.
I crossed the final few steps to her side. Her hair felt like corn silk between my fingers as I brushed it away from her face.
“Are you okay?” I asked, checking her for injuries. My question came from a place stuck on our fleeing and tumbling into the underground via Yulian’s magic.
But I suppose Dom had other things on her mind. She lifted her crystal blue gaze to mine and said petulantly, “If I’d met someone worthwhile, I wouldn’t be so fucking pure. But the men here suck.”
It took everything I had not to laugh at the pout on her face and the whine in her voice, especially after such a heated rant. She switched so flawlessly between the strong, intelligent warrior, and the insecure young woman, as if the line drawn between the two was useless.
She held my gaze, almost defiantly, daring me to say something about her being pure.
Instead, I said, “I haven’t been with a woman since my wife died.”
Dom blinked. “But that was fifty years ago.”
I shrugged. “I guess I can’t disconnect my heart from the physical. I got used to being alone after a while.”
“Or have you not gotten any action because you’re crotchety and unlikable?” she teased.
“Speak for yourself.”
We stood so close I could feel the warmth coming from her body. She held my gaze fearlessly, without the awkwardness of intimate eye contact.
I reached for her waist and tugged at the string holding her robe closed. The string fell away, and her robe parted, exposing her cotton shirt and requisite leather pants. I slipped the heavy material from her shoulders—that hideous mantle of the oppressed. She let it fall to the floor.
My heart pounded in my ears as I wrapped my fingers around her hand. “One day soon, we will have a world where no woman or man has to wear those,” I told her. “Nobody will bleed for the demons, and Belias will be a memory.”
I didn’t think I’d said anything profound, or anything that hadn’t been said a million times in a million different ways.
But a single crystalline tear carved a path down her cheek.
I brushed it away with my knuckles and let my fingertips linger on her silken skin. I traced a path down her jawbone. Curled my fingers around the back of her neck.
This was insanity. She could take my head off with one well-placed boot, and she probably would if I didn’t stop. But I couldn’t stop. I wanted the magic of her skin under my fingers. I wanted to taste her lips and feel her body against mine. It hit me so sudden, so hard, I was dizzy with need.
Then her breath hitched. So slightly I might have missed it if I hadn’t been riveted on her every movement.
The air between us filled with electricity. I warred with myself over closing the distance to kiss her. I perched on the edge, wanting to leap but too damn scared to do it.
So she came to me.
She flung her arms around me, and our lips met. I tightened my grip on her neck, put my other arm behind her, holding her tightly to me. There was nothing timid about her kiss. It stoked the flame that had already begun to burn between us.
Then abruptly, she pulled away as if I’d burned her.
She stared at me, her fingers touching her lips.
“Dom?” My voice didn’t sound like my own, so deep and full of desire.
She ran from the room, snowflakes swirling around her, chasing her, falling in her wake.
19
That wasn’t exactly the kind of first kiss they wrote ballads about.
I waited a moment in the cold night air to catch my breath and my wits, then I followed Dom downstairs.
By the light of our makeshift fire, Dom held a bleeding palm over Yulian’s vial. In her other hand, she held a knife dotted with blood. It didn’t surprise me that if Dom had to bleed for the cause, she would insist on handling the details herself.
That stubbornness and independence was sexy beyond belief. I firmly shoved away the recent memory of her body against mine.
“Snow is really coming down,” I remarked as I settled on my blankets and reached for Drakoi’s bone.
“Good. We could use the cover,” Dom replied. She gave me a half smile, apologetic and almost bashful.
�
��My spells protect us fine.” Yulian tapped her nose with his finger, and then capped the vial of her blood. His lips quirked beneath his full beard as he nodded in my direction. “Another step fulfilled, my old friend.”
I put knife to bone. “What now?”
“We call the pure witches.” Yulian unfolded his lanky body and stood with a mighty groan, his joints cracking. “I have a few details to iron out upstairs. We’ll leave in an hour.”
His footsteps shuffled away, leaving Dom and me alone with the crackle of the fire.
I kept my gaze on Drakoi’s bone. “Do I need to apologize?”
Dom shifted, leather pants slithering against blankets. “No. Of course not.”
I chanced a glance at her. “You ran.”
Her pale cheeks flushed red, but she smirked. “I know. You mad?”
I lifted an eyebrow at the playfulness in her voice. “Should I be?”
Her blue gaze lowered to my lips.
Time slowed. The air grew thick and hot. Dom crawled to me on her hands and knees, her gaze never wavering. Flames reflected in her eyes.
Then she was in front of me. She removed the bone and dagger from my hands, and then she straddled my hips, the soft curves of her breasts pressing into my body.
Her hair tickled my face as she leaned in. Her lips brushed my ear, sending desire rocketing through me.
“I didn’t run because I didn’t want to kiss you.” She trailed her lips down the lobe of my ear, her breath caressing the sensitive skin on my neck. She curled her fingers into my shirt. “I ran because the things I want to do with you aren’t pure. If I had stayed, we might not have gotten our sixth vial.”
I was caught between the desire to laugh and the need to grab fistfuls of her perfect ass and make her mine. I didn’t even recognize this part of me.
She leaned back enough to meet my eyes. My body was taut, my nerve endings raw. Dom licked her lips.
If I kissed her again, I wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop until she was mine.
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 30