Darkest Heart Page 27
“Beautiful Anya.”
She lifted my hand—bloody and soiled—and pressed it to her cheek.
“Yes, Dommiel. I’m here. I won’t ever leave you.” She planted a kiss on my palm. “And you won’t ever leave me, either.”
My mouth ticked up, the best I could do for a smile as Maximus’s spell was making it hard to breathe, much less speak. But there was something I’d needed to tell her. In all the time I’d been here, I regretted having never confessed that day I left her in Estonia.
“I love you,” was all I could manage.
More tears. That wasn’t supposed to make her cry. Fuck, I was doing this all wrong.
She leaned her head closer. “You told me love doesn’t exist.”
I blinked heavy lids. “I’m a liar, you know.”
Then she laughed. “I love you, my demon. With all my heavenly heart.”
And it was beautiful and miraculous and the most glorious feeling I’d ever known. That all-consuming peace was gone, but in its place was something brighter, more powerful, so crushing in its euphoria that I gasped as I stared up into the violet-blue eyes of my heaven.
Redemption was wonderful. But love? Well, hell. That was everything.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two months later…
Anya
I carried a glass of George’s Irish whisky out to the terrace. Dommiel had gotten quite addicted to the stuff since George had offered his estate outside London, Thornton Hall, for Dommiel to recover. The wounds that Simian had inflicted were unbearable to look at. His skin was mangled and lacerated so badly that I was sure he’d never mend.
But he did. He bore some cross-hatching scars, of course. I liked to point out that there was one angling away from Orion’s bow on his torso, the arrow that would shoot down the bull under his right pectoral.
He’d been quiet at first. For a solid week, he said very little. I didn’t mind playing nursemaid. I did what I’d always done with a frightened orphan who I knew was listening, even if they pretended they weren’t. I’d prattle about nonsense till eventually he’d say something and scoop me close. Mostly, in those early days, he just wanted to hold me. And I was fine with that. A cuddling Dommiel was quite a new creature. One I could easily get used to.
Lately, he’d moved out of cuddling Dommiel toward frisky Dommiel, then finally this last week, downright naughty Dommiel. I thought I was in heaven.
Voices rumbled low as I made my way onto the terrace where I’d first come to George and Kat, seeking their help to find Uriel. Dommiel stood, hands in his jeans pockets—Bone had orchestrated him a new mechanical hand—black long-sleeved T-shirt stretched tight over his back as he talked to his brother, Maximus.
I was happy to meet Bone, though admittedly a little jealous, when she tended him with such care. But when she left last time, she stopped me in the corridor and said, “Thank you for finally finding him. He’s been needing you for a long time.” Strange, cryptic words, but true all the same.
As I now stared at the once-estranged brothers—quite an understatement—I still couldn’t get over this sight. Every time, it shocked me, even after I’d seen it several times since we’d been here. At least once a week.
“For now, we’ll remain here. I’d rather stay out of the city,” Dommiel was telling him. “But we’ll be in touch.”
“Whatever you wish.” Maximus’s indigo gaze spotted me. “And what Anya wishes, of course.”
The damn general smirked. Actually smirked. I was reminded how much he and Dommiel looked like each other when he wore a devilish smile. With a stiff nod, he bent his knees and with a giant beat of his wings, lifted off over the snow-dusted hills toward London. I crossed the terrace near the bannister, shivering since the temperatures had dropped dramatically since this morning.
Dommiel watched me come. Smiling. Bone had replaced his eye patch as well.
“You know, when I first met you on Dartmoor, I thought you looked like a marauding pirate of some sort.”
He took the whisky, knocked it back, and set the glass on the banister, then wrapped me into his arms. His flesh hand immediately found its way up the back of my sweater and splayed across the bare patch at the small of my back.
“And now?”
He brushed his lips below my ear, nipping at the place he knew made me shiver.
I shivered. He chuckled with that soft rumble that still buckled my knees and made me breathless.
“You still look like a pirate.” I coiled my arms around his shoulders, sinking my fingers into his black hair.
He nipped my earlobe. “This pirate wants to pillage for treasure.”
His metal fingers were at my nape, sliding and cupping the back of my skull to keep me still as he worked his way down the column of my throat, across my collarbone to the other side where he ascended.
“Did you say something?” he asked.
I couldn’t even think straight with his mouth on me. “No.” One breathless little syllable. “I mean, yes. Let’s go inside, it’s getting hot.”
“Hot? It’s about to snow again.”
A slip of tongue below my jaw.
“I mean…cold out here.”
“You seem to be having trouble forming coherent thoughts.”
I clenched my nails in his hair till I knew it must’ve stung. “Dammit, you demon, take me inside and have your way with me on the bed. Or wherever you please.”
He threw his head back and laughed. It wasn’t a laugh filled with cynicism or sarcasm or dark thoughts of any kind. Pure and utter joy. I wanted to drown in that sound he made, the sound that vibrated from his chest to mine and surrounded me with that same unfettered bliss. The sound of my demon lover loving me.
“Aye, aye, captain.” He kissed my lips sweetly, then swept me up into his arms and headed toward the balcony exit.
I linked my fingers behind his neck and stared at him. “I’m the captain now?”
A lopsided grin and the devil in his eyes. “Until I get you into that bed.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Any objections?”
“None whatsoever.” I bit my lip, pulse racing ahead as it always did for him.
“What?”
“I think the servants might have objections. George’s housekeeper gave me a funny look.”
“That’s probably because she could hear you screaming last night from her basement bedroom.”
I slapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “She might’ve heard you. You were none too quiet yourself.”
By now, he’d carried me through the double doors and into the bedroom we’d been sharing for two months, tossed me on the bed, and climbed on top of me, fitting himself between my open thighs.
“No,” he agreed sincerely, kissing me deep, tasting of sweet whisky and smoke. “I want the whole world to hear me. I want them all to know who I love every night.”
“Every night? For how long, Dommiel?”
A serious, piercing look before he lowered too slowly, and swept me with tongue and lips too gently as if learning my mouth for the first time. Memorizing me. He kissed me like he meant it. Like I meant everything.
“For forever.”
Then I kissed him back, murmuring softly, till our clothes were off, our hands and bodies moving, our mouths tasting with deep, long kisses, the word “forever” twining us together with a soul-deep bond. When we’d both climaxed and fallen limp into each other’s arms, I pressed my palm on his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. Grateful.
For he wasn’t the only one lost, searching and wandering the lonely fields of the world. He told me that my light saved him. But it was his darkness that found me.
I clutched tighter to him, nuzzling my head into the crook of his shoulder and whispered, “Forever,” watching the snow begin to fall outside.
The last thing I remembered was the mesmerizing sensation of his metal fingers trailing up and down my naked spine, his lips at my temple, the lovely, deep rum
ble of his voice, whispering back, “Forever, baby.”
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Acknowledgments
Because this book was greatly inspired by music and foreign places, I have particular friends to thank here. To my “secretary of music” Angelique Hazen, who is always on-hand when I need the perfect song for particular scenes. Half my playlist titles I owe to you, sweet friend. I am also extremely grateful to my German friend Jasmin Stegemann. Her research assistance, including exceedingly helpful curse words for my demons in Berlin, helped these scenes and characters come to life. Thank you, Emma, Naima, Rhenna, and Kaleigh for just being you. Finally, I need to thank my reader group, Club Cross, for always, always offering support and encouragement. You ladies truly rock my world.
About the Author
Juliette calls lush, moss-laden Louisiana home where the landscape curls into her imagination, creating mystical settings for her stories. She has a B.A. in creative writing from Louisiana State University, a M.Ed. in gifted education, and was privileged to study under the award-winning author Ernest J. Gaines in grad school. Her love of mythology, legends, and art serve as constant inspiration for her works. From the moment she read Jane Eyre as a teenager, she fell in love with the Gothic romance—brooding characters, mysterious settings, persevering heroines, and dark, sexy heroes. Even then, she not only longed to read more novels set in Gothic worlds, she wanted to create her own.
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