Darkest Heart Page 5

  Gripping her hip with my mechanical hand, I pressed harder against her body. My cock, like an iron rod, pushed against her pelvis. She flinched in my arms and stiffened but didn’t pull away. No. She softened, for fuck’s sake. And that was my undoing. I tilted my mouth toward her neck, breathing her in.

  I sensed the sinister air surrounding the demons drawing closer, but I refused to give in to the urge to turn and draw a blade. The menace rolling off of them claimed they were not a group to overpower or escape quickly. If worse came to worse, I’d just sift us away. But something told me they were on the move. Better prey in mind. As long as they thought us harmless lovers, we were safe.

  So I focused on Anya. Her grip on the lapels of my leather jacket tightened while her body melted against me. Pure, fucking heaven.

  I grazed my lips against her soft throat, featherlight. Her desire—an innocent, fragile thing—flared hot when she let out a little moan. Christ. I was going to lose my mind.

  I sensed the demons passing behind us. That danger drifted away but another kind took its place. Uncontainable lust had me in its iron grip. Unable to taste just a little, I flicked my tongue over the lobe of her ear. She flinched again, exhaling a breathy moan before she clamped her mouth shut.

  Curling my hand into the collar of her leather jacket, I pulled it aside so I could taste her where her neck met shoulder. The soft patch of exposed pale skin lured me like a dying man in the desert to the coolest drink of water.

  Fuck, the things I wanted to do to her. Dirty, dark, delicious things.

  Her innocence was a beacon, a red flag waving in the breeze, and my bull wanted to charge. Right fucking now.

  Feeling my control slipping, I scraped my teeth gently up the side of her neck, my beast jerking on the leash I was strangling him with.

  I eased my lips off her skin, a new addiction that would surely cripple me, because that wasn’t nearly enough. A slight sound of protest escaped her lips. I lifted my gaze to hers.

  “Not a whimper,” I said.

  The urge to bind her and force every possible sound of pleasure from those luscious lips pushed me like a primal compulsion. A vibrating need I never saw coming threatened to choke the air from my lungs.

  Her eyes—dilated with lust—trailed down to my mouth.

  “Dommiel. Your teeth.” Her panting breath curled out in white puffs. “And your eye.”

  That’s when I realized my beast had come to the surface. The monster I kept at bay so as not to frighten mere mortals. And sweet angels. He wanted to play. He wanted more.

  Flicking my tongue over one canine, I backed up, removing my body from the achingly sweet alignment against hers. It would take a few minutes to simmer my blood, for my canines to recede. I turned away, facing the direction those night prowlers had gone, heaving in a deep breath of cold night air. I needed a dip in the Arctic to get my brain and my dick off the gut-punching pleasure one little taste of her had given me.

  Rather than curse me for a fiend, she spoke quietly, a quiver in her voice.

  “Did you know those demons?”

  I scoffed. “No. But I know their kind.” I turned to face her, knowing my fangs and blood-red eye still showed the beast within. “I am their kind.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Her immediate protest caught me off guard. She had no idea the depraved, monstrous things I’d done over the centuries. And she’d forgotten my original betrayal, my choice to walk in the dark. Of course, I’d never have taken that step if I hadn’t been betrayed by one who should’ve been loyal to me above all others. Seems I was destined to be betrayed and to be the betrayer all my life. A lonely dark path I’d cut out for myself. But it kept those unwanted emotions at bay, the ones this angel seemed to cling to like a shield. Faith. Hope. Loyalty. All just a mirage. She’d discover that for herself one of these days.

  She’d edged out of the alcove. My cast of illusion had dropped, revealing the dark silhouette of her beautiful heavenly wings. The sight twisted a knot in my stomach. The fact that I’d wanted her in those few seconds more than anything I’d wanted in my life cut me off at the knees. The forbidden fruit. The untouchable innocent. Whatever reason I felt an unnerving desire to bury myself inside her, it didn’t matter. Her kind was not for me. She was not for me.

  To demonstrate that, I sifted close to her in a blink, baring my fangs. She gasped and took a quick step backward, her hand gripping the hilt of a dagger at one hip.

  “Yes, baby. I am their kind. And the sooner you realize that, the safer you’ll be.”

  Her pillowy pink lips stood ajar, rasping short breaths in and out. She didn’t argue against me this time, her eyes darting from my mouth to my good eye, obviously taking in the demon that I was.

  Good. She needed to be on guard. And keep her distance.

  Then her gaze flicked over my shoulder.

  “Dommiel.” She nodded behind me.

  There, atop the bridge, was a cloaked figure watching us. No menacing aura. Or heavenly one. A human.

  “I believe we’ve found the Twelfth Night.”

  “Or they found us,” she added.

  I started forward with Anya behind me. Scanning the area, I saw no one on the other side. Just this lone figure.

  “That’s far enough, demon,” said a feminine voice beneath the hood.

  Anya stepped up to my side. “We’ve come to see Marko.”

  “Lots of people want to see Marko,” the woman said, her voice husky. “Some want information. Some want his head.”

  “We seek information,” said Anya.

  I held up a hand and recited the code from Father Anthony. “Now watch me become what I can become.”

  The shadowy woman stepped forward and removed her hood. A scar ran from her right cheekbone to her chin. A thin blade had done the damage. It did little to mar her porcelain beauty, but it had certainly hardened her eyes. She assessed us with her sharp gaze, the silence stretching, until finally she stepped off the bridge, striding away from the heart of the city.

  “Follow me.”

  She slipped through the shadows so fast and on such silent feet that I’d have thought she’d sifted away if I didn’t sense her in the dark a few feet ahead of us. The Twelvers learned best how to move about secretly. They had to if they wanted to survive.

  We crossed a deserted piazza, the wind ghosting through the open pavilion, wafting up salty air from a nearby wharf. As our leader veered down a steady descent, I realized she was taking us to that same wharf. She finally stopped and untethered the rope, tossing it inside a small motorized boat.

  “Get in,” she commanded.

  “Where to?” asked Anya at my side.

  She pointed into the darkness. “Through that channel and across the water to San Giorgio Maggiore.”

  “I’d rather fly.” Anya stepped back, opening her wings. “I’ll follow you.”

  Before I could even protest, though I didn’t know why I should, she beat her wings once and lifted off. Our escort didn’t bat an eye.

  “If you’re coming, let’s go.” Her gaze was on the street behind us, watching for intruders.

  I hopped down in the front as she’d taken the seat near the motor and hand control to steer the boat. The boat slid away soundlessly from the dock as she wove through the narrow canals without any light for guidance. Or supernatural senses, for that matter. She was more than adept at moving efficiently in the dark.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  We wound around a final building, water lapping more fiercely as we moved out onto open water toward San Giorgio Maggiore.

  I thought she wouldn’t answer, then finally, a quiet reply. “Zoe.”

  Salty spray misted my face as we crossed the rocky channel. Of course they’d choose the small, unpopulated island away from the mayhem in the city. Perfect hiding place. In the distance, the little island was nothing more than a black blob in the gray-slate night, not a sign of a soul living. Not many demons would both
er to venture across the water just to find out if there were some easy pickings of humans to make slaves or their playthings. Not when it was too easy to look elsewhere.

  “How did you two end up together?”

  I glanced back at Zoe, her dark eyes ahead, flitting only once to the shadow winging above us.

  My gaze drifted up. I’d tried not to seek her there. Couldn’t help it.

  “Not by choice.”

  The sight of her soaring and beating those ethereal wings, even as a black silhouette against the charcoal smudge of night, was something beautiful to behold. I imagined what she would look like under a sunny sky with the reflection of bright rays casting a sheen across her sapphire wings, the wind gusting her black hair, sunlight glowing on her pearl-white skin.

  What the fuck was wrong with me? How had I grown sentimental after just one kiss? Shaking it off, I stared ahead into the darkness. Best keep my head out of the heavens. There lay danger. Pain, misery, and an endless stream of unquenchable yearning. I had a job to do, and coin to collect. I needed to bear that in mind the next time my thoughts strayed to the black-haired beauty who reeked of innocence and sensuality. Fatal combo for a demon like me.

  Chapter Six

  Anya

  Cold salt wind gusted off the open sea as I soared above Dommiel and the Twelver. A welcome distraction. My pulse drummed wildly in my chest, my senses still humming from the burning memory of his mouth on my skin.

  I should be repulsed by having his lips on me. It was rather the opposite. It was like he reached inside me and opened a door I didn’t know existed. A door that led to sensation and ecstasy and sinful desire. This must be the compulsion of that demon prince.

  Reaching up, I touched the place on my neck where the prince had bitten me. A pulse of memory rippled along my skin. This could be the only reason for my reaction to Dommiel. I must find Uriel soon, before the prince’s poison wound its way deeper. If the toxic essence captured my heart, it would steal my soul, too. I would be a slave to the darkness, my spirit a lost shell of the angel I was.

  But again, I couldn’t stop thinking of the fierce aggression in Dommiel and that look in his deep crimson gaze when his demon rose to the surface. He didn’t wear the color of so many demons, the bright blood hue. No, his was darker, deeper, rimmed with black. It was a sign of something I’d never seen before. No high demon bore eyes that shade when his beast was riding him.

  San Giorgio Maggiore was a welcome sight, though it was nothing more than a cold presence across the channel, seemingly abandoned. My heavenly senses felt the many heartbeats of others, especially the children sheltered in the darkened buildings of the small island.

  Below, the Twelver slowed her boat as they approached a rocky outcropping and a quay tucked just beyond the man-made reef. A sort of hidden landing pad onto the island, not the main wharf, which would’ve been commonly used. Winging down, I landed on the stone wharf just as Dommiel stepped free of the vessel, his ruby-eyed gaze hard on me for a blink before he scanned the surroundings, his beast still riding him hard.

  “This way.” The Twelver zipped past both of us, leading down an empty alleyway, her hood up and cloak billowing. We followed.

  Dommiel’s presence was welcome at my back. Strange. But I’d never had a stranger night than this one. And it appeared to grow stranger as we wound through empty streets, our footsteps echoing off the walls, the chill night air swirling the remnants of snow in dusty swirls along the stone walkway.

  Finally, we stopped before a building that time had roughened. Dommiel halted at the entrance, while the woman pulled keys from her pocket.

  I paused beside him. “What is it?”

  “What is this place?” he asked the Twelver.

  “Longhena Library.”

  He scanned the doorway. “It was once a Benedictine monastery.”

  She removed her hood and unlocked the heavy wood door. She pushed it open and used her body to hold it open.

  “Don’t worry, Dommiel.” The fact that she used his name surprised me. “The wards that once protected this place as a sacred space no longer keep your kind out.”

  “The monks’ presence lingers,” he added before following through the door first.

  I crossed through. “What is your name?”

  “Zoe. And you are?” Her tone was still sharp and clipped, not one of a courteous host, but a hesitant one.

  “Anya.”

  She dipped her head in a quick nod, her gaze landing on Dommiel again. “If you’ll both follow me.”

  She moved ahead, her boots echoing on the tile floor. The shadowy place appeared empty; yet again I honed in on the many heartbeats of humans dwelling here.

  Once more beside Dommiel, I glanced to find his normally blank expression pursed in a frown.

  “Is it painful to walk in this once-sacred place?” I asked.

  For there were some rules still intact since the war began. Demons couldn’t walk on sacred ground, even in the apocalypse. But the wards that once protected this place had evaporated over time.

  He glanced my way, then kept pace right behind Zoe. “Not exactly. It’s pushing at me, but not too hard. Odd.”

  Zoe led us through a room with dark-stained wood bookcases, their ornate structure resonating from centuries earlier. This was a very old library, obviously now some sort of headquarters for these Twelvers. Voices drew closer as she took us down another hall, the flickering of candlelight spilling from open doorways.

  One room held three children sitting on a mattress together, playing a card game by lantern light. In another room was a woman cleaning a weapon, her eyes narrowing on us as we passed. She quickly put down the gun, leaped to her feet, and stood in the hall watching us as we followed Zoe. She left in the opposite direction. Another room was dark, but there were humans sleeping inside, their heartbeats a calm drumbeat within. We rounded the corner to the end of a long hallway where no one seemed to be.

  Zoe pulled open a door and held it open for us to enter. The room was stark. A mattress on the floor, like the one where the children were, a bare desk with a lantern upon it, a tattered but cushioned wingback chair, and a small window too high to gaze out from at standing height. Still, moonlight spilled into the room.

  “Stay in this room until I come for you.”

  Without another word, she closed the door and locked us inside.

  Confused, I looked at Dommiel. “We can sift outside of the room. Surely, she knows that.”

  He nodded, his good hand on his hip as he scanned the room. “She does.”

  “Then why bother locking us in?”

  He settled into the wingback chair, tossing his satchel aside, and pulling something from inside his jacket. “It’s a test.”

  “But why?”

  Removing a cigarette from a metal case, he found a lighter and flicked open the flame. With the cigarette between his lips and an inhaling hiss, he lit it, the end glowing bright red. Not a human cigarette, but brimstone. I’d seen others smoking them before.

  “She knows we can sift out and leave this place. Or attack, if that were our intention. She’s testing us to see if we’ll do as she asks. I imagine if we do, then we’ll get to meet Marko.” He dragged deep on the cigarette, lounging back in his chair like a king, his legs spread, his mechanical arm resting on the arm of the chair, his wicked one-eyed gaze on me, still dark ruby red. “Have a seat and relax, angel. I imagine we may be here awhile.”

  My pulse leaped ahead. I wasn’t sure why. Was it being locked in a small room with Dommiel? Or the way he looked at me now? The way he did back in Venice when he had me cornered in that niche, his strong body pressed against mine, his lips descending on me and stealing what sense of self-preservation I had.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” He tilted his head on the next drag before slowly blowing out a stream of smoke. “Do I make you nervous now?”

  I didn’t answer but instead took a seat on the mattress, stretching my wings to lay flat against the
wall so I had a good view of the window and the moon peeking from behind wispy clouds.

  “You ever tried brimstone?” he asked.

  With my gaze on the indigo sky, I almost laughed. “Of course not. I’m an angel.”

  “Oh, Anya. When are you going to learn that all of those lines are blurred now? Didn’t you see those angels in Venice? Hanging with demons and enjoying the pleasures of the flesh like lesser beings? Like us demons.”

  I didn’t miss the cynical lilt of his words as he hissed in another deep drag of brimstone, the scent smoky sweet, like charred honey, filling our small space. Chancing a glance at him, I wished I hadn’t. The way he looked at me now was unsettling. Like he knew my secrets. Like he knew I’d enjoyed his lips on my skin, his body pressed to mine, and wanted him to do it again. Do more.

  “I saw,” I admitted. “That doesn’t mean I’m one of them.”

  “No. You’ll never be one of those angels,” he said with finality. “You’re set apart, Anya.”

  My name on his lips did something inside me, something unwanted and wanted at the same time. I couldn’t help but watch the slow rise of his fingers, the cigarette held firmly between, pressed to his lips—lips that were so much softer than they appeared—dragging across my skin, sending the most unforgettable pleasure racing through my body.

  “How so?”

  His keen, brooding observation quickened my pulse, unsettled my nerves. This was so unlike his cavalier manners of before. I couldn’t take my eyes from him.

  “You’re a warrior, but you fight for no army. You care for the humans, showing compassion even when it’s hopeless. You act as an individual, rather than following the mindless horde of heavenly hosts into battle. So unlike angelkind. You are different. Independent but still married to the code of good and all that bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit. There is good, and there is evil.”

  He grunted. “No gray in between?”

  Rather than answer a question that challenged everything I’ve ever believed, for fear I’d not like where this conversation took us, I steered it in another direction.