The driver knew how to call Adam’s doctor. He was one of Adam’s loyal people as she had assumed. Victoria insisted on helping as a special fireproof blanket was pulled from the back of the limo to wrap around the unconscious man. By the time the driver took extra precautions to settle his employer into the back of the limo without setting the upholstery on fire, Victoria worried Adam was too far gone for help. His face was deathly pale. She dared to hold his head in her lap, risking burns because in the dark she couldn’t ascertain where the blood was coming from as they sped back to the main house.
A man Victoria assumed was Dr. Verenich met them at the front door. At first, he had eyes only for his patient, but eventually he noticed her following.
“Ms. D’Arcy, I presume. I fear you’ll be the death of him. I’ve never seen him so driven. He senses that his lifelong goal might be in jeopardy and with his long life that’s saying something extraordinary. Come, come. I won’t bar the door against you now. Too late for that,” the doctor said.
They moved into the house and up the stairs. The driver carried Adam to a suite of rooms at the back of the house. Victoria would have followed with the doctor’s permission or without. Adam had risked his life to protect her. Even after he knew she was working for Malachi. She wouldn’t abandon him now. The monks could wait. Malachi could wait. Michael was safely hidden with Sybil and Grim.
She would help Adam. She would be with him now whether he wanted her here or not.
Her courage faltered when the doctor rolled him out of the fireproof blanket and onto a mat that had been prepared on Adam’s bed. He landed facedown. His shirt and suit jacket had been mostly burned away by the Brimstone blood. The scarification on his back made her cry out in horror.
“It never gets easier to see. Such pain he must have suffered to carry the marks with him for a hundred years. The memory of Father Malachi and his whip is seared into his nightmares. Forever,” Dr. Verenich said.
Victoria reached for Adam’s unresponsive hand while the doctor worked. He cut away the remains of the shirt and jacket that still smoldered. He paused for only a second to note their clasped hands with an arched brow, but otherwise he focused on his patient. After he removed the clothes and let them fall in a smoking heap, he used wet towels to cleanse Adam, turning him to thoroughly saturate and wipe down his back and chest.
“The blood wasn’t his. Most of the blood wasn’t his,” the doctor mumbled.
Victoria looked to confirm what the doctor said. Adam had nothing but superficial scratches. “The daemon. Adam was soaked in the daemon’s blood,” Victoria said. Relief flooded her, but along with it came a shiver of acknowledgment very like fear. Adam was a fearless warrior with decades of experience. He’d been trained by the Order of Samuel to be merciless and deadly. He’d been enslaved by a daemon king and bound by powerful Brimstone in his blood.
And he wasn’t her friend.
They were destined to be enemies.
He served the daemon king and she served Malachi.
But she didn’t release his hand.
“He passed out from the heat. It must have been extreme. Flowing straight from the daemon’s veins. It’s happened before. His body is mortal in spite of its unusual...additive. He lost consciousness as his body worked to cool itself,” the doctor said. “There are only superficial wounds and they’re already cauterized and healing. He’ll be fine after some rest and hydration.”
The doctor washed his hands and packed up the bag he hadn’t had to use. Adam’s ruined clothes, the protective mat and the blackened towels used to wash him were disposed of by a quiet maid.
Victoria hadn’t released his hand. No matter what the doctor said, her once-vital host looked as pale as the crisp white sheets he rested against. His black wavy hair and brows were damp from the doctor’s wet towels. His sculpted lips were dark against his lean cheeks.
She was struck by the sculptural lines of his face. His Slavic heritage was so apparent in his coloring and his angular bone structure. In repose, he was achingly beautiful, but when his fingers twitched around hers she looked away to avoid being caught in abject admiration. His hand immediately tightened as he sensed her shift.
“No. Stay. The cottage isn’t safe. You shouldn’t be alone. More daemons will come,” Adam said, gruff and low. “More will come.”
“Take it easy, shef. You need to rest. This lovely lady isn’t going anywhere, although it would probably be better for you if she did,” the doctor said. He paused in the doorway as if he waited for some reassurance that his patient wouldn’t be disturbed, whether a daemon came and dragged her to hell or not.
Victoria settled back on the edge of the bed and allowed Adam to keep possession of her hand.
“I’ll stay,” she said.
“I’ll leave him with you then. Call me if you need me, shef. You probably will, I’ll wager. You probably will,” the doctor said.
“Thank you, Dr. Verenich,” Adam said, but he didn’t open his eyes to watch the doctor leave.
Victoria was conscious of her hand in his now that he was awake, whether or not his eyes were open. Her cheeks heated. Had she really invoked Malachi’s name? She wasn’t a privileged loved one to sit by Adam’s bed. She was his enemy. But his fingers tightened again when she tried to pull away.
“Has it always been this way? Have you always been a magnet for the damned?” Adam asked. Finally, a sliver of brilliant blue showed beneath his lush black lashes and a flush of color tinged his cheeks.
“Yes. Always. I’ve been a bloodhound for the Order of Samuel since before I could walk and talk. I’m drawn to the damned and they are drawn to me. We call it affinity. But you know exactly how it feels,” Victoria said.
“Yes. I am intimately acquainted with how you feel, but not nearly as intimately as my blood demands,” Adam said. He voice was roughened by his pain. It’s deep vibrations raised goose flesh on her skin.
“The music—my singing, my sister’s cello playing—is an audio expression of the affinity. And it magnifies the effect,” Victoria said.
“So when you hum for me...” Adam began.
“When you inspire me to sing, my affinity is magnified...strengthened,” Victoria confessed.
“Together we increase your allure to others with Brimstone blood,” Adam guessed.
“I’m almost certain. I can feel the amplification,” Victoria said.
It was a cold and calculated way to talk about the song and the fire. Their passion physically manifested in sound and fury and they talked about it with textbook chill.
But her breath had quickened. His grip had tightened. Their bodies weren’t fooled by calm discussion. Now his eyes were fully open and their vivid blue pierced her soul, delving into her and sensing her extreme attraction for him.
“I’ve regretted my deal with the devil many times, but not once since I met you. I’m thankful for every ember of Brimstone in my blood. I’m jealous of those who have more,” Adam said.
“We can’t be together,” Victoria said, though their fingers had become fiercely entwined.
“No, Vic. That isn’t true. There can never be an apart for us no matter the machinations of king or council,” Adam said.
It seemed a vow. Her heart pounded with his promise. She recognized a tragedy in the making because she’d grown up creating tragedies for the stage.
Suddenly, before she could argue, he tugged the hand he held with surprising strength while he still reclined on the bed. Victoria fell against him and gasped as her silk-covered skin came into contact with his bare, muscular chest. He was hard and hot and no longer pale. A flush suffused his bared skin and she felt an answering rush of response when she recognized his rising color as a response to her...her nearness, her presence, her touch.
He still held the hand he’d pulled to bring her against him, but her other hand was free to splay against his chest. She gasped at his heat, at his lean, sculptured perfection. He was hard and toned beneath his sophisticated suits because he was a warrior.
She watched his eyes close in response to her on his skin.
“I asked you to stay for your safety, but I guarantee nothing if you touch me. You might be safer in the cottage after all,” Adam warned. She could feel him holding himself very still as if he gave her the chance to flee.
“But you’re weakened from your battle with the daemon. I’m not afraid,” Victoria said. She caressed his superheated skin and spoke lightly, teasingly tracing his pectoral muscle with the pads of her fingers.
He released her other hand and quickly raised his palms to gently but firmly cup her flushed face. He held her steady and still so that their eyes would meet. She noted the varying shades of blue in his irises that gave them the vivid intensity she’d grown to crave.
“Stoicism is all I’ve had for decades. It’s sustained me through loss and loneliness, but I burn beneath it all. I burn for you, Victoria. Be. Afraid. You’re playing with Brimstone’s fire and I can’t promise to keep you safe from what you might kindle to life in me,” Adam said.
“So you’re saying I should run. That’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done. To survive. But running isn’t living,” Victoria whispered.
She leaned closer and closer to his face as she spoke and he allowed it. He gentled his hold. He relaxed his elbows. His hands cupped her face, but they didn’t hold her away.
“The problem is I like it here. Right here with you. I don’t want to run. I want to feel. I want to sing. I don’t want to shut myself back in a cage,” Victoria said.
Then she pressed her lips to his. He jerked and gasped in response, but there was nowhere for him to go. His head was cradled on his pillow, holding him in place for her soft explorations. She tasted his mouth from one corner to the other as his breath quickened, and he seemed to wait and watch to see what she would do next.
She pulled back to meet his blue gaze fully and then leaned forward again. She teased her tongue out to slip between his open lips. That’s when his pause ended. His tongue met hers. He groaned and his hands slid from her face to her body, smoothing down her back to her waist then to her hips to urge her closer. He gathered her up against him and she went eagerly while their kiss deepened with gasps and dueling tongues.
She ended up straddled across his body, her silk dress rumpled and splayed until the most intimate heat of her was pressed to his bare abdomen. That sudden contact made her stop. Her entire body went rigid as every nerve ending was shocked by his superhot skin blazing against her core. Only the slightest hint of crimson lace between her legs kept them apart. She arched her back, pressing against him while he cupped her bottom. She rocked against his hard body. She could feel his erection beneath his singed trousers, rising up, proud and demanding against her heat.
“You’re lucky I’m weak, solovey. I would have no patience to wait for your song. You would get no pleasure from how hard and fast I would claim you otherwise,” Adam warned.
Victoria hummed as she moved against him, but before she could confess that hard and fast sounded very pleasurable his strong hands stilled her movements. Her dress was around her waist. Her body burned hotter than Brimstone. But he held her in place.
“Solovey?” she asked, her voice nearly as rough and low as his.
“Nightingale. My nightingale. I will make you sing. Only me. No one else. I want to hear you sing my name,” Adam said.
He rolled her to the side and kissed her as she cried out in protest at the sudden separation. He whispered against her mouth and it was an erotic groan. “Let me open your cage. My solovey. Sing for me.”
His hands pulled the folds of her silken dress from her body, carefully unwrapping the soft material from where it was wound until her lace-clad breasts and panties were revealed. She could see the appreciation for what he’d displayed in the glitter of his hooded eyes and still he didn’t rush.
She hummed again and he twisted open the center clasp of her bra so the lace fell away.
“You are the song, solovey. You are the song,” Adam murmured against her skin. He’d dipped his head and now he opened his hot mouth to suckle her bared breasts. First one and then the other. He bathed her with the heat of his mouth until her nipples were tender and distended, sending arcs of pleasure between her legs. She reached to bury her hands in the thick, damp waves of his hair, needing to hold on.
Her whole body was humming now—it was a secret heated song between them. One she should deny, but couldn’t. She couldn’t close the cage door against him. Not now. Maybe never again.
The heat between them flowed in a glowing aura between their bodies. She spread her legs to enjoy it, but his hand was even hotter as he brushed the last lace covering her away. Only then did she notice the steam rising from him where the doctor had moistened his skin and hair with wet towels. She watched the impossible white proof of their desire rise up into the air and dissipate around them, but then his finger found a slick entrance and her eyes closed as her hips rocked against the intimate penetration.
“Yes,” he urged her humming response. “Sing for me. This is how I’ve longed to see you. Free with me.”
With her eyes closed, she focused more fully on his mouth when he spoke against her breasts. When his lips then moved with whispery intent down, down to press beneath her navel and trail wet kisses to where his hand had claimed her, she sang out his name in higher notes than she’d hit since before the opera house fire.
He murmured his appreciation against the quivering folds of her most intimate flesh and then he pleasured her gently with a questing tongue. He lapped the bud of her clitoris as she cried out. And her song dissolved into delirious noises of release.
He hadn’t claimed her with the erection she could still feel against her when he moved to hold her, but he had claimed her in ways she couldn’t fully understand. He had denied himself to give to her. Even after he’d heard her claim Malachi’s protection. She wrapped her arms around him and he allowed her to hold him with her palms against his “wings.” The scarifications were deep ridges in his flesh, but they weren’t ugly. He was wholly beautiful. In spite of his scars. In spite of his Brimstone blood. In spite of his loyalties, which worked against her.
He was already breathing the deep inhalations and exhalations of sleep. He’d slayed her with a heavenly orgasm after he killed a daemon to save her. He’d called her his nightingale. Solovey. Would she ever truly answer to another name? She traced his sleeping face in the darkened room. When his blue eyes were closed the whole world took on a darker hue. And that was bad.
The color had faded from his face again. His flush was gone. He looked paler than before. She should have made him rest, but it had been impossible to resist his persuasion when her affinity and his blood called to each other.
No. This wasn’t safer than the cottage. Not at all. She should gather herself together and leave his rooms. She knew she still had to betray him, even though she thought she might be falling in love.
Her dress was a crumpled wreck, but she managed to put it on. Hopefully no one would see her slink from Turov’s rooms back to the cottage clearing. She found her clutch with its precious contents thrown on the floor at the foot of the bed. She’d been more concerned with Adam’s well-being than with her mission. She needed to go back to the cottage in order to see the dried cherry blossom reminder on her vanity. She needed to distance herself from the sleeping man on the bed.
He moaned in his sleep when she walked away. She paused, but only for a moment. Then she hardened her heart and climbed back into the cage the Order had made for her. No. More. Singing. Michael needed her to be stronger than she’d been before. She had to resist Adam Turov for her son’s sake. He might be hidden now, but she knew from personal experience that a D’Arcy couldn’t hide from the Order of Samuel for long.