at. It would take more than what a human could survive for Rimmon’s price to be met.
He watched Sajia in the mirror. His heart both wept and rejoiced at the sight of her tears.
Again and again she raised her arm and brought the cat-o’nines down in punishing strikes. Flaying his skin so the muscles in his arms stood out in rigid relief as he fought to remain constrained by flesh.
The present dominated until blood flowed down his back. Then he gave himself over to memories.
Physical agony took the place of emotions he’d carried for thousands of years. Guilt and regret. Rage and hate.
There was catharsis in the pain and the bleeding. He embraced it, letting it wash the past away.
Endorphins rose. Where once fury had filled the abyss created by emotional agony, now desire filled the one carved out by physical pain.
Addai felt Sajia’s anguish, and even more sublime, the strengthening of the bond between them as her tears continued to flow and her arm shook with fatigue and reluctance.
Her whimpers of protest were a serenade to his heart. He hardened and remained that way, each additional lash becoming another thread weaving their souls together.
Finally she threw the cat-o’-nines to the floor in a signal that payment had been made. Rimmon rose from his throne and touched one of the lions carved into the wood. Curtains closed over the glass separating dungeon from office. “It seems you made the better bargain. I’ll be back in a little while to take you to Saril.”
Sajia went to Addai on a shuddering sob, freeing him of the manacles around his wrists before Rimmon left the room. She knelt, undoing those around his ankles with fingers that trembled and a soul that ached.
He turned and her eyes traveled upward, soaking in the beauty of him, the unmarred skin. Felt the shock of remorse pushed aside by the sight of testicles hanging beneath a potent display of hardened masculinity.
She licked her lips in unconscious reaction, only aware of having done it when his penis bobbed, pulling away from his abdomen as if it would come to her mouth. She lifted her eyes to meet his and pushed words through a throat clogged with emotions that shouldn’t be able to coexist. “Can you heal yourself?”
“Of course,” he said, arrogance in his voice and something she wouldn’t have thought possible except for the evidence of it only inches away from her face. Hunger. Dark and dangerous. Commanding and all-encompassing.
FIVE
The air shimmered, and Sajia felt the caress of it against her face like a faint icy breeze. In the mirror his back became whole, unblemished, as if the terrible damage, the pain she’d inflicted because of her oath, her family, had never been.
It wasn’t compulsion as the vampires were capable of, but it was equally compelling. She could no more resist the pull of desire, the need to deliver pleasure after having delivered so much pain, than a blood-slave could a master’s command.
Her hands settled on Addai’s thighs. His muscles flexed beneath her palms, vibrated with tension though his lips remained sealed, his face austere, challenging her to coax an expression from him, a cry where he’d remained mute under the lashes of the cat-o’-nines.
She laughed softly, something she would have thought impossible moments earlier. He wouldn’t be able to hold against the torment of her tongue, the teasing prelude to taking him in her mouth, sucking until he was once again at her mercy. In this his immense power didn’t matter, he was still male.
Sajia leaned forward as her hands slid upward on his thighs. In the mirror there was the subtle flexing of his buttocks as he braced himself for the instant she would touch his cock.
She’d wielded the flogger without stopping, wanting to get it over with quickly, to hurry through it rather than commit each strike to memory. And now she found herself at risk of going quickly once again, but for far different reasons.
Her hands settled on either side of his thick erection, and she had to force them to remain there, just as she had to force herself not to press kisses along his hardened length. Where she’d hastened through the pain, she wanted to linger in pleasure.
She rubbed her cheek against his cock, soft skin against soft skin. It jerked at the contact, and he wrapped her braid around a hand, using it in a silent command to turn her face.
She complied, lips touching heated flesh, tongue darting out for a first taste. Savoring it.
A shudder went through Addai, a wave of such pleasure he only barely managed to remain standing. He’d been without a woman since her death.
The angels sent to this world weren’t inherently carnal or emotional. It’s what had made them good at watching impassively, patrolling, killing. But the longer they were here, the more they had free will, the more the temptations of the flesh assailed them.
Some of them succumbed. He had succumbed.
In that first moment he’d laid eyes on Sajia drawing water from the well, desire had consumed him and then love had followed it. To settle for another when he knew one day she’d be returned to him would have been a betrayal.
His hand tightened on her braid. When they were truly alone, he’d unbind her hair so the silky strands of it fanned out over her back and buttocks. He’d spear his fingers through it, an intimate act among the Djinn, one allowed only with those well loved and well trusted.
Now, Sajia, he commanded, accompanying the order with an image of her encircling his cock with her hand and guiding its head to her mouth.
Her sultry laugh had his buttocks clenching, his eyes closing briefly as he shored up his defenses, ordered himself not to beg, not to show any weakness.
There will be retribution, he warned.
I look forward to it.
She measured his length with a string of kisses, with a hot trail left by her tongue.
Fire engulfed him. Lust that caused him to thrust.
The only weapon he could use against her was his mind, his imagination and his memory of what they’d once done together. He wielded both ruthlessly, showing her the punishment she was earning by teasing him. A punishment he would deliver when they got home, when she was totally at his mercy.
Sajia grew wet at seeing herself draped naked over his thighs, her legs parted just enough to reveal her swollen folds and glistening slit. She’d never played sexual games, never had any interest in them despite their prevalence in the vampires’ world.
She would never have imagined she’d allow a man to bend her over his thighs and deliver a spanking. But with Addai she discovered she wanted it, craved it, as if the images he projected into her mind found a deep longing to submit and coaxed it out of hiding.
On a murmur of pleasure she gave him what he demanded from her. Her hands left his thighs, one cupping the smooth, heavy sac between his legs, fondling and weighing and caressing, the other forming a fist around a cock that felt like satin over steel, like heated marble though so much more malleable than cool stone.
She guided him to her mouth, explored his penis with her tongue before taking his cock head between her lips and holding it there, his scent and taste making her think of icy peaks and desolate places, of harsh winter winds.
A small measure of victory came with the moan he couldn’t suppress, the closing of his eyes as he gave himself over to sensation. Thick, sooty black lashes should have made him look feminine, but his beauty had no gender; it was otherworldly, terrifying power given form.
And somehow he’d come to be hers. Somehow he’d moved heaven and earth so she was reborn and returned to him.
There was a fluttering in her chest, her heart destabilized by the enormity of what he’d done—not just in the past, but here, in the present, allowing himself to be bound, hurt, to become entertainment. Looking up the line of his body, seeing the pleasure in his face, she wanted to believe that she would always satisfy him.
She had a moment to wonder if Rimmon watched, if the curtains closing over glass gave only the illusion of privacy. Then banished the thought as she drew Addai deeper into
her mouth, working him with her lips and tongue. Restraining him with the tight close of her fingers around his cock so he couldn’t thrust any deeper. Keeping ecstasy out of reach, denied until he was panting, quivering, his hands no longer still but roaming, caressing, his words no longer contained, but her name turned into a litany.
He didn’t beg. They’d have to be truly alone for that to happen. But she grew wetter at seeing a measure of the power she had over him, at knowing one day she might hear him plead to be allowed to come.
Her channel clenched and unclenched, the desperate need to feel him inside her intensifying as his lust grew and his breathing became ragged. She sucked, taking him deeper, swallowing on him repeatedly, no longer caring about staving off his orgasm.
Addai nearly came as her throat closed around him. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to abandon the last measure of control and allow himself release in a primitive, earthy claiming.
He might have if he hadn’t sensed Rimmon’s imminent return, if he hadn’t so desperately wanted his first release to be in the tight, hot depths of her channel. Searing ecstasy joined to an image burned into Sajia’s consciousness, not fantasy or memory, but shared reality.
It took incredible strength of will to pull from her heated mouth, to part from her long enough to remove her clothing.
As he knelt in front of her, his hands closed briefly around her ankles, where angelic script circled as it did her wrists.
Rising, he caressed that written above her heart, pressing his lips to her flesh as satisfaction of a different kind arrived along with the heightened need to get her back to the chalet quickly. With a word, he could release her from the bindings holding her in a human form, but there were also places where the containment spell had faded into nothing.
He pushed worry over it away. Resolve and the desperate need to claim her left no room for it.
He took her mouth, sharing breath and heat, his arm around her waist, holding her bare mound against his throbbing cock, thrusting and rubbing his rigid length against her stiffened, swollen clit as his tongue battled hers.
Her whimpers were a roar of pleasure through his mind. Her hands caressing him as her skin burned against his, a sweet torment he’d pay any price to endure.
I need you, she said into his mind, an intimate contact that had his testicles tightening in warning and enabled him to pull from her embrace, to turn her so she faced the mirrored wall, her palms pressed to it for support.
Then have me, wife, he said, white wings manifested behind him, spreading out in proud display, trapping the mirrored image of them together as with one thrust, he entered her.
Sajia cried out, nearly consumed by the intense pleasure of having his cock filling her, by the eroticism of his possession. She couldn’t close her eyes to the sight of him, of them together.
The hard lines of his face showed arrogant control, but the throbbing of his penis, the sheen of sweat on his heated skin told a different story. She moved against him and his features tightened, awarding her a small victory. One she paid for as his hand cupped her breast while the other stroked her belly before settling on her clit.
Her channel clenched on his length, hungry for movement, for the feel of him thrusting. For a release that would come with the hot spill of seed deep inside her.
“Please, Addai,” she whispered, hearing the sound of submission in her own voice.
His eyes flared hot in the mirror, and then he began moving in and out of her, the fingers on her breast and clit squeezing, twisting, delivering pain to blend with pleasure until finally there was only the sweet oblivion of orgasm and the soul-deep satisfaction that came from feeling him shuddering in release, of seeing his wings outstretched, trembling as ecstasy took him.
Addai nearly surrendered to the need to wrap Sajia in arms and wings and take her home. Emotion, intense and unquantifiable, surged through him with the pounding of his heart. Nothing could be allowed to happen to her.
His hands took possession of her breasts, weighing them as she’d done his testicles. Her arched back and soft cry were his reward, the fisting of her channel on his cock his sensual punishment.
Temptation and torment. If he thought she would forgive him for making her abandon the search—
“Dress,” he told her, forcing himself to pull from her heated depths and step backward. His wings shielded her from view as the sound of a curtain opening announced Rimmon’s return.
Retracing their steps through the club, Addai couldn’t miss the presence of so many of the Fallen. They glided through the rooms like sleek sharks among hapless prey, the humans drawn to them, mesmerized in spite of what they’d become.
Where the phantom presence of wings would once have brushed against his senses, now there was nothing. And where so many of his kind in the same place usually created a symphony of sound, the sweet notes of power in a choir heard only by angels, now he heard only jangling discord, a grating pressure that scraped over his skin and had him grinding his teeth and fighting not to call his sword.
The Fallen gave him wide berth, though they didn’t bother hiding their curiosity, or the sly hungry smiles that had as much to do with anticipating his ultimate downfall as desiring the woman he so clearly considered his.
There was no help for it. He could no more force his hand away from Sajia than he could let her out of sight now that she’d been returned to him.
He knew why the Fallen were here. Knew too what they couldn’t. They were part of a larger plan involving Saril, Rimmon’s sole living descendant. In the end those not considered Djinn allies would be named enemies.
Rimmon led them to the elegant staircase near the front doors, pausing after taking only a few upward steps. He murmured to one of the women who waited there, ready to descend and serve as hostess to those entering the club and desiring it.
Her face flushed with pleasure, and she left her position to climb the stairs. Envious looks from the other woman followed her, the skirt she wore parting with each step, her folds glistening, revealing her excitement at having been chosen.
At the top of the staircase she left them, moving down a hallway carpeted by handwoven rugs from what the humans had once called the Holy Land. Priceless artwork hung on the walls. And unlike the lower stories of the Victorian, this floor had the hushed feel of a private, inviolate sanctuary.
Rimmon stopped in front of a closed door. A peremptory knock announced his arrival, though he didn’t wait to be invited inside. He entered the room.
Addai let Sajia precede him, then closed the door behind them as a precaution. Saril looked up from the book she was reading, eyes the same green as her father’s, but wary and soft rather than anticipatory and hardened.
“I have a task for you,” Rimmon said without preamble. He crossed to a table where an arrangement of wildflowers sat clustered in a squat vase.
Panic flared in Saril’s face when he unceremoniously plucked the purple and yellow blossoms out of the water, tossing them carelessly on a table that had survived The Last War—when the furniture and books marking man’s passing from ignorant ape to more refined creation became fuel for fires in caves built of crushed buildings and twisted steel.
He turned, the vase seeming more delicate in his hands. His lips curved upward in a twisted parody of mirth. “Did you think I was ignorant of your gift, Saril? It was once mine, as was this scrying bowl you so cleverly hide in plain sight by using it for your flowers.”
He closed the distance to his daughter and put the bowl down on a reading stand next to her. Addai urged Sajia forward, halting her several feet away from the Finder when he spotted the weapon lying on the floor next to Saril’s chair, no doubt left there in case one of the Fallen below grew foolishly impatient and tried to claim her.
The sword might be blackened, given permanent physical form and cast into this world in the same lightning strike of retribution that melted Rimmon’s flesh and stripped him of wings, but angelic script remained etched into b
lade and hilt, words of power that coupled with will were capable of killing his kind, Fallen or not.
The inside rim of the bowl was also marked by angelic writing. And whether Saril guessed at the full truth or not, Rimmon’s words held it.
Once sight, the gift to Find, had been his. But like so many of the grigori, the early angelic watchers, he became tempted by the mortal, led by carnal desire to share knowledge beyond what the humans were supposed to be given, and fell as a result of it.
Like pearls scattered among swine, Addai had thought on learning of it so many thousands of years ago. The bowl and others like it troughs for the creatures of mud to drink from.
But that was before Sajia. Before he himself gave in to the temptations of the flesh and lay down with one of the mortal—worse—with an enemy. For that crime and all the others following as a result of it, being judged Fallen would seem a merciful punishment should his transgressions become known and those allied with the Djinn fail to take possession of this world.
Rimmon took his daughter’s chin in his hand. “I won’t pretend that you’ll use your gift because I ask it of you. What boon do you want? And don’t bother saying your freedom. Too many know of your existence now.”
“Because you’ve made me a prize,” Saril said, anger vibrating in the words. “A prisoner you intend to hand over to another jailor.”
“I do what is best for the both of us. You have always been a prize, Saril, one at risk of being discovered and taken at any time. If you view the luxury and safety I’ve surrounded you with as a prison, then so be it. Name your price.”
Her lips firmed and her chin jutted forward in silent refusal. Addai silently cursed at finding his own happiness tied to this girl on the brink of discovering the fate arranged for her by the Djinn and their allies.
One search. Assuming of course that Saril agrees to perform it for you.
As the flaw woven into the negotiations with Rimmon showed itself, Sajia pulled from Addai’s grasp, refusing to let his suffering be for nothing.
She went to Saril and crouched next to her chair, prepared to beg. “Please put aside your differences with your father long enough to hear what brought us here. We wouldn’t have come if the need wasn’t urgent. Corinne—my charge—is missing and because of it, everyone I love is at risk.”
Saril’s gaze went to the freshly healed scarring on Sajia’s upper arm. “You serve vampires?”
“Yes. I was orphaned in the San Joaquin soon after I was born. My aunt and uncle brought me to San Francisco and raised me with the same love they gave their own children. I took an oath to serve the Tucci because I liked Corinne, and in becoming her companion I would also be able to give back to my family.”
“How old is Corinne?”
Sajia felt some of the tension inside her dissolve as hope returned with the question. “Sixteen and still entirely human. She’s not what you’d expect of a vampire scion. Corinne is shy, some would say mousy, though I think her forgettable appearance stems from lack of confidence and the knowledge that among the Tucci, female offspring aren’t valued until they survive the transition.”
Saril’s features softened further, and Addai spoke up, saying, “If it has any weight with you, Tir is my brother.”
The last of Saril’s earlier resistance melted at the mention of Tir. “I was dying and he healed me.”
“Yes. That’s his gift.”
“Did he find what he was looking for?”
“He found it. And more. He’s happily bound to a woman who loves him.”
A small sigh of pleasure escaped Saril at hearing of a romantic ending. “I’ll help you.”
Her expression firmed again as she looked at her father. “I want a day to explore the outer harbor, and your promise that any treasure I discover while doing it is mine to keep.”
The single emerald eye narrowed as he contemplated what she might be looking for, or what she might find. But apparently he decided that whatever it was, he could successfully deal with it. “Granted.”
She took the bowl off the table and placed it on her lap, then reached out, halting when her fingertips were inches away from the marks on Sajia’s arm. “May I? It might help me find Corinne.”
Sajia nodded and Saril quickly traced the scars. When she was done, she placed both hands on the bowl and stared into the water.
One moment dragged into a second, and then a third. Sajia caught herself holding her breath and exhaled, the sound of it loud in the hushed quiet of the room. She wanted to stand, to look into the bowl, aware with the light coming in through the window of how late in the day it was.
Her palms grew damp waiting. Her heart beat erratically.
Finally Saril blinked and looked up, her expression deeply troubled. “She’s being held prisoner on a fishing boat. The boat is moving. It doesn’t seem too far away, but I can’t tell if it’s still in the bay or if it’s reached open waters. There’s no name on its side and nothing distinctive about it except that there’s an old red lantern hanging on the right side of the cabin doorway and a blue on the left.”
Fear settled around Sajia, squeezing like a merciless fist. The Tucci didn’t own fishing fleets or container ships. If the bay and open ocean were to be searched for Corinne, The Master would have to negotiate with other families, and that would mean a delay and a loss of face.
Given how little he valued female scions, there was every possibility he’d decide to leave Corinne to whatever fate befell her, while placing the public blame for the failed betrothal on Sajia, claiming she’d betrayed her oath and ordering her killed to satisfy honor and the Gairden family.
Addai would never allow it. At the first hint of threat he’d take her away or he’d wage war on the Tucci, either of which would lead to the very thing that terrified her, the death of her family because of her. She glanced at him in panic, but some of it eased when he told Rimmon, “Sajia and I will take Araña’s boat in order to look for the scion.”
“As you wish. But the moment the Constellation leaves the outer harbor, the agreement I made with Tir for its protection ends. Bring it back into the waters I control and it’ll find a resting place among the other sunken ships.”
SIX
Though Sajia’s trips to Oakland had been limited, like anyone serving a scion she’d been given lessons in geography and human politics. She knew the general direction of the outer harbor controlled by Rimmon, though not how long it would take to reach it.
“We’ll have to hurry if we hope to get the boat into the bay by nightfall,” she said as they left Temptation, matching actions to words—only to be halted within steps by a manacle of fingers.
“We’ll continue our search for the scion tomorrow,” Addai said, swinging her around to face him. “Tonight we return home.”
The familiar arrogance was back. Deadly purpose returned to eyes as black as any abyss.
“No and no again,” she said, her hand going to the knife at her waist, thoughts flashing first to their battle at the chalet and the blood she’d drawn there, then to his back coated with it as she’d wielded the cat-o’-nines.
The fight left her, though her determination didn’t. She abandoned the blade in favor of stepping into him, close enough to share breath and heat.
She touched her hand to his chest and felt his heart beat against her palm. Steady strokes that made her think of home and safety, of a love so deep it defied even death. Of passion found in firm touches and feathery caresses, of desire all-consuming and eternal. Addai.