A vial of capped neroli oil toppled and rolled off the table. The thin glass cracked open. The dark, intense sweetness spilled into the room and Dez inhaled deeply as she climaxed. Neroli sex. She would never forget that scent.
The force of Ivan's climax pushed her hard against the marble. Her sweat-shimmered breasts warmed the hard stone. Ivan grasped her by the shoulder and drew her up and around into an urgent kiss. He lifted her to sit upon the table. She wrapped her legs about his hips. The slick remnants of his climax buttered her stomach and his.
"I've fallen so hard for you," he murmured into her mouth as he kissed her, "that I don't know how to surface. Don't want to."
Tucking her head against the heat-torqued muscle along his neck, Dez placed a palm over his heart. It beat furiously, racing the music. The scent of him, of the room, made her giddy.
"There's a dance in the town's park tonight," he said. "The big end-of-summer to-do. I want to dance with you beneath the stars, Dez."
"Something a little different than the dance we just did?"
"A little." He kissed her on the nose. Though his eyes were dark, flat, Dez fancied if he had a soul they would glitter madly. "So what do you say?"
"A dance with my dark lover beneath the harvest moon? Sounds lovely. Give me a bit to shower and change?"
He caught her fingers as she slid away, and tugged her to his chest. "Don't shower," he said. "I love the smell of our sex."
"All right. Then give me five minutes."
Dez wore some kind of black lace dress that hugged her body and slipped down her shoulders in a wide neckline that revealed the tops of her breasts. The skirt, long and slender, trailed across the ground behind her as they danced. She looked like a lace doll, something Ivan should be careful not to break.
But nothing was unbreakable. Including his heart.
Because right now, as he held Dez close and could feel her heart beating against his, Ivan felt the pieces of his heart clatter against one another. Which was how it must remain. Broken.
He tucked his head down into her hair and closed his eyes so he couldn't see the world or know if anyone else dancing around them could see his pain.
He had felt his soul. And he wanted it back.
"Another?" Dez asked. A smile exposed a sweet, regretful wisdom of ages. "Or should we sit the next one out?" He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. "Let's walk. Get away from the world for a while."
"I want to look at the ocean with the moonlight on it," Ivan said.
Hand in hand, they strolled the wooden plank sidewalk that fronted the stores along the bay. They had to cross the street two blocks up to pass her shop and take the gangwalk down to the beach. In no hurry.
But Dez sensed the darkest, most devastating conclusion waited when they reached the beach.
He's taking me to Himself.
She knew. Instinct had never screamed more loudly. She walked hand in hand with the fixer. It was night. He was likely deep in coercion.
Ivan's sigh rippled across her shoulders like a bitter winter chill.
"I've never met another woman so strong as you," he said.
Dez looked to the side. Tears threatened, momentarily. She could do this. She would do this. Ivan had not even three decades to her twelve centuries. He deserved to know the world with a soul. And if she could give that to him, then so be it.
"So you've not been around a lot of women, then?" she tried on a light tone. "If I am the only strong one you've met? And I've not even a muscle when compared to your mother."
"My mother is a softy at heart." He swept her into his arms. Yes, it was like gliding into a Fred and Ginger move. And it ended with a long, warm kiss.
He overwhelmed her in stature and could break her with a twist, but the gentleness of his touch made Dez want to cry. And for the second time she found herself fighting tears.
What was with her tonight? She was strong, as Ivan had said. She was simply doing what she had to do.
But in doing so, she would never again see her lover.
Sniffing back a tear, Dez thought Ivan was going to say something, when he released her and stepped away into the street. Old- fashioned black iron streetlights glowed dimly as the city argued against using too much electricity. The trees, strung with Christmas lights, were lit, though only until after the dance. Here it was quiet, save a distant strum of violin and the occasional thump of timpani.
They had the street to themselves. And Ivan gave no caution for standing in the middle of it. Standing at the edge of the curb, one foot dangling over the curved edge while she observed, Dez nestled her hands to hips and tilted her head.
Ivan walked with closed eyes, hands lifting as if to hold a load, but his muscles were loose, his posture so...open. Fascinated, she didn't say a word.
"Do you feel them?" he whispered, and though he stood some thirty feet away, his voice carried through the clear evening darkness.
"Them?"
He turned to her and spread out his arms as if to encompass the world and tilted back his head.Whatever he felt, it looked blissful. But then Dez wondered if it were Himself's minions come to aid the fixer in his evil task.
A shiver curled across her shoulders-yet in the next instant a sweltering warmth moved over her flesh. Calming, reassuring. This is right. She did not smell brimstone or sense imminent danger.
"What do you feel, Ivan?" she asked, as he stepped down the curb.
Right there, ten feet from her and at the edge of a white line painted to mark the road, Ivan fell to his knees. Surrendering. Holding up his arms to embrace...
"The angels," he said. "I can feel them. Always, when I walk into their presence they make themselves known."
He looked to Dez. Tears glittered in his eyes. She checked her breathing and caught a gasp.
"But I've never seen them. I've no right." He clutched his arms across his chest and swayed forward. Something struggled within, for he gritted his jaw and shook his head violently. "I cannot do this! I won't do this!"
Dez rushed to him. Kneeling, she glanced back to assure none of the townspeople paid them mind. Ivan clutched her hands and held her curled fingers to his mouth.
"What won't you do?" she asked. "Take me to Himself?"
He shook his head furiously.
"You have to, Ivan. It's the only way you'll ever have your soul. You want to see the angels? That is your hope, Ivan. So get up and finish this. I knew when you came to my house tonight what you intended."
"I'm so sorry. This isn't right." He stood and strode away from her, but stopped and again put out his arms. Were they pushing him away? Warning him against dire actions? "They torment me with their presence, the angels. I want to know goodness, and it is so close."
"You can have it by bringing Himself's bride to the docks."
"Never." His refusal ground out harshly. The planes of his face tightened. "I would never sacrifice you, Dez."
"Then I'll do it myself."
Scooping up her skirts and kicking off her heels, Dez took off in a run. She quickly crossed the rough tarmac and landed on the creaking plank sidewalk, only to be swung up and into the air. Ivan swept her into his arms.
"No!" She pushed against his chest and arms. He remained implacable. "I'm doing this, Ivan, and you can't stop me."
Summoning an exhale she blew, and with it, infused the power of the winds.
Ivan released her and was pushed up against the facade of her perfume shop. "All the magic in the world is not going to stop me from protecting you, witch."
Thrusting out an arm, he put out some kind of magic Dez couldn't feel or sense. So she continued on her course, and ran smack into the invisible wall ten feet beyond where Ivan stood. Her palms flattened in the air before her, and no matter how hard she pushed she could not repulse his magic.
So she tapped into her violet energy and called down the rains. And the invisible wall washed away before her. But it also turned into a storm because she wasn't guarding her emotions, and her magic always took cue from them.
Instantly soaked, she stumbled on the train of her dress and fell into Ivan's arms. "Don't fight me on this," he said.
No, she didn't want to. Standing in Ivan's arms she had never felt so right. But she would not steal his choice away.
Tossing back his head moved the soaked hair from his eyes. "If you offer yourself to Himself then I'll have my soul. Great. And terrible."
"Terrible?" Steadying herself against his rain-slick arms, she clung to him. Just take me away from it all, she wanted to beg, but she hadn't survived twelve centuries of strife and challenge to walk away now.
"I love you, Dez. If you're not in my life, then it won't be worth living, soul or no soul."
"Don't say stupid things like that. You're in lust. There are plenty of women in this world. You'll get over me."
"I don't want to get over you. And I know you love me. Don't you see?" He kissed her and the rain slickened their contact. Cool droplets slid down Dez's throat and she crushed her mouth hard to Ivan's.
One last kiss. One to remember him by.
And her next thought was to punch him or lay him out somehow. Stride over his fallen frame, and march down the dock to the beach where surely Himself waited to claim her as he had not been able to that cold Parisian winter.
But her body wouldn't move.
"Are you using persuasion on me, vampire?"
"Yes."
She slapped his face, but he took it as if a nuisance.
"You're not leaving my arms, Dez. I don't care if I have to persuade you for the rest of my life. You're mine. I won't hand you over to another."
"Don't do this," she said, and the tears burst free. "You have a chance at freedom."
"Holding you in my arms is all the freedom I need. You see, even now, when the coercion is clawing at my neck and spiking at my nerves, I don't feel it. Because your body next to mine counteracts that wicked evil."
"Impossible. He'll rip you apart if you don't do as commanded. Then who will be alone? Me without you? I don't want to consider that, either. What are we going to do, Ivan?"
"Oh, bother."
The twosome turned to spy a figure walking toward them. A tall, dark man who parted the rain as he neared. But this was no Moses.
"Ivan?"
Had she not been standing in her lover's arms, Dez would have rushed to the man walking toward them. And kissed him.
He appears to you as your greatest temptation.
It was Himself-and he looked like Ivan. "Oh, hell," she said.
"Does he look like me?" Ivan whispered.
Of course, he saw Himself in his natural form.
Dez nodded.
"Damn." Ivan moved to stand before Dez, protective, and yet, she tilted to the side to see around him. "We were to meet down on the beach. I'm sorry, Dez, I've betrayed you."
"No," she whispered. "You've never had a choice in serving Himself."
"You're late. And I do tire of the theatrics." Himself waved a hand and the column of air that blocked the rain from him widened about two feet out to either side of him.
Ivan and Dez still stood in the downpour.
"I won't do it." Ivan stretched back his shoulders and took a firm stance. "It's been seven years since I took the devil's shadow.
I've survived rather well. I don't need a soul."
Himself as Ivan tilted a moue at Dez. She almost sighed. He was exactly as her lover, except, for reasons she knew were dangerous, he seemed to attract twice as much as the real Ivan. Those eyes were liquid with more emotion than she'd ever seen.
And his mouth, firm, yet willing, ready to slay her with a kiss.
"Will you come with me, Dez?" Himself asked. He extended a hand. Ivan's hand.
"She's not going anywhere."
No, she could not do this. She'd never wanted to consign herself to so hideous a fate at the turn of the century. She would not do it now.
But could she, ultimately, be so selfish?
"I-I refuse," she said, and tensed her fists for her stuttering reluctance.
"Well, someone owes me something. Either the fixer shucks his insistent need to resist complete surrender, or you, witch, must become my bride. Which will it be?"
Both looked to one another. Rain droplets spat off Ivan's nose and pinged in the air between them.
"Drake here could save your witchy hide and sacrifice himself completely. Become the fixer he was born to be. Such a gesture."
"No man is born to anything," Dez protested. "He had no choice!"