Page 102

EIGHT

Sorsha

No one had turned on the Everymobile’s radio, but it’d decided to start blaring about ten minutes ago, switching back and forth between strident classical music and a talk show where everyone seemed to be yelling in Russian—which was particularly odd considering we were currently in Paris.

Ruse and Antic jabbed at the buttons to no avail. Finally, Thorn strode over to the dash.

“My apologies,” he said solemnly to the RV, and slammed his fist into the radio controls. The noise sputtered, but it did die, as just about everything did after a punch from the warrior.

Omen grimaced at the smashed spot we’d have to find some way to explain to the equines when they reclaimed their ride, but he didn’t criticize Thorn’s tactics. He turned back to the rest of us from his usual post leaning against the kitchen counter. No doubt it really would signal the end of the world if he ever lowered himself—both figuratively and literally—to sitting on the leather sofa-bench with us.

“Our observations across the past few days have made it quite clear that we can’t rely on our previous tactics,” he said. “Whether based on Tempest’s urging or their own initiative, the local Company facilities are under total lockdown. We can’t charm or threaten anyone into getting us past the outer defenses if no one ever comes out in the first place.”

“Do you really think all the Company workers are living inside those buildings?” Snap asked. He nestled me even closer against him as he spoke, which was quite a feat when he’d already had me practically on his lap. He seemed to have become extra possessive after our confrontation with Tempest a few days ago.

I gave him a peck on his cheek to return the affection, and he beamed at me before continuing. “The facilities we found didn’t appear to be made as homes. Won’t the Company people get bored spending all their time at work? Won’t some of them have families they’ll be separated from?”

“I’m sure the answer to both of those questions is yes,” Omen said. “They’re just willing to sacrifice a few freedoms to make sure they can continue screwing us over.”

I drummed my fingers on the table. Days of surveillance and no real action had left me restless, especially with my resolve to defeat Tempest hanging over me. “To be fair, being bored and lonely probably beats getting beheaded or disemboweled. If they think they’re in mortal danger, I could see them putting up with a lockdown for quite a while.”

Thorn glanced at Omen. “The sphinx knows we’ll be investigating in this city. Our prior sources have indicated that the mortal leader of the Company of Light travels across Europe. The map we saw displayed several bases of operations here. Might they be less stringent elsewhere?”

“I don’t think Tempest will be cutting any corners. Even the leader himself might be cloistered somewhere until she feels we no longer present much of a threat.” The hellhound shifter rubbed his jaw. “She was only able to interrupt our last plan, which came very close to working, because she intervened quickly enough. If we could find another point of access and distract her well enough at the same time—or even attempt to take her down completely before we tackle the mortals… But without that point of access, we have no way of getting at their current operations or potential weaknesses.”

“I could put out feelers for another mortal with hacking skills,” Ruse suggested. “Someone who’s not already working for the Company but who might be able to dig up some data that’ll give us a lead. These jackasses can’t run their operations without any interaction with the world around them.”

Omen nodded. “Good idea. Your computer person back in the US contributed quite a lot. Run with that. And while you’re tracking an appropriate human down, the rest of us will head underground. Paris has a mass of tunnels and catacombs that sprawl under a significant portion of the city. We’ll split up and check the areas near the Company facilities for any alternate means of entrance. It’s a long shot, but we might as well try whatever we can.”

“I’ll test for impressions in case the Company has used those passages themselves,” Snap said, brightening at the opportunity to contribute his non-lethal supernatural talent.

“Excellent. In case we run into trouble, let’s have someone with plenty of combat experience in each party. Snap, you go with Flint. Thorn, see if you can wrangle the imp into some sort of usefulness. And our disaster”—he rested his icy eyes on my face—“is coming with me.”

Because he didn’t trust any of the others to keep a close enough eye on me? I bit back half a dozen snarky remarks I’d like to have tossed at him. After seeing the echoes of his history in our conversation with Tempest the other night, I’d made a point of not hassling him quite so much, and I’d been succeeding at that pretty well, if I did say so myself. Why ruin my winning streak just to get a tiny dig in?

“It’s a date,” I said instead, and was rewarded with the twitch of the hellhound shifter’s jaw.

My devourer wasn’t feeling quite so generous. I didn’t think he’d forgiven Omen for his past transgressions yet. Snap’s arm tightened around me. “I would prefer to stay with Sorsha. I can defend her if I need to.”

Omen gave him a baleful look. “I promise I have no nefarious intentions. She’ll be returned to you soon in approximately the same state she’s in now, depending on what we find in those tunnels.”

“I still think we would be a better pairing.”

“And I’ve already given my orders. If you don’t trust me to lead this group with all our best interests in mind anymore, you know where the door is.”

Omen’s tone had been mild, but Snap bristled. I squeezed his arm before he could continue the argument—or escalate it into something more. It’d been bad enough watching Omen and Thorn fighting over my fate.

“Hey,” I said. “I can defend myself pretty well, as both of you should remember. I’ll be fine. I’m sure if Omen has decided to get rid of me after all, he wouldn’t bother making up a big tourist expedition around it.”

Snap made a grumbling sound, but he accepted a kiss and simply hugged me extra hard before releasing me so I could join the hellhound shifter, who was now glowering at me. This date was off to a great start already.

Sad to say, if it had been a date, tramping around in Paris’s underground tunnels late into the night wouldn’t have been the worst I’d been on. It was definitely in the bottom ten, though. The cool, earthy-smelling air that filled the passages made me feel as if I was just shy of being buried alive. The low ceilings and general darkness didn’t help with that claustrophobic impression.

Omen let the glow of his hellhound skin emerge to cast an orange haze over the walls of stone, clay, and—oooh, even better, a stack of embedded bones. I tipped my head toward those. “Really your kind of place, huh, hellhound?”

“I don’t think I’ve slaughtered quite enough mortals in my time to make an entire catacomb out of their remains,” he replied, which wasn’t exactly reassuring considering there looked to be a few thousand bodies’ worth just within view.

We walked on until we reached the spot Omen said was beneath a chocolate factory the Company appeared to be doing business out of—I had to take his word for it, since one dreary wall looked pretty much the same as any other down here. Squinting in the dim light, I couldn’t make out any trap doors or other openings that might have given us a sneaky path up into the building.

“I could bring out some fire for a little more light,” I said, with a hesitation I couldn’t help even though I didn’t like it. Tempest’s remarks had clung to me like a nettle, with an equal amount of irritating prickling. If I was a phoenix, did that mean I was doomed to burn myself up with my power sooner or later?

And how much would I burn down with me if it came to that?

Omen considered me. He’d been surprisingly thrifty with the snark himself during our exploration. I couldn’t tell whether he was sizing me up for destructive potential or self-confidence.

“She isn’t always right, you know,” he said, as if that answered my offer.

“What?”

“Tempest. Sphinxes might be known for their wisdom, but they also speak in riddles, and sometimes they get the two tangled up in their heads. She isn’t all-knowing, and she has plenty of reasons to want to shake you up.” He paused, his gaze shifting to the passage around us. “And I can see well enough to say that this spot is a wash too. We’re done here. Come on.” He stalked on down the tunnel.

I picked up my pace to keep up with him. “You don’t think I’m actually a phoenix, then?”

“Oh, I believe that part. It’s the first explanation that’s really made sense, what with the whole habit of inadvertently setting yourself on fire. I just don’t think that necessarily means you’re going to burn up much else if you happen to go down in flames. Although I’d rather not experiment to find out.” He glanced back with a flash of a tight but obvious smile in the darkness. “I’m going to guess that you’re much better company uncharred.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve revised your initial opinion of me at least that much.”

He laughed. “You’ve remained full of surprises. Thankfully not all of them bad ones.”

As recommendations went, I’d take that.

“Have you ever known a phoenix before?” I asked. What had happened to other beings like me? Tempest had indicated there weren’t many of us.

Which Omen’s answer confirmed. “No,” he said. “And the stories I’ve heard have belonged more to mortals than shadowkind, so I have no faith in their accuracy. It could be that only a hybrid can become one. I highly doubt Tempest has ever met one either.”

Okay, I could take a little reassurance in that. She was just spouting off half-baked fables, not speaking from any kind of inside knowledge.

Omen led us through several increasingly narrow passages, which didn’t help with the suffocating sensation, and then up a set of rough stairs that ended at a span of thick wood paneling.

“The sphinx isn’t the only one who knows a few tricks around this city,” Omen said, and pressed a knob in the wood. One of the panels swung open to give us enough room to squeeze out into a small, dusty room stacked with chairs and boxes of tapered candles.

With a waxy scent tickling my nose, I followed Omen out the doorway at the other end and discovered that Versailles hadn’t used up all my capacity for awe.

We’d come out into a cathedral—and sweet chirping cherubs, what a cathedral it was. The stone ceiling arched so high above our heads I could have believed it brushed the sky. High over the altar area, intricate stained glass windows streaked lamplight from outside in patches of color across the tiled floor. The columns that stood at intervals all along the pews were immense enough that I wasn’t sure I could have wrapped my arms around one even if I’d cloned myself for extra help.

I wasn’t much for religion, but if any place could have convinced me of the grandeur of a life beyond this one, this would be it.

“Notre Dame,” Omen intoned beside me, gazing up at the towering stained glass windows. “I’ll never claim that mortals haven’t managed to make a few spectacular things in their time.”

Speaking of surprises… I’d never have imagined I’d hear the hellhound shifter offer any praise to mortals as a general group.

A different sort of uneasiness rippled under my skin, stirring a flicker of fire with it. I willed the unsettled heat down, but maybe it’d be easier to deal with that if I said what’d been on my mind since our confrontation with Tempest.

I lowered my gaze to the floor, feeling unusually awkward. “You know, I’m sorry. For laying into you about your attitude so much. I mean, you deserved it at the start when you were being a real asshole to me, but even after you eased off on the tests and all that—I didn’t appreciate how far you’ve come from who you used to be and how hard that must have been. You’re nothing like Tempest. I don’t know how much you used to be, but you’re not now. Not when you’re being the ice-cold bastard and not when you let your fire out. In case you still worry about that.”

From stray comments he’d made across our conversations over the past weeks, I suspected he did.

Omen sputtered a laugh, which wasn’t quite the response I’d hoped to provoke with my attempt at extending an olive branch.

“You’re apologizing to me ?” he said, turning to face me head-on. “I’m the one who had you chained up in anticipation of your possible death less than a week ago.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m not saying that was the highlight of my life, but with what you’d heard and the hold the Highest have over you… I get it. It means a lot that you didn’t toss me straight to them—that it was a decision you couldn’t have made lightly.” I paused. “I’m still not totally sure why you didn’t take the free pass I gave you.”

He reached to graze his knuckles down the side of my face, a whisper of a touch that set off a wave of a much more enticing heat. His eyes pinned me in place, incredulous and maybe a little conflicted but not at all scornful. “If you would throw your life on the Highest’s mercy just to save two shadowkind, one of whom hadn’t given you much reason for generosity, I find it exceedingly hard to believe that you’d turn around and tear down the rest of the world on a whim.”

My throat had constricted. “I don’t know if I’ll get much choice.”

“Of course you will. There are always choices. And for all your snark and defiance… you obviously care enough to make the choices that won’t result in mass destruction.” Omen’s gaze dropped for a second before catching mine even more intently. “I should have pieced that fact together well before you had to throw yourself between Thorn and me. You haven’t really made a secret of your mind-set. I just didn’t recognize your altruism for what it was—or maybe I didn’t let myself recognize it—until it was that blatant.”

I swallowed thickly. “So… you’re not still waiting for me to fuck up so you’ll have an excuse to haul me off to the Highest after all?”

He looked honestly startled by that question. “Is that what you thought?”

“You haven’t exactly been Mr. Talkative since you unchained me, even by your standards.”

He stroked his hand down my face again with a tad more pressure than before. My heart skipped a beat. Then it kept right on jitter-bugging away like it was ‘50s prom night in my chest.

Omen’s mouth had twisted. “Ah. Well. There’ve been things I’ve known I should say to you, but I hadn’t quite settled on how to say them, so I may have erred too much on the side of saying nothing at all.” He drew in a long breath. “I need to apologize to you. I was far more of an asshole to you than you deserved when we first met, and I should have let up on you sooner—to a greater extent— You’ve had even less say over the hand you’ve been dealt than I have, and it’s taken you a lot less time to make something admirable out of it. You put my own efforts to shame.”

The thought of the hellhound shifter apologizing to anyone, let alone me, was so bizarre that my thoughts kept spinning around his words for several seconds as they slowly sunk in. “So… being nicer to me is your attempt to pull ahead in some competition of who’s the most stellar being around?”

Omen let out a huff. “I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry for not recognizing your ‘stellar’ qualities sooner. Do you always have to make everything as hard as possible?”

A laugh spilled out of me. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the praise he was offering me, but I knew him well enough now to recognize the gleam of orange fire in his eyes and to note that his hand had lingered against the crook of my jaw as if he wasn’t ready to stop touching me yet. I might not know how to respond to kindness from Omen, but I knew what to do with that heat.

I trailed my fingers down the front of his shirt, stopping just an inch above the fly of his slacks. “I can think of one or two things we both enjoy my making harder.”

Omen let out a growl, but it was all hunger. Then he was tugging my mouth to his, his lips descending on me with a kiss so blazing it branded me all the way down to my toes.

I gripped his shirt, kissing him back with everything I had in me. No matter how much we’d squabbled, no matter how much we might both have to apologize for, there was nothing but rightness in the way our bodies sparked against each other.

Omen’s tongue swept into my mouth. He pulled me tighter against him, one hand on my ass, the other sliding up my side to cup my breast. He was plenty hard already, and the feel of that solid length pressing against me through our clothes sent a shock of heat straight to my sex.

A famous cathedral wasn’t where I’d have pictured getting it on with any of my lovers, least of all the most hellish of them, but not a single particle in me had any interest in pausing this encounter to move elsewhere.

Omen pushed me up against one of the columns. A flicker of his fiery power raced between us—and my inner flames rose up to meet it like they had before. Pleasure burned across every inch of my skin.

The hellhound shifter dropped his mouth to the side of my neck, and I tangled my fingers in the short tufts of his hair, sprung wild in his abandon. The slick of his tongue beneath my chin drew a whimper from my throat.

“Tell me what you want,” Omen said, his voice thick with desire and portent.

Oh, there were a hell of a lot of things I wanted, but right now only one seemed to matter. “Fuck me. Fuck me as hard as you can.”

A scorching chuckle fell from his lips and spilled hot across my skin. “Just this once, I’ll happily submit to your command.”

Last time, he’d burned the clothes right off me. Or maybe I’d burned them off myself—it’d been kind of difficult to tell with all the flames dancing around. This time, maybe in recognition that I didn’t have an easy change of clothes waiting one room away, he yanked my shirt off the mortal way and tossed it aside instead. There might have been supernatural power in the speed with which he unlatched my bra, though.

A split-second later, he’d sucked my nipple between his teeth with a spike of bliss so sharp I gasped. I held onto his hair and tugged at his shirt with my other hand. His hellish light flared all across his body, and that piece of clothing disintegrated into ash. Along with every other piece of clothing he’d been wearing. Lucky me.

I traced my fingers over the taut muscles of his torso, and his devilish tail, newly freed, teased across my forearm. I couldn’t resist wrapping my fingers around its warmth, lithe length. It twitched against my palm, the tip tracing a giddy line along my thigh. Then Omen was tipping me down onto the tiled floor, wrenching the rest of my clothes off as we went.

It shouldn’t have been a comfortable surface to sprawl on. But before any chill from the smooth stone could penetrate my skin, a wash of Omen’s fire coursed around and beneath me. It cushioned me like the fieriest of duvets.

Omen’s mouth branded mine with even more heat, his body poised just above mine. “I will fuck you until you’re screaming with the pleasure of it,” he promised, so confidently I’d have soaked my panties if I were still wearing any. “But I’m going to take my time enjoying you so I can remember every bit. That first time was something of a blur—a blur of good things, but still.”

He grazed his fangs over my collarbone, and I inhaled with a pleased hum. “No arguments here.” But maybe one tiny speck of concern, now that we were taking our carnal collision a little more slowly.

As he teased those houndish teeth over my breast, I almost lost my words, but they tumbled out with my next hitch of breath. “We should probably make sure—I’d rather not end up with hell-puppies out of this.”

The shifter let out a snort that somehow managed to be as sexy as everything else about him and flicked my nipple with the tip of his tongue. “Not going to happen without the same shadowkind ceremony your mother used. And seeing as only three shadowkind have ever managed that in the history of existence, I think it’s doubtful I’ve undergone it unknowingly.”

That did sound like a fair assumption. Especially considering I suspected he’d sear right through anything resembling a condom, not that I had any lying around anyway, and I really didn’t want to put an end to this fucking before we’d even gotten started.

Omen caught my other nipple in his lips and dipped his hand between my thighs at the same time. The deeper jolt of pleasure wiped away anything else I might have said. I released a growl of my own, my hips arching to meet him. His fingers curled right inside me, hot as every other part of him and setting off fresh flames, but it wasn’t half as much as I was hungry for.

“I’m going to take you apart and put you back together again, and you’ll be begging for more,” Omen murmured. He eased lower down my body with a kiss to my belly.

The sound that slipped from my lips in response wasn’t particularly articulate, but I meant it to say something along the lines of, Sounds fantastic to me, get on with it! I didn’t need to express that sentiment any more clearly, though, because the next second the hellhound shifter had pressed that scorching mouth of his to my core.

Oh, let the angels sing. The force of his lips and the slick of his tongue sent waves of pleasure pulsing through me. All I could do was moan and gaze up at the vast ceiling overhead, the ecstasy building so fast I might as well have been soaring up to meet it.

But Omen made good on his promise to savor the moment. Every time I started soaring toward my release, he eased up just slightly, slowing the flicks of his tongue, teasing with his fingers rather than stroking me to completion. A knot of need built in my core, expanding with each glimpse of a climax.

I clutched the short tufts of his hair, my fingers scraping his scalp. Finally, the words he must have been waiting for spilled out of me in a growl of my own. “Please, damn it. Please .”

I felt the curl of Omen’s lips against me as he grinned. At a sharp suck on my clit and a deeper plunge of his fingers, I really might have screamed with delight. My vision whited out with a ringing in my ears as I spiraled over the edge into an explosion of bliss.

The flames I lay on rippled beneath my back as if urging my orgasm to greater heights. I’d barely caught my breath, the afterglow pealing through me, before Omen rose up over me. He hefted my hips right off the floor to meet him.

His mouth crashed into mine, smoky with both our flavors, and his rigid cock drove inside me. I wrapped my legs around him and bucked to match his rhythm, wanting more and more as the pleasure swelled through me again. Our flames crackled between us with a stinging that was all joy, no pain.

I wouldn’t have thought the shifter could wring even more ecstasy out of my body, but I hadn’t counted on all his special features. As our bodies rocked together at an increasingly furious pace, something glided across my ass. The devilish tip of his tail traced gleeful patterns across my skin—and slipped between the cheeks to stroke my other opening.

Another bolt of pleasure raced to join the sensations already surging through me. A gasping cry broke from my mouth.

Omen kissed me as if to drink down that sound. His cock rammed into me to the hilt, his tail teased a giddying trail from behind, and I did break—into a thousand shimmering, scorching pieces, lit up from the inside out.

As I shuddered and sank my fingernails into Omen’s back and ass, he groaned. With a few increasingly erratic thrusts, he threw himself after me with what might as well have been a spurt of liquid fire.

As his muscles relaxed, the hellhound shifter lowered us both to the ground, letting some of his weight rest against me. I didn’t hesitate to look into his eyes this time. The orange flare mingled with the icy blue in perfect contrast.

He gave me a sardonic smile, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to look totally satisfied even after the vulnerabilities and admiration he’d already admitted to. That diffidence was so perfectly Omen that a flutter of fondness passed through my chest.

A bittersweet pang followed it. Suddenly I was remembering how he’d talked in the palace about his time with Tempest.

I felt the need to clarify the situation, for both our sakes. “This means more than just fucking. To me, anyway. You mean more to me than that.” I wasn’t totally sure what or how much yet, but I knew what I’d said was true.

Omen’s smile softened just slightly around the edges. “I don’t think anything with you is ever going to be ‘just’, Disaster.” He dropped his head, his lips grazing my cheek, answering a question I hadn’t even formed yet. “You’re a finer being than Tempest ever was or could be. As many regrets as I may have collected over the years, you won’t be one of them. Even if it damns us both.”

An unexpected lump filled my throat. He might be giving up not just his freedom but his life if the Highest found out how he’d betrayed their orders.

I tucked my arm around his neck, and he met me for another kiss, sweeter but no less searing. As he urged my lips apart with his tongue, a lightbulb blinked on in my head. I kissed him even harder and then pulled back.

“What?” Omen asked, looking amused as he took in my expression.

I grinned up at him. “I know how we can get at the Company pricks even if they never set one foot outside.”