Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) (19 page)

She gasped. He shouldn’t look at her that way, as if she were something precious and fragile and worthy of being treasured. Over her long existence, she’d done so much she wasn’t proud of, so many things most would term questionable or downright wrong.

She’d been no angel. Just a woman forced to make certain choices after being thrust into circumstances beyond her ken.

“You
are
precious,” he murmured as he stopped his thumb on her cheekbone and unfurled his palm onto the side of her face.

Adri blinked. Had he just read her thoughts? The warmth of his touch flowed into her, igniting her bloodstream. God, she wanted him, had craved him ever since that evening in
Jerusalem....

Could he really read her mind?
Kiss me.
She formed the thought.

His gaze darkened, eyes growing hooded.

She hitched in a breath. He
had
heard her....

Des drew closer and settled his lips atop hers. Fire burst inside her body, and she yielded to his kiss, melted into his dominant compulsion as he teased her with his tongue before he plunged into her mouth and seared her heart with the sense of complete communion she achieved upon that single kiss.

She responded in kind, arching her body against his, seeking more of his heat, more of him. Hands travelled across the thin cotton of his T-shirt, over the sinew of well-defined muscles, to come rest atop solid shoulders. With her tongue, she reached for his, tangling, dueling, before abandoning herself to the drugging taste of him. He tasted of ambrosia, sweet and heady, intoxicating. He reminded her of hydromel she had drunk in the far reaches of Norse territory, of honey from sun-drenched valleys in France, of sumptuous wine from the terraced vines of South Africa.

Adri moaned into his mouth, and he tore himself from her. The loss of his kiss left her reeling, and she grabbed his T-shirt before he could move away.

“Don’t you dare,” she growled on a husky, lust-filled whisper.

He laughed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good.”

She snaked a hand behind his head and tangled her fingers in his hair. The locks brushed against her skin in a caress as smooth as silk. She lost herself in their thickness, and drew him closer so she could kiss him again. Lips met, tongues touched, breaths mingled.
Perfection.

When the tips of his fingers grazed her waist, she broke the kiss. Without her needing to point him in the right direction, he found the tie at the side and undid the wrap dress. He drew onto his knees and reached out for her, his hands brushing the silk off her shoulders.

A hot blush stung her cheeks under the appraising glance he raked over her.

He toyed with the satin ties holding her decadent lace lingerie in place. “You sure know how to win a man over.”

Are you a man?
She wanted to ask him the question, but now wasn’t the time.

“Take it off,” she breathed. “Everything.”

I want to be naked for you.
He’d already seen into her life for all those years, seen into her heart and her mind. He should get to see all of her. If not him, then who else should she let in this close to her?

For the first time in her life, Adri relinquished control. A part of her battled that she shouldn’t offer her complete surrender to a demon—or whatever else he was—but she chose to ignore that nagging little voice. This was Des; that’s all she needed to know.

She parted her lips when he ran a finger along her skin, upon the underside of her bra. Slowly, ever so deliberately, he took his sweet time to travel his touch all around the flimsy garment, until he reached the tie. With a languid pull, he undid the bow in the valley between her breasts and peeled the lace from her body. His warm breath caressed her breasts, making her nipples pucker, yearning for his touch, for his mouth on them.

She arched her back, and he wasted no time to rip the scrap of lace that couldn’t even be termed knickers so much it was insubstantial. A whiff of her arousal graced her nostrils.

Oh, how she desired him.

Adri wiggled her buttocks on the bed and parted her legs, a subtle invitation for him to reach for her body and play her like a maestro directed an orchestra to burst into perfect harmony.

He raked that hot gaze over her once more, and she forced herself to not squirm.
Merde
, but being submissive was tough. “Touch me,” she moaned.

Without a word, he trailed a hand along her thigh. But he stopped short of contact with her core, making her whimper in protest. He laughed, and lowered his head so he could kiss her.

Adri had been a courtesan; she’d had countless lovers over the millennia. But none had worked her up with a single kiss like Des did. He did such sinful things to her mouth…what else could he do to her body?

As if hearing her query, he trailed his lips down.

Should she die now and go to heaven? He touched and kissed every inch of her. As if he worshipped her body, as if she were something so perfect he had to treat her with reverence.

She exploded when he reached her core; he had worked her up so well with his foreplay that she needed no further prompt to burst into a blaze of fire. He took her to paradise and back, then once more, with his mouth, as he did things even she had never experienced to her body.

But the ultimate prize, the one-way trip to the gates of Heaven—of Hell, if he were really a decadent, wicked demon—lay just beyond her reach. He’d have to join her to go there. Join their bodies....

She forced her eyes open to gaze at him, and she chuckled.

“What?” he asked.

“You still have all your clothes on.”

He smiled. “And that won’t do?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Undress me, Adri.”

Could there be anything more sensual than undressing another person while knowing wicked pleasure awaited once he would be naked? She ran the tip of her tongue along her lips, and drew up onto her knees.

Retreating to the edge of the bed, he stood. She scooted over to him, and reached for the hem of his black T-shirt. Moonlight glinted inside the room, painting the surroundings with an eerie glow that turned everything to shades of pewter and silver.

Like something out of a fantasy.

But this moment was real, as was this man who awaited her touch. Whatever he happened to be, tonight he was nothing but a man she had yearned after for a thousand years.

She slowly pushed the T-shirt up, revealing rock-hard abs and sculpted pecs. His skin gleamed golden, a deeper shade than his hair. Blond hairs smattered his chest.

As he pulled the garment off, Adri found her face at the same level as his shoulder. She lowered her head and swiped her tongue into the dip of his collarbone, to relish the salty warmth of his skin. The scent of musk and male arousal touched her nostrils.

He wanted her.

She deepened the kiss against his neck, while she roamed her hands down to the waistband of his jeans. The button popped and the zipper went down, and she had her touch on the most intimate part of him.

Of course, he would go commando. She laughed, which forced her to stop suckling on his neck. A purplish red love bite stared at her when she pulled away.

Des got rid of his trousers, and stood before her in all his glory.

Merde
—demons could be so arrestingly male and sexy. Des held nothing dark about him, though, tempting her to label him a fallen angel. Which he couldn’t be, since their kind had been wiped off around the same time as the birth of humanity.

So be it.

She grabbed his hands and pulled him into bed. Images from her own memory flashed back at her, except that they came from a different perspective. She could glimpse herself in these flashes, envision how he had seen her throughout time.

“If you knew how long I’ve wanted to see you like this,” he said.

Tears stung her eyes at the awe in that confession. She placed a kiss on one of his palms, then settled his hand against her cheek. Without a word, she lay down on her back and pulled him on top of her.

He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “Are you sure about this? There’s no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back.” She parted her thighs, settled them around his hips, and beckoned him to enter her.

Sweet torture as well as the most blissful fulfillment soared through her as he made her his.

She’d been wrong—Paradise was when he took her, when he made one with her.

Des settled that big, hulking body over hers, bracing himself on his forearms so he wouldn’t crush her underneath him. She wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer, deeper, to touch her soul as much as he touched her body right then. Adri closed her eyes, and lost herself in his lovemaking.

Her eyes flew open when he paused, and in a blink, flipped onto his back with her now straddling him.

“Do it,” he murmured. “Take me.”

A lone tear coursed down her cheek. Someone—she didn’t remember who or where—had once told her that with love came trust; that when you loved someone, you wholeheartedly put yourself at that person’s feet knowing they can trample you at any moment, but also utterly safe in the knowledge that this person would never do something like that.

She had revealed her vulnerability to Des, and he had preferred to not step over that offering. Instead, he had shown her she could trust him, because he relinquished what she’d freely given to him.

With that knowledge swelling her heart, she also claimed him. Their eyes remained locked all the time, their hands on each other’s body…two becoming one in all the ways possible.

When her orgasm crashed, she let go and fell atop his chest. He cradled her to him, and joined her toward that searing completion seconds later.

Des placed a kiss atop her head.

She thought she heard him say “I love you,” but she wasn’t sure.

And anyway, she didn’t need the words. His actions had spoken; so had hers.

They now made one.

*****

Sleep had come easily, but waking up proved to be a hardship.

Cold had engulfed her, and the arms of loneliness had laid siege upon her being again. Adri jerked out of sleep, but while her mind was running a mile a minute, her body refused to follow. She remained prone on the bed, nestled among the icy sheets with no warmth to shelter her.

Where was Des?

Des!

She blinked. That hadn’t been her thought—she never sounded so high-pitched even in her head. No, this was the voice of someone else.

Of another woman...who called out again. And again.

She tore her eyes open. Across the room, he hastily picked up his clothes and donned them. Then, without another look at her, he vanished into thin air.

The lout! Prick. Bastard. Cochon.
He had left her. After one night of passion, he had gone without a word, nor a kiss, at the beckoning of another woman.

Who was the whore who had called him? Who was the damn
salope
he had left her for?

Anger flared inside her body, and she sat up. The chill of the night air flickered over her skin, but she was beyond caring about the cold. A layer of ice like treacherous sleet wrapped itself around her heart.

She had given him everything....

What else had she expected from a demon-slash-whatever-creature?

Rage burst inside her, to engulf her in a cloud of self-righteous indignity.

For a brief, suspended-in-time moment, she had forgotten that she was all alone in this world, that she had no one and could count only on herself.

She still had Sera....

Sera. All her focus converged on the thought of her daughter. Where could she be?

Adri couldn’t hide—she’d heard a woman call Des and he had skittered away at her beckoning. No feminine intuition had told her that. No, that had been the work of the fae’s gift to see and feel things across space.

Her power was working, unlike last night when she’d been a basket case.

She pulled her awareness into a cluster, then sent her perception out to find Sera.

Nothing but a wall of black met her directive.

Panic flared in her chest, but she tamped it down. She could be making a mistake somewhere.

She forced her perception onto Thandi, and in her mind’s eye, found the witch sound asleep in her bed, Oscar draped along one end of the big four-poster.

Further prompts showed her Sebastian laughing with some of his comrades over a glass of blood. Craig was scurrying from the bed of a sleeping woman somewhere in New York.

But all she saw when she tried to pinpoint Sera was pitch black.

Not good. Her heartbeat hammered, and her feet had touched the floor before she could form a coherent thought.

Something had happened to the girl, and she had to find her.

Sera stared at the slice of creamy strawberry and custard pie that Fiona had put in front of her on the oak table in the cozy kitchen.

“Constance made it. Her cakes and pies are legendary and her catering business is thriving. Weddings, especially,” Matilda, Fiona’s mother, explained with pride, hands resting on her portly middle. Constance, after all, was her sister-in-law, a community spokesperson and an experienced elder with five grown children, thirteen grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and a husband. The woman was a whirlwind, a role model of female empowerment anywhere, despite her advanced age. How she did it all without breaking a sweat was anyone’s guess.

Always a neat freak, Matilda kept this home—that she and her husband had gifted to their only daughter—spotless and well-stocked, perhaps hoping against hope that one day said daughter would come to her senses and choose to live there among her kind rather than like an outcast, in her apartment in town. Blame it on Fiona’s father, who loved to roam around beyond their boundaries and think outside the box about different creatures co-existing in harmony, he who’d instilled in Fiona the love for adventure and independence. Tonight, Fiona had asked for their help to get Sera settled in the place after spelling her as she’d requested.

“I’ll bring clothes and more food tomorrow,” she said some time after Matilda had bid her goodbyes.

“Can you please check on Will, too? He’s with Jim, but I just want to be sure he’s okay,” she said wistfully.

Fiona smiled. “Of course, but if I show up at the castle—”

“That’s fine, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Perhaps I’ll go the back route, by the cottage. I’ll find a way,” she said gently. “I’m off to say bye to Mom now. She made me promise as she’s next door visiting with Constance, swapping recipes for hot flashes.”

Hand on hip, Fiona shook her head and Sera couldn’t help a laugh, as well as experience a sense of gratefulness.

But with Fiona gone, she was left alone with her thoughts and an untouched piece of pie. Since when had she denied herself sugar? Hard as she tried, she couldn’t summon an ounce of appetite. Emotions cooked inside her in a boiling cauldron and the flame that stoked them wouldn’t subside.

“Mom, how I wish we could go back to the way we were.…” Snippets of memories of the old life she’d lived with her mother appeared in movie sequence at the front of her mind—beautiful times when displays of affection were the norm and not avoided like the plague.

When was the last time she’d hugged Adri? Had she ever told her she loved her since…

No, she hadn’t. Not one blasted time.

Feeling restless, Sera got up and paced the house. The place was tight. Just a living area, the kitchen, a bedroom, bathroom, and utility room. She doubted the whole thing was any bigger than nine hundred square feet.  She looked around. No TV, no stereo. No books that didn’t discuss fashion, jewels, or snagging a man.

Just before giving up, she reached out to one of the shelves and pulled out a romance novel, complete with half-naked buff male and hot female all over each other on the cover.

“Alright, Fi. This can’t be much different than a soap opera, can it? Or Glee for mature adults.”
If Mom reads this stuff, it must be worth checking out.

But when she found herself reading the first paragraph over and over without being able to focus on the words, she let out a labored breath and set the book aside. Thoughts of the fight she’d had with her mother kept intruding on her peace. There came a time when one had to admit defeat and realize no diversion would work, so she just had to go with the flow.

Arriving to a decision, she stood, brushed off imaginary dust from her lap, and made for the door. Offering silent thanks to Fiona, who had mercifully retrieved Sera’s clothes and boots from her apartment, she grabbed her coat from the hook by the entrance, put it on, and braced for the night chill.

Maybe some fresh air would help—and if it was fresh air you wanted, nothing could be closer to the pure stuff that could be found at Besom Forest, the place where Nature thrived, at least as much as it did on the fae plains.

She stepped down the porch and rubbed her hands before stuffing them in her pockets, then started a brisk walk down the path to the thick wooded area that led to the Stones. A smaller version of Stonehenge, and a copy of the ones that stood on the border with town where important council meetings were held, it was there that the witch elders performed their more involved rites, including the ones related to keeping the portal closed during and after the Equinox.

The area was off limits to most, and even the witches themselves had a hierarchy and written code to respect when conducting their mystic affairs. Black witchcraft had been disallowed and banned from
Shadow Bridge, but what remained—white practices—could be immensely powerful. The concentration of magic existing in that spot also kept intruders at bay from witch business.

Sera had no intention of visiting the place and breaking any rules, just to circle it from a respectable distance with the expectation that the near mile-long walk would clear her head or at least, tire her enough to want to sleep.

The starless night above her echoed the emptiness in her heart. In all of her life, she’d never been alone—or at least, only physically. Never emotionally, or mentally. Being alone was welcome only when it accompanied a calm and sweet existence. Not when it translated to brutal loneliness that permeated through one’s soul with the delicacy of a poisoned arrow.

With the bond she and her mother shared, and the enhanced intuition Adri experienced about her, at no point in her life had she felt so…disconnected. Her mother always felt when danger was afoot. Knowledge that she’d used to her advantage, to keep Sera under her thumb. Was it really just a mother’s love, or a compulsive need to control? Sera often wondered, for she frequently
compared herself to a born baby with the umbilical cord kept intact, still one with the woman who gave it life. No one could live this way.

Now that those bonds were reduced to shreds, she realized how much her recent life with Adri had been nothing more than going through the motions. Work, study, painting—each day she purposefully kept a routine that allowed her as much distance as possible from her over-protective mother. Especially since Susan’s murder, things had spiraled downward at a distressing rate. The desire to bust out, though, had been in her subconscious all along, grown strong with the awareness that, the moment both women came together, they exploded like two planets in each other’s path.

Alone. There was such peace in this—in the untamed world around her that lived on without the complications and unnatural structures humans so often imposed and devised. Peace, and sadness, because the farther she walked, the more she felt she couldn’t go back to the misery she’d just left. At least, not with the same mindset.

Something momentous would come to her any minute. It had to.

Mom, I’m scared.

Why was she thinking of her mother as though she couldn’t take care of herself?

This is what happens when a parent crowds you and leaves you no room to grow.

Or was it something else? She’d always lived under her mother’s rules, but the more years passed, the less she could abide them. Something snapped inside her, brewed for a century, and festered past the degree of sustainability. Bottom line was, she lived on, chained to a world she no longer wanted. But was it the world her mother had given her? Or the one Rafe impressed on her? Or…both?

She hadn’t felt this restless, once upon a time, even though her existence chafed. For a while, her job had been enough, her study of ancient languages and cryptology, her students, her work deciphering ancient scrolls in the library. Enough to give her validation and earn her respect as a scholar—and think beyond the challenges of her strange existence. The bad was tempered with the good, and balance was achieved.

But not anymore. How long had it been since she’d furthered her research outside the requirements of the curriculum? Weeks, perhaps. Yes, she was simply going through the motions—not just with her mother but in all things pertaining to her life.

She had stopped living. Truly, did she want to live at all?

Yes, I do.
That little voice came from deep inside her, faint but true. Her innermost voice, her conscience—the voice you hear when you’re at the end of a line, holding on for dear life. That voice never lied.

So if she did want to go on, things had to change. This friction she had with Adri had to stop, and she needed to rethink everything about her life in the last century. Because, in reality, she’d done nothing but give in to Rafe’s whims and let him imprison her body, mind, and soul. Let him tear her from everything that mattered in life. Mattered in
her
life, at least. The thought gave her a thread of purpose, a germ of a drive, something she’d missed greatly of late.

She sighed without breaking pace, and watched her breath sail up between the tall trees to the night sky. Random lanterns hitched up on branches lit her way through the unknown. She felt like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, and then Dorothy upon the realization that there’s no place like home….

Corny, but as real as real can be. Home. What else meant more?

It had gotten so late, even the birds were asleep. She’d never walked this path at night—and certainly never in recent years. Although she’d been inside witch territory, such occurrence happened rarely and when she did, it had only been to visit Fiona’s family with her friend.

Whatever spell Fiona had weaved, coupled with the intense positive energy in this place, her mind felt less heavy, less burdened. Like faes, witches had the ability to bring on healing when they wanted, only not all of them used their power well. That was what had earned them a bad rap among outsiders. But here, now, Sera felt all the beauty of the world settle on her shoulders.
Amazing sensation!
Magic coming to the rescue, kicking mayhem to the side—just what the doctor ordered to prompt the need for a cease-fire on the home front. Could it be?

Suddenly, she got the urge to talk to her mother, to embrace her and inhale the comforting scent of her skin and hair. Tomorrow, when Fiona returned, she’d ask her to take her back and remove the spell. She missed that motherly contact like crazy, and on the darkest days and nights, what kept her going, aside from the relief of painting and creating, was the memory of the touch only a mother could give.

A rustle in the leaves distracted her from her thoughts and Sera realized she’d actually veered from the path into a thicket of trees. She could see the main route above her but during her trance-like state, her legs had had a mind of their own and taken her off the beaten path, down into a sort of shallow knoll that gently sloped up on the other side before leading to another path. The healthy soil lay lightly carpeted in twigs and leaves that gathered at the basin, all the way across like a thin stream. Less light extended to the bottom, but she was only halfway down and a lantern up above provided sufficient illumination for her to get back up and resume her trek.

Another rustle, and this time, accompanied by a breath that journeyed to her like a whisper on the damp air. A breeze picked up—mild at first but getting stronger as seconds passed, as though a storm was suddenly brewing. She should retrace her steps and go back to the safety of the house. She wasn’t sure how much ground she’d covered, but it couldn’t possibly have been half a mile.

Hastening her step, she made it back to the narrow pathway, but as she turned, someone blocked her way and caused her to start. Sera recognized her immediately, even though she’d only seen her a few times. The listless brown hair, the mistrustful eyes that darted around but never seemed to settle on anything. Yet, she could look even pretty with a little effort—or a mere genuine smile.

“
Willow!” she gasped out, a hand on her heart. “You gave me a fright! What are you doing here?”

“My home’s over there,”
Willow said, waving toward an uncertain direction past the other path Sera had just seen. “What are
you
doing here?”

Sera bucked up at the unmistakable impudence. “Fiona invited me,” she cut short. “I think I better head to the house now. The clouds have thickened and I smell rain coming.”

But as Sera made to pass her, Willow snatched a hand out and grabbed her by the elbow. “Why so fast? Let’s talk.”

Flustered, she stared down at the girl’s steel grip then back into her eyes. “Uh, okay.”

“We never spoke much at all. Perhaps we could be friends.”

The tone wasn’t very convincing, sounding more like the lackluster read-through of a low budget theater script.

“You…should come to
The Stirring Pot
,” Sera offered, saying the first thing that came to mind. “I’m usually there for lunch on weekdays.”

No, perhaps you shouldn’t come. You creep me out.

And just as that thought came out, she chided herself for it. Who was she to judge people before she got to know them first hand? All she’d heard about Willow had been rumors, and she never paid attention to gossip.

“I’m not much for social gatherings. At least not as myself. Would you like me more if I were Fiona, you think?”