The Fallen 03 - Warrior (20 page)

“Royal ugly dude?” he echoed, bemused.

“
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
,” she said cryptically. And then, “A movie.”

“I don’t watch movies.”

“I know.”

She hadn’t made any effort to climb out of his arms, and he didn’t make any effort to move her. They would separate when he got her back to Sheol, but for now he could let her rest against him.

“I suppose you have a plan for getting out of here?” she said. “Do you even know where we are?”

“Yes, and yes. I spent . . . a long time in the Dark City. I know its ins and outs by memory.”

“You were a prisoner here as well?”

He didn’t want to answer her. He couldn’t lie to her, but how could he tell her the truth? That he’d carried out Uriel’s orders. That he’d played the game, determined to follow his ordained course. And might still have been here, had not Uriel cast him out when things had finally become too much for him to stomach.

He leaned his head back against the wall, half-afraid his move would send her scrambling off his lap, but she stayed put. “Cryptic Guy again,” she said. “Okay, I can handle that. You want to tell me what the plan is?”

“We get out of here. The tunnels are a maze, and one of Beloch’s favorite pastimes is to send prisoners down here to wander until he gets tired of the sport. Sometimes they starve to death. One killed himself
by banging his head against the rock. The only other person who knows his way through these tunnels is Metatron, and he’s back in Sheol.”

“Only other? I take it that means you know how to get out of here.”

“Yes. You want to tell me who brought you here? Was it Metatron?”

”I have no idea. I left your—I was heading toward my room when someone knocked me unconscious. I don’t remember clearly, but when I woke up I was here, dealing with female prison guards and an evil Dumbledore—”

“A Dumbledore?” he interrupted. “What’s that?”

She sighed. “Never mind. I’ll explain later. I asked Beloch who brought me here but he wouldn’t tell me. Is Metatron missing? Do you think he took me?”

“He’s in Sheol. No one else was missing, only you. I have no idea who took you, but I mean to find out when we get back.”

“And if I don’t want to go?” Her voice was very quiet, but she hadn’t moved from his lap, and he sensed only a frisson of tension in her body.

“You want to stay here?”

“Of course not. But . . . can’t I go somewhere else? You fulfilled the prophecy, you did your duty. Surely they wouldn’t insist I stay on?”

“I don’t know,” he said carefully.

Her heart was speeding up, he could sense it. “You have no reason to want me there, do you?”

There it was, laid out in front of him, and for the
life of him he couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her with him. He could only come up with the truth.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Silence in the all-encompassing darkness. Her heart was pounding faster now, and he was afraid she was going to pull out of his arms. “Why?”

He didn’t think about it. He just did it. He slid his hand behind her neck, tilted her head up, and kissed her.

D
ARKNESS.
T
HICK, ENVELOPING
darkness, with his strong body surrounding me, his hot, wet mouth on mine. All arguments fled. I wanted this. Needed this. Ever since I’d left his bed, a part of me had been missing, and now it was found again. He had come for me. And I was his.

His tongue slid into my mouth, and I felt unaccountably shy even after last night, but it didn’t seem to matter. When I tentatively moved my tongue against his, he let out a low growl of unmistakable approval, and I wanted to get closer. I wanted him inside me again, I wanted to take his cock into my mouth the way they did in the books I’d read. I wanted everything.

Common sense deserted me as I sank into a sensual dream, with his long, deft fingers cradling my face, holding it at just the right angle for his deep,
possessing kiss. Nothing mattered but Michael, his mouth, his body, the way he touched me. My breasts felt tight, almost painful, and I shifted, rubbing them against his hard, muscled chest, trying to find some kind of ease. He lifted his head, moving his mouth down the side of my face to my jaw, and I could feel the damp heat of his breath against me. He slipped one hand between our bodies, covering my breast, teasing, pulling at my tight nipple, and a spark of reaction spiked through me.

There was too much fabric between us. I needed his skin against mine, his callused fingers rough against my softness. I wanted his mouth on my breasts, sucking them, pulling at them, and I squirmed again, needing more, so much more.

I was holding on to his shoulders, clinging to him as the only shelter in a storm of sensuality, but I let go, reaching for the shirt that covered his strong, muscled chest, needing to pull it away and feel the heated flesh beneath it, to let my fingers glide over him.

But his hand captured mine, and he lifted me off him, setting me on the hard ground beside him. I felt bereft. “Don’t,” he said in a ragged voice.

“Why not?” I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. I wanted so many things from him I couldn’t put them into words. I was vibrating with need and I no longer cared about hiding it.

“This is too dangerous.”

“For whom?” I demanded.

“For both of us. If I’m going to get you out of here safely, I need to have my brain working, and it doesn’t when I touch you.”

That was little consolation for the feeling of absolute emptiness that washed over me. The ground was hard beneath my butt, and I was cold without his arms around me. Cold and frightened, when it took a lot to frighten me. I tried to fight off the insidious effect of his touch, his kiss, but at that particular moment, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about getting out of there. All I cared about was getting his hands on me again.

“Okay,” I managed to say. At least the darkness provided a bit of protection—he wouldn’t know how complete my capitulation was. How desperately I wanted him. It should help me as well—I couldn’t see his astonishingly provocative beauty. I told myself he could be anyone in the darkness.

It didn’t work.

Silence pressed down on me, filling the inky blackness, and I wanted to draw in on myself, wrap my arms around my knees, give myself what comfort I could.

He cursed beneath his breath. “Fuck it,” he said, and I felt him surge to his feet beside me. I pulled my knees up, resting my head against them as he moved around the room.

I couldn’t imagine how he could. It was too dark to see anything, yet he wasn’t bumping into things and cursing. I heard the scrape of something against the floor and jumped nervously.

“You feel strong enough to move?” His voice was cool, impersonal, as if he hadn’t just kissed me into a limp pool of desire.

Pride overrode the lingering aftermath of Beloch’s special effects and my even more powerful reaction to Michael’s mouth, and I scrambled to my feet. I swayed for a moment, but he couldn’t see the hand I used to steady myself. “Of course,” I said, sounding positively perky. “Don’t even think I can’t keep up with you.”

Even if I couldn’t see him, I could sense his amusement. “What did Beloch do to you?”

“He didn’t touch me,” I said quickly. Even the thought of that old man’s hands on me made me shudder.

“Of course he didn’t. Beloch is asexual. He doesn’t understand human drives and human weaknesses. But he hurt you. How?”

I shrugged, then realized he couldn’t see it. “I kicked him in the head and tried to escape. Next thing I knew, I was pinned halfway up the wall feeling like I’d been electrocuted. I didn’t drop until he left the room, and I—I may have fallen asleep.” I’d passed out, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“You passed out,” he said, and I wanted to punch him.

“Maybe.” I was grudging. “Whatever it was, it was nasty. I can still feel it.” I was weaker than usual, but sheer pride would keep me going. “Don’t think I can’t keep up with you, Your Saintliness. It’ll be a
cold day in hell that I can’t do anything you can do and do it ten times better.”

He was suddenly very close, standing right in front of me, and I hadn’t even realized he’d moved. “I doubt it,” he said. “And stop calling me names.”

He was so close that his heavy robe brushed against my own, and the rough fabric caught, mingled, moving against me. “When you start calling me Tory.”

There was an audible sigh as his hands grasped my robe, pushing it back on my shoulders. At some point he must have opened his own robe, because when he took the edges of mine and pulled me against him he was wearing only a thin shirt and what felt like jeans. My head went against his shoulder, naturally, as his arms encircled me, as the robes encircled us, and he just held me, his heart against mine, slow and steady, a reassurance. It was going to be okay.

We stood there for a long while. Long enough for our body heat to mingle in the damp, chilly air, passing back and forth, warming us. Long enough for my skin to tingle, long enough for that damned aching feeling between my legs. Long enough for me to feel the hard ridge below the waistband of his jeans.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, pushing me away gently.

I wanted to howl like a baby who’d had her toy ripped away from her. That, or her mother’s breast. “Okay,” I said calmly. “What are we waiting for?”

He took my hand, and I could have followed him anywhere, even into this pitch-dark world. “Can you see where you’re going?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Angel X-ray vision?”

“There are more ways to see than simply using your eyes.”

“‘Use the Force, Luke,’” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

We didn’t leave the way we’d come in, though I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. I had assumed we were in a simple storeroom, but Michael pushed boxes out of his way—effortlessly, of course—and we moved deeper into the blackness. I could feel the walls closing in around me, and realized we were in some sort of tunnel. I said nothing, putting all my energy into regulating my breath so he wouldn’t realize I was fighting panic.
You’re not claustrophobic,
I told myself firmly.
You never have been. Stop it.

A cold sweat covered my face and my heart was hammering, the blood racing in my veins, but there was no way I was going to admit to this sudden, unreasonable fear, not to him, not to anyone. I could handle it. I could handle anything. As long as he led me, I could follow.

I lost track of time. I was famished, I had to pee, every bone in my body ached, but I kept moving. If
I said something he’d probably swoop me up and carry me, and I didn’t want to be any more of a burden.

I was so intent on staying on my feet that I didn’t pay attention, and when he stopped I barreled into him. A mistake. Those feelings flared to life once more, and I stepped back before he realized that I wanted to move closer still.

“Stay put,” he whispered. Unnecessary—where was I going to go?

Apparently we’d reached the end of the tunnel. He released my hand, and I stood still as he fiddled with the door. He opened it slowly, but the blinding daylight I’d been expecting failed to materialize—there were only shadows. He pulled me through, closing the door behind him, and I looked around with interest.

We seemed to be under some kind of portico. Beyond I could see those strange, vintage-looking cars going by in their shades of gray, and while I assumed it was evening, for all I knew this could be broad daylight. It was called the Dark City for a reason.

“Exactly what is this place?” I said, keeping my voice down, though there didn’t seem to be anyone to hear us. “And who or what is Beloch?”

You’d think I would have gotten used to him ignoring me. At that moment, if I could have had one wish in the world, it would have been to
tie Michael to a stake and torture him until he answered my questions. I had so many I was forgetting the easier ones. I guess there was a limit to how much uncertainty I could handle—when I reached my fill, some of the older questions simply disappeared.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to get us a car.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

He glanced back at me. “I’m going to steal a car. It works better if I’m alone. I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

Well, if he didn’t, then he was damned stupid to have come here in the first place, I told myself. “Okay,” I said. “Beloch was expecting you. How did you get past his guards?”

“I’m very good at what I do,” he said in a silken voice. “Can I go get the car now, or do you have other silly questions?”

I didn’t consider my questions silly, but I was tired of arguing. “Go ahead,” I said with an airy wave of my hand.

He still hadn’t answered the key question—why had he come? Had Martha come up with a new fillip to the prophecy? Did I need to be on-site for the Fallen to prevail? And if Uriel was the Big Bad, then who exactly was Beloch?