Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (20 page)

My mouth moved upward,
over her pelvis and trembling stomach, kissing my way back up to her
breasts. Our eyes locked as my tongue swirled around her lengthened
nipple, then I pulled up to appraise her entirely. This girl. This
woman
. Her soft curves, her luscious skin, the mischievous
spark in her eyes as she panted for me … perfection in one
tiny package. Every time I looked at her like this, I felt like I’d
been punched in the stomach, but in a good way. The kind of
breathtaking blow I’d crave the rest of my days.

“Please,”
she panted.

Shit
. That one
little word nearly ended me. But slowly, trying to maintain control,
I rose and settled between her legs. I gave her a smirk, even while I
ached and throbbed against her.

“Now I’ll
make love to you.” My hands circled her legs behind her knees
and spread them as I lifted her hips off the slab. My entire body
tensed up with anticipation as I slowly slid just an inch inside her.
“Unless you want more.”

My gaze held hers, and
her brown eyes widened. She nodded. I pulled out, and this time, I
thrust hard and deep into her, all the way in, sending a ripple up
through my body. I couldn’t stifle the groan.

“Yes,” she
said. “
More
.”

I could deny neither of
us any longer. I pumped into her, again and again, my eyes focused on
her swollen, red lips as my mind gave over to the physical
sensations. She felt so good. So tight. So perfect. My hand left her
thigh for her swaying breast, and I kneaded and pinched it as I
stroked in and out, harder and faster, her hips bucking up to meet me
every time.

“Yes, Tristan,”
she begged. “Harder.”

My eyes fell closed,
and I groaned as I gathered her into my arms, plunging deep and
relentlessly. Her mind opened and sucked mine in as she shared the
intensity of her pleasure with me and I shared mine with her. It was
an experience like none other, something only the two of us could
ever share. Indescribable. Not
needing
to be described. Pure,
unadulterated ecstasy as our hearts, souls, and bodies unified. I
pounded until we exploded into oblivion together. Soared into another
time and space. Shouted each other’s names and gasped for air
in our aching lungs.

Floated weightlessly on
a shared high before slowly drifting back down.

“I love you, my
beautiful, Sexy Lexi.” I heard myself speaking before my brain
could even function, my mouth spewing words that came from somewhere
deep—from my soul. She sighed as I dropped kisses all over her
face as I laid her down on the slab. I lay next to her, the smooth
marble cool against my flaming skin.

Our rest didn’t
last long because my fingers couldn’t stop touching her,
wouldn’t stop trailing up and down her bare back, and her lips
wouldn’t stay off my face. A thought occurred to me, and I
revealed my wings, brushing the tips over her legs. She gasped and
her eyes lit up, but what she felt couldn’t compare to what I
felt on this end. The tips of the feathers that could become as solid
and unbreakable as a titanium shield, according to her, had the most
sensitive nerve endings at the moment that ran all the way to my
center. My eyes widened, and her brows lifted at my reaction, then
her wings came out, too. With a smile, I wrapped my arms around her
and lifted us in the air. She cupped my face while devouring me in a
kiss. Our legs entangled as we hovered twenty feet above the ground,
and then her wings disappeared so mine could wrap around us,
enclosing us in our own world.

We may have looked like
Angels at first glance, but the way we made love next was borderline
sinful.

Later, we lay
side-by-side on the marble slab with exhausted bodies and pounding
hearts. I turned my head to look at her.

“Merry
Christmas,” I said. “I gave you some of me. That fits the
rules, right?”

She laughed, but then
her head rolled toward me, her brows scrunched. “Wait.
Christmas?”

I looked back up at the
dark blue of the sky as the sun hung over our toes, about to set over
the water. “Based on how the sun crossed the sky and where it’s
setting now, I’d say it’s late fall or early winter.
Around Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, but definitely not New Year’s.”

She didn’t reply
at first, seeming to take this in. “You can determine that so
easily?”

“Mmm …
I’ve spent enough time on this island—on this world—to
make an educated guess.”

“Wow,” she
said after another moment, and I smiled at her ceaseless wonder. “So
we lost over a month, maybe two in the Otherworld?”

My smile faded. “I’m
afraid so.”

“Huh.” She
huffed out a breath. “I honestly thought it was longer. It sure
felt like an eternity.”

I took her hand and
gave it a squeeze. “Yes, it did, my love. I’d rather not
do it again.”

We lay in comfortable
silence as the air began to chill our naked bodies with the setting
sun. With a moan, I pushed myself to sit up.

“Up until a few
hours ago, I thought my strength had fully returned, and we could
go,” she said as she still lay on her back. “I’m
not so sure now.”

I chuckled. “You’ve
sapped my strength, too. Another day of rest, and then we take back
the world.”

As expected, she didn’t
respond. My girl, who had always had trust issues but had still
managed to hold on to a childlike wonder as well as her spiritual
beliefs, had become a jaded cynic. She’d lost her belief in
pretty much everything important. I had to figure out how to bring
her back before I lost her forever.

As we pulled our
clothes on, she leaned over and studied the edge of the marble slab
and started laughing. I cocked a brow.

“We made love on
the council table!” She continued chortling, and I couldn’t
help but laugh with her. “I wonder what those uppity council
members who tried to oust us would think of that.”

“Maybe what he
does.” I nodded toward a mound of broken marble where the
stairs to the council hall had once been.

One of the statues of
the warrior angels that had hung in the main room lay there—part
of its wing and head, anyway. But rather than the fierce expression
they always held, this one, with chunks of its jaw and forehead
missing, seemed to be staring at us with a lifted brow and a small,
knowing smile on its face.

Alexis returned its
expression with a frown. Then she threw a bolt of electricity at it,
effectively shattering the marble into small pieces.

Nice
, I thought
with a silent sigh. With an attitude like that, we were in more
trouble than I realized. But I vowed to restore her heart and soul,
no matter what it took.

I sat
upright in the dark, a gasp in my throat. “Dorian.”

I’d been dreaming
about him, but only bits and pieces came to me now. Dorian as a baby,
always grabbing at my necklace. Then Dorian flying away from the
Thomas Jefferson Memorial. And then Dorian in Hell, Lucas by his
side, in the luxurious parlor with the dark blue curtains and thick
carpet. Satan’s beastly form sat in the chair by the fire, his
animal-like legs crossed and his black-nailed fingers lifting a cigar
to his mouth, only it wasn’t a cigar but a baby’s arm.
Dorian took a knee in front of him and bowed.

Although I knew now
that such a scene would only happen if Dorian chose it—and my
sweet boy would never do such a thing—I couldn’t shake
the terror blanketing me.

“It’s time
to go,” I told Tristan, who’d sat up next to me.

“You’re
ready.” And it wasn’t a question.

Good thing, because
whether he agreed or not that I’d regained my strength and
health, I
was
leaving today. Using one of the bottles of water
and a blanket we’d found in the village that we’d no
longer need, we did our best to clean up and then dress in our
fighting leathers.

“Where do we
start?” I asked as I laced up my boots.

“I think we find
Noah.”

“He’s the
last we know who’s seen him,” I agreed. “But how?
Where? If you’re right that it’s December, he could be
anywhere by now, with or without Dorian.”

He pulled on a t-shirt
he’d found yesterday after our … escapades. “One
guess would be Noah would go to his homeland of Italy.”

“Okay then. I
guess we head there.”

A few minutes later, we
stood outside the demolished Amadis council hall one last time before
launching into the crisp air. Flying several hundred feet over Earth,
alongside my man, and a deep blue sky above us, should have been an
incredible experience. Although the wind blew through my hair and
against my cheeks in the same way, riding a motorcycle didn’t
come close to comparing to this feeling of freedom and thrilling
release. But the beauty of the day was ruined by the way the sun’s
yellow rays shone brightly down only to fall flat on an iron-black
sea and a gray Earth below. The peace was suffocating, because the
feeling of being the only two people on Earth was more than an
illusion. It was our reality.

I watched the ground
with eagle eyes, searching for any sign of life just in case, but as
expected, I saw none. No fish in the sea. No birds in the sky with
us. No fishing boats out for the restaurants’ catch of the day.
Once we flew over land, no restaurants open or people to go to them
for a night out. Not even a green leaf on a tree or a blade of grass.
Granted, if Tristan was right, winter might have set in, but Greece
had a mild climate. It shouldn’t look like a thin layer of
dirty snow had stained everything an ugly gray.

The smaller villages we
flew over showed wear and tear, but most buildings remained standing.
Still, though, no people. Not a single mind signature to be found. No
cars or buses traveling on the roads or trains chugging through the
countryside. Trucks didn’t carry goods from source to consumer.
As the villages became suburbs and the suburbs the city of Athens, my
breath caught at the sight. Half of the city was blackened from fire,
and the rest destroyed. The ancient structures had been demolished. A
greenish haze hovered over the city with an acrid smell that burnt my
nose and eyes.

My heart sank at the
sight of such loss. Such overwhelming loss. Millions of people should
have been living their lives, going to work or coming home, shopping
for food, picking up children from school, walking dogs, visiting the
Parthenon … going about their normal days or enjoying their
long awaited and much deserved vacations.

So much beauty and
history … so many people … gone
, I thought to
Tristan.

He didn’t answer,
but swooped closer to me, slid his wing over mine so he could reach
my outstretched hand, and gave it a squeeze. Then he pulled me along,
farther west.

You’re sure
about Italy?
I asked him as Athens disappeared behind us.
What
if Satan lied to us? What if what he showed us were mere deceptions?
What if both Noah and Dorian died in the bombs with the rest of the
world?

“
Did you see
Dorian in Heaven?
”

I frowned.
They told
me he didn’t belong there.

“
And he
doesn’t belong in Hell, so he can only be here, somewhere on
Earth.
”

That was pretty much
what I’d concluded before, too, but I wasn’t sure I
trusted Mom, Rina, and Cassandra anymore. Or anyone else, really.
Especially when it came to Dorian.

“
Italy is the
closest option of where Noah could be
,” Tristan continued,
“
so we may as well check there first. Keep your mind
open.
”

Without the millions of
Norman signatures filling my head, my mind could reach much farther
than usual, allowing us to do a quick sweep over southern Italy.
Every now and then, I picked up on some mind signatures, especially
as we approached Rome. All Daemoni, but none Noah.

We headed north from
there, flying nonstop until we hit a snowstorm over the Alps. We
tried to press on, but the wind gusts kept flipping me over and I’d
careen into Tristan. Even he had a hard time fighting the wind, and
when we flew over a castle still standing on a mountainside, we
dipped down to check it out. No mind signatures were around for as
far as my sense could reach.

The castle apparently
had been a hotel most recently, and no guests or caretakers had stuck
around, although it was far from any city that had been bombed. We
gained entry through a side door into the modern, industrialized
kitchen, and found a couple of bottles of soda water and wine, some
jars of olives, anchovies, and artichoke hearts, and a box of
crackers—the only non-perishables in a place that had probably
served gourmet meals made with the freshest of ingredients. The rest
of the food left behind stunk up the place, and we hurried beyond,
through a fancy dining room and into a beautiful sitting room. Well,
it was probably beautiful at one time. Now, it was as gray and ashy
as the rest of the world.