Mists of Velvet (28 page)

Cailleach stared at the man who had dared to enter her chamber. She was in bed, her hair down around her naked shoulders and the sheet pulled tight over her naked breasts.

“You have some explaining to do.”

The man was not really a man. He was an angel—a fallen one.

“I owe you nothing,” she hissed.

He moved so fast that she startled and pressed herself against the headboard. She had sent her
oidhche
out into the night to spy on the mortal. She was alone, and never had she feared the darkness as she did now, with her old nemesis looming above her.

“You always were such a stubborn female.”

Lifting her chin, she gazed deeply into Suriel’s black eyes. “I would not bow to you then, and I will not now.”

Clasping her chin in his hand, he forced her to look at him. “I should have just taken you. Fucked you and showed you who was the greater power.”

“Your coarseness sickens me.”

“You shiver, but I doubt it’s from sickness.”

Flinging his hand from her, Cailleach pulled the sheet tighter to her body. “What do you want, Suriel?”

“What we both want. The flame and the amulet.”

“That’s not all you desire.”

He smiled, that beautiful fallen face lighting up with mystery and menace; sensuality and sin; pleasure and pain. “You know what I want, Cailleach.”

“I do not trust you. You’re evil, Suriel.”

“And you’re not?” His long, tapered finger stroked her cheek and skimmed down her jaw to her shoulder, where he let it trail along her arm. “I know what you did, Cailleach.”

Alarm seized her, and she met his onyx gaze. “You know nothing.”

“You parted them.”

“You do not know what you speak of.”

He laughed as he brushed his fingers back up the length of her arm. Her traitorous nipple hardened, and his gaze slipped down, focusing on it as it pressed against the sheet.

“Two tragic, tortured souls,” he whispered.

“Get out,” she commanded. She was weakening. Her always-strong resolve was slowly unraveling.

“You led Covetina to Uriel. You fed her to the bastard.”

“I did not!”

“Because you wanted Camael for yourself.” He pressed against her, his fingers teasingly resting at the edge of the sheet she clutched to her breasts. “You wear the white of a pure goddess. But you’re not.”

“You know nothing!” she sneered, hating this angel. Of the three, he had always been the most lethal and dangerous; the most difficult to control. Whom was she lying to? She had never controlled Suriel. Even Uriel, with his dark pleasures and his ambition to learn the Dark Arts, was not as dangerous as the angel before her. There was something so very primal and black inside Suriel. She felt it—the hunger for power; for revenge; for all-consuming satisfaction.

“When you discovered that Camael loved Covetina,” he said, moving closer so that his breath whispered across her shoulder, “you flew into a rage. In a jealous, impetuous rage, you tore them apart. You banished her. You knew Uriel was no good, that his heart was impure, and still you led him to her. You knew what he would do to her, but you didn’t care. You wanted Camael.”

Her heart was racing; her breathing fast. He was too close, looming over her, breathing against her.

“She was your handmaiden. You knew her secrets, that she had mastered the Dark Arts. You knew and didn’t care, because all you desired was Camael. You didn’t care that Camael mourned her. You didn’t care that Uriel would rape her.”

She couldn’t listen to any more. Tearing the sheet from the bed, she wrapped it around herself and walked away from him.

“The past has no bearing on what is happening now.”

He stalked her, pressing her into the shadows, against the wall. “You don’t think so? All misdeeds must be atoned for at some point. Yours. Mine. In Annwyn. In heaven. In the mortal realm. It doesn’t matter where or when. Only that it will happen.”

“The flame and the amulet will be found, and none of that will matter.”

“When was it you discovered you needed Covetina’s amulet, Cailleach? Was it after you fed her to Uriel, or was it later, when her child—Uriel’s—told you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He reached for her, pressing his long, tall body against hers. “You sacrificed Covetina, and then you stole her child.”

Her body stilled, and Cailleach looked up into Suriel’s face. “She betrayed me. It was against our laws. Our order.”

“Because she slept with an angel—or because she slept with the angel you wanted?”

To hear the truth from Suriel was more than Cailleach could bear.

“You took her child from her. You assumed that with the combined powers of Covetina and Uriel, the child would be of use to you. Either that, or you feared the child might have skill in the Dark Arts, and you wanted to make certain no one else could use her against you.”

She shook her head, denying it all, but Suriel smiled, enjoying her discomfort. “But what you didn’t know was that Covetina had borne Camael’s babe. In secret, of course, before you banished her.”

No
. Cailleach felt her expression freeze in horror. No, it couldn’t be.

“I didn’t know, and I certainly did not take Camael and Covetina’s child.”

“No,” Suriel said with a dark smile. “I did. But he’ll believe me when I say it was you.”

Cailleach sagged against the stone wall as Suriel looked down at her. “The child has lived and died a hundred times in the mortal realm, and each time her soul is transmigrated to another living being, I watch over it, protecting what is mine—what you need. Do you know whose body Camael’s and Covetina’s daughter claims?” Cailleach shook her head, her mind reeling with the implications that the amulet might be forever out of her reach.

Suriel bent lower and pressed his lips against her ear. “Rowan.”

Cailleach stiffened beneath him. “Why?” she asked, still puzzled that Suriel had even known about Camael and Covetina. She had thought him too busy pursuing his own pleasures to take any interest in what she or the others were doing. “Why did you take their child, and into the mortal realm?”

“To have my revenge on you, of course,” he whispered darkly in her ear. “When you spurned me as a lover, you made an enemy of me, Goddess. I knew that Covetina had given the child her amulet, enchanting it so that it would always follow the child’s soul. And I knew that one day, you would need that amulet. That’s why I wished to possess it—to keep it from you.”

“You bastard!” she snarled. “You would ruin my world—and all the innocents of Annwyn—because I would not mate with you?”

“Why not? You ruined mine. I left heaven because of you. Because I wanted so desperately to taste your flesh. But that was a thousand years ago, and I no longer lust for this body.” His hand moved insolently along her curves, touching, pressing. “It holds no more allure for me. I no longer think about what it would be like to sink myself inside you, or what you would look like sated and languid, your high-and-mighty Supreme Goddess sneer wiped away with my kiss. No, that has all been replaced by my vision of destroying you.”

“You have no powers here,” she hissed. “Your threats are empty.”

“True, I don’t. But I have power over the mortal who is destined to make rise to the prophecy. You can have no idea what power she holds. I can make her obliterate your beloved Annwyn. I can make her walk the path of my choosing.”

“How?”

“Because I am the most commanding angel on Earth. Because I have the power to bring death or resurrection. Because I know what her fate is.”

“That is why Gabriel wants you,” she whispered. Finally, everything was coming together. “Gabriel wants the knowledge you possess.”

“Gabriel won’t get it. And neither will you.”

Cailleach narrowed her eyes. “What is it you want from me?”

With a smile he pushed away from her. Darkness engulfed him, and he stepped back into the shadows. “I’ll let you worry about that for a while longer. Think on all the frightening possibilities, Goddess, and then make your thoughts a hundred times worse. That’s what I want from you.”

The shadow swallowed him up entirely, and then he was gone, leaving Cailleach alone, and for the first time ever, truly frightened. Sliding down the wall to the floor, she clutched the white sheet to her body.

He must never discover the truth about the prophecy. He had been close to the truth but had not quite uncovered it.

Resting her head against the wall, she closed her eyes and thought of Covetina. She had been her handmaiden, her confidante, her best friend. And in a fit of jealousy, she had ruined both their lives, and the lives of two innocent children. Her envy had set the prophecy into motion. Her betrayal of her one true friend had cast a darkness in her heart that Cailleach had never been able to shed.

No one knew of her part in setting about the prophecy—except Suriel. What would he ask for in return for his silence? She shivered. There had been a promise in those dark, obsidian eyes of his. He would be back for her, and she, the Supreme Goddess of Annwyn, dared not refuse whatever it was he wanted—not if she wanted her secret safe.

Rowan rapped quietly against the door for the third time. Obviously Keir was sound asleep; either that, or he wasn’t in the room. She was about to leave when the door opened a crack and Keir peered out. Seeing her, he opened the door a bit more, revealing his gorgeous half-naked body.

Rowan felt her eyes go wide at the sight. She would never, ever get used to seeing him shirtless—all those tattoos and the big, bulging muscles. Her mouth went dry as she looked her fill. Then she reminded herself that Keir was a friend. And that was all he was.

She looked away from the six-pack abs and up to his face, and her heart started racing. The five o’clock shadow he was sporting made him look different, lent him an added air of danger and virility. This was a side of Keir she was certain no one ever saw. He always kept himself calm and in control, but now he looked a bit wild, and oh so gorgeous.

“Are you okay?”

She appreciated the worry she saw in his eyes, but at the same time it irritated her. She was dying, but she wasn’t dead.

“I, ah . . .” she said, wetting her lips, trying not to make it appear that she was checking him out when she obviously was.

“Rowan?”

Even his voice was deeper, more enticing, alluring. Oh, how she wanted him. Despite her past; despite never having been able to enjoy the touch of a man, she wanted him. She wanted so badly for him to be the one to push past her fear and break down the barriers.

“Can I come in?” she asked at last.

His beautiful violet-rimmed eyes flickered with emotion. “I—I don’t think so. Let me get my shirt, and I’ll come out.”

“No, wait”—her hand shot out to hold open the door—“I’d really rather do this in private.”

With obvious reluctance, Keir opened the door and stood back, allowing her into his room—or perhaps “tomb” would have been a more fitting description.

The door closed behind her, clicking into place, thrusting the room into a darker shade of black. The candle flames flickered with the movement of air, and Rowan blinked several times, trying to accustom herself to the darkness.

“Have a seat.”

Keir tossed a stack of books onto the floor, freeing up a chair beside the bed. She cast a glance at the bed and saw that it was a huge antique four-poster. The coverings were black, as were the curtains. The walls were painted black, and even the dozens of burning candles were black.

As she sank down onto the chair, she watched Keir shrug into a white shirt, which he didn’t bother to button.

“You’re nervous.”

“No, I’m just—”

“Nervous,” he said again.

She laughed uneasily. “Just a little. I don’t know why.”

“It’s the black. It affects you.”

“I suppose,” she muttered, looking around the room. “There certainly is a lot of it.” Jeez, it was like something out of a gothic novel, with all the candles and the silk and the black.

“It helps me think,” he said, passing her a glass of water he had just poured from a carafe on a table beside the bed. “There is no distraction, nothing to intrude on my thoughts.”

“What were you doing?”

He waved to a circle on the floor. Tarot cards were spread out in the shape of a Celtic cross. He bent down and picked up a card, passing it to her. “The Empress.”

“And that means?”

“You. She is a powerful psychic; yet she keeps a part of herself hidden—like you.” He glanced at her, then back at the tarot spread. “All the cards are there. Everything about the prophecy; it is there, just waiting to be interpreted—discovered.”

“And which is you?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse. He passed her the card and watched her face.

The card dropped from her fingers, landing faceup on the carpet.