The Demoness of Waking Dreams (17 page)

With her other hand, she pointed, and he shifted his gaze from her face for an instant, looking up at the ornate covered bridge that arched overhead. He turned back to look at her, watched the last play of moonlight on her face turning to shadow as they passed beneath the bridge. Utterly without thinking, he leaned forward and closed the distance between them. With a brush of his fingers on the side of her jawline, turned her face toward him.

You’re on a mission here,
said his mind.
You must retain all your faculties of reason.

Kiss her,
screamed his gut.

So he kissed her.

A mere graze of his lips against hers, a flutter of contact as light as her butterfly touch. But he felt it as a visceral jolt, that intimate connection of skin against moist skin, a shock that resounded in the depths of his being. He felt as though he had shifted into another reality, one that seemed as volatile and ephemeral as a dreamspace.

He felt her gasp.

Felt her lips part beneath his, felt her sharp intake of breath. Felt her mouth quiver against his before she went completely and utterly still. After a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, her breath escaped on a sigh so faint that it was almost outside the realm of perception.

Am I awake, or am I dreaming?
he wondered.

The butterfly effect sprang to mind—the theory that something as light as a butterfly’s wing could change everything. That the mere presence of one small insect could alter weather patterns. Could lead to the creation or the absence of a hurricane, for instance.

What about a firefly?
he wondered.

Whether it could or not, a hurricane sweep of desire was building inside Brandon, generated by that kiss. That gentle contact had stirred an internal fire that flared and raged, aching to get out. It was a desire he fought against with all the discipline of his calling, wrestling with his unruly passions.

From somewhere deep inside himself, a little voice said,
Perhaps this kiss could change everything…

He promptly dismissed the notion, laughing a little to himself at the ridiculousness of it.

And was brought back into the here and now by the action of Luciana’s hand as it fell away from his shoulder in a jerky motion, almost as though her body had entered a state of shock.

“Why did you do that?” she said.

Her face had gone a pallid shade of white, even paler than her usual coloring.

Blinking up at him, she seemed flustered, confused.

To Brandon, she looked not as though she’d seen a ghost, but as though she
was
one. An apparition struggling to maintain her grasp on her earthly form, perhaps about to leave it. As far as he knew, she lacked the power to dematerialize. As bound to her physical body as he was to his, Luciana nonetheless looked like she might evaporate on the spot.

Instead of answering her, he kissed her again. As his lips descended onto hers, all thinking stopped entirely. And feeling took over.

Chapter Eight

I
n Luciana’s gut, panic rose.

“Stop,” she instructed the gondolier. “I need to get off immediately.”

Reaching into her purse, she flung a fistful of euros at him.

Then she took off into the streets, walking quickly, wanting to get as far away from Brandon as possible. Wanting to erase that kiss from her lips, the memory of it, the fact that it had ever happened. Wanting to erase the feeling that he had somehow trapped her into the most horrible thing that could happen to a woman like her.

Love.

Brandon followed, his stride even and unhurried, keeping up with her easily as she flitted through the passageways.

They passed beneath a carved relief of a dragon slayer with his spear.

He grabbed her arm, stopping her.

“
San Giorgio,”
she spat out. “He is everywhere here in Venice. But where is he now? Will he help you slay the dragon and save the maiden? Do you even know which is which?”

Do I know which I am?
she wondered.
Am I the dragon or the maiden? Am I both?

“Right now, looking into your eyes, I can tell what you think of me,” Luciana said fiercely. “That there is something fragile and innocent inside of me that needs to be saved. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

He didn’t answer.

“Perhaps it’s
you
who need to be saved,” she taunted. “There is something dark within you. I can feel it. Something yearning for release.”

It was very quiet here in the street, with the silence of sleeping Venice surrounding them.

He backed her into a dark doorway, beneath a stone arch that could have belonged to a private home, a shop or a restaurant—it hardly mattered to her which. All that mattered was
him.
He pressed into her, trapping her body against the door.

She felt a tremble run through her own body as his lips brushed over hers, gentle at first.

And then not gentle.

Seeking, demanding, a pent-up fire in him fiercely seizing her mouth. Burning.

As it was, pinned between his body and that door, there was nowhere to move.

Nowhere to go.

Yet inside, she had taken flight. The heady rush of desire—or was it his muscled arm—lifted her so that she was off one foot, her thighs opening for him, one leg lifting to ride his hip. His hands held her, lifting her off her feet entirely, bracing her against the door. His fingers dug into the backs of her slim thighs as he ground his hardened cock against the softest, darkest place of her. The only thing separating the most intimate joining was the barrier of their clothing, the zippered fly of his jeans and the thin silk of her panties.

Darkness. Her territory.

And yet, here on the familiar streets of Venice, she felt as though she were venturing on to new ground entirely, here in the arms of this man. Of this angel.

She slipped her hand between them, rubbed the flat of her palm against the hard, hot bulge behind the fabric of his jeans.

She wanted him inside her.

He groaned, throbbing in her hand, pulsing in her palm as though he might explode any minute.

Power.
The balance had shifted back to her, the epicenter of her control held in the palm of her hand, in her fingers wrapped around this gloriously hard erection of his.

He kissed her, more deeply, a deep, guttural groan vibrating through her. His hand slid up her throat, caressing, his thumb rubbing against the pulse point there.

How easy it would be to simply unzip his fly, she knew. Free the hard length of him. Guide him to herself and open for him. And then feel him sliding into her, the girth of him filling that void inside her, the power of that connection shared between them in the most intimate way possible.

She opened her eyes.

Madness. Absolute and unquestionable.

Yes.

* * *

They stood in that darkened doorway, learning each other’s bodies, the contact of each other so heightened and new, as though they had entered some other world.

The dark pull of her was an attraction that made Brandon think thoughts he had never even imagined before. Sensual images of the two of them flickered through his mind. Sweat-slicked in the height of fervor, joined in the most intimate and sacred of ways, their bodies moving together as they reached for the state of ecstasy.

As their lips met again, he resisted the urge to press farther, his body aching to push into hers, already flush against the door. No fireworks tonight, but the explosion of lust inside of him detonated.

Desire radiated through him, hot and pure. Slipped into his bloodstream faster than any poison. More potent than any drug. More dangerous than death itself.

Then Brandon broke off the kiss.

From the shadows of that doorway he saw a figure high above them, silhouetted by moonlight. Up among the statues on the top of St. Mark’s Basilica, was the Archangel Michael.

Brandon saw him now. And so did Luciana.

The Archangel circled down from the dark heavens, wings outstretched, more monumental than any statue, more glorious than any painting ever managed to portray him. A myriad of colors undulated in his wings; a dazzling display of light poured from him as he approached, circling down from the sky overhead.

Brandon let go of the demoness. She ran, her dark hair swirling around her as she turned to look back at him, green eyes glittering in the darkness. The sound of her footsteps, quick strike of her heels on the uneven cobblestones, faded into the alleyway as she turned a corner and disappeared.

And Brandon turned to face Michael as the Archangel landed in the empty street.

The single being, aside from God himself, who had authority over him.

The one Brandon resisted the most.

On the night Brandon had died, Michael had answered his prayer. Lying there in the filth of the back alley, bleeding out on the pavement, Michael had drifted down to collect him. Not clad in the traditional armor with sword and shield, like the statues scattered around this city, or the old paintings that existed of him. But in a leather jacket and jeans.

There was a reason they normally communicated through text messages, not face-to-face.

You guided me into the afterlife, ordained my soul into the order of the angels. And I never forgave you for it.

“I haven’t seen you in person for a while,” said Brandon. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Michael looked calmly in the direction the demoness had fled. “You need help.”

“She was in my grasp,” Brandon said. “I almost had her.”

“No, Brandon,” Michael said casually, folding his wings back down, taking on an appearance that was almost human. A glowing, ethereal human. “
She
almost had
you.
”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I have come not just as an Archangel. Not just as your boss. But as someone who cares for you and is concerned for your well-being.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

If you cared so much, why did you let me die?

If you cared so much, why do you allow me to suffer every night?

The questions hung between them, as they always did when Brandon and Michael met.

“I do care. I care about you, and I care about this mission. You must accept help. You have surpassed the point at which you can handle this assignment alone.”

“She’s just one demon.”

The doubts began again in his mind, spurred on by the things Luciana had said tonight.

“Maybe I’m not good,” he gritted, hating to say the words aloud to Michael. But there was no one else to whom he could turn for guidance. “There’s a part of me that wants her. Wants the things I gave up to become an angel. Even a divine calling cannot make up for the things I left behind.”

“I understand if you’re upset about your human death. But haven’t you seen that death is not the end? I’ve tried to show you that time and again. Each of your assignments has been leading to a point, which is to give you further wisdom about this world. Not everything is the way it appears. Nothing is static.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you don’t have all the information. You aren’t meant to know the circumstances surrounding your human death at this time. You have been told that countless times since you were ordained. Leave it alone.”

“What’s the point of all this? Of being stuck in this physical body?”

“Being sent back in a physical incarnation allows you to continue to understand humans. For example, I, who am so removed from the earth and from physical form, cannot help them in the same way that you do.”

“Those are crap reasons,” Brandon said. “Basically, what your answers have taught me is not to trust you. And that
you
don’t trust
me.
”

“You know that’s not the case. We trust you implicitly. Right now, that’s not the issue. I simply came here to warn you. Luciana Rossetti is close to tearing a hole in your consciousness. You don’t seem to recognize how much power she can wield, given the opportunity.”

“Then why did you assign me to this case?”

“It’s an opportunity for both you and Luciana to grow.”

“Then let me do it my way,” Brandon said. “Until you can prove to me that it’s not working.”

“You’re not the one calling the shots here, Brandon. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your mission,” Michael chided. “I’m not going to micromanage you. But Luciana is very persuasive, and you are in grave danger of losing your grounding. I’m giving you two more days to do things your way. And then the Archangels will step in and take over.”

Brandon didn’t answer, but simply turned and walked away, leaving the Archangel standing in the quiet street.

* * *

Luciana slammed the door behind her when she returned home. Breathless, she leaned against it, grateful that she had escaped once again.

From an Archangel. Impossible.

Venice was full of their images. You could barely swing a cat without hitting a picture of a saint in this city, but they didn’t expose themselves very often. At least not to her eyes.

In fact, the total number of times she had actually seen one before was zero.

The Gatekeepers were gathered in the front room, discussing heatedly amongst themselves. The conversation stopped, and they all turned to look when she entered.

“Violetta has not come back yet,” Massimo said, pacing back and forth. “It was a mistake, sending that girl out there. She was not ours to begin with. She should never have been kept here. We should have found some way to help her pass on immediately.”

“Stop worrying about her,” Luciana snapped. “She’s a ghost, not a lost puppy. We have much more pressing things to worry about.”

“Where were
you
tonight?” he asked.

“I had a run-in with the angels.”

“Angels, as in plural?” Massimo’s green eyes widened.

She briefly recounted her encounter with the Archangel and fleeing from Brandon.

The Gatekeepers would never dare speak it, but a question hung in the air, poised among all of them.

Why didn’t you kill him tonight?

“You must find a way to end him quickly,” Massimo said quietly. “Without hesitation.”

“Yes,” she said, pressing her eyes closed, swallowing down the feeling of her own failure. “I know that.”

“You’ve said many times that demons cannot love.”

“Love has nothing to do with any of this,” she said, her temper flaring. “Don’t presume to think that it does.”

“Of course,
baronessa,
” he said.

With a bow, he departed, and she heard him go downstairs to his own quarters, close his door with a small sound. The other Gatekeepers, not knowing what to do without his guidance, dispersed to their own rooms, too, muttering to one another as they went.

Immediately, she regretted snapping at him.

Downstairs, Violetta began to sing, a soaring aria that spiraled up through the old stone. Eerie, but in its oddness, more beautiful than any human voice Luciana had ever heard.
So she made it back after all.
A strange sense of relief washed over the demoness, although why she should care about the girl, she didn’t know.

Massimo is right,
she knew.
My resolve is slipping.

For almost two and a half centuries, she had navigated this city with finesse. Gliding through its streets and taking what she needed, relishing in her feats under the cover of night. She had climbed her way out of hell and rebuilt her household. She had maintained that household with all the dignity of the noble name to which she had been born.