Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Eve was determined to put as much distance as she could between herself and Michaels and rode the Northern Line south until claustrophobia demanded air. The tube doors hissed open, and she pushed her way through the grumbling crowd, up escalators and out into the blissfully cool night.
Instinctively, she knew that the river Thames ran nearby. She’d managed to lock down her own power, but still she could feel the natural energy of the water flowing close at hand. It spoke to her, drew her, and she stumbled toward it. Frustration, fear, and pain fought for supremacy. Her coat flapped around her and the skin on her hands and face stung like she’d been burned by fire.
The embankment hummed with single-minded people, striding for their destinations, the colors of their auras less pronounced out in the open air. Eve wove between them and collapsed against the railing by the river. Water. To be enveloped by it felt like a wonderful, soothing dream. She made to hoist herself over the railing but was too weak to even get one knee up. A hand closed on her shoulder, and she felt the familiar buzz of energy that could mean only one thing.
Lucien.
Relief took her legs from under her and Lucien caught her before she could hit the ground.
“Eve, what the hell has happened?” He lifted her into his arms. Strong and sure, his dark aura enveloping her like a blissful shield from the light.
“He found me, but I fought him off,” she sputtered. Her breath came in gasps and she started to cry, the tumult of emotion she’d been holding in finally breaking free.
“What? Who found you? Who did this to you?” Lucien’s energy increased in pitch to match his voice. “I’ll kill them,” he growled. “Tell me who it was and I’ll kill them.” He looked wildly about as if expecting to see her attacker in hot pursuit, then held her a little way away from him to look into her face for clues.
Eve squinted up. “Michaels. It was Michaels. He’s one of them, isn’t he?”
Rage filled Lucien’s eyes, flashes of red dancing in their depths. “Michaels!” he roared. He pulled Eve in close to his body again, and she looped her arms around him to hold on. The onslaught of light and sound had been made bearable when he’d held her close.
“Where the hell have you been?” Lucien demanded. “I’ve been chasing around the streets, searching.”
“The tube,” Eve managed.
“The Underground, of course. I thought for a while–” He cut himself short. “What does Michaels want, for fuck’s sake?” He scrubbed at his hair.
“He says you want to hurt me. He says I’m in danger.”
Lucien clutched Eve tighter to his chest. “Can he not just fuck off, even for a minute?” he roared and the heads of passers-by turned to stare at them. Lucien hissed at the closest, who doubled their pace to get away.
The heat of fury radiated from Lucien’s chest into Eve as he clutched her to it. “Lucien, please.” The relief of being in his arms was being tempered by the raw sting of her skin. He looked down at her and his expression softened.
“Let’s get out of here. I need to get you somewhere safe.”
And then they were moving, faster than, to Eve, it seemed possible. Perhaps she was falling in and out of consciousness because the scenery went by in a blur. Along the embankment and then crossing the river, riding in a lift and then in an enclosed space she didn’t recognize.
“Stay here for a minute,” Lucien said, “Rest.” He settled her gently on a sofa.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said.
“You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Sleep.”
When Eve awoke, she found herself in a spacious living room. Gingerly, she eased herself into a sitting position. Her face felt tight, like sunburn. She touched her cheek and found the remains of some kind of gel. Lucien had been tending to her while she slept.
She looked around the room. It was someone’s home, Lucien’s, she had to assume. Modern and minimally decorated, it was the antithesis of the chateau. Shining polished marble floors and charcoal grey walls took the place of oak paneling and flagstones. Lucien’s liking for art remained, however. A gigantic canvas in the style of Botticelli’s Mars and Venus spanned most of the facing wall, its original cherubim replaced by cartoon horned devils who lifted the skirts of Venus with their cliché pitch forks. A smile broke over her face.
“That’s more like it.”
Lucien, dressed in faded jeans and a loose black shirt, strode across the room to envelop her in his arms. The fizz of his touch ran over her body. “I was worried about you,” he said.
Eve melted into the familiarity of it. “I was worried about me, too.” She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be enveloped. The eye-watering glare of Michaels aura still burned bright in her memory, along with the associated fear. Here, with her face buried in Lucien’s chest, she could shut out all light. He was a sanctuary from the storm.
Lucien breathed her in and kissed the top of her head. “Tell me what happened? Where did you run into Michaels?” His voice was gentle now.
Eve’s head span with memories. ”I, I could see him, see that his aura was odd. White. I was going home and I could just feel him. When I saw it across the street, I knew it was off, so I made a beeline for the tube to get away. I didn’t know it was Michaels. He followed me and caught up.” She bit at her lip. “The quintessence, I let out a little, but it was hard to control.” She looked up at Lucien and he raised an eyebrow.
“What happened?”
Looking back, it was crazy. She gripped at her own hands and rubbed them together. “The quintessence let me see him, but it ramped up everything else as well. Sounds and smells, everything. It was just so much.” She remembered the disgusting stench of damp coats and urine from the station and suppressed a gag.
“Michaels got in my face on the platform and followed me onto the train. He was trying to warn me off you. Said you were dangerous as if I couldn’t see you for myself.” Eve shook her head and ran a palm down her own face. “This guy on the train tried to intervene and Michaels just got inside his head, and everyone else on the carriage. They all got off. That was when I knew. When I realized Michaels could channel power, too.”
“Did he attack you? I swear he’s gone too far this time. I’m going to kill him.”
Eve held up one hand. “He didn’t exactly do that, no.” She smiled sheepishly. “I may have blasted him out of the back of the train.”
Lucien blinked, then started to laugh. “Christ.”
“Yeah, the quintessence kind of got away from me a bit.”
“A bit! I bet he wasn’t expecting that.”
“Er, no.” Eve stifled a laugh.
“Come on. You need a drink.” He pulled her up from the sofa and over to a table at the edge of the room. Behind it, tall windows looked out across the Thames to the lights of the city on the other side. He poured her a glass of wine.
Eve looked out at the view. Hammersmith bridge stretched across the Thames in plain sight.
Lucien pressed a glass into her hand and raised his own for her to chink against it. “To the victor,” he said, and Eve echoed him. They both took a sip, and Eve’s eyes returned to the bridge.
“I didn’t realize you lived here. It’s so close.” She tailed off. How peculiar that his apartment should be so close to the place where everything had changed. To the place she had thrown herself into the river. Or fallen in. She just didn’t know. Was it significant? She wondered if it might be on some kind of ley line.
“To where it all began,” Lucien said softly.
“Yes.” That had been the moment.
“I thought, perhaps, I might have lost you, before we had even met.”
His words stopped her musings in their tracks. “Lost me? You thought…” She gazed into his face and his expression was odd. Far from the usual confident swagger he displayed, now he had the look of a schoolboy confessing to breaking a window.
“I felt you from here, Eve. Registered the pain, the panic. I knew something was wrong, so disastrously wrong. Just like tonight, I knew you needed me.”
Eve blinked back at him, confused. “You knew? What do you mean?” She felt him in her thoughts, making himself comfortable inside her head.
You have only just learned to do this. Not so for me.
She stared at him, amazed. Memories tumbled into place. The blurry recollections of the stranger who’d saved her. Naked warmth and sensations that had seemed so impossible at the time she’d written them off as some kind of near-death hallucination.
“It was you.” She knew she was blinking at him stupidly, but couldn’t quite stop it. She scrunched up her face and tried to shake some sense into herself. “Why didn’t you say? You should have told me.”
Lucien laughed. “Yeah, that would have gone down well. Hi. You don’t know me, but I’m your long-lost love from multiple past lives and I’ve already seen you naked. How do you do?” He put out his hand and raised his eyebrows innocently at her.
Eve goggled at him.
“You would have dismissed me as a lunatic and run for the hills.”
She took another swig of her wine. “Well, when you put it like that, suppose I might not have believed you.”
“No, you would not.”
Eve took a step back away from him. Lucien had deceived her. From what he said, it was for the sake of her not freaking out, but really, what did she know about him? She looked him over for clues that his aura might reveal. A veil of darkness cloaked his form. There was no light to divine. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was the only person she’d ever seen that appeared to have no aura at all.
“Why can’t I see your aura, Lucien?” Why was he different from everyone else?
Lucien shifted from foot to foot and looked down at his hands. “It is the binding, I think. I am limited, encased somehow. Trapped by the will of the gods.”
That did fit with the other elements they had discussed. The other fantastical parts of this incredible story.
“I’ve been trying to work this out for a long time, Eve. I’ve collected artefacts from all over the world and now, now I think I have what I need. What we need.” His brow furrowed with the strain for a moment. She could feel how desperately he wanted her to believe him.
“Explain.”
“There are runes, symbols of power. Some have healing qualities, others are destructive. Some are for protection. I drew those on you the night I saved you from the river.”
Eve shook her head. “I didn’t have any drawings on me, Lucien.” She would have noticed that, at least. “I really don’t think that you did.”
“You must have realized by now, there are things the average mortal eye cannot see. I can show you if you’ll allow me?”
“Show me my own body?” She squinted at him skeptically, and he nodded. What did she have to lose? “I suppose.”
“It will mean exposing your skin.” He gave her the smallest of shrugs and a whisper of a smile.
There were worse things than taking your clothes off in the presence of Lucien Knight. Eve allowed herself the glimmer of a smile in return. “Where are they?”
The sensations she’d felt in the dark the night after her plunge returned to her. Fingertips had brushed over her skin. Electrifying fingertips.
She pulled off her clothes. Lucien’s eyes ran over her body, and she felt the restrained desire push at the edges of her consciousness.
“There are mirrors in my bedroom.” He took her hand and led her to a second room almost as large as the first, this one dominated by a sumptuous bed. He guided her past it into a dressing room where two full-length mirrors faced each other, allowing a person who stood in between to view themselves from both sides.
“Wait here for a moment. There are a couple of artefacts that will help.” He dashed away and returned with a box, which he set at her feet. Eve looked at herself in the mirror. In just a bra and panties now, most of her skin was exposed. There were no unusual marks that she could see.
Lucien opened the box to reveal the Blades of Sargon, now complete with the Venus dagger and the sun stone. He withdrew from the box the faceted orb of crystal. “Hold this with both hands. The Eye of Shamash . It belonged to the High Priests of the Babylonian court. Only one other like it has ever been discovered, but it was damaged, a whole portion missing.” He seemed giddy with excitement. “Don’t drop it.” He said the last words with a smile, but she could see how seriously he meant them.
Eve grasped it with both hands. “But I left all this with the curators.”
“And I took it back. I needed to examine them.” Lucien quickly removed his own shirt and jeans, so that he too wore only underwear. Eve raised her eyebrows at him. “It’s better this way. Binding and shield displayed together. Trust me.” He shook his head with a faint smile. Lucien put his hands on her shoulders, bowed his head and spoke, soft and low. “ Runicum revelare corporem. ”
She watched the form of his face tighten with concentration. A groove appeared between his eyebrows and the surrounding air thickened as he continued to speak. “ Runarum latitarum palam facere .” A bead of sweat appeared on his brow and rolled down over his cheekbone, around the strong line of his jaw and down his neck to settle in the dip of his collarbone.
Eve’s eyes ran over his chest. Toned and broad, smooth olive skin sparkled with a sheen of sweat. Eve wanted to touch him, but the orb was heavy and required both hands.
He brought his eyes up to meet hers. “I show you the marks of protection I left upon your skin, my queen.” He released her shoulder and moved his hands to hover flat palms an inch away from the orb. The air around him shifted. Ripples in the darkness flowed from him to wash over the surface of the orb onto her hands and up her arms.
Eve glanced up from the orb to his eyes. Golden prisms danced in their depths and she felt herself drawn in, transfixed. He was a sanctuary from the buzz of energy that surrounded her constantly. He quietened the noise whose presence she’d only recognized now that it had gone.
“Lucien,” she breathed.
He touched the orb lightly with his fingertips, and the intensity of energy flow increased. Every nerve ending tingled, and the remembered sensation of fingertips brushed against her skin returned. Every hair stood on end as goosebumps pricked.
“Look,” Lucien said in a low whisper, directing her gaze to the mirror with a nod.
Eve gasped. Her reflection was adorned with glimmering tattoos that moved sinuously over her body, like snakes writhing in the depths of a pit. They were at once both beautiful and terrible, fascinating, and terrifying. Their lines sparkled like stars, leaving no discernible trace in the moments they winked out of existence, yet they existed inside her skin, squirming and alive.
She drew back. “Oh, my god.”
“Don’t be afraid, Eve. I know this looks alien to you, but it is ancient magic. Magic that prevents the Sentinels from finding you. Until today anyway.”
“Sentinels? You mean Michaels? Is that what he is? What does that even mean?”
“He is a foot soldier of the Akkadian Council, here to make sure I stay trapped, Eve. He’s here to keep us apart. Look at me.”
Eve’s eye’s left the mirror to gaze at him. Lucien too was covered with markings. Ancient symbols were tattooed onto his skin. Not sparling and moving like Eves, but solid and cold. They snaked around his arms and legs like iron ropes.
“My bindings,” he said, “I am marked too, but not for protection. For imprisonment.”
He laid his palm on Eve’s cheek and traced her mouth with his thumb. “You can claim me, Eve. There’s a process, and it’s the next step.” He leaned in to kiss her full on the lips and the thrill of his energy rippled away from the place their lips met.
Lucien tipped his head to one side and kissed her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. He pushed the straps of her bra from her shoulders and reached around her back to unclasp it. It fell to hang from her wrists revealing her breasts, their nipples tightened to buds in anticipation of his touch. Swirls of protective tattoo shimmered around them.
He stooped to run his tongue over her skin to find one nipple, then the other, lapping and sucking while she flexed involuntarily, aching for his hands to run over her skin. She looked at the mirror and watched as he lowered himself to his knees, kissing her stomach, his tongue circling. The glittering runes pulsated with her heartbeat. Or was it his?
He took the orb to free her hands and placed it carefully on the floor. Now her fingers could grasp his hair and keep him close. She wanted to claim him. His touch rippled over her body, riding the energy of protection, and feeding her senses like nothing else she had ever experienced.
Lucien’s hands ran down her back and gripped at her bottom to knead her flesh.
“God, I’ve missed you,” she said in a dry whisper.
Lucien chuckled. “Not your god. Not yet.” He laughed again and seemed to find fresh energy from her words. He tugged her panties down, then guided her feet apart to run both hands up the inside of her calves, her thighs and then to stroke between her legs. Eve moaned at the sensation and, as he found his way through the soft down to massage her in light circles, she knew she never wanted to be parted from him again.
Lucien caressed her with his mouth, sucking and flicking, the tip of his tongue all too briefly finding its way inside. Ripples of exquisite pleasure washed out from her center to brush across her breasts and Eve thought that much more of this, and her legs might just give way.
Imagine this with the quintessence fully engaged.
Lucien seemed to hear her. “Perhaps you shouldn’t stand up.” He reached up his hands to take hers and she knelt before him, a fellow pilgrim of desire at prayer.
His eyes were darkness. Onyx pools that pulled in the room's light to be lost in their depths. She kissed him, slowly at first, then with a fever, reveling in the sensation of his skin against hers. She pressed herself against him and felt the hard shaft of his cock pressing into her stomach. Her hands went to it, instinctively tracing its length.
“Are you mine, Lucien?” she asked, and Lucien let out a low groan.
“Yours for the taking, my queen,” he said, and Eve pushed him onto his back so that she could climb astride and claim what was hers.
Lucien arched his back and then pressed the hard bulge of his crotch against her, but still they were separated by a layer of fabric. Eve levered herself up to tear it away. Now both were entirely naked but for the pendant that laid on her chest. She straddled him again.
“You must draw your rune on my chest, Eve. Brand me with your mark,” Lucien hissed.
My mark?
But then she knew what it would be—the 8-pointed star, the star of Ishtar.
She put her finger to his chest and traced the shape, but Lucien laid his hand over hers to stop her. With the other, he drew a dagger from the box, the Venus blade. “With this,” he said.
Eve took it and examined the point. The blade was keen, but it would be possible to go lightly. It hummed in her hand, desperate to be used.
She placed the point on his chest, and Lucien squirmed with pleasure beneath her. The tip of his cock pulsating at her entrance. She dragged the knife across his skin and ground her hips down onto him. Lucien flexed and his member glided along the moisture of her body to press tantalizing against her, almost inside but not quite.
She swept the blade lightly to draw another line, and Lucien flexed the other way. Eve pressed down onto him again, but still he did not slide inside. She drew the blade across his skin again and he flexed again, still not breaching her.
“Harder,” he hissed, “Press harder.”
Her eyes met his.
“The blade, my queen.”
“I want you inside me,” she purred.
“Harder, then.” He pulsed his hips and Eve pressed the knife against his skin a little harder as she dragged it. Pink welts raised in its wake.
“Yes. Again.”
She scored another line. This time, the smallest droplet of blood popped from the broken skin.
“Yes. Harder.”
She ground down, and Lucien’s hands took hold of her hips. He eased her forward and back. His wonderfully hard cock was so tantalizingly close and gliding against her. He held her there, the tip of him just finding the soft welcoming flesh of her inside. She tried to slide on to him, but he held her firm.
“Harder,” he hissed, and Eve pressed the knife into his skin to draw a thin line of red across his chest. “Yes.” He pulled Eve down onto him and she cried out at the relief of finally taking him inside.
She swept the knife again, and he pushed her away to thrust into her again.
“Harder,” she said and caught his eye.
A wicked smile came to his lips. “I am at your command.” He pulled her down and thrust to fill her completely.
She slashed the knife across his chest to complete the star and then threw the blade aside. She dipped to kiss the spot on his chest now scored and raw and Lucien thrust into her again and again, slow and deep. Delicious friction and the fizz of their energy built around them. He guided her hips, the full length of him sliding in and out, over and over. Energy fizzed in Eve’s skin, the runes she had just discovered squirming with pleasure at the proximity of their maker. Every nerve was alive with desire. Lucien was everything. Lucien completed her. The missing piece she’d not known existed until now. His body inside hers. Her body: an extension of his. Their essence swirled and merged. She rode him in ascending ecstasy, pleasure and desire dancing together, higher and higher until she could contain it no more and the tension inside her broke. She juddered and faltered.
“Yes.” Lucien gripped her hips tighter still, plunging into her, extending the exquisite waves, until he, too, shuddered in release. Eve looked down at his glistening body, slick with sweat and smeared with blood. Her mark was on him now.
“You are mine,” she said.