AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Temptation, Sajia thought, unable to keep from glancing at Addai to see if his attention was riveted to the part of the woman’s skirt and the flash of her nether lips.
His eyes met hers, and he laughed before visually caressing her, scorching her as his gaze traveled the length of her body. I have not waited thousands of years for your return to settle for transitory pleasure now, he said, the words as clear in her mind as if he’d spoken them out loud.
“How are you able to do that?”
“We are all born with gifts.” And you are my wife.
Denial sprang to her lips. He prevented it from taking form in the spoken word by halting and covering her mouth with his, his tongue thrusting, his hunger stealing her breath, stealing her will, her very soul.
Carnal images slid into her mind, serving as temptation and enticement. Not memories of a past she couldn’t remember, but of the future he intended, where the distinction between the worshipped and the one who did so was blurred and indistinct.
Her breasts swelled and nipples tightened. Arousal flowed from her slit, wetting her inner thighs as her cunt clenched and unclenched.
The sound of clapping brought her back to reality with a jolt. She wanted to blame her loss of awareness on the decadent environment, the insidious lure of air scented with opium and sex. But she wasn’t an accomplished liar, and she’d never practiced it on herself.
Addai released Sajia, reluctantly, regretting the impulse to silence her with passion. It would prove to be a mistake on his part, of that he was positive as he turned toward one of the Fallen, acknowledging the man’s presence with the use of his name, “Rimmon.”
“Lord Rimmon.”
Addai laughed. With a sweeping gesture of his arm to encompass the humans lingering in the hallway and visible through the doorways of the rooms lining it, he said, “Perhaps to those who come here to worship in your temple.”
“Are you not one of them, Addai?” The single emerald green eye in the Fallen’s burn-scarred face settled on Sajia, though nothing of his gaze revealed whether or not he could see the angelic script written on her skin. “She is quite lovely. Do you intend to join me in my sin, or did you bring her as a gift and then think to make me hunger to take possession of her?”
Rimmon’s smile became sly. “I am not averse to sharing her with you if you don’t want to give up your prize completely. It would be like the days of old, though if my memory serves, you preferred to wield a sword of a different kind than I, and the screams arising from your presence stemmed from terror instead of ecstasy.”
Addai fought against issuing a threat he couldn’t deliver on. There were repercussions for killing his kind, even one of the Fallen. “Did your burning plunge from grace lead to this?” he asked, taking the offensive, once again indicating the mass of humans with a sweep of his arm. “Do you now conduct all your business with an audience present? If so, I’m happy to accommodate you. Saril is the reason I’m here.”
All amusement left Rimmon. In a blink the look in his eye was as cold as his origins, the light glinting off it providing a glimpse of the power he’d once commanded. “Come,” he said, turning his back and walking away.
He led them past rooms where men and women engaged in sexual acts while others watched, past those with rail-thin humans who favored the touch of an opium pipe against their lips to flesh or food, and still more where the occupants crowded around gaming tables.
They passed through an area serving drink and vicarious violence via television before entering a private room, a parlor decorated in furniture to match the age of the Victorian, though Addai doubted the view through the glassed wall would have been common in any house save a brothel.
“Your private dungeon?” he asked.
“Ecstasy achieved through the redemptive power of punishment—surely you can understand how such a thing might appeal to me.”
Addai guided Sajia to a couch upholstered in French silk moiré, urging her to sit and taking up a position next to her. He draped his arm along the couch back in a casual gesture, though he felt far from calm at having Sajia with him in this place and this company.
Rimmon claimed the chair across from her, pulling it closer and making Addai ball his hand into a fist against the urge to call his sword to him. With privacy restored, Rimmon probably intended to taunt with a slow visual study of Sajia, but his eye settled on her arm and the vampire scarring there, then lifted to meet Addai’s. “You keep interesting company.”
Addai didn’t rise to the bait. Instead he said, “What’s your price for access to Saril? I have need of a Finder.”
The emerald green eye narrowed, pulling on the scar tissue around it before the sly smile returned. “Seeing you makes me think of another of my recent visitors. Tir, he called himself. Th
ere’s a certain similarity in look.”
Rimmon’s eye flicked to Sajia. “And situation. A brother of yours, perhaps? Though it could be argued we are all brothers even if some of us have so much further to fall and become forgotten. When last I saw him, he wore a collar of enslavement. I wonder if you believe his punishment fits his crime.”
“He is free of it now.”
“Ah. That explains how you know of Saril. He healed her in exchange for something I could provide. And now you want something from her. Divine intervention, I wonder? Or the vagaries of fate?”
Rimmon lifted a hand to his scarred face. “Had my daughter’s life not hung in the balance between life and death, I might have asked Tir to restore me to my former glory. But from you . . . I have never heard it said that you offer anything but death.”
His good eye returned to Sajia, this time undressing her, clearly imagining her in his bed.
Addai wasn’t able to stop himself. He opened clenched fingers and his sword was there, hungry for the blood of the Fallen. “Death is still mine to offer.”
