Page 140 of Commanding Flame and Shield
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Her face said enough when we walked into the empty infirmary. Not good. Saraya sat at her steel workstation, microscopes and samples and enlargements neatly lined out in front of her. Stress lined between her eyes and her brow seemed permanently furrowed.
“Nothing?” The breath left my body as her eyes widened desperately.
“Well…not nothing. But not…anything workable.” She flashed me an apologetic wince. “The good news or the bad news?”
“Bad.”
“I don’t see how we can weaponize it.” Saraya had shifted into doctor voice, her face schooled into calculative neutrality. Aren swore under his breath.
“Okay. And the good news?”
“I know how to neutralize it.” She took a breath and I stared at her expectantly. “It’s him, Alvara.” When I blinked, she opened her mind, and like the shattering of a small dam, I saw it all.
FIFTY-SIX
SANCTUARY
AUGUST
We both slept fitfully that night, still sharing a bed, just banished to opposite sides of it, tucked between different layers of sheets. Alvara was right, the energy needed for a soul bound reading would be…immense. And she sincerely felt we’d need days to do it right—to see it all.
Alvara was usually right...
So, I let it be. Let it be, despite every instinct telling me to soothe her restless sleep. To stroke her hair, her face, her neck, to pull her from those nightmares with my lips. To worship her—body and soul—and claim her pleasure as I brought her release. To do it again and again until her limbs went numb, and she could actually rest. Rather than easing the tension, our stolen kisses had ignited a goddamned inferno that I knew couldn’t be sated with anything short of connecting in the most primal fucking way. We needed to give each other everything.
Instead, I just laid there, glaring at the dark canopy of her four-poster bed.
My heart had been a steady race since Saraya had shown us what she knew. The drug in Alvara’s blood wasn’t a drug at all—but a separate strand of DNA. Nephilim DNA. Agamemnon’s, as far as we could tell.
Aren said The Reapers had only been able to strip powers when they were within close proximity to their victim. It seemed Agamemnon was learning how to strip them at a distance. And Alvara had been his guinea pig. Saraya’s fear was that she was too far behind to understand how they intended to weaponize him on an entire host of our souls. She hadn’t a clue, and didn’t show any sign of sleeping until she could solve it.
Evidently, I would have been better off working beside her, then tossing all night. We had to solve this. Had to outmaneuver this bastard, no matter what it took. The air crushed from my lungs under the weight of it.
Resigned to torturing myself, I reclaimed the gap between me and Ally, curling my body around hers, wrapping my arms around her ribs, relishing the way she leaned into me, and inhaling her smell. Alvara arched her tight little ass back into my groin and my cock jerked as every drop of blood rushed to it.Goddamn. But then Alvara moaned, the sound breathless and throaty, even in sleep.
“August.” It was just a breath. But every single muscle in my body went rigid. Another slow, heady groan slipped between her lips and my blood began pounding. I fucking needed this woman more than the air in my frantic lungs, my cock so hard it was painful.
Fuuuck. In two swift motions, I was off the bed, and in another, I’d cleared the doorway.
They’d left the Christmas decorations scattered throughout the temple after midnight mass. With glowing candles everywhere, flickering off each gold surface, the sacred space soothed my frayed nerves incrementally. Even the incense smelled familiar, like home, vaguely of pine and cinnamon. I’d attempted to dump my baggage here during service, but the weight of it had only grown heavier as the evening wore on.
I’d never been a religious man, never cared for the structure or the rules. But as my knees met the marble, breath still coming in ragged little pants, I turned my face up to the looming alter, and prayed. Something cool tingled through my veins, sending chills across my skin, like peace had washed me clean. I breathed it in—that peace, the rare moment of solitude.
The weight of this reality was suffocating, even as I tried to bleed it into the stone floor. “Please,” I mumbled, voice cracking. “Don’t take her from me. Not when we just found each other.” Voice rough, I swallowed thickly. “Tell me how to save us.”
Someone cleared their throat, and when I turned over my shoulder, I found Ansel watching me from the back pew, his elbows braced on his knees and eyes shadowed in the candlelight. A muscle in his jaw feathered, brow furrowed in understanding. He gave me a nod of acknowledgement and rose on a heel to leave the room.
It was long after four in the morning when I finally found sleep.
* * *
Her whisper tickled against my ear. “Merry Christmas, August Porter.”
Slowly, begrudgingly, my eyes opened. She was glowing, not just literally, as the sun streamed in behind her, illuminating her in a halo of light. But she was smiling radiantly, her entire body doing the same. The smell of baked goods and coffee caught me next. Seeing the observation in my mind, she turned behind her and summoned a plateful. Donuts and puffed pastry and hand pies, all as beautiful as the ritziest magazine.
I straightened up, stretching and yawning. She giggled softly, and bit into one of the donuts. “Morning sleepy head. No rest?” She inclined her head to the side. I shook my own. “Well, we have stimulants, and an ungodly amount of sugar. Hopefully it will make up for it.”
