ë Archer - Demon’s Bride

He lowered his mouth to hers, brushing his lips across hers, relearning her feel. Her eyes drifted closed as he took the kiss deeper, lips opening, urging hers to part. She wanted this so badly. When her own mouth opened, allowing him inside, a sound midway between a moan and a growl curled up from deep in his chest, a sound of profound need.

She tasted him, and his flavor was delicious, bittersweet. For he was familiar and strange, wonderful and terrible. Her hands came up to grip his tight biceps. This was as much touch she would allow herself, though she wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him close.

My God, how tenderly he kissed her. His lips spoke to her; she was the center of everything, the origin and the destination. Sweet and profound.

“Trust this,” he whispered against her mouth. “You seek truth. Here it is.”

“A kiss can lie,” she whispered back.

He shook his head. “Not mine. I’ve not the art of a seducer. Nor the words.” He pulled back enough so that their gazes met, and locked. “In all that has happened, in all that I had, you were the truest thing. Only you.”

She felt herself bleeding inside, torn and agonized. What he wanted from her, she did not know she could give. “Leo ...”

Abruptly, he released her and stepped away. Her hands hung in the air as he tugged off his borrowed coat. Waistcoat and shirt followed, all of them tossed to the floor without thought. Until he stood before her, bare-chested but for the bandages.

He turned, and she saw—for only the second time—the markings on his back. The pattern of flames twisted across his shoulders, emphasizing firm muscles. They were almost beautiful, the markings, but for their sinister connotation. They showed he remained the Devil’s possession.

“The marks have grown,” he said, keeping his back to her. “From the first day to now, they have spread over me. I didn’t know why, not until this morning.

“When they cover you, your soul is utterly lost.” The markings coiled down from his shoulders, along his back in a V-shape. A single tongue of flame wound down the length of his spine. Yet the skin of his back was not fully covered by the images. His lower back remained mostly bare, as did the upper curve of his buttocks, just appearing at the waistband of his breeches.

“Even with my gift of prophecy,” he said over his shoulder, “much of what I do on the Exchange involves hours of research, and careful consideration of available facts and knowledge. But instinct is vital, too. I trust my instincts. Always have. They seldom lead me astray.”

He faced her, chin high. “And I trust my instincts now when they tell me that those markings would have covered me by now ... were it not for you.”

She blinked. “Me?”

“You saved my soul.” He spoke plainly, with no embellishment, no uncertainty. “Had you not come into my life, had you not been who you are, my soul would now belong to the Devil. I know this as I know my own heartbeat.”

Slowly, she walked toward him, and he held himself very still. She moved past him, until she faced his back.

Her hand brushed over the slope of his shoulder. He inhaled sharply at the contact. Beneath her touch, his muscles tightened, responsive and alive. He radiated heat. With careful deliberation, she traced the markings, each image of flame drawn upon his skin.

“I wish ...” She followed the marks, trailing down between his shoulder blades, along his spine. The capability of this man, his will made flesh. “I wish you valued yourself more.”

“When I’m with you,” he rasped, “I do. I see what I can become, the better man I might be.”

“Might be,” she echoed. “But will you become that man?”

He shook his head. “The one future I cannot see is my own.”

“Yet you envisioned mine. You touched something that belonged to me, and you saw.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her. Releasing him, she picked up a scattering of pins she had removed from her hair, then placed them in his hand. “Tell me what you see now.”

Reluctance tightened his mouth. “Anne ...”

“Tell me.”

He exhaled. Then his gaze grew distant—the same distance that had come into his eyes when they stood on the banks of the Thames, and he had taken a ribbon from her hair. Fresh anger surged. He had used his magic against her. It felt like a violation.

His gaze sharpened again. “It was ... unclear.”

“No prevarication,” she bit out. “Honesty, Leo. Or there is no moving forward.”

His eyes narrowed. “I am being honest. I saw more demons, and a struggle. I was there, too. But the where and when of it—that I couldn’t tell.”

Her uncertain future held only one certainty: another battle. What transpired between then and now, and what came after—assuming there was an after—that lay in her hands.

She stared down at them, her hands. Not so long ago, they were as dangerous as hothouse lilies, and just as delicate. Now, they contained power. Truly for the first time in her life, she had power.

And she would make use of it.

“What do you want?”

Anne looked from her hands to stare up at Leo. How could she answer that demand, when she could not see through the tempest engulfing her heart? She wanted to pull him close. She wanted to fling him from her. She wanted solitude and she wanted intimacy. It seemed impossible that one person could contain such a multitude of contradictions—yet she did.

She needed to test him, test herself. If she read his innermost self, what would she find there? A text of devotion, or more deceit? She did not know if she could gather the tatters of her own heart and step out into the storm. Or perhaps the silken ties that bound her to him were gone forever. One way to know for certain.

She raised herself up on her toes and kissed him. Deeply.

For a moment, he held himself still, as if afraid to respond and drive her away. Even with tension thrumming through his body, she sensed his restraint, allowing her to find what she needed to discover.

Desire flared through her, and she grew bolder. He groaned as the kiss heated. Not tender, but hungry, their mouths opening, tongues slick. She gripped his shoulders. Their bodies pressed flush against each other. Beneath the fine material of her shift, she felt his whole body—every plane and hewn surface, each sinew underneath satiny flesh. As she burned hotter, his caution ebbed. His large hands cupped her behind, bringing her tight, hip to hip.

Hunger tore through her, stronger than sense or wisdom. Her heart still ached. Words of apology and remorse might suture his betrayal, but the wound remained, and its pain throbbed in time with desire.

She never knew that one could desire someone this way—shredded by loss and sorrow, consumed with wanting. An appetite that grew even as she devoured more and more. She must learn the secrets of his heart, and this urged her on, demanding more.

Gasping, she broke the kiss. Yet she had only just begun. When she tugged him toward the bed, he went willingly, face dark, expression stern.

“Take off your clothes.” Her terse command surprised them both.

He obeyed, unhesitating. His gaze held hers as he tugged off his boots and undid the buttons on his breeches. These he peeled from his body, and then, save for the bandages, he was naked.

“I’ve never seen you this way,” she murmured. “In the light.” Nowhere to hide. Nothing to conceal or disguise.

He understood this moment’s significance. He let her look her fill, and look she did.

She discovered that her husband was stunning. Lean and muscled, his arms hewn, shoulders wide, the surfaces of his chest, scattered with golden hair, the taut ridges of his torso that led to a hard, flat stomach. The line of hair that trailed from his navel. The long, firm muscles of his thighs, the indentations above his buttocks. He was no soft aristocrat, no pampered gentleman. Years of struggle had fashioned his body into something fierce and tough.

She wanted to curse the bandages for obscuring him with their lattice. This was the body of the man with whom she had shared so much pleasure, such profound intimacy. It frightened her, a little, to see what she had known and touched and kissed, as though she had fallen asleep with a hunting dog at her feet and woken up with a wolf.

For all that, he was human, too, as evidenced by the intriguing scars and small collections of freckles. A man of flesh. Her gaze touched upon the scar on his shoulder, given to him by Lord Whitney—a reminder of the tapestry of deceit that had been woven by Leo’s hands.

Something on his calf drew her attention. More markings of flame climbed up the thick muscles.

“Why two sets of markings?”

He glanced away, and she saw the hard beat of his pulse in his throat. “Those came later. The geminus offered me more power.”

Which he did not refuse, clearly. “When?”

“After I made the other investment for your father,” Leo said. “It knew I was wavering. Sought to bind me to the Devil with further temptation.”

That was not so long ago. After the riot at the theater, after both she and Leo had been endangered by the evil he and the other Hellraisers had unleashed. Yet he had given in to the Devil subsequent to all this.

She dragged her gaze back up to his face. He looked like a man ravaged, passion and yearning and regret in his eyes.

Her resolve held. Many questions remained unanswered: what he wanted from her, whether she might salvage the care she once felt for him. She would put them both to the test.