Brimstone Bride. Barbara Hancock J.

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СКАЧАТЬ needed to turn him over to the Order. To free their brethren. If he wasn’t a greedy man who had sold his soul for success, who and what was he? She couldn’t afford to care and yet she was intrigued by him. It was as simple as that.

      “The Turov family has grown grapes here since they fled the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century,” Turov said. He had come to stand beside her. His profile was strong and proud. Anyone unaware of the Brimstone in his blood would assume he spoke of history rather than from personal experience.

      “And you’ve built on what they established,” Victoria said, playing along.

      “In Russia, there’s a saying. ‘You live. You learn.’ I have found this to be true,” Turov said.

      It was a confession, but one that was revealing only if you knew his Brimstone secret.

      He had refined Nightingale Vineyards’s pinot noir since 1918. He. Personally. He had overseen the process of living and learning for one hundred years.

      Michael’s father had been much older, but he’d been a daemon, not a man. Standing beside Adam Turov was different. He wasn’t an immortal creature. He was a human whose life had been extended by selling his soul. How? Why? It didn’t matter. It would be wiser to see him as corrupt and leave it at that. She didn’t need to understand him. She needed only to betray him.

      “Sometimes I feel as if I’ve missed a few lessons along the way,” Victoria said. “Opera is all-consuming. Life is more complicated. Reality is harder to navigate.”

      “You’ll rest here. You’ll recover. There’s something about being surrounded by growing things. It rejuvenates. Even a jaded soul like mine,” Turov said. “Complications fall away. Simplicity reigns.”

      She looked at him then. The house blazed with light behind him. The soft haze from a sliver of moonlight came from the cloudless sky. People laughed. A piano played classical jazz while glasses clinked and indistinct conversation whispered all around. She was most vulnerable when she was seduced into thinking it might be possible for her to relax. Always, after, she regretted her weakness. Her greatest enemy wasn’t someone trying to sell her safety and protection. Her greatest enemy was her wanting what they were selling with all her heart.

      Nowhere was ever safe. Any haven was a lie. Her life would always be too complicated to set down roots.

      “I look forward to relaxing,” she said. She’d played this role a thousand times. The ingénue. Young and naïve. It was impossible to tell what he thought of her performance.

      A figure revealed itself, moving in the shadows of the grounds in between the house and the vineyard. From grass to walkway to grass again, the figure crept.

      The transformation in Turov was absolute. In a nanosecond, he went from cultured host with a hint of the Carpathians in his voice to a no-nonsense ruler whose California kingdom had been breached.

      “Go to your cottage and lock the door. Don’t let anyone in except me,” he ordered.

      He easily vaulted over the rail, dropping a story below onto the manicured grass. The party continued behind her while Turov ran across the lawn. The atmosphere was no longer seductively normal. Now, she strained at noises and squinted at shadows.

      Before Michael was born, she probably would have obeyed such an order. She was no spy. She was no warrior. Before the fire, she could sing. That was all. And now even that was in question. Instead of going back to her cottage, Victoria moved quickly to the stone staircase that led down to the lawn. She couldn’t afford to be the woman she’d been before she’d become a mother. She’d longed for love. She’d longed for life.

      She still longed for those things, but now she wanted them for her baby instead of herself.

      She’d recognized the stocky figure of the monk who was following her. She needed to stop Turov before he confronted the careless man, or her mission would be over before it had begun.

      * * *

      What could be more innocent than strolling through the garden, softly humming under the stars? Her heart pounded. Her steps were hurried and clumsy. She’d chosen her shoes for the party, not for a walk on the loose pebbles of a dimly lit path.

      Still, she hummed.

      She needed to draw Turov away from the monk.

      The tune was scratchy and unused. A few bars from Romeo et Juliet. “Je veux vivre.” “Juliet’s Waltz.” Her hum was rough and unmelodic to her trained ears. She didn’t even know if it would work. She could only try. And pretend her effort was only about distracting Turov from the monk stalking her. The tightness in her chest and the heat of her flushed cheeks against the night air mocked that lie.

      She had to keep Turov from finding out why she was here and inadvertently uncovering her ties to the Order of Samuel. She couldn’t allow him to confront or capture her evil stalker.

      But she also had to know.

      Would her music act as a conduit between her affinity and the power in his Brimstone blood in the same way that Katherine’s cello had called to John Severne?

      From the moment when she’d first heard his voice tonight, she had to know.

      She’d loved Michael, but his power as a full-blood daemon had completely overshadowed any she might possess. Their relationship had been fast and entirely based upon his fire. She’d been eclipsed and consumed by his daemon light.

      And then that light was gone.

      She walked and hummed in the darkness because she suspected there was a different sort of light to be found.

      To be reclaimed.

      Her own.

      The night was silent as the soft noise of the party faded behind her. It was foolhardy to go too far into the darkness without telling anyone where she had gone. She wasn’t dressed for a hike. In addition to the handicap of the heels, her dress was thin and the air was chilled. This wasn’t the stage. If something failed, there wouldn’t be a props manager to fix it. If she forgot her lines, there was no prompter to help her. She’d had no rehearsal to prepare for confronting an evil monk alone in a deserted garden...or a damned man for that matter. What if she encountered Turov on the starlit path with no one else around?

      The idea frightened her, but not only that—there was also a hint of awakening in her quickened heartbeat and her rusty hum. Its tingle felt like an adventure waiting to happen.

      A hard figure crashed into her and a cry replaced her hoarse hum, cut short prematurely by a cruel hand over her mouth. She was held in the hateful grip of the monk who had followed her to Sonoma. She recognized his stocky build and bare head in the moonlight.

      “I have a message for you, D’Arcy. From Father Malachi. You met him in Louisiana. I bet you didn’t realize you were talking to the best and brightest of us all. Father Malachi has chosen me to deliver another warning. We are always. We are watching. Do not distract or delay. Free our brothers before Lucifer’s Army comes with the waxing of the moon. You have one month. Or your son will pay the price.” His spittle-fueled voice dampened her ear. She was crushed breathless by his powerful arms. His words and the physical abuse of his bruising hold made her recall the madness she’d seen in his eyes.

      “Release СКАЧАТЬ