However, his powers were tempered with the weaknesses of his new vampirism. The blinds on the jet had been drawn tight against the deadly rays of the sun, and he’d been forced to sleep during most of the day, as even being awake during daylight hours had become incredibly draining for him.
He was also . . . hungry.
He’d had a few days to contend with the rapid conversion his body underwent, but it still caught him somewhat by surprise. Kevin had tried to satisfy his hunger with various foods, but had found himself unable to ingest the bulk of them—and sick from the few he’d managed to get down. In the end, he had simply given in and allowed his body to dictate his actions.
He’d hunted. Killing humans had always been unnecessary and a little sad. They were so unable to defend themselves, even against one another. For an Adarian, they made pathetic targets, equating to no more than sheep, and for the most part, Adarians steered clear of human matters. But for a vampiric Adarian, a human was quite simply a meal. And that made the kill unpleasant on a whole new level.
Apparently, however, it was absolutely necessary, and it was something he needed to do every night. Because the hunger was back and it was strong.
Kevin was taller than most of his men, but he stood eye to eye with Ely. He turned to face his second-in-command now and pinned him with what he could feel was a more potent gaze than it had ever been. Ely was a brave man; he tried not to flinch. “We’re going out tonight, Ely,” Kevin said, allowing his smile to remain in place. “I’m hungry. And I want to show you what you have to look forward to.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Juliette followed dutifully as Gabriel led her toward the back of Burns’s wood-cabin restaurant. “Mind your step,” he told her softly, helping her over a few outcroppings and stones as they made their way around the building.
Dinner had been amazing. Stuart’s sons had disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving the former Messenger Archangel alone with Juliette. But Gabriel had filled the silence with the adept skill of a two-thousand-year-old storyteller. Juliette, the ethnographer with the background steeped in Caledonia, had hung on every word, soaking up the stories as if they were as life-giving as the food set before her. Gabriel’s deep voice and lilting brogue had coaxed her into some altered state where the past came alive and her body hummed and every bite of food and drink of tea she took tasted like history.
She honestly couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d enjoyed herself more. By the time they’d finished eating, she was in heaven. She remained in that passive, eager state as she and Gabriel came to stand before the locked back door of Stuart’s cabin. Juliette stepped back behind Gabriel as he raised his right arm toward the door and it began to melt away. In its place a portal swirled to life. Juliette recognized the formation now; she’d been sucked through one before.
But beyond the swirling portal, the night winds skated across a mist-laden field and parted to reveal the ruins of a mighty castle overlooking the sea.
Juliette gasped. “Slains Castle!” she exclaimed softly, feeling her toes tingle. “That’s Cruden Bay!” She’d wanted to visit Slains Castle while she was in Scotland, but life had gotten crazy since she’d arrived and Slains was out of the way. She’d more or less given up on it. Slains Castle was the castle that had reputedly inspired Bram Stoker to write his incredibly famous novel, Dracula. She’d heard and read so much about it over the years while doing her research, she had always planned to make it a stop in her travels.
And now there it was, resting like a stone giant, magnificent and poignant against a backdrop of fog and shore and full moon. “It can’t be real,” she found herself whispering.
Gabriel lowered his lips to her ear and she shivered. She hadn’t seen him move to stand behind her. She’d been too caught up in Slains. “That was wha’ I thought when I first laid eyes upon you, lass,” he whispered. “Bu’ you feel real enough to me,” he continued, and his hands found her arms, “an’ that castle has been waitin’ for you for centuries.”
He nudged her then, directing her toward the portal’s opening. Juliette was no longer afraid. Gabriel’s whispered brogue, heated touch, and dark promise had all but chased away any doubts she had ever had about anything in her life. She boldly stepped toward the portal and moved through.
The world tilted around her and she closed her eyes. Gabriel’s strong presence at her back guided her, gentle but firm. A few more steps and she felt the world return to normal. She heard the seagulls again and felt the kiss of fog upon her cheek. The feel of dirt and grass beneath her boots assured her that she had come all the way through.
She opened her eyes and turned around to see a tiny red car sitting alone on a small shoulder beside the road. A sign a few feet away read PASSING PLACE.
She looked back down at the car. Max, the archangels’ guardian, had explained to her early that morning that the archangels could open a portal through the mansion as long as there was a door nearby. Any door. Even a car door would work. Now, as she stared at the little vehicle in the lot, she could only assume that Gabriel had just proved that fact.
“Whose car?” she asked, somewhat breathlessly.
“A rental,” Gabriel chuckled. “Bu’ the wee thing’s seen a lo’ of action tonight.”
Juliette turned and blinked up at him. What does he mean by that? But his expression was mischievously guarded and his silver eyes flashed in the moonlit darkness. Whatever he meant, he wasn’t sharing.
“Come, lass.” He took her hand and began leading her down the long trail that wound around the massive meadow outside Slains Castle. The castle itself stood pale and beige against the dark background of the endless North Sea beyond. It beckoned like a beacon, a proud rising of stone amid a flat, endless field of grass.
The walk to the castle was long and surreal for Juliette. Gabriel didn’t speak beside her; all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, the cries of the gulls, the crashing of the surf on the rocks, and the crunching of their boots on the gravel that had been laid out over the trail to prevent it from drowning in mud.
This night had provided one new experience after another for her. Now she was about to approach the edifice of a long-awaited dream. She was about to step foot into a stone skeleton of history. She almost felt as if she were going to do something wrong. Was it still sacrilege to trample the fossils of memory if you had as much respect for them as Juliette did?
As she walked, her eyes remained glued to the looming fortress. Its empty windows yawned, broken and crumbling. She felt as if they were watching her, eyes of a weathered and put-upon beast, frozen in place and time as the world continued to bustle around it.
At last, they were turning the last bend and approaching the rusted iron gates that failed to protect the crumbling keep from tourists as lovelorn with the past as Juliette. The gate hung open, its lock cracked long ago. Gabriel gently pushed it aside and led her through.
For a moment, Juliette could not breathe. Twenty feet ahead was the foundation of Slains Castle, a monument to everything that she held spiritually dear. And, strangely enough, it even seemed to be glowing.
Juliette stopped in her tracks and frowned. The interior of the ruins appeared to be emitting a kind of light, as if the heart of the castle were alive somehow.
“What—”
“Come with me, Juliette,” Gabriel commanded softly, bending to whisper the words in her ear. His grip on her hand tightened, still gentle, but now firm. The wind picked up around the castle and Juliette blinked when she thought she caught the faintest hint of the edge of a gauzy curtain. It blew into her line of sight—and then was gone.
Her lips parted, her heart beating harder now. Faster. Her legs felt strangely heavy and Gabriel began to tug her across the ancient grounds, closer and closer to the first archway that would lead into the cavernous corridors of the castle’s interior.
“I’m sure you know all of this already,” Gabriel said, as if he weren’t pulling her
inexorably toward the subject of her ambivalent awe. “Bu’ Slains did no’ have to be a ruin. In 1925, the family that owned the castle could no’ pay its fees and had the roof removed to avoid the cost of keepin’ it up.”
He was right. Juliette did know the story. “It was owned by Sir John Ellerman—after the Hay family,” she supplied automatically as her head tilted back and her neck craned. She gazed adoringly up at the wall of brick and stone and mortar before her and experienced a bewildering pang of fear. They’d come to the threshold—another step and she would be inside. This was an old side entrance, long ago made hollow by the destruction and pilfering of anything removable.
Beyond the stone archway lay a long, dark hallway. However, beyond the hallway, from someplace within the labyrinth of stone that she still could not see, there yet emanated a light. It was a gentle glow, warm and inviting.
Again, the wind sailed past her, wrapping around her, and she caught the sound of something that sounded like material rustling—flapping in the breeze. Water crashed upon the shore at the bottom of the notoriously dangerous cliffs that dropped a mere few feet from the castle’s face. Juliette’s head snapped to the side, her hazel eyes searching the darkness of the cliffs. Gabriel was still beside her, allowing her this moment.
What am I looking for? The air tasted like salt, fresh and cold and clean. But she also tasted iron on her tongue.
The wind died back down, leaving the landscape at once quiet. A crackling and popping sound snagged Juliette’s attention. She turned back to the castle’s interior. The glow coming from inside seemed to flicker. She frowned, straining to see.
She took a step forward, breaching the boundary of the castle’s walls. Gabriel moved beside her, steady and slow. As she drew closer, the glow became brighter and the crackling revealed its source to be a fire. Curiosity blossomed within Juliette; her steps quickened. A breeze brushed past, revealing the long filmy line of a gauzy curtain as it once more peeked from around a crumbling wall. I knew it, she thought. Now curiosity hummed through Juliette’s blood, speeding her heart rate and widening her eyes.
She moved faster still, her attention focused solely on the inner rooms ahead. The crackling grew louder, the light brighter, and finally she was turning the corner, rounding a worn stone wall to come face-to-face with the innermost sanctum of Slains Castle.
The courtyard had once held a chapel, hidden deep inside the castle in order to protect the keep’s inhabitants from the deadly bigotry of opposing religious factions. However, the chapel had been laid to waste long ago and the courtyard’s gardens had fallen to seed a hundred years past. All that remained of a once quaint and kept sanctuary were the tread-upon trails made by tourists through the tall grasses—and a spiral staircase.
Juliette glanced at the spiral staircase and then tilted her head, following the strange crackling glow until she was staring up at what was once the castle’s second story. The floor should have been gone, the wooden beams torn down or crumpled in for decades. However, new wooden beams crisscrossed neatly above her, forming a platform of hardwood that should not have existed.
Juliette stared with wide eyes. A four-poster bed rested atop the wooden platform, draped in silks and satins and warm, soft fleece. Rugs covered the wooden beams. A fire danced invitingly in a massive stone hearth. And curtains of gauzy white billowed from empty window frames high above, their long lean lines cascading from the second floor to the ground. It was something out of a dream.
A dream . . .
It was the master’s chamber. Juliette could not help but recognize it. It was as if she had been here before. She didn’t bother fighting the pull it had on her body; she made her way to the staircase and began to climb, painfully aware of Gabriel’s steady presence behind her. The air grew warmer as she rose. It should have been frigid; the wind should have cut right through the hollow eye sockets of the castle’s ancient rooms. But as she reached the top landing and stepped out into the chamber, the warmth from the fire wrapped around her like an embrace.
Torches had been lit and placed in sconces along the ancient ramparts. Tapestries depicting archangels with swords and shields clung to rods along the broken walls. The curtains billowed and popped and the bed waited . . . empty and alluring.
“How is this possible?” she whispered, feeling numb and warm and tingly all at once.
Gabriel bent and whispered in her ear, “We’re angels, lass.” He chuckled softly, his hard body pressed against her back. Juliette’s breath caught when his hand came around to gently cup her chin. He turned her head and leaned over her so that they were eye to eye. “Does it please you?” he asked.
Juliette gazed up into the flashing silver of his eyes and saw storms brewing there. Lightning. His pupils were expanding and the fire in the hearth was rising. Does it please me? Her mind murmured the words and they floated through her consciousness like the sparks of ash that escaped the fireplace. My God, she thought. He turned back time for me. Her breath was shaking, her legs felt like jelly, and there wasn’t an ounce of her any longer that was cold. Gabriel and his world had scorched her being from the inside out. It was now unrecognizable—beautifully, thrillingly, poignantly unrecognizable.
She couldn’t even reply.
But she didn’t have to. Gabriel gazed down into her eyes, knowing her in a way that no other human ever had. Slowly, he came around her until they were facing each other. He never released her chin. He never put more than an inch of space between them. His nearness was becoming as warm as the crackling flames in the stone hearth.
Juliette closed her eyes as Gabriel leaned down; she saw his shadow cross before the moon and then there was darkness and heat and a hint of cinnamon as his lips brushed against hers, his words an incantation of magic that sparked a fire in her veins.
“Mo sheacht míle grá thú,” he whispered, and she understood. Somewhere, deep inside, she understood. He kissed her gently, tenderly, a mere hint of heaven before he kissed the corner of her mouth and then her cheek. His lips hovered near her ear and his body closed the distance between them. She could feel the heat radiating off him. The wind mirrored his moves; the waves hushed on the shore; the seagulls fell silent. He was darkness and ancient power so intricately tied with the land on which he stood, it followed his unspoken command and closed in around her, hypnotizing her—mesmerizing her with its magic.
“Mo ghrá thú,” he whispered. His breath sent a shiver through her, delicious and promising. He groaned and his hand gently fisted in her hair. “Mo ghrá thú,” he said again. This time it was nearly harsh, choked with emotion he could no longer hold at bay.
You are my love, her mind translated. The words floated through her like an aphrodisiac, a potion too powerful to ignore. I love you. . . .
And then his mouth closed over hers. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart leapt as if it would tear from her chest, and a moan worked its way up from somewhere deep inside. Instant fire raced through her veins, burning her from the inside out as Gabriel pulled her fiercely against his body, crushing her with a need that barely mirrored her own.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Azrael had told him that she had a particular fondness for Slains. The vampire had shamelessly pilfered her mind as he’d stolen her from the elevator shaft in Sam’s hotel. When Az had suggested wooing Juliette, Gabriel had forced the vampire to share everything he knew about her before he slipped into his vampire sleep. And Gabriel had run with the information. He and his brothers had worked quickly to re-create just one room in the castle; he’d wanted to give her a piece of the past that she loved so much.
He’d wanted only to show her something special. To see her smile. But when she had gone still before him and he had moved around her to look down into her eyes, she had besieged him. Her thankfulness was too great, too poignant, her understanding far too deep. He’d found himself drowning in the bottomless gratification in her beautiful eyes, and he was done for.
So many things Gabriel had said
to women over the years—so many words he had whispered. But never these. These were for his archess, and her alone. And when they finally—finally—made their way to freedom past the confines of his lips and heart, he was nearly overcome with emotion. A whitewash mixture of relief, heart-wrenching fear, and overwhelming joy swirled within him, blotting out every sense he possessed save the ones that were occupied by Juliette.
He knew only the feel of her lips against his, the smell of her skin, the taste of dessert on her tongue, and the heat radiating from her tiny form as he held her to him—unable to get close enough. He wanted to devour her. He needed to be closer, but physics denied him. His heart was cracking open, his soul was unfolding to life, and the world was crumbling to bits all around him. None of it mattered any longer.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was infinitely grateful that he’d chosen the master chamber to rebuild. With a quick bend, Gabriel was lifting her into his arms. He didn’t allow her to break the kiss; he needed her too badly. If she pulled away even a little, he would surely shatter.
But Juliette didn’t pull away. She didn’t seem to notice that he lifted and carried her toward the master bed. Her lips parted for him, her tongue tentatively explored, and her body melted into his, offering up the sweetest surrender. She was tiny in his arms, precious and tender and fragile, and he wanted her so badly in that moment, he was afraid he would break her.
Two thousand years of searching, of hunting, and of needing came rushing forward as he leaned into the bed, following her down until he was pressing her into the mattress. Still, he didn’t break the kiss. And he couldn’t hold back.