Barbara J. Hancock - Brimstone Bride

He liked to think he escorted them to their just ends, one monk at a time. He might never reclaim the soul he’d sold, but he could face his own damnation one day if he delivered every single monk to hell before him.

“No, not an angel. You are more like the legendary firebird caught in a greedy prince’s golden cage,” the doctor said. “You will insist on attending the party, I’m sure. Movement will cause great pain. That was a deep wound. You should rest. Heal.”

The doctor was already wiping Brimstone blood and ash from Adam’s lean, muscled back in preparation for the evening suit that waited across the foot of his bed. It was a disguise. He used the expensive, tailored clothes and the carefully cultivated sophistication of a vintner to hide his true warrior’s nature.

But he’d been hiding it for so long that his disguise came naturally to him now. He ran the Nightingale Vineyards as easily as he battled evil monks.

“I prefer the nightingale to the firebird, Doctor. The firebird was my mother’s favorite. I named our best pinot noir in her honor. There’s nothing golden about me. I’m far too dark for that comparison,” Adam said.

“Ah, but you’re forgetting how the prince was cursed by the firebird for his greed. Capturing the firebird was a mistake. It proved deadly. A dark enough tale, indeed,” the doctor said.

“Nothing heals more than movement,” Adam said, dismissing the fanciful talk. He rolled his shoulders to illustrate. The doctor hissed, but Adam ignored the agony that flared outward from his damaged skin. “We must keep moving forward.”

He’d been damaged for a long time. Agony was a familiar friend.

He’d been nine when the Order had stolen him from his family. He’d been infinitely older when he’d escaped. In experience if not in years.

“Victoria D’Arcy is arriving tonight. That’s why I completed a sweep. To clear the area so I could focus on her,” Adam said.

The doctor busied himself, cleaning his instruments and packing his case while Adam dressed. His bag resembled a traditional black leather satchel, but it held the instruments necessary to be the private physician to a powerful man who’d sold his soul a hundred years ago. Dr. Verenich was the second-generation descendant of a physician who had followed the Turov family to America.

“You must protect her?” the doctor asked.

“Those are my orders. I haven’t decided if I’ll be able to follow them,” Adam said. She’d been hunted by the Order of Samuel. They were her enemy, but she was their pawn. She wasn’t coming to the Turov estate as his friend. Adam had been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, programmed to become a daemon slayer so that he could be used by Rogue daemons to overthrow Lucifer. But it had been a Loyalist daemon that had saved him. And it was the new Loyalist king that he now served.

A daemon that claimed Victoria D’Arcy as his stepchild.

He’d been warned by the daemon king that the Order of Samuel was sending Victoria to infiltrate Nightingale Vineyards and uncover his secrets.

The woman he welcomed tonight might well be the most dangerous threat he’d ever faced. He was supposed to help her even as she planned to betray him.

* * *

She was afraid. Fear always made her angry. She rebelled against it. How many times had she stood on an opera house stage bathed in light and draped in a character’s costume—completely armored in powder, wig and an imaginary persona—to sing out in protest against her plight? She had fallen in love with a daemon. She’d gone against the Order of Samuel. She had survived. The father of her baby hadn’t. The Order had killed him. She’d barely lived. For their baby.

Everything had changed when Michael was born. She was no longer a rebel. She was a mother. Now she had to be cautious for two.

Tonight, as she hurried toward Nightingale Vineyards, more than her voice was lost. It was as if her very heart had been ripped from her chest and it beat elsewhere. Slowly, steadily, but threatened; each beat might be its last if she didn’t do as she was told. The new leader of the Order of Samuel, Father Malachi, held her strings and she was a puppet who could dance only to evil’s song.

She’d flown into California in a plain summer suit of black linen. The gray shell sweater underneath the blazer stretched loosely to brush the top of her thighs. As she was only five foot three, it didn’t have to stretch far. She’d pulled an oversize black fedora low over her eyes. Only her heels and handbag betrayed any personality. She’d grabbed them too hurriedly to think of disguise. Red. A holdover from a much bolder Victoria. That flamboyant woman seemed a lifetime ago.

Katherine had handled the other packing. She’d sent Victoria’s bags ahead to the vineyard’s estate house. Victoria hadn’t told Kat about the danger Michael was in. It was only a matter of time before Katherine discovered her nephew was being stalked by the Order of Samuel. By then, Victoria hoped to have accomplished what she’d been sent to do.

Anything to save her son.

Katherine thought she wanted to visit the vineyards as a retreat to rest and recuperate. Her voice hadn’t been the same since the opera house fire that had almost claimed her life. Doctors said she would recover. That she only needed time. Yet it seemed ages since she’d been able to sing.

She admitted to no one that it seemed ages since she’d wanted to sing.

She’d left her toddling son with his daemon nanny, Sybil, and his hellhound, Grim. Surely, they could protect him even better than her until she could arrange their freedom. One more task for the Order.

But wasn’t it always one more, one more, one more?

She stepped into a coffee shop for an espresso after her flight. While she ordered, she noticed a thick-browed man in a nearby queue. He hadn’t been on her plane, but he had been at the Shreveport airport. She was certain she’d seen him there. He wore a simple suit with a boxy cut and he was bald, stocky, his face smooth and plain, but he didn’t move like a casual traveler.

Maybe he was an off duty soldier.

Maybe he was a ninja in disguise.

But Victoria suspected an even more nefarious origin.

She sipped her small, rich coffee. She even managed a smile for the barista who had boldly scrawled bella on her cup instead of Vic. His dark eyes flashed above a bright smile, but he didn’t distract her from the suspicious-looking man who now placed his order at the register beside her.

She didn’t catch the man’s name. She didn’t have to. Now that he was closer, she could see the movement of his muscles beneath his suit jacket. Its loose cut couldn’t hide his extreme physicality.

Suddenly, the man looked up and met her gaze. He took his coffee from the barista, ignoring the tip jar with its yellow smiley face sticker. She glanced away. Why should she give him an intimate glimpse of her fear?

He had to be a monk from the Order of Samuel. His smirk and the black gleam of his large pupils seemed too knowing. The monks were following her to make sure she complied.

Victoria abandoned her steaming cup in the waste bin, no longer needing the caffeine. She was wide-awake. The whole shop full of weary travelers must see her heart beating in her chest. The Order didn’t have to follow or threaten her further to make sure the job got done.

One threat toward Michael was enough.

Yet the look in the monk’s eyes did quicken her steps. She hurried outside to the waiting row of taxis, and took the dark gaze with her. His eyes had held no sympathy, only the fire of fanaticism. That hateful glow had haunted her life. She refused to let it haunt Michael’s as well.

* * *

The Turov mansion was a California Craftsman castle with hints of Imperial St. Petersburg in its columns and arches. The cab approached down a long, winding drive. Rather than the expected cedar shakes, the house was constructed of rough gray brick, its roof gleaming slate instead of Spanish tile. Several turrets were capped in domes of copper that glimmered gold in the sunset. The material was echoed in hammered metal on the mansion’s gutters and window frames. She had time to appreciate the gleam as the car neared the entrance where the driveway ended in a circular loop. There was something that touched her about its design. It was art, not merely architecture. There was personality evident in every curve, passion in every turret.