Undead for a Day (29 page)

The electricity that sparked between them was glorious, and brought the answer. No one else but Izzy felt like this. No one moved him like she did.

“This is crazy,” he said, pulling Izzy to her feet, and taking in the specifics of her latest disguise.

“It was necessary, Tris. Something is wrong. They know I’m out here and haven’t lifted a finger to do anything about it.”

Izzy’s heated gaze added more invisible strokes to his oversensitive body. Her latest incarnation was sensational in terms of appeal, but it didn’t really matter. If he knew who she was, surely every supernatural creature in the area would.

He blew out a sigh. “How did you get off that roof?”

“What’s important is that I did, and that others did as well, at least one major monster among them.”

“That big guy?”

“One and the same.”

Tristan flexed his arm, remembering the wound he’d gotten, and the trickle of blood, and that the beast that had tried to block him had been nicknamed
The Vampire.

“You think that brute is after me? What reason would it have? I’ve been on that gallery a long time. Nothing like this has come up in the past.”

“You know tonight is different, Tris. You said so yourself.”

“Yes, but in what way, exactly? How can we gauge what’s going on if we’re clueless?”

“You said your replacement is out here tonight. You’ve never said that before.”

“So the bad guys want to stop me from finding that replacement, only this time they somehow got off the roof in order to do so?” he said.

Izzy nodded. “They want to make sure you fail. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

“And yet it’s no explanation at all, really. If I fail, or not, someone will be on the gallery, so what’s the big deal? The Underworld will have a nice warm body there to provoke. It just won’t be mine.”

Tristan watched her pretty face crinkle in thought.

“Is it me they’re after?” he asked. “Personally?”

Izzy remained mute as she considered this.

“Because I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I’ve been wondering if maybe there’s more to this than we’ve realized.”

“Like what?”

“Could it be
you
they want to harass, and they’re using me to help them accomplish it?”

The way Izzy’s face paled told him she’d at least thought of this possibility. The fact that she remained silent was another indication.

He glanced up. “The angels aren’t here.”

“Oh, they’re here, all right. And they’re useless.”

“Useless would be bad. Truly unbalanced.”

Izzy nodded, and shoulder-length waves of auburn hair surrounded her face, reflecting the shine of the moonlight. Unable to help himself, Tristan gathered those waves in both hands.

“If what I’ve suggested has merit, I’m thinking that both sides would have to be in on the deal,” he said. “Whatever that deal is.”

“I don’t know,” Izzy said. “I don’t know how to find out. And believe me, it’s much worse for me to suppose you’ve been part of this for no real reason, and that I have been the target of this twisted game all along. How am I supposed to make peace with that?”

“Well,” Tristan said. “We admit we know nothing. So until we do, I’ll have to get on with the original plan.”

“I can help to keep some of the bad guys from you while you look,” Izzy said.

“A bodyguard in the body of a goddess? How tempting. But I have a better idea about what to do with you.”

He watched her beautiful lips curve into a grin. Izzy had always been quick on the uptake.

Lowering his face to Izzy’s so that he looked her straight in the eyes, he waited for her response, knowing she had one.

“Lust and sex are like candy to the Dark Side, Tris. They’ll come running if we...”

He cut off her protest by resting his lips on hers. He preferred not to hear anything else about sides. The game was clearly out of control. Tasting Izzy made the bad stuff more palatable. Kissing her was similar to dragging a length of the softest velvet across his skin. Velvet that had been warmed in an oven.

“What happens when lust and sex slide into the category of love?” he asked. “Won’t the Dark Side be lost on that score?”

“Yes,” she replied. “They will be as lost as we are.”

“Oh, we’re far from lost,” he corrected. “Miles from lost.”

Taking hold of the collar of Izzy’s blue shirt, he hauled her over the curb and backed her into a damp brick corner where two buildings met.

“We don’t have time for this,” she protested.

“We’re off the roof.
You’re
off the roof. What if it were to be the only time? The last time we can touch with some small bit of freedom?”

Her luminous face sobered further. Her big eyes blinked slowly before she squeezed them shut. Tristan felt the same pang of contentment he had always experienced with Izzy by his side. He craved a union that went way beyond the physical; one that would allow them to meet on another level of existence, and soul to soul.

The fact that they could touch souls was a secret he both held dear and kept compartmentalized from Izzy. He had confronted her on this level once before, on the first night they’d met. He knew the shape of her soul, its feel, its beat. What he had found at Izzy’s core, when her resistance had melted away, was a complete surprise. Her soul was buoyant; not in the least bit burned or withered. On the contrary, Izzy’s soul held the brilliance of a fallen star.

The woman before him might be Dark, but her soul was not only intact, but filled with light. He guessed that this residual lightness of being is what drove her to his side. It was also the silver thread that tied them together across seemingly vast differences. On the inside, they were much the same.

There was always some madness in love, he thought, recalling what some old philosopher had written. This secret about Izzy was his own personal madness.

Still, didn’t anyone else know about her propensity for good?

Didn’t she realize it?

Here she was, in his arms on a night that was subtly different from the nights of the past. Maybe it actually was the end of the challenge. What if his instincts were correct, and this was to be the last time he would see her, hold her?

Just once more, Izzy.

For old time’s sake.

For my sake.

Izzy’s mouth softened beneath his and became malleable. She also had acknowledged the possibility of the nearness of the game’s end, and was hungry for him. In this, she didn’t hold back. If this was to be their last union, her softness suggested to him that she was willing to indulge, despite who looked on.

Her mouth quickly became an inferno. Her body was liquid lava, undulating in his hands. When she moaned, it was a heady mixture of terror and delight that he captured with a savage kiss that glued them together–mouths, chests, thighs, and everything in between.

Izzy truly was vulnerable beneath the iron exterior. But so was he. Her weakness was that she loved him with the kind of emotion that separated her from the others of her world. Love elevated her. Goodness had a hold. Deep down, she was beautiful and fair. And she was his.

His weakness was that he desperately craved what he had meant to fix. He had wanted to help elevate Izzy from her predicament, but had, so far, caused her situation to worsen.

Nevertheless, if this is to be the last time, Izzy...

To hell with the consequences.

The next sound was his, made as she wrapped one sleek leg around his burlap covered calf. He didn’t give a second thought to how this would look on a public street. He longed for intimacy. It seemed critical that he be loved in return.

Izzy’s demon flames beat at him, raging out of control as the excitement grew between them. His temperature soared, rapidly skipping over tolerable degrees. Moisture gathered on his forehead and at the base of his spine. His body began to throb with heat under his robe.

Wrapping his hands around Izzy, Tristan lifted her from pavement that no doubt had Hell’s minions waiting somewhere beneath.

It isn’t fair,
he thought fleetingly,
that Hell is so much closer to mortals than the clouds.

Each exquisite inch his fingers traveled over Izzy took him closer to Heaven. This had to be heavenly because he didn’t see how something so incredibly good could be anything other than divine.

Every line and angle of her body was there for his inspection, and he didn’t care about the straining breasts and gyrating hips pressing into him. Flesh was flesh, gorgeous or otherwise. He ached for what lay within, at the foundation of this woman, lover, d
emon.

God, yes. He wanted to touch the sublime. He had been avoiding it in all other ways, except for this. With her.

Izzy’s lips were parted, and trembled slightly. Her tongue danced with his in a silky duet that drove him mad with desire for her. Her long legs opened. The flimsy skirt covering her thighs tore in his fists with a sound like the night itself being rent at the seams.

Or maybe that tearing sound was merely what was left of his resolve.

In the distance, beyond the beat of his thundering pulse, Tristan thought he heard the black coach’s wheels on cobbles, and prancing hooves striking the ground. He thought he heard laughter, dishes hitting tables, glasses being clinked together for toasts, as he willed the last barrier to the gateway of Izzy’s soul to open.

He went on kissing her as he slid a hand between her fiery thighs. Although his skin felt blistered, and like it was starting to fry, he had to finish this.

Izzy wore no underclothes. He easily found the spot he sought, tucked, naked, waiting, and mesmerizing in its attraction for him. For all her heat, Izzy had a cool place, and this was it. One spot only, untouched by fire.

He was inside of that cool spot before his next labored breath, with a thrust that found its way through her soft recesses. Foreplay had been out of the question, unless the months of waiting for this moment counted. For now, they were free. They were off that damn roof and outside of the cathedral. His heart could not have pounded any faster, or harder. Its rhythm drove him on.

Izzy fell quiet as he buried himself inside the place he had dreamed of reentering. She sighed wistfully when he withdrew, and made a growling noise low in her throat as he plunged into her again, striking hard, and almost without mercy.

She cried out each time he repeated the action, each cry louder than the one before it. Her shouts rang in his ears until, with his eyes closed, Tristan found a perfect rhythm that suited them both, and floated on a wave of pure ecstasy.

She released the tension from her body as she reached her peak. He felt her soul reach out to his as though it was in need of a lifeline. Izzy’s soul carried in it the essence of the fragrance of damp greenery, trees and nature; wonderful scents far removed from bustling cities and underground dimensions. It tasted like honey, apples, and fresh air tinged with the soft gray smoke of a wood fire. Nothing in what he found was dark or spooky. He found it incredibly satisfying, and oh so sweet.

This is why I love you.

This is what makes sense.

Only this.

Izzy’s soul was clean. Inside her, he had found and confirmed the truth. If Izzy didn’t realize she hadn’t completely gone over to the Dark Side, then she probably also didn’t know she was only changing in stages, very slowly, from the outside, in. There was hope for her yet.

As the essence of her soul mingled with his, Tristan felt the inner pressure build until he joined her in a climax that stunned them both. On and on it went, welding them together, making them pant. The special world they inhabited showered them with a rain of imaginary diamond dust. Around them, the night sparkled, glowed, as their union continued.

But as the pleasure began to recede, Tristan’s mind started to whirl.
I have to save you from a final descent, Izzy. Because of the importance of this goal, tonight can’t be the end of us. It just can’t be the end.

He had to be near Izzy in order to help save her. All this time, and for all those years, he had been willing to wait this game out in order to find a way to help her.

And when all the brilliance was gone, closed off from him, withdrawn, the earth had begun to shake, rattling the building they leaned against. Bricks tumbled to their feet. Izzy stiffened. Her soul withdrew. As she looked him in the eyes, an expression of sadness swiftly replaced her former joy.

“Reckoning time, Tris,” she said in the gravelly voice of someone who might actually know what that means.

Moving away from the wall, Izzy held tightly to Tristan’s hand. She pushed what was left of her skirt down, over legs that felt weaker than usual. She had to use her legs to get going. The latest incarnation she’d chosen could not sprout wings in public.

She glanced to Tristan, wondering if he would have made love to her if he had seen the real Izzy, instead of the prettier versions, and if he would still be by her side if he did. Few people had witnessed what she had become, unless their name appeared on her pick-up schedule. Souls marked for the Dark weren’t owed a nicer vision.

“Tris?” she said.

Though he had seemed equally as stunned by the untimely swiftness of their separation, his eyes were already searching the area for the reason for the interruption. Izzy wanted to shout, curse, and call down the wrath of the Reapers for not allowing them one more minute together.

“Who is it?” he asked, following her lead through a complicated circuit of alleys and streets.

“Big horned guy, would be my guess,” she replied.

“Not...”

“No, not
him.
The other one, from the gallery.”

“Do I need to worry about it?”

“I’m not sure what it intends. If it were to show itself to others, though, there’d be no mistaking a monster like that for any of tonight’s costumed celebrations.”

Tristan’s yank on her hand turned her around. “Why aren’t you sure about what that beast is up to?”