Ascension (26 page)

Grabbing one ankle, he pulled her to the side of the bed, tugged off her stockings and let her chemise bunch at her waist. Her bottom was perched at the very end of the mattress when he knelt between her legs on the floor and placed her thighs over his shoulders.

She looked down at him from her elbows. “Gabriel.”

Her plea was not lost on him. He licked the length of her slit.

She squealed and lay back.

He repeated the same action, and her heels dug into his back lifting her hips tighter to his mouth. He sucked the sensitive bud, making her scream and buck at the edge of the bed.

Every sound and squirm pushed his need higher. He ached with desire to be buried deep inside her wetness. Sliding his tongue inside her gave him a better taste of her sweet juices. It would never be enough. Latching on to her pebbled bud, he sucked hard, and she cried out words that made no sense. He pressed his thumb at her opening.

“Yes.” Her body arched off the bed.

He pushed his thumb deeper, sucked harder and reveled in her responsiveness.

Her hips pumped up and down. Her heels would leave two bruises in his back, he was sure of that. He was equally sure it would be worth the pain when she came.

He was right.

Her orgasm crashed as if a squall had come to batter the little cottage. She bucked and screamed while juices gushed from her perfect slit.

Gabriel didn’t leave a drop behind.

As her body relaxed, he stood and thrust his straining cock inside her. Her strong legs wrapped around his ass and pulled him deeper. They both cried out. He stood still, worried that the intensity of her body clutching him, might take him over the edge too soon.

After a deep breath, he slid back out to the tip and eased back into her warm sheath. A sudden thought assailed him. He was the luckiest man alive. His wife was an extraordinary woman. Their life would be extraordinary as well.

She was so tight and wet, he knew he wouldn’t last long. His body yearned for release. With every drive inside her, rapturous sounds escaped her mouth. His own grunting was almost as loud. He tried to hold back, but she screamed and her sheath clasped around him with torturous pulsations that pushed him over the edge.

The orgasm that began in his cock spread down his legs and up to his chest and arms. He pumped faster and faster needing to be deeper than before.

Belinda’s screams filled the small room.

Rapture enveloped him, rocking his entire body. Gabriel stilled, allowing the final sensations to flow through and away.

He stepped back and watched as his wife adjusted her body onto the bed more traditionally. He loved the flow of her muscles, strong yet feminine. He climbed up behind her and pulled the blanket around them.

“Bella, I love you.”

“I know, Gabriel. I love you too.”

“I am not happy about our next assignment.”

She took a deep breath, which pressed her tighter to his chest, then released on a sigh. “I am not exactly overjoyed either, but I can see the benefit of getting someone on the inside.”

“You will not do anything foolish.”

She gave a short laugh. “That was not a question.”

“No.”

“I will only do what is necessary to succeed, and you will do the same.” Her final words tumbled out before she relaxed into sleep.

* * * *

Gabriel was glad to be leaving Scotland. His father-in-law’s surly demeanor kept everyone on edge, Belinda most of all. The morning after their wedding, they said their goodbyes to Belinda’s parents and climbed into Thor’s carriage.

Tubbs rode up top with Thor, but Claire rode with them inside the box.

He was formulating a plan that he could relay to Reece and Lilly, and he assumed his wife was doing the same.

She watched out the window and spoke very little.

Claire silently worked at a bit of sewing.

The sun dipped into the west and twilight dimmed the interior of the carriage.

Claire had put her work away.

Belinda sat back against the cushion and tucked against his side.

Thor yelled something that none of them understood. The carriage moved faster.

Belinda lifted her skirts and pulled her sword free.

Gabriel’s heart pounded as he too armed himself with sword and pistol. They each took to a window.

Claire sank to the floor of the racing carriage. It was a smart move on the maid’s part. She could have unbalanced the vehicle at that speed, had she not gone to the lowest point.

He saw the shadows of something coming from the woods both behind them and to the east.

“I can see hundreds,” Belinda yelled.

His gut clenched painfully. “Here too. We’re surrounded.”

The carriage slowed, gunshots and screams followed. The stench of demons filled the air. Methodically, hundreds of demons closed in on the carriage.

Gabriel grabbed a second pistol from a pocket under the bench and held it out to Claire. “Stay here, shoot anything that comes for you.”

The maid’s eyes were wide, but she took the weapon and nodded.

He and Belinda stepped down and closed the door. The demons were a swarm closing in on a central point.

“I have never seen this many,” Belinda whispered.

“We cannot win this, Bella.” He’d thought the knowledge of impending death would have made him sad, but fury overrode every other emotion.

He roared and shot the closest demon in the head. The creature dropped to the rocky ground and never moved again. The other attackers stepped over and on their fallen comrade and continued forward.

Gabriel let out a battle cry that hardly sounded human. Running toward the hordes of demons, he lifted his weapon in the charge. He worried, but he had learned that Belinda could take care of herself. They would likely both be killed anyway. This way at least they would take a few demons out before the inevitable.

His sword cut through the midsection of a trebox demon, and he lopped off the bulbous head of a malleus demon. He dodged the weapons of several others and continued his killing spree. Black blood and fetid entrails splattered him with each swing of his weapon.

The demons put up a good fight. After some time, which could have been minutes or hours, Gabriel had lost track, they turned and rushed away to the southeast. He watched them go in utter confusion.

“My lord.”

Gabriel turned toward the shouting voice of Thor.

The blood-splattered driver held a double-edged sword, but leaned on it as if it was a cane.

“Are you all right, Thor?”

Thor pointed.

Gabriel saw the pale yellow of Belinda’s dress before she disappeared with the demons as they crested the ridge. His heart broke. The pain in his chest was so severe that he was sure that he would die. “How?”

Thor leaned again on his weapon. “I think they came for her, Gabriel. She was the reason they attacked. They sacrificed all of these troops in order to capture her ladyship.”

Bodies of dead demons littered the ground, which ran black with their blood.

Gabriel couldn’t breathe. He’d failed as a soldier and as a husband. The aches and pains of battle couldn’t compare to the agony in his heart.

Blood ran down Thor’s leg from just below the knee.

Gabriel knelt down, tore the trouser at the gash and used the fabric to stay the flow of blood. “Where are Tubbs and Claire?”

“Here, my lord.” Tubbs was in a similar condition, battered and bloody, but whole and Claire peeked out from the carriage window.

“Are either of you injured?”

They both said they were not harmed.

He finished the field bandage and stood up. “Thor, you will have to go to London and tell Reece what has happened, take Claire to safety and get yourself patched up properly. Can you do that?”

“Of course, but what of you? You can’t be thinking of taking on that bunch all by yourself.”

“Tubbs and I will follow. They went to a lot of trouble to capture her. They are not going to kill her at least not right away. I have got to go and see where they take her before the trail is lost in these damned Scottish hills. I will send Tubbs back with word as soon as we know something.”

Thor limped forward and put his hand on Gabriel shoulder. “You should come back with us, make a plan. Going off half-cocked this way is dangerous.”

He shook off the sympathetic hand. He couldn’t leave her. “Do as I say, Thor. Go now. Tubbs you are with me.”

They may not have all agreed with his plan, but Thor climbed up and took the reins, Claire stayed in the carriage, and Tubbs followed Gabriel to the southeast.

The army of demons had come for her. Belinda’s stomach rolled at the thought, but she could do little about it.

Gabriel rushed into the fray and could not see that she was the goal. Her husband had created so much mayhem, it blinded him to the demons passing him and heading directly for her.

She liked watching him fight. He was fluid and strong, moving with focus and purpose. Nothing stopped him as he charged through the demon ranks and sliced and stabbed dozens. He left a path of decimation in his wake, but it was not enough.

The enemy had come prepared to leave casualties to get what they wanted. And they wanted her.

More than twenty had suffered the cut of her blade, before one disarmed her. They swarmed her but when they grabbed hold, they were careful. She was bound with thick rope at the wrists and ankles. They moved swiftly away from her husband, within seconds of her sword hitting the dirt.

Struggling did no good, so eventually she relaxed and paid attention to their direction and path.

The demons moved with surprising speed for a group of that size. There must have been two hundred of them all lumbering across the rough Scottish terrain. They didn’t stop all night, not for food or water. They were the perfect marching army, as they had no personal needs. Whatever they had been ordered to do with her, they wouldn’t vary from that plan.

Belinda fell into fitful sleep several times only to awaken from the jostling trek. Just as well, she needed to stay alert in case an opportunity to escape availed itself.

It was nearly dawn when they topped a hill and she saw great, dark manor house. Belinda’s heart sank. It was a fortress. Once she was inside, how would she get out and how would Gabriel get to her? She had no idea what part of the country they were in.

Most of the trees in the surrounding area had been cut, and no grass or crop grew, though the land around the house was flat. Fires burned all around a rocky embankment that protected the house. The mound looked recently constructed. Large rocks were stacked to create a seven-foot mountain all around the perimeter of the place. Death and burning flesh permeated the air.

The building might have been attractive at some earlier date. Now its façade had been stained black and gray. The smoke from the fires might have been the cause. Large windows were dark. No smoke puffed from the many chimneys. All the fires were outside.

She struggled in the arms of the large demon. She elbowed him in the midsection, but he didn’t even give a satisfying grunt.

The malleus carried Belinda through a narrow tunnel that burrowed under the rock and ended in the courtyard. Hundreds of demons, some types she had never seen before, filled the yard. Fires burned haphazardly for purposes she couldn’t determine from her position. The demons had several humans they tortured.

A woman was branded and her screams echoed though the putrid air. An old man hung by the wrists from a staked pole. Belinda prayed for death for these captives. A quick death would be preferable to the torture they endured. She closed her eyes, but there was no shielding herself from the terrible sounds of death and worse.

Her heart pounded painfully as her fear escalated. The massive doors of the place loomed with carved letters above. From the demon’s arms she read
FATUM
and a chill ran through her. Above the old carving was crudely carved a snaked wrapped around a fleur-de-lis.

The symbol of the master.

Were they too late? Had the master already come?

Once in the house, black drapery covered all the windows and the walls were covered in red painted symbols, most of which, she didn’t understand. The stench made her gag. Death bled out of every crevice of the tainted house. What torment would they have planned for her? The long night of bumping and her earlier struggle had loosened the rope around her ankles. Maybe it was enough to know where this place was. She could get away and alert the Company. Relaxing her body completely, the bindings slipped off her feet. She twisted, and the malleus holding her lost his grip. She slid to the floor.

Immediately getting to her feet, she grabbed a lantern from the wall and swung it at the demon’s head. Even with her hands bound, she managed to catch him across the ear and cheek. The glass shattered. The oil caught his skin aflame.

He patted out the flame emotionless. Black oozed from his cuts and burns, but he barely stumbled when he grabbed at her.

She sidestepped and ran toward the door. Her legs were weak from lack of circulation.

Four other Demons swarmed at her pinning her down.

Her skirts tangled around her legs, making kicking impossible. Her heart sank. It had been a futile effort, but she’d had to try.

She was trussed up as if she was a pig going to the spit and picked up by the malleus demon.

The burned malleus carried her through the house.

She was not beaten or harmed in any way.

They continued as if nothing had happened. At a single door, the malleus moved forward holding Belinda in his arms while the rest remained behind. He trudged down a steep, narrow stairway.

Her shoulder banged against the wall with every step and the rope bit into her skin.

Finally, he stopped at a door, opened it and she was dumped on the hard floor.

The creature reached for the bottom of her skirts. She tried to back away. Her heart leaped to her throat and her stomach heaved. With her hands and feet tied as they were, there was nothing she could do but try to kick her feet.