She’d thought he was dead.
And then he’d awakened and come to her.
“Maia,” he said again, as if he couldn’t get enough of saying her name. “I love you. But I can’t…” He cut himself off, pulling her against his warm, wet body and covering her mouth with his. She met him eagerly, tasting cool, fresh water and feeling it dripping between them, seeping through their clothing as his heat flowed into her. Her hands planted on the sleek planes of his chest, sliding through the dark hair and over the tops of his shoulders.
His lips were soft and needy, fitting to hers, nibbling and caressing with tenderness and an underlying desperation. The arrogance and confidence from previous kisses was gone…this felt like the apology he’d been trying to make. And a severing, a farewell.
It wasn’t him. This wasn’t the earl who took what he wanted on his own terms. Who begrudged every bit of softness.
“Corvindale,” she said, pulling away to look up at him. “Gavril. What is it?”
His face was damp, his eyes hooded. “Something happened in there, Maia. Something…terrible.” He glanced toward the light, which had become even stronger.
She could see the faint outline of a stone jutting out, and realized that the tunnel and the river turned just ahead, and that there was safety. Escape. And it was daylight. There would be no vampires waiting for them. She could find covering for Gavril…if she needed to.
He drew her to the edge of the underground stream where the water was only just to her knees and settled her on a stable rock. He stood next to her, water trailing in rivulets down his face, plopping steadily to the ground.
“I couldn’t get to you. She—Lerina—knew that, she knew I couldn’t, once I got through the fire. That’s something perhaps even you don’t know, Maia, my love,” he said, the hint of an affectionate smile curving his lips. But only for a moment, then it was gone and the harsh, stone-faced earl was back. “The Dracule are impervious to fire. So she knew I could find you…and then she knew I could do nothing when I came upon the rubies. She meant for me to watch you die. She knew it, even before I admitted it to myself, that I love you.”
“But you came to me,” she said, reaching to touch his cheek, certain. She remembered the calm presence that had wrapped itself around her during that entire event, once she awakened in the chair to see him struggling toward her. All will be well, had said a voice in her mind. The force seemed to swirl around the chamber, whisking in the air to keep the fire at bay, and the smoke from becoming too thick. It had been pale and golden and peaceful.
“You got past the rubies,” she said. “Something happened…I saw it. There was a flash of light, like an explosion, or a shock of lightning.”
A grimace tightened his face and he closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, she saw that they were flat and dark. Empty. “I broke the covenant. I separated myself from Lucifer and became mortal.”
Joy rushed through her…then stopped. Why was he still stricken, upset? “Is that not what you’ve wanted? Is there something else?”
What if, by leaving Lucifer’s covenant, he had to do something else? Like…die? What if there was some sort of punishment?
“Yes, that’s what I wanted. Until I realized that I couldn’t… I couldn’t save you. I’d saved my soul, but I couldn’t save you. We were trapped in there, and the only way I could get you out was to become immortal again. To bind myself to him again.”
Maia’s breath stopped and her heart thudded. “You…” She couldn’t form the words, she could hardly comprehend it. “You went back to him…to save me?” Horror and shock had her clutching his shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscles there as she stared up at him, disbelieving. “No, no, you wouldn’t have done that…. You couldn’t have done that. You know what it meant.”
His face had become stone, his countenance devoid of emotion. “Maia. I had to. I couldn’t let you die.”
“We all die, Corvindale. We all die. How could you give up your soul for…me?”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders moving beneath her hands, his face placid. But his eyes were now well-illuminated by the sun streaming from around the bend in the tunnel, and she saw how they burned with emotion. “When one finds real love, one does anything to protect it.”
She was shaking her head, tears filling her eyes. The last bit of relief and joy had sagged away, now a heavy burden settled over her shoulders.
“And so,” he said, his voice flat and earlish once again, “I won’t be going out there with you.” He gestured toward the light.
“Corvindale,” she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“Please,” he said. “For once, please don’t argue with me, Maia.”
She nodded and then pulled him down for another kiss. Her fingers slid over his chest, up along the strong cords of his neck as he pushed her against the damp stone wall with his body. That sharp flutter of pleasure started in her belly and spread down, flushing out, but was tempered by sorrow.
Her fingers dug into his wet hair, sliding up along his neck and shoulders…and then she stopped. Pulled away, her heart pounding.
“Turn around,” she said, pushing at him. “Turn around, Corvindale.”
He frowned, his face darkening, but then it eased as he turned, one of his hands going up to touch the back of his shoulder.
“It’s gone,” she said, smoothing her hand over his back. “The marking is gone.”
“Impossible,” he said, his face stunned. “It can’t be. I gave myself…I called him back to me. He raised his hand to touch me—” Then he halted. “She stopped him.” He was looking into the distance, his eyes focused on something Maia couldn’t see. His breathing changed, roughened and hurried. “She wasn’t too late,” he whispered. “She stopped him.”
And then, for the first time Maia could ever remember, the Earl of Corvindale smiled.
EPILOGUE
LENNING’S TANNERY EXPANDS
Nearly a month later…
“I simply don’t understand how you can be so calm about it all,” Maia said, planting her hands on her hips. She was looking up at Corvindale, who’d become Gavril to her in both mind and heart. “They’re cutting holes in your house. Big holes.”
“Yes, indeed, they are, Miss Woodmore,” he replied. But now, when he called her by her formal name, there was a layer of intimacy, of verbal caressing over the syllables. “Blackmont Hall is so dark and dim, most particularly my study, that I want more windows. Larger ones.”
“But there is dust everywhere. And flies are coming in. And the noise!”
“I suppose we could have waited to have it done while we were on our honeymoon,” said the Earl of Corvindale, looking down at the future Lady Corvindale, “but I have lived in darkness for so long, I didn’t want to wait any longer. And God knows when your brother will return from Scotland to attend the festivities.”
Maia’s heart shifted as it always did when she realized just what he’d been through, and what he’d given for her. “Of course,” she said, blinking sharply at a sudden sting of tears.
“How foolish of me to complain.” What man could give more for the woman he loved?
She smiled and returned to the stack of books she’d been sifting through in hopes of organizing his bookshelves now that the room was being renovated. Perhaps her propensity for easy tears and sensitivity to dust and noise had to do with the fact that she’d just missed her monthly flux. And like everything else in her life, it was normally ordered and regular.
“Wait a moment,” Gavril said, curving his strong fingers around her arm and turning her back to face him. “Is there something wrong, Miss Woodmore?”
She looked back at him in surprise. “No, indeed. I couldn’t be happier. Truly.”
A little quirk touched the corners of his beautiful lips. “But you aren’t arguing with me. You’ve agreed with me. Are you quite certain nothing is wrong?”
Maia laughed. She pulled her arm away and patted him on the cheek. “I’m certain nothing is wrong.” She wasn’t going to tell him until she was certain. “But if you prefer that I argue with you, perhaps I ought to take you to task on this disaster.” She gestured to the pile of books that reached from her hip to her shoulder. “Did you realize you have five copies of the same volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but none of his comedies?”
He frowned and ran his elegant fingers over one of the spines. “But that was purposeful, my dear. I was in no mood to read the likes of Two Gentlemen from Verona or As You Like It for the last century.”
“So instead you buried yourself with Hamlet and Macbeth.” She gave a little sniff, but a smile lingered around her mouth. Then, suddenly, she found her eyes getting a bit damp again. “It’s fortunate you weren’t following in the footsteps of poor, tragic Romeo & Juliet,” she said, looking at the dog-eared pages of that play.
“There never were two more foolish lovers,” he said arrogantly. “If they’d merely used a bit of sense, both of them would have been alive.”
“You weren’t so different, you know,” she said. “Selling your soul back again to the devil. Then where would we have been? You shackled to him after trying to rid yourself for over a century.”
He shrugged, his face settling into that flat, stubborn expression. “I did what I had to do to save you, Maia. I’d do it again, even if it hadn’t worked out as well as it has. And it has all worked out quite well, has it not?”
“I’m not quite clear on how it did, precisely, work out,” she said, the dratted tears hovering in the corners of her eyes again. He really was the most amazing, loving man.
But how had it happened? Was it because he’d known the hell and torture he was taking on again when he made the sacrifice for her, calling Lucifer back to him? Because he knew precisely what he was giving up this time? That had made the sacrifice all the more meaningful…giving up what he’d wanted more than anything in the world to take the burden back again. That must have been how Wayren had been able to stop him from making the covenant a second time.