He shook his head. “Poor, naive beauty that you be. But are you so beautiful now? Hair tangled, cheeks windburned, clothes in tatters, your body but bones for the flames to ravage. Would he be so enamored now? What fools you were. What fools.”
He had said that he would come for her. He had sworn. Sworn…
Had he, like God, forsaken her? Had her sins been so great?
No, he would come…might still come…
“I cannot help but believe you will one day find yourself the fool,” she whispered.
“That day will not be today,” he said grimly, his features, once striking, marred with cruelty and taut with fury. “I could have had you strangled. I might have saved you the agony. But you are a little fool, with your dreams of love and the pleasures of the flesh. Even now, you dream of his touch. But what you will feel is the kiss of the flame, the lick of the blaze, the warmth of hell’s damnation.”
He watched her eyes.
“Not even my death, my agony, will free you, will it? You are the one who will suffer. You will spend your life in bitterness. Eaten by flames from the inside out, burning in the hell of your own hatred.”
He looked as if he would strike at her again, but he managed to turn away.
He stepped toward the crowd, raised a hand. The murmuring grew silent.
“I have tried, pleaded, begged…but she has no words of remorse, she offers no prayer for redemption. God help her, forgive her her transgressions against her country. Pray for her, though it seems her tormented soul must return to the Devil, her maker. Let the fires cleanse her, and ourselves, and let us then pray from our hearts in the joy of the season we now enter, a time of God.”
The faggots were lit.
Flame quickly blazed before her. Around her.
She longed to cry out, to curse him. To tell the world that the real monster was there before them, clad in a cloak of law and respectability. She wanted to say that no one was safe, no one who stood in his way, no one who coveted anything he wanted…
Instead she found voice and strength to say, “God forgive you, sir. God grant you ease from the torture and agony you will suffer again and again—”
She broke off, choking. How quickly the flames had risen. Gone was the warmth of the sun, in its place the growing heat of the fire. She could speak no more. Her skirt was aflame. She tried to twist away, but it was no use. She burned! Dear God, she burned, the agony entering her lungs, her flesh.
She began to scream….
They rode over the rise and looked down into the valley. And saw.
He closed his eyes, damning himself, raging within, without.
He had imagined her scent.
He could smell it now.
On the air.
Oh, God.
“Jesus! Our Lord Father, Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Justin intoned.
“Help her, for the love of God, help her!” Raynor demanded. “You know what you must do.”
“God help me, I cannot.”
“You must!” Raynor said.
“For the love of God!” Justin cried, tears in his eyes. “Will you look? It is too late. It has gone too far. You know what you must do!”
Tears streamed down Michael’s face. He prayed, he begged forgiveness, God’s forgiveness—and hers. Split seconds passed.
He knew what he must do.
“By God, by heaven, by hell, I swore…”
He had sworn that he would come for her.
“By the angels, by God, by Christ, I swear, the time will come—”
He broke off. Each second meant great agony.
He did indeed know what he had to do.
CHAPTER 1
Present day Manhattan
It all started with the tarot cards.
And then the dreams of burning.
And of course the cat.
But at two o’clock on that Halloween afternoon, those things were still in the future.
Jillian sat at her desk at Llewellyn Enterprises, tapping a pencil on the wood as she stared at her new design. She’d set out to create a contemporary cross, with clean, sleek lines, to be available in yellow and white gold, and platinum. Every year since she’d finished college and joined the company full-time, she’d done a special Christmas design, available in a very limited quantity. By tradition, the invitation to purchase went out November fifth, all orders had to be received by the twentieth, and the pieces were delivered by special courier one month later. She loved designing jewelry. There was something so permanent about it. Pieces could be handed down through generations. A beautiful piece could be timeless—or speak volumes about the decade of its creation.
This piece, however, wasn’t saying what she had intended at all. It wasn’t that she disliked the design—on the contrary, it was coming along beautifully. She simply hadn’t envisioned it quite this way.
“Wow, that is pretty. I guess you’re worth your paycheck.” The voice, masculine and amused and coming from over her shoulder, was so startling that she nearly bolted out of her chair. The speaker was her cousin, Griff, handsome and too charming at thirty. Tall and well built, with sandy hair and hazel eyes, he wore Armani with runway perfection.
She hadn’t seen him enter her office. She had been so intent on the drawing that she’d been oblivious to everything else.
“Thanks.”
Griff stretched out playfully on her teak desk—à la 1930s Hollywood movie. “Excellent, sweetie. Excellent. It speaks ‘new millennium’ loudly. Unfortunately, it appears that the new millennium you’re planning on promoting is man’s movement into the 1000s—Celtic-looking thing, isn’t it?”
“Hmm,” she murmured.
He traced the pattern she had drawn, grinning away. “Oooh, the old boy is going to go ballistic over this one,” he said flippantly, referring to Douglas Alexander Llewellyn, her grandfather, his great-uncle, and CEO of Llewellyn Enterprises. “Could his angel have failed this time? He does think you’re an angel, you know. He’s unaware that you’re half angel, half fire-breathing dragon.”
“He realizes it completely. He’s just very fond of dragons. And, Griff, get your body off my desk. I have work to do, and I don’t need your scrawny self getting in my way.”
“How dare you?” he asked, in a tone of genuine indignation. “My body isn’t scrawny. It’s practically perfect—in every way. In fact, it’s too bad we’re cousins and that we’d have horrible, two-headed-monster offspring, or I’d let you see just how perfect.”
Jillian wrinkled her nose and sat back, looking at him. “Thank God that the possibility of two-headed children is going to spare me. I shudder to think of it. You’re just going to have to share all that perfection with someone else.”
“Actually, we’re only second cousins. Maybe the kids would only be pathetically cross-eyed. Come to think of it…” he mused, “did you know that William of Orange married his first cousin, Mary Stuart, and they ruled together as William and Mary?”
“And they left no heirs,” she reminded him pleasantly.
“Half the royalty of Europe was closely related. Everyone out there was a descendant of Queen Victoria.”
“And half the royalty of Europe was—and is—very