And the stiff, terrified expression on Woodmore's face. "She stopped me," he told Giordan. "She saved his life. And now she's..."
But he needed to say nothing more, for Narcise's low, tormented moans and the dead-white look on her face told Giordan everything.
He shoved Woodmore out of the way, pulling Narcise into his arms. She couldn't die. Not from this.
"Narcise," he said calmly and loudly, giving her a gentle shake in an attempt to pull her from the sort of seizure, the frenzy of pain. Trying to keep himself collected. "Look at me."
She shuddered and blinked, her breathing coming in short, anguished gasps. Her eyes were blank with pain, empty and lost, and he didn't know if there was anything he could do to help her...but he brushed the hair from her face and murmured, "Narcise. Look at me."
He closed his arms around her, drawing from deep within, from his soul, his core...focusing on the white light he'd found in his mind while in the alley that day. Peace. Light.
He held it in his heart, in his mind, as Kritanu had taught him, and looked into Narcise's fathomless violet eyes. "Look at me. I love you, Narcise. I need you...stay with me. Fight it, Narcise. Fight him."
He didn't know if she could hear him through the pain, but he kept talking to her, ignoring the solid brown boots standing next to him on the ground as Chas stared down at them.
"Narcise. Look at me. Look at me," he begged. If she could look at him, focus on him...
She bucked, shuddered and gasped, and beneath his hand, he felt the pulsing rage of her Mark through the fabric of her clothing. A ripple of shock flashed through him and without realizing what he was doing, he tore away at the bodice of her gown as she agonized against him. But she was softening...slowing... Was he losing her?
"My God," breathed Chas, kneeling next to them again when he saw her shoulder. "It's alive."
Like black veins, tiny black snakes, Lucifer's Mark twisted and surged on her creamy skin: stark and wicked, evil emanating from the Devil himself. It was alive, and it was fighting-for Narcise.
Giordan didn't know exactly what to do, but he knew he had to try. He bent his head to the Mark.
His lips touched the raging black weals and he felt the sharp, excruciating sting, the bolt of peace and light meeting dark malevolence. He kissed her, his lips soft and gentle, absorbing the shock, taking on the pain... He moved his hands over those curling, twisting worms, closed his eyes and prayed.
Help me.
"She's ready," came the voice inside his head. "Help her."
He pulled back, needing to look in her eyes. Still covering the Mark with his hands, both of them, holding her up, he lifted her so he could look into her eyes. "Look at me, Narcise. Look in my eyes."
She blinked through pain-filled eyes, focused for a bare moment and, still holding the light, warm and clean in his heart, he gave it to her. Their eyes met and he felt another bolt, a shaft of effort and then release surge through him...and into her.
Narcise gasped and looked at him again, this time with clarity and the light of serenity. Beneath his hand he felt a searing heat where Luce's Mark thrived. She screamed, then closed her eyes and sagged into unconsciousness...and then the writhing black veins collapsed.
When Giordan looked at them again, he saw they had disappeared. In their place were pure white lines marking the battle won.
Chapter
EPILOGUE
"An avatar," Kritanu said in his precise, smooth accent. "You must have acted briefly as some sort of avatar, Giordan, in conducting that power and strength to Narcise. That is the only explanation I have."
He was an old man, perhaps seventy or eighty, with hair as black as Narcise's. He wore it in a long, sleek tail at the base of his neck. His mahogany skin was smooth, hardly wrinkled, and his eyes were sharp and black, like jet beads. Giordan had met him years ago when he first came to England, for Kritanu was a friend of Dimitri's Aunt Iliana.
Giordan and Narcise were all sitting with Kritanu in Dimitri's study, having at last returned from Paris only two days earlier. They'd spent nearly a fortnight making arrangements for Cezar and settling his household.
"What's an avatar?" Narcise asked, moving closer into the warm, familiar curl of Giordan's arm. He smelled like comfort and warm sunshine and sensuality, and she couldn't wait to drag him off to the chamber they'd been sharing and sink her teeth...literally...into him.
"I've studied every bloody religion and writings from every age and I find it impossible to comprehend. An avatar is an entity from a heavenly level who manifests himself on earth," Dimitri said. The note of disbelief in his voice was nearly comical. "A god come to earth in human form. You cannot be serious. Giordan? An avatar?"
Kritanu smiled, his eyes glinting with shared humor. "I'm not at all suggesting that Giordan is a humanized god of any sort. In fact, that would be impossible. But, just that, for a miraculous moment, he acted as a conduit for Narcise, and the moksha he'd attained allowed that same window to be opened to her. She had to be ready and willing to go through it of her own volition."
"Naturally," Dimitri replied, dry skepticism still lacing his voice. "So if Giordan had attained Enlightenment ten years ago, why in the devil couldn't he transfer it to me when I was looking for it so hard?"
Maia, who'd just walked in at that moment, carrying a tray, said, "Because you didn't have a soul-deep connection with Giordan like Narcise does. Nor did you just want to be loose of Lucifer-you wanted to be mortal again, Gavril. You needed to be. So you could be with me." She set the tray down and gave him an arch look.
"A wise woman named Wayren is fond of saying that, when we are truly ready for it, we receive whatever grace it is we need," Kritanu said, accepting a handleless cup of tea from Maia. He cupped his hands around it and breathed in the scent-something exotic, like jasmine, Narcise thought. "Each has his or her own path to travel. I don't pretend to understand it all, either."
"And so Cezar still lives?" Maia said as she settled next to Dimitri, confirming Narcise's suspicion that there was to be a second wedding in the Woodmore family after Voss and Angelica. "You'll keep him alive?"
Narcise had a soft, sad pang at the thought of Chas, still in Paris, attending to the final details of arrangements for Cezar. He'd insisted on staying...perhaps because he didn't wish to witness her happiness with Giordan. He might miss even his sisters' weddings. Narcise's insides squeezed at the memory of the stark misery on his face...the emotionless eyes when she'd awakened from her ordeal to find both of the men who loved her in attendance.