Brimstone Bride

And he had been all alone since they’d passed away?

An army of servants who seemed to wait on him without direction wasn’t the same as a family that adored him.

Added to the photographs and memorabilia was a vintage collection of birdcages of varying sizes and shapes. Some were quite elaborate, created from a twining of fine metals such as copper and brass. Others were simple and crafted of wrought iron. All of the cages were empty.

All had their doors opened wide.

From the delicate and small to the large and ornate, the cages were so prevalent that they were obviously a beloved collection and not simply a decorative theme. When she saw the myriad of cages in the main house, she remembered that there were several in the cottage as well and she promised herself she’d look closer at them when she returned to her rooms.

It was fitting, actually, for Nightingale Vineyards to have a collection of birdcages, but there seemed to be more to it than that. Especially when she leaned closer to one or two and saw the open cage doors could easily swing close and latch if someone hadn’t decided to keep them open, as if to be sure no bird was ever trapped inside.

The upper stories of the house were silent and still. Hallways branched from the main staircase in a labyrinthine confusion. Occasionally, she heard footsteps and doors open and close. She assumed Turov had many maids in his employ, but she never encountered one. The solitude suited her clandestine intrusion, but it also made her avoid silent shadows that seemed darker than they should be. The house was too big. Too empty. It seemed almost like a museum or mausoleum. Turov had lived long beyond his natural time. There was obviously a price to his longevity beyond the damnation he ultimately faced. Isolation. Loneliness. He lived in a house that must once have known love and laughter, but was now dusty with all humor long forgotten in gray photographs.

Finally, she found a room that drew her curiosity even more than the birdcages. At its heart was a large glass case—the glass waved with age—and within its protection sat a Russian tea service decorated with an elaborate design. The wallpaper throughout the house must have been chosen to complement the tea service with its antique pot and dainty cups. The motif on the porcelain featured an exotic bird with boldly colorful feathers outlined in glimmering gold. The gold also accented the handles and the rims of the cups as well as the curved spout of the pot. The whole service rested on black velvet that was faded and dusty even within its case. It hadn’t been used in a long time. She chose not to disturb it now.

But she did note that an open gilded birdcage was a part of the background design.

On a card table nearby she found a copy of a book with illustrations similar to the tea service. She picked up the volume and found it delicate from frequent use and age. Its spine was cracked. Its cover was worn. It wasn’t dusty under glass. No children lived in the house, but the book wasn’t forgotten. The title page was translated, The Firebird. The rest of the book was in Russian.

Again, she noticed an open birdcage featured on one of the pages.

She would look up the tale on her laptop when she had a chance. For now, she reluctantly put the beautiful book down after quickly skimming through the illustrations.

Victoria explored the rest of the room with more urgency. The book wasn’t abandoned. That meant the room wasn’t as abandoned as it had first appeared, although the chairs were covered with linen sheets gray with age.

Low on an otherwise empty shelf, she found a wooden box carved all over in a design of grapes. She almost glanced over it, but something in its rough, dust-embedded surface called to her. When she opened the lid, she felt more intrusive than she’d felt so far. This had been someone’s keepsake box. It wasn’t meant for her eyes or fingers. Inside, nestled on a bed of scarlet velvet gone pale and worn, she found a ring of keys much like the one Turov had given her for the rose-covered cottage. In fact, exactly like. Her key must have been taken from this set. Only now did she realize the swirled design in the key’s grip was another firebird.

Suddenly, she remembered the woman in the photograph with Turov. His mother. Firebird Pinot Noir was named in her honor. Now, Victoria saw the meaning behind the name. The Russian fairy tale must have been a treasure to her. She’d worn a firebird brooch in the photograph. The tea set had been hers and this must have been her sitting room. The dust everywhere but on the book indicated Turov visited at times to mourn or recall.

Had the birdcage collection been hers as well, and was it somehow tied to the firebird fairy tale?

Her fingers shook when she placed the keys back in the box and put the box back on the shelf. Tears pricked her eyes and shame colored her cheeks. She shouldn’t be here. She might as well have desecrated a tomb. How horrible to outlive the family you loved by decades and more to come. They might be the only people who ever understood his dark secrets. Turov’s mother had loved him as she loved Michael. And Victoria had disturbed the room where he came to sit with long-dead memories.

Briefly, she’d even considered taking the keys.

She should. If one fit her cottage door, the others would unlock other places, maybe even the secret prison she sought. But she couldn’t. Not now. It was too intrusive to contemplate.

Instead, she looked long and hard at the whole room. She adjusted the book on the card table to more closely assimilate its previous position. She couldn’t help the disturbed dust. Best to leave it as it had been found. A place for a son who’d been left behind to grieve.

* * *

The middle-aged manager introduced himself as Gideon. His friendly sun-crinkled eyes and informative banter eased her disappointment after a fruitless day. She’d seen or heard nothing to indicate a clue about where Turov might be holding crazed monks for the devil. His house was cool and shadowed and overwhelmingly empty.

Except for the firebird keys.

Of course, she hadn’t ventured into his private apartment. There were many places she wasn’t free to explore. But the whole dark house had made her feel guilty for her snooping. Especially his mother’s sitting room.

“Please, climb aboard, miss. I’ll drive you over to the hilltop,” Gideon said.

The vehicle was an ATV designed like a miniature pickup truck. It had large tires with deep tread and two rows of side-by-side seats. The small aluminum truck bed currently held a cooler and what seemed to be gardening equipment—rakes, gloves, shears and buckets.

“I’m sorry to add to your chores,” Victoria said. She was glad she’d changed out of her dress into practical clothes. Gideon’s coveralls were belted neatly but she could tell he’d put in a long day.

“I’ve overseen the thinning for years, but I don’t often get to drive such pleasant visitors through the rows. Happy to do it,” Gideon said. He grinned and Victoria couldn’t help smiling back.

“You must have known Mr. Turov for a long time?” Victoria asked as the ATV bumped along. Gideon was explaining that the cover crops grown to fight erosion between rows had been recently mowed. The rainy season was over. Drier weather and approaching summer meant moisture needed to be directed toward the grapevines instead.

“No. No one knows Mr. Turov. He’s a private man. But he’s a good man. I haven’t always been a grower. My life before I came to Nightingale Vineyards was a very different sort of life,” Gideon said as he cut the wheel so that they were bumping over different terrain. “I owe Mr. Turov a great debt. I’m honored to repay it every day in these rows. He gave me the sun. I give him my hands and my back in return.”

He spoke so warmly of Turov that Vic was taken aback. She tried to absorb what he said and what he’d left unsaid. How had Turov given him the sun?

They left the gentle roll of the main vineyard behind in order to curve up and around a rise. The sun was low on the horizon. It painted everything it touched in a gold wash of color. Other crews were finishing for the day. She could see them piling into other ATVs and tractors in the distance.

“You’ll ride back with Mr. Turov. He has his own vehicle. There he is now,” Gideon said.

She could see the tall outline of Turov’s form silhouetted by the glow of the sun.

“Most of the maintenance on the hilltop is done by hand. There isn’t room for equipment. Mr. Turov oversees much of it himself. This was his mother’s parcel. The Firebird is named after her,” Gideon explained. “From her favorite Russian tale.”

He stopped at the base of an even steeper slope. The vineyard rows extended up in diagonal alleys from the path where he parked beside another ATV long enough for her to exit. Turov didn’t come to meet them. After raising his hand to salute his foreman, he bent to continue his work. Victoria climbed from the mini truck and thanked Gideon.

“Please, take the cooler. Cook sent some refreshment. Mr. Turov never rests as he should. He’s a driven man. These grapes are his obsession,” Gideon said.

Victoria didn’t argue. She suspected Turov had much darker obsessions, ones that would shock Gideon and Cook.

“Good night and thank you,” she said. Gideon waved as he drove away.

Victoria stood for a few moments as she noticed several large windmills spinning on steel posts. There didn’t seem to be enough wind to make the red blades move. The air was rapidly cooling and still. She placed the cooler in the last remaining ATV and climbed the hill toward where Turov was working. He didn’t look her way. He continued to tend to the vines with flying fingers.

That’s what she noticed. Deft manipulation of small pruning shears had leaves raining down at his feet.

She’d seen a Japanese bonsai trimmed once at a garden show. This reminded her of that meticulous attention to detail on a grander scale. The vines seemed perfect to her. Not a stem out of place. And yet tendril by tendril across hundreds of acres would be carefully groomed to maximize and perfect this year’s harvest.

“You can see the flowerings. Those will be our grapes. I’m making sure each bunch will receive optimal filtered light. There was a rainfall and a heavy mist this morning and temperatures will fall tonight.” He paused and glanced at her, his nimble fingers stopping their work. “I saw you looking at the fans. They’ll dry the moisture to ensure it doesn’t freeze.”

“I thought they were spinning too quickly to be windmills,” Victoria said.

“Windmills would need to be taller to catch the breeze. These fans are motorized and low enough to optimally dry the vines. We’ve made it almost to the end of the rains. That’s always a relief. You probably noticed Gideon was happy. We didn’t lose any crop this year,” Turov said.

How could this man so proud of his vines be in league with daemons? Had his passion for grapes come before or after he sold his soul?

Unlike Gideon, Adam Turov wasn’t dressed in coveralls, but he wasn’t in a suit or tuxedo either. He wore a flannel button-down shirt that he’d rolled at the sleeves. If possible, his chest looked broader and his bare arms were as muscular as she’d suspected from the athletic grace of his movements. A ring of keys attached to his belt rattled as he worked. They looked solid, worn and timeless, like the man they belonged to. They were much simpler than the firebird keys she’d seen when she was exploring the house, but she suspected the two sets unlocked many of the same doors around the estate.

The keys drew her attention again and again. Her instincts were much better at espionage than she was.

She’d watched him kill a man, pour wine and swirl a crystal glass, and now she watched him coaxing abundance from a growing thing. Would the real Adam Turov please raise his hand? Her chest tightened because it didn’t matter. She was uncomfortable lying to all three.

“Would you like to try?” he asked.

He’d paused again. Victoria took the pruning shears he offered. He watched her mimic his movements on the next section of vine. More tentative, but she’d watched what he did and he nodded when she did well.

Snip-snip-snip.

He was right beside her.

The soft wind from the fans blew his scent to her face—soap, sunshine, clean sweat and a hint of wood smoke. The hair that waved at the nape of his neck was damp.

“My mother tended this parcel. It was hers. She preferred the low yield of the hilltop. The hand manipulation. She was from a simpler time. To do a job right, you must feel it. Get your hands dirty. There’s a density to the crush from this hilltop. It’s tannic in youth, but becomes intensely smooth with age,” Turov said.

“Like velvet on the tongue,” Victoria added.

She shouldn’t have. Her voice was huskier than usual. Influenced by his nostalgia, his nearness and the Brimstone pull between them. He reached for the shears. The sun had almost fully set. They stood in the twilight. It was too dark to work now. In this light, you might cut off more than you intended.

“I asked Gideon to send a bottle so you could taste the Firebird, here, where it’s grown. There’s nothing like breathing the air that has infused it with flavor as you taste the wine itself,” Turov said. He dropped the shears in a bucket and led her back to the path.

She dusted her hands off and followed. She tried not to obsess about the keys on his belt and what they meant she had to do. Hadn’t she known even when she’d left his mother’s keys in the box? She wasn’t free to choose between right and wrong. Respecting his mother’s sitting room meant leaving Michael in danger.

He placed the bucket of tools in the back of the ATV and retrieved the bottle of wine from the cooler.

This was intimate. The wine he’d made surrounded by the vines he’d tended with his own hands. When he released the cork with fingers stained green from his work, Victoria felt a pull stronger than Brimstone. And her intentions toward the firebird keys burned her cheeks.

“Doesn’t it need to breathe?” she asked.

He reached into the cooler and handed her two glasses.

“This is perfectly aged. Its tannic levels are low. Pouring correctly into the glass is the only aeration Firebird needs,” Turov said.

He poured into the centers of the glasses, allowing the rich, red liquid to fall from a height of eight inches. She was holding her breath. She allowed it to sigh from her lips as he placed the bottle on the tailgate and reached for the glass in her right hand.

“Now. Enjoy,” he said.

She couldn’t help it. She watched him first. The swirl of the liquid in the glass. The deep inhalation as he enjoyed its bouquet. Then the pleasure that suffused his face when he sipped from the glass and savored the wine on his tongue. She allowed his enjoyment to distract her from her duplicitous intentions for the keys hidden back at the main house.

The pleasure he took in his first sip was incredibly sensual.

Her knees went weak with his obvious care and pleasure. So like he might be in bed savoring other things. She copied him with less finesse, but as she’d experienced the night before, even a novice could appreciate this spectacular pinot noir. Its fruity, velvet spice exploded on her tongue.

The Brimstone burn of his blood was a constant seduction of her senses, but she was as seduced by the vintner as she was by his daemon heat. She sipped as the darkest night settled around them. The full moon was a month away. She had only a few weeks to save Michael. Turov turned the headlights of the ATV on and they were oddly illuminated in brilliance and strangely cast shadows.

The wine didn’t mellow the burn. It softened her resistance to the Brimstone’s pull. She couldn’t deny the answering coil of heat low in her stomach that had nothing to do with rich grapes and everything to do with damnation. Her affinity for Brimstone damned her to be drawn to the one man she couldn’t afford to desire.

But the desire was so warm compared to the cold fear she’d been running on for too long. She was able to push thoughts of keys and what they might unlock from her mind too easily.

The bold Victoria she’d been before the fire stirred deep in her breast. That Victoria would have taken one wine-flavored kiss in the green-scented night. That Victoria would have taken much more from this mysterious, dangerous man. Not in spite of his darkness, but because of it.

She’d lived a dark life plagued by the Order of Samuel. Never simple. Never free. Was it any wonder she was drawn to a man who could match her shadow for shadow? A man who had still managed to root himself in the rich California soil?

As if he read her mind, Turov took her glass. Their fingers didn’t brush, but she could feel the warmth of his even without contact. Hers tingled, but she didn’t reach out. She fisted them instead. He didn’t offer her another glass of wine. He put the bottle and the glasses back into the cooler. They hadn’t touched the chocolate or cheese.

“I need to drive you back to the house. I have more business to attend to this evening. I won’t be in for dinner,” Turov said.

There was no door to open, but he stood by the side of the vehicle as she took her seat instead of crossing around to take his. He placed both hands on the roll bar frame above her head. Her body recognized his pause as he lingered. Her heartbeat sped up. Her breath quickened. The warmth of her affinity to his Brimstone caused her skin to flush. She looked up at him. In the odd light, her high color might be disguised. Could he feel her body temperature rise even as the night cooled down around them?

“Velvet on the tongue,” he said softly.

She nodded. Not to confirm her earlier thoughts on the texture of pinot noir. The slight affirmative tilt of her head was a bigger confession. Even in this light, she could see the direction of his gaze. Her lips.

Turov leaned in and she held very still. He continued to hold the roll bar above her head, but he allowed himself to move just enough to softly capture the lips he focused on. The press of his mouth was no more than a sigh against hers. He held himself back. She could sense his control. The warrior was caged, the damned man was daunted, the vintner was striving for an air of casual pleasure the other two would belie.

His lips were soft, as gentle as his hands had been when he’d touched her that morning. But the second they grazed hers once, twice, teasing tastes, his lips slightly open so his moist, wine-sweetened breath met and mingled with her sigh of reaction—that second of contact caused her entire body to tense.

Her diaphragm tightened. Her lungs expanded. Her vocal cords tingled with unsung notes. He brought something to life in her with the barely there kiss. With the slightest pressure, with the slightest contact, he awakened something so long dormant she’d thought it might be dead and gone.

Her whole body trembled as she parted her lips to meet the next brush of his and he noticed her quickening. He still held the roll bar, but even in the deepening night she could see his knuckles begin to whiten as the strength of his grip increased.

He didn’t pull back, but he didn’t touch her with anything other than his lips. He didn’t take more though he could have. He didn’t deepen the contact. A deepening would have scorched them both. When her tongue lightly touched his, offering an instinctive invitation to take more, they both stiffened as Brimstone heat flared between them with the sudden arc of electric shock.

He did ease back then. He looked down at her with shadowed eyes. The headlights illuminated the path in front of the ATV, but it cast the seats and their bodies in garishly outlined shadows now that night had fallen.

“I promised you’d be safe. This isn’t safe. Far from it,” Turov said.

His accent had thickened, as if emotion affected his ability to control it. Suddenly, she wanted those Russian inflections murmured against her ear while his body pressed against hers.

As if he read her mind, Turov let go of the roll bar and stepped back. His longevity hadn’t moldered his emotions or his passion. If anything, he was filled with a concentrated need for human contact that had been distilled from years of being isolated from normality. Victoria licked her sensitized lips, tasting the hint of perspiration he’d left there from the moist swell of his upper lip. The heat that radiated from him touched deep to her core and spread outward, but it also called forth energy within herself. All from the slightest taste, the merest touch. She could only imagine what deeper kisses and less controlled embraces would...no she couldn’t imagine. She wouldn’t allow her aroused senses to go there.

“I should go back to the house,” she said. It was as much a confession as a request. She could see the war in him. The stiffness of his broad shoulders. His clenched fists. He held himself back even though he’d let the roll bar go.

Michael’s father had swept her defenses away. This was different. This was mutual. Her sensual power rose up to meet Turov’s. Their bodies were drawn to each other.

“You should. I should,” he agreed.

And still they paused under the glittering stars that winked to life in the blue-black Sonoma sky. Her affinity and his Brimstone blood were held at bay by sheer force of will. She was grateful for the shadows. Sunshine would have revealed how badly she wanted to succumb. She wanted to touch, taste and sing in his arms. To revel in the forbidden awakening she’d unexpectedly found on a mission that was cold as ice.

Would she see an answering hunger in his eyes? To forget his daemon deal in her arms? It was best if she didn’t know.

Finally, he broke the standoff. He chose the best course for sanity and retreated to the driver’s side of the ATV. While he slid in behind the wheel, Victoria tried to calm her breathing. She willed her heartbeat to slow. She needed to take advantage of this weakness she’d found in Adam Turov. He desired her. Of that she was certain. The connection between them didn’t lie. But how could she seduce him into revealing his secrets before she was seduced herself?

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