I felt dazed, as if his words or very touch delivered some kind of drug, but I managed to push out words in a murmur. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” He chuckled again. As he laughed, the hands holding my arms slowly became visible.
It took me a moment to analyze the response. My mind moved slowly. The voice was deep and tinged with a strange though familiar accent. His laughter sent something through my body that I couldn’t quite fathom. “Who are you?” Where was Matt? Was he hurt? How had this guy gotten past him?
“You don’t recognize my voice? Ah, my dear, I’m devastated. From the time of the fall, when you snuck out to tend to my wounds, your compassion has been your undoing. Even then, as hurt as I was, my desire for you was overwhelming. I like this human form of you just as well.”
His hips bounced against my backside, and my breath quickened.
“Part of you knows me even if you don’t remember at the moment.”
A haze of lust descended over me, fogging my mind. My body responded to him as if it knew, by the sound of his voice and his touch, what it could expect. He had to be a fallen angel, but that didn’t make sense. How had one gotten into my home? I tried to think through what he’d just said and gasped out, “Why would I have helped you?”
The demon sighed. “Oh, my dear Merry. You truly don’t remember me? I’m wounded.” His hands left my arms and reached down to slide up my thighs, under the towel. He grasped my hips as the bulge in his pants rubbed up against the valley of my buttocks. I shuddered with the pleasure of his touch.
“Demons were once angels, and you and I knew each other… well. While we could not procreate with each other, we certainly could do the deed. And, we can procreate with humans, which you happen to be at the moment. This could get interesting.”
He spun me around, hauled me over to the bed, then pushed me onto it, my head on the pillows. A black silk scarf appeared in his hands, and he quickly secured my hands to the headboard. Now I could see my seducer. He was darkly divine.
Black hair fell in layers to his shoulders. He had high cheekbones under crystalline blue eyes and a strong jaw under full, red lips. His shoulders were broad, and a halfway buttoned turquoise shirt revealed dark chest hair. I pictured it tapering to his groin, below the waistband of the black pants he wore. Or was I remembering?
He caressed my cheek and jaw. As I opened my mouth to protest, a gag appeared in his hand, and he pressed it into my mouth, then tied it behind my head. “I’m sorry, my darling. As much as I would love to hear your unrestrained vocalizations while I pleasure you, I think it best that our friend below not know I’m here, at least until it’s too late.” He moved to the end of the bed and put one knee between mine, then shifted his weight onto it and pulled the other leg up onto the bed to kneel between my thighs. He stroked up my inner thighs. “He hasn’t been taking care of you, has he? I promise to do better if you give me a chance.” His fingers danced across my flesh just below the hem of my towel, and my hips bucked up to meet him. “Oh, yes, eager, aren’t you?”
Thoughts of Matt served to clear my head a little bit. I looked down at my seducer, helpless, and conflicted. It wasn’t fair. A gorgeous male, albeit a fallen angel, sat on my bed, ready and willing to pleasure me, and he wasn’t the one I wanted. This had to be some cruel joke of fate, right? All I could think about was the very human and flawed male downstairs who had once been an angel and acted intent on keeping me at arm’s length. How was I going to explain this? I stared down at the former angel between my legs.
On the other hand, would I survive this? My experience with horror movies suggested this could go bad at the blink of an eye, literally.
Even through the haze of lust crowding my thoughts, I knew I had to find a way out of this. My reaction to him made no sense, I had to resist it. There was no way I could fight him physically, particularly with my hands tied above my head.
“So, what will it be, my darling Alstroemeria? Be my queen, or be strung along like a little fish?”
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and moaned through my gag.
The demon’s head turned toward the hall, and he muttered an imprecation then chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling as he turned back to me. “I suppose I could give you a little longer to consider my offer. I strongly suggest you consider it carefully. I’m one of the few demons not out to destroy you—currently.” He winked at me, then he was gone as if he’d never been there.
I closed my eyes and said a prayer of thanks, then tried to call out around the gag.
“Allyson?” I heard Matt trying to turn the door knob, but it wouldn’t open. “Are you okay? Open the door. Allyson? I’m going to force the door in. Stand back if you can.”
It only took him two good shoves to make the molding around the door give way, spilling him into the room.
He moved into a fighting stance, looking wildly around the room for an assailant, but there was none in evidence.
Matt’s eyes swept over me as I lay helplessly bound and gagged on the bed, aroused by the demon’s ministrations and embarrassed by it, now that the haze had started to clear. I was insanely grateful the towel had stayed in place somehow.
Matt’s lips parted, and his eyes slid slowly down the length of my body. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to take up where the demon had left off. He shook himself and moved toward me. An expression of guilt dominated as he knelt beside me and gently removed the gag, then untied me. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Demon,” I said simply, my voice shaking.
“Did it hurt you?” he asked, his voice low and tight.
“Not exactly,” I said dryly.
He looked into my face and must have read the embarrassment there. His nostrils flared, and he finally took in my flushed skin and the scent of arousal. His eyes swept back down my body, putting two and two together.
“What did you do?” he asked vehemently.
“Nothing. Hey, I was the one attacked and tied up, remember?” I sat up.
“Then what exactly happened here?”
“I don’t know. He came at me as I entered the room and pressed his body against mine from behind, forcing me up against the wall.” I shivered at the memory. “He acted put out that I didn’t recognize him. Said something about me sneaking out to tend his wounds.”
Through clenched teeth, Matt ground out, “Zyriel.”
“Who?”
“The demon who was your… friend. Why didn’t you yell for me?” His tone held an accusation.
My blood began to boil. “I was pressed against the wall, held in place, my face smooshed. I could barely breathe, let alone say anything. He tied me down and offered me a place by his side, as his ‘queen.’” I seriously doubted he was anyone to be offering such an exalted title.
Matt’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I was bound and gagged.” I stared him in the eye and didn’t like what I saw. Was he jealous? “What the hell is this, blame the victim day?”
“You clearly didn’t suffer any at his hands.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not, he was hoping to take advantage of any remembered affection. Would have been hard to do if he’d cut me or something, don’t you think?”
I stood up, went to my dresser, and started getting clothes out.
“Are you considering his offer?” Matt asked.
“Oh my God, you are driving me insane,” I spat out, whirling around and yanking the towel off, then dropping it on the floor. I grabbed a pair of panties and jeans and started putting them on.
Matt’s eyes went wide, then he turned around abruptly to face away from me. “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
I couldn’t even think of words at that point. “Aaagh.”
He turned back and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Get out. Just get out.”
“I’m going to set wards around the house to make sure no demon, not even a frien
dly one, can get in.” He scowled and left, closing the door with great restraint behind him.
* * *
Training and lunch were intolerably tense. Matt stuck to business; otherwise, we didn’t speak. I was still pissed as well.
I would have gone to town without Matt, but he didn’t give me a chance, plucking the keys from my hand. We rode in silence. I stole glances over at him as often as I dared. His face was a mask of frozen immobility. I couldn’t believe he had reacted this way. My stomach churned. Was this over before it even began? I hadn’t even done anything wrong. I was the victim here. Okay, I had to admit, I hadn’t felt victimized. Why was that? I puzzled over it. I had been as shocked by my own body’s reaction as the presence of the demon. What had Matt called him? Zyriel.
I hadn’t even known his name, but he claimed to know me, well. My reaction to him agreed with that. My mind had strayed to the demon Zyriel throughout the afternoon, flashes of his face, but not the way I had seen him in my bedroom. These were flashes of him elsewhere, sometimes hurt and sometimes not. Sometimes in the throes of passion. Could what he had said be true? The more tidbits I remembered, the more likely it seemed.
Still, I hadn’t done anything. I had been tied up, for heaven’s sake. I thought about Matt’s question, why hadn’t I yelled at first? Surprise? Disbelief? I couldn’t even see the demon. I knew that didn’t mean anything with them, but still, it had been surreal. Then I’d been gagged. Come on, that has got to count for something.
And I was being honest, I should get points for that. Okay, Zyriel had to have been exercising some kind of control over me. That had to be it. At least, it was my story, and I was sticking to it. There was another aspect to it as well.
“You know,” I said quietly as we approached the edge of town. “Maybe if you didn’t keep me in such a constant state of sexual excitement and denial, he wouldn’t have been able to get to me so easily.”
“What?” His tone was incredulous.
I bobbed my head vigorously. “Oh yeah, yep. One minute you’re touching me or kissing me, and the next you’re walking away, repeatedly. I bet he used it against me to get me all confused and worked up. It was like he tapped into something in me, my sexual frustration. It was probably just the in he needed.” Okay, maybe that had started way before Matt came along, but he sure as hell had added plenty to it. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook too easily. He needed to share some responsibility for what happened.
Matt pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and parked the car.
I got out and stood there with the door open. “Are you coming in?”
“No, I think I’ll wait out here,” he said quietly.
“Fine,” I said, and slammed the door. I heard my mother’s voice in my head: Don’t slam the car door. “It’s my car door, I’ll slam it if I want to,” I snarled under my breath.
For good measure, I crossed the street without looking both ways. We were in a ten mile per hour zone anyway, and I didn’t see anything in my peripheral vision. Oh, I had myself a fine old snit.
Inside the building, I skirted the reception desk to the left and walked down the hallway to the elevator, which would open on the correct side of the building. I rode up to the fourth floor and stepped out onto the landing where the door I had to be buzzed through stood.
“The doctors are running a little behind on rounds,” the nurse inside told me pleasantly. “It’ll only be about ten minutes if you’d care to wait in the family room. I’ll let you know when you can come on in. Just between you and me and the wall, this isn’t unusual. Most people don’t show up for the first twenty minutes of visiting hours for just this reason, just so you know in the future.”
“Thanks,” I said and gave her a small smile. Her friendly demeanor took a little of the bite out of my own crappy attitude. I took a deep breath, then turned and went down the hall to the empty waiting room where I made a cup of coffee and sat down. That was where the priest found me.
“Good morning. It’s so good to see you again. Allyson, isn’t it?”
I was somewhat taken aback. His overly enthusiastic manner made me think of a Broadway actor. He seemed quite nice. I liked him, in one way, though his bonhomie seemed a bit over the top. It made me wonder if I could trust him. I’d heard Charles Manson had seemed really nice to some people too. “Good morning, Father Patrick. How are you?”
He raised his hands, palm up. “Just enjoying the day the Lord has given us. And you?”
“It’s been an interesting day already,” I said wryly, then hurried on, “Are you here to see Jen?”
He clasped his hands together. “Yes, and anyone else who wishes to visit with clergy today. I’m here in my capacity as chaplain, taking my turn at the hospital.”
“You take turns?”
His head bobbed up and down. “Yes, with other clergy in the area, from other denominations.”
“That’s nice,” I said, twirling the stirring stick in my coffee to bring the creamer up from the bottom.
“And I’m so glad you’re here. I really believe strongly that it’s important patients have visitors, that they know people care about them and want them to get well. In my experience, it makes a vast difference in their recovery.”
“Thank you, Father, I’ll keep that in mind.” I hesitated. Here was someone with in depth knowledge of demons and angels. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.” He nodded solemnly and took a seat, as if preparing to be quizzed on anything I might ask.
I suppressed a laugh at his bubbly attitude. “I’m not Catholic.”
He shrugged. “That’s okay.”
“I mean, I grew up Episcopalian, but, to be honest, I’ve waffled back and forth between being atheist and agnostic for the past fifteen years.”
“And now?”
“Well.” I stared down at the floor, out the window, then up at the ceiling. “Recently, some things have happened that led me to believe there definitely is some kind of higher power, though I’m not sure of anything beyond that.”
“Fair enough. Can you share with me what those things are?”
I slowly shook my head. “I’d rather not.”
“Okay. So, what was your question?”
I turned directly to him. “What do you know about angels?”
“Well, you’re in luck,” he enthused.
“Oh?” I asked, a little taken aback.
“Angelic presence was one of my favorite papers in the seminary.” He beamed.
I chuckled. “Great. What do you know?”
He crossed one leg over the other and drummed his fingers on his knee. “There’s actually relatively little said about angels in the bible. They’re only mentioned eleven times, to be precise.”
I nodded to encourage him and took a sip of my coffee.
He held up one hand and counted off occurrences on his fingers. “Okay, let’s see. There’s the time Mary is visited by the angel to tell of the coming of Jesus’ birth, of course. There are the angels who appear to the shepherds to announce the birth of Christ, ‘and a multitude of the heavenly host.’”
“What exactly does heavenly host mean?” I interrupted.
“They are the ones who take care of God’s bidding.”
“Okay, so every time an angel is mentioned, it’s male, right?”
“Well, considering the differences in language and how we call groups of people by a male pronoun, that’s actually nearly impossible to decipher. One might use the neuter in talking of a person when uncertain.”
I shook my head. “Are angels male and female or only male?” I asked bluntly.
“No one really knows.”
“I’ve always heard them referred to as male.”
“Yes, but the people who wrote the Bible and most of the texts about it for centuries were predominately male, so of course they would interpret linguistic differences in the direction they were most comfortable with.”
“Okay, that makes sense. T
he winners write the history books.”
“Also, the plain fact is the angels’ lives don’t concern us most of the time. We pay attention to what God says about how we should live. I’m sure he communicates to the angels how he wants them to live. It may not be the same set of rules, as it were.”
“Like priests and lay people?”
“If you like, that is an apt analogy.”
“Fair enough.”
“Any particular reason for the line of questioning?” he asked with a squint and a backward tilt of his head, as if looking at me through spectacles.
I just smiled.
“You’d rather not say.”
I inclined my head with a slow blink.
“Okay.”
In the long run, it really didn’t matter. I knew I was female now whether or not I was over there, and, after my experiences, I could no longer doubt Matt had told me the truth about us being angels. Well, I could doubt it, but that would fall into a level of conspiracy theory I simply was not capable of entertaining in my brain at that point.
The nurse appeared in the doorway. It was four-fifteen. “You’re free to come in now, folks.”
I walked with the priest down the hall. We took turns scrubbing in at the sink, then got gowns on. We parted ways as he went to check with the nurses on whether anyone had particularly asked for him. I went to visit with Jen.
I walked into her room and found her watching a television show. “Feeling better already?” I asked.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Her eyes closed then, and soon she was snoring lightly. The nurse who had been working with her monitors and IV turned to check on her. “She just had an increase in pain medication, so we gave her a push to help compensate for the wait. She may be slightly loopy for a bit. She’ll be in and out until it wears off, then she’ll be in a little more pain but lucid.”
“Oh, okay,” I agreed, but it gave me pause. That meant they were having difficulty managing her pain.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” the nurse said kindly. “She had a treatment this morning to remove dead skin, and the parts which weren’t burned as badly are going to hurt more. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but she’s going to be just fine.” The nurse started out the door. “Just remember to keep back about four feet. We don’t want to risk her getting an infection when her immunity is down.”
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