by Cari Z
Devon pushed away from Rio and stood up, then immediately swayed forward and put his hands back on the bed. Rio sat up and reached for him. “What?”
“Little head rush,” Devon muttered. “M’ fine.”
“Probably not, you haven’t eaten in three days,” Rio said. He sounded annoyed. “We can do this later; you need food and a drink with electrolytes in it—”
“No!” Devon insisted, shoving Rio back down onto the bed. Well, more like Rio allowing him to pretend Devon was shoving him. “We’re doing this now because I need you! Food and water can wait. You can mother me all you want to after you’ve come in my ass, okay?”
Rio stared up at him for a long moment before nodding solemnly. “Whatever you want.”
“Yes,” Devon agreed, then straightened up and went over to Rio’s ubiquitous duffle and searched through the side pockets until he found the lube. He slipped out of the underwear, then came back over to the bed and knelt beside Rio, who said nothing, just stared at Devon like he couldn’t look enough. Devon stared right back, taking in every cut and bruise, every bit and piece of the man, then lifted Rio’s hand to his mouth. Devon kissed the pad of his thumb, then sucked it into his mouth, absorbing the subtle whorls and calluses that spoke of hardship and violence. The digit twitched in Devon’s mouth and Devon’s cock twitched with it, his own physical reactions finally catching up to his mental ones. Devon released Rio’s thumb with a pop and moved on to his next finger.
Rio never took his eyes off Devon, watching him fellate every finger on his hand with intense concentration. He ignored his own erection, not bothering to touch himself, barely moving at all. He just let Devon handle him, let him take whatever he needed, and Devon was grateful for that. Because he felt like he needed an awful lot.
He couldn’t have everything he wanted all at once, though, and he knew if he wasn’t careful his fatigue would catch up to him before long, so Devon didn’t spend too much time on foreplay. He just slicked up Rio’s cock, repositioned himself over his lover’s long, strong body and sank down onto his shaft without bothering to waste more time in preparation.
It hurt at first. Which was strange, because sex never hurt Devon, not if he didn’t want it to. There was a disconnect of some kind between Devon and his own body, and he hated that. He took the pain and stretch and owned it, let it seep into his muscles and skin without flinching, just settled in and waited for it to go away.
When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was Rio staring back at him. Wide hands cradled Devon’s hips, and Rio stroked his thumbs back and forth across the stark ridges of Devon’s iliac crests, firm and grounding. The pain faded and soon Devon just felt the long, thick heat of Rio’s cock inside of him and the growing pleasure it gave him. Devon felt full, owned, possessed, but this time it wasn’t something he feared. He slid up a little, then back down; less than an inch of distance, and it was almost too much. Devon didn’t want to move, he just wanted to absorb.
Rio got it. Of course he did, he got everything. He rocked his hips back and forth and in small, tight circles, churning and grinding Devon against him but not lifting him up. He seemed to want the closeness just as badly, and his legs were in no shape to be planting and thrusting anyhow. “You feel perfect,” he murmured. “So fucking perfect. I love you, Dev.”
And Devon knew that, he really did, the simple fact that he was still here was ample evidence of Rio’s regard for him, but this was the first time Rio had ever said it out loud. It shook Devon right down to his core, and for a moment he forgot how tired he was and how frightened he’d been of things he could barely remember. Instead he let those words blaze through his body like lightning, setting his nerves on fire. Devon couldn’t share Rio’s sexual energy, but in that moment he had more than enough of his own.
Devon fell forward onto his hands, braced them against the bed just above Rio’s shoulders, and began to move in earnest. He leaned in for a kiss and then stayed, unable to pull himself away again. Their tongues twined together, sharing heavy breaths and murmurs, and Devon forgot about himself and focused all his attention on making Rio feel good, as good as he deserved to feel. Devon clenched his ass around Rio’s cock and fucked it as hard as he could without having to straighten up again; and Rio swore and gasped and said, “Dev!” like it was the only word he could remember just before he came with a groan, his hands finally pushing Devon back and down so Rio was as deep inside as he could get.
Devon didn’t come. Not that he wasn’t turned on, he was, but he didn’t come. He was too focused on Rio and too scattered to muster his body to perform the way he was used to, and for a few minutes they just lay there and breathed, Devon perfectly content, before Rio pulled him off of his cock and settled him high on his chest, above the black and purple bruising staining his ribcage.
Oh right, Devon thought right before Rio’s lips engulfed the head of his slick erection. Devon wasn’t finished yet. Except he was going to be, any minute, any second, because Rio’s mouth was hot and wet and his tongue teased the frenulum just beneath the head of Devon’s cock, and all of it put together made Devon throw his head back as he shivered his way into orgasm, a full-body convulsion that left him exhausted and unable to do more than fall to the side of Rio’s body, panting like he’d just run a marathon.
Devon was messy, he should go and…do something about that. And…and…
Rio rolled over and laid his arm across Devon’s chest, a heavy, comforting weight, before he kissed his temple. “It’s okay, Dev. Go to sleep.”
“Mothering me now?” Devon asked, but it came out more like “Mthr’n meno?”
“Something like that. Sleep.”
The parts of Devon that wanted to protest were overruled by the parts that screamed for rest, and he let his eyes fall shut with a sigh. A final thought occurred to him just before he fell asleep: “You totally love me,” he pronounced, feeling terribly smug about it.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Me, too. You, I mean. Me too you.”
Rio chuckled. “I’ve got it.”
“Good.” Devon turned and pressed his face against Rio’s shoulder, snuggled in close and fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was the chill that woke Devon up, the sense of emptiness next to him, not of terror inside of him. Devon was obliquely grateful for that even as he looked around the room in the pale pre-dawn light, searching for Rio. He found him standing by the window, where a gap in the curtain left just enough room for him to get a look at the motel’s parking lot.
Devon realized that he’d somehow slept through Rio cleaning him up, putting clothes back on him—damn the man’s sudden obsession with underwear—and leaving Devon in bed while he’d gone to stand watch. “Why are you over there?” Devon asked muzzily, his tongue thick with sleep fuzz. He grimaced and reached for the glass of water that his considerate lover had left on the nightstand, downing it all in a few seconds.
“Thought I heard something,” Rio said quietly. His gaze didn’t leave the window.
“Was it really something?”
“No. But I was awake anyway, so.” He shrugged and glanced over at Devon, a strange smile twisting his lips. “Here I am.”
There he was. It felt wrong, and made Devon realize that he was still missing out on an awful lot of what had happened to them both since the last thing he could clearly remember, which was…
“What happened to Steven?” he asked suddenly. Because there was definitely no Steven here, Rio hadn’t said anything about him and the last thing Devon could clearly remember they’d all been breaking in to Porter Grey’s suite at the hotel. “Is he all right?”
“Yes,” Rio said immediately. “He’s fine. He’s with your dads right now.”
“And Maggie?” Why would Rio go anywhere without Maggie?
“Steven’s got her. I didn’t want to take her on my rescue mission, just in case I miscalculated.”
Miscalc…oh. “You mean
just in case I managed to kill you?” Devon said, and he was pretty proud of the fact that his voice only shook a little. Still, he needed reassurance, and he extended a hand. After a moment, Rio sighed and came back to bed.
“Don’t think that’s going to work on me every time,” he grumbled as he got under the covers. Devon snuggled up close immediately. Rio felt cold, but he’d warm up fast.
“So,” Devon said after a moment of awkward silence. “Talk to me.”
“First tell me what you remember,” Rio said.
“There isn’t much that’s clear after we entered the suite,” Devon replied. He shut his eyes and tried to skirt the edges of the big mess of terrible memories in his head. “I think I was put in a cage. Cr-Cressidus made me fight one of her other children. And there was another…a little girl.” Devon looked anxiously at Rio. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”
“No,” Rio assured him. “She’s still alive. Anything else?”
“Just a few things from when Cressidus was in me. I’m trying not to—if I focus too hard on it, I feel like it’s going to drown me, you know?” Devon could feel his breathing getting shallower and faster. “I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to know…I, Jesus, I tried to stab you. I shot you!”
“Okay, okay, that’s plenty,” Rio murmured, stroking Devon’s hair back from his forehead. “You don’t have to dig any deeper right now.”
“I remember thinking you would come, but you didn’t,” Devon said, and immediately felt bad for it. “I’m not trying to blame you for this, I’m really not, I’m sorry I said that. You did come, obviously, and it all turned out okay because we’re both here now.”
“I let him take you,” Rio said quietly. “I’d say I deserve some blame.”
“You didn’t let him do anything to me. Rio.” Devon lifted his head up and looked Rio in the eyes. “Seriously, you didn’t let that happen. I’m a goddamn adult capable of making my own decisions, and I walked into that situation with my eyes open. You’re not responsible for me; I’m responsible for myself.”
“That would be truer if our relationship was more platonic,” Rio said, and Devon had to admit he had a point. Sex changed things, and the emotions that came with it changed them even more. “It doesn’t matter. Yes, you were taken. Via a helicopter.” Devon could practically hear Rio’s eyes roll. “Cressidus definitely knew how to make a dramatic exit. Set me up for a pretty dramatic entrance, too. Crossbow bolts,” Rio explained when Devon arched a brow questioningly. “With lasers. And mines. And jungle traps and big metal blades that came swinging across rigged doorways. I felt like James Bond, if James Bond ever had to deal with ruthless, relentless demons.”
Devon winced. “Exactly how badly did they hurt you?”
“Not so badly. They were more about brute force than finesse. One of them spewed poison smoke, one of them could break his own bones and make them into little daggers, hence my arms and legs, and the little girl was possessed by a siren. She lured me close and lowered my resistance.” Rio looked down at Devon. “Ringing any bells?”
“Not really,” Devon confessed. “I just remember my own part in it; the gun stuff, mostly. I tried to stop Cressidus, I did, I swear.”
“I know you did. You tried so hard you made his hand shake.” Rio pressed soft kiss to Devon’s hair. “He missed me more than he hit me. And at the very end, when I thought it was over, he ran out of bullets. I think you took care of me the best way you could, and it worked, Dev.”
Well, that was a relief. He hadn’t been a complete tool. Devon let himself bask in his minor victory before getting back to the hard stuff. “So, you killed the demons?”
“I made their vessels uninhabitable,” Rio said. “They can stand a lot, but once you separate the head from the rest of the body a demon usually gives up. It takes all the fun out of it, I guess. The girl inadvertently breathed in some of the poison and it knocked out her voice, and the siren left her. I couldn’t get to her until the fight was over, but she was still breathing.”
“Good. She didn’t deserve to die, she’s just a kid.” A vicious, shank-wielding little kid, but a kid nonetheless. “What did you do with her?”
“I left her in the helicopter with a note.”
Devon blinked. “What helicopter?”
“The one I used to fly us to our plane.”
Devon’s eyes grew wider. “What plane?” Shit, how many death-defying stunts had he slept through?
“The one I used to get us over the border. Had to steal it, but I left the owners the helicopter in trade, and I called 911 and told them about the kid and where to pick her up.”
Devon thought about that for a moment. “How did the guys with the plane take that?”
Rio shrugged. “Probably not well, but then they made most of their money smuggling drugs over the border, so I don’t feel that bad about depriving them of their plane. We needed it more.”
“I didn’t even know you could fly.”
“I learned years ago, but haven’t flown anything for about a decade,” Rio said, a bit distantly. “But it’s a skill just like swinging a sword or firing a gun--it comes back to you under pressure.”
Who learned how to sword fight these days? Rio didn’t look like the type to learn fencing. A lot of questions were springing into Devon’s mind, and all of them unsettled his stomach. “How did you get rid of Cressidus?”
“I exorcised him.”
“Is that a…a nephilim thing?” Devon could remember that word, nephilim. Cressidus had thought about it a lot, occasionally with avarice but mostly with a sense of fear. “Half-angel, right?” So crazy. “I guess that’s why my allure never worked on you.”
“Right.”
“That’s amazing.”
Rio snorted derisively. “It’s not that amazing. Just proof that neither Heaven nor Hell is immune to fucking with humanity.”
There was a lot of bitterness there. Devon caressed Rio’s chest, doing his best to avoid the bruises from where the bullets had impacted his vest, and after a moment Rio relaxed again. “He called you rare.” Devon remembered that, vaguely.
“I am. There never were very many of us, and as far as I know, the angels stopped making us a very long time ago. I was one of the youngest.”
“How young is that?” Devon unconsciously held his breath, not sure he was ready for the answer.
“I was born in 1104 in Jerusalem.” Rio’s voice was flat, unemotional. “My father was Ugo de Pagani, one of the founders of the Templar Knights. My mother seduced him, I was the result, and she left me with him when she decided she was done with humanity.”
No, nope, Devon hadn’t been ready for that. He felt his heart drop into his stomach and had a bad moment in which he wasn’t sure if he was breathing or not, when the darkness closed in around him again. Vaguely he heard Rio speaking to him, saying something soothing, kissing his cheek and jaw and ear. “C’mon, Dev, snap out of it.” After a few more anxious seconds Devon did, inhaling shakily but enough to clear the stars from his vision.
“Better,” Rio told him, backing off enough so that Devon could see his face now. The sun wasn’t quite over the horizon yet, and the relative darkness left the stark planes of Rio’s face mostly delineated by shades of gray. The only thing with any color in him was the eyes, faint glints of gold and amber shining more noticeably in the dim light. How had Devon not noticed that color before?
“How are you still alive?” Devon asked faintly.
“Nephilim don’t age like humans do. Once we reach our full growth our bodies maintain that state. We were bred to be warriors, stronger and hardier than humans. We can be killed, of course, but it’s not easy.”
Then why… “Where are the rest of you?”
Rio sighed heavily. “Those who weren’t killed in battle eventually lost the will to live. It’s a strange malaise that affected our ranks, starting with the eldest. When I was born, the leader of the Host was almost five thousand years old. Before I turned on
e hundred, he’d wasted away to nothing in a monastery.”
“How could that happen?”
Rio shrugged. “It just did. The Church kept it hushed up, of course, and those of us who weren’t affected tended to shun the ones that were. I’ve never felt the sickness myself, but then I struck out on my own quite a ways back, and I was never the best at following orders anyhow.”
“So you might live forever?” Devon asked, feeling oddly okay with that.
“Anything is possible,” Rio said. He sounded resigned. “But I doubt it. That’s something we need to talk about.” He pulled away and sat up, then leaning his back against the wall. Devon rose as well, but Rio stopped him from getting close again. “No, you’ve got to listen and take this seriously.”
“Take what seriously?” Devon giggled, knowing it sounded more than a little out of control, but fuck it, that was exactly how he felt. “The fact that my super-powered boyfriend freed me from the demon that possessed me thanks to his, what, his holiness? Is that even a thing? Are you holy?”
“I’m not holy, but my powers are.” Rio was using his stern voice, the one he used when they were on a job, and despite himself Devon settled down. “When I use them, it sends a signal, a kind of…think of it as ringing a bell. Anyone close enough, anyone listening for that sound, they’ll recognize it. I haven’t used any of my abilities in decades because I don’t want to be found, Dev. I don’t want to go back.”
“Back where?”
Rio sighed. “Back into rotation. Back into use. I fought and killed and bled for God for centuries, and I finally got tired of it. When the last of my sisters went into seclusion, I decided to leave. That decision wasn’t a popular one. I’ve been hiding ever since, not using my powers, staying under the radar, keeping quiet. When I exorcised Cressidus, I had to tap into that holy source to do it, and I rang that bell, Dev. Loud and clear.”