Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  But the woman standing next to him…the only part of her Jubilee recognized was her haircut. She still wore his gray T-shirt, though the back appeared to have been shredded, and the fabric clung to her, draping her like some tunic and struck her mid-thigh.

  She’d often avoided the sun and had never tanned easily so the paleness did not surprise her, but the glittery glow of her skin? That had changed. Her eyes seemed brighter, and even her nails had grown, slender and sharp. She’d always been on the painful end of thin, but now her arms had a softer, rounder look to them. And they weren’t the only thing.

  “Holy crap, I have boobs.” Tugging a hand from Fox’s, she peeked down her shirt and stared. She hadn’t been much more than an A cup before. They’d definitely grown.

  “I noticed.” Laughter warmed his voice, and he ran his fingers from her jaw to the curve of her breast and back again. Her whole body lit up, and she let out a shuddering breath. Well, at least her response to him hadn’t changed. The scent of his arousal filled the air like musk, and filled her mind with the most provocative of images. She saw herself pressed against the mirror, wings extended as he gripped her hips and eased his cock into her slick channel. The inner walls of her sex flexed in anticipation.

  In the mirror, Fox’s nostrils flared. He scented her arousal. He had since that moment in the hotel room. How she knew that, she had no idea, but the slow grind of his body pouring into hers, his hands cupping her breasts as he toyed with her nipples sent wetness dripping down the inside of her thigh.

  Meeting his gaze in the mirror, she tried to catch her breath, but all the oxygen seemed to have fled her lungs. She burned for his touch. She had no idea what the hell was going on, yet this part hadn’t changed. She wanted him.

  “Yes.” She turned, crashing into him as his mouth claimed hers. It was in every part the kiss she’d imagined as his tongue stole in to possess her. He fisted her hair and angled her head back, and she surrendered the access to him. The scent of him coated her, and she wanted to drown until it clogged every pore.

  She tightened her hands on his shoulders, fighting to remain in one place. Her wings pulled at her back, and a strangled moan tore from her throat. He slid a hand down to her breast and tugged at a nipple through the cotton. One moment they were standing, and then he had her pressed back against the mirror. The shirt shredded in seconds, and the fabric drifted down to her feet. She stretched her wings as he abandoned her mouth and kissed a path down to her breast.

  She knew she was going to feel teeth, and when his lips closed over the turgid nipple, her eyes fluttered closed. Sensation stole through her. The hard tug sent a zing straight to her clit, and warmth pooled in her belly. Kissing a hot, wet path to her other breast, he gave it a hard squeeze and then sucked on the nipple until her thoughts became hazy.

  Down he went across her belly, his hands firm and sure. He held her place when her hips bucked in anticipation of his mouth against her sex. The light trace of his fingers up the inside of her thighs had her breath hitching.

  The world faded away as he licked her from her opening to her clit, and her whole body hummed in awareness of him. He gave her no quarter, sucking her clit hard against his teeth as two fingers speared into her. Long, hard strokes of his fingers had her inner walls clamping, and every stroke of his tongue sent her flying. She was shattering and coming back together, and still the pressure continued. She lost count of his motions and basked in overwhelming sensations as another mushroom cloud rushed upward, expanding inside of her until she screamed with pleasure.

  Too soon, she drifted back to earth to find his dark topaz eyes on her face; he waited until she looked at him before he kissed her. Tasting herself on his lips sent her mind on another dizzying journey, his possession and need twined together in a hot stroke against her senses.

  Somehow he’d lost his pants, and she felt the weight of his erection teasing along her belly, but this was not the right way. With regret, she broke the kiss and pushed him back. He frowned, but she didn’t waste time, pulling her wings close and turning carefully until her palms were on the mirror.

  Fox’s gaze went smoldering as she stretched her wings and braced herself as she’d seen in her mind, how he’d imagined her. Fire licked along her sides as he raked her with his gaze. He drew a finger down her back, tracing the line of her spine to the line between her butt cheeks and then down to her sex. He cupped her and petted, stroking her labia apart.

  “Are you sure?” Fox asked, his need thickening his voice until it was so low and guttural it was almost difficult to understand him. “I don’t know that I can be gentle like this or not claim you.”

  The heat pooling between her thighs became an inferno at the warning in the last sentence. She wanted to be claimed. Refusing to try to understand any of it—how the hell she had grown wings, how he became a fox, what insanity she had plunged into when she’d stumbled into his room, she focused on the man behind her.

  “Come and claim me.” She knew what to say, and pressing her ass back to him was all the invitation he required. He fisted his erection and pressed the tip against her slit. The intrusion of his thick cock was swift and fast. He was unrelenting as he drove into her, and she braced her hands against the mirror, eyes fluttering shut.

  “Look at me,” he snapped, and her eyes jerked open to meet his gaze. He shifted forward and added more pressure until he sank all the way inside of her, stretching her to the point of pain, and her sex clamped down against the invader.

  God help her. She wanted more.

  Locked deep in that intimate embrace, he ran his hands up and down her sides, across her breasts and then tantalizingly stroked her wings. The fine bones were sensitive, and she flexed around him. He’d so distracted her that, when he withdrew, it was almost as much of a shock as when he slammed inside of her again.

  He varied his thrusts, some long and hard, some slow and deep, and always with a stroke of his hand along some part of her anatomy until she simmered from the overwhelming force of it all. When Fox growled, shivers stole over her. The eyes staring at her in the mirror weren’t remotely human, and they were filled with demand.

  Gripping her hips, he increased his pace. Every glide sent her on a new flight, daring her higher, and she refused to look away from the muscles flexing in his jaw. When he struck forward and bit down on the juncture of her shoulder to her neck, her body split apart again, the swift orgasm tearing her free, and she was aloft, falling, only to tear apart once more.

  She forgot how to think, how to breathe, and it reflected in the force of his thrusts, as he used all of his strength to drive into her and stake his claim. He pushed her harder and dragged another orgasm from her and then a third. She couldn’t hold back her cries, and then he came with a roar that took her breath away. The world shimmered, his thundering heart galloping in time with hers.

  Through his eyes, she saw herself, saw her beauty and tasted her scent and the surety of knowledge that she belonged to him and he to her. Fox was in every fiber of her being. The heat exploded out to fill every particle of space until she thought she might burst from it all. When she collapsed against the glass, his weight pressed against her like a loving reminder. He continued to kiss and nuzzle the damage of his bite.

  She belonged to him.

  Everything would be all right now.

  Everything.

  “Maybe, Pet, maybe.” Not even Enoch’s intrusion could ward off her hazy pleasure. She met the nephilim’s gaze in the mirror and felt not an ounce of shame at his seeing her so splayed and tightly connected to Fox.

  “When you two are finished, come see us.”

  Fox snarled at him, but Jubilee could only smile. Not even the nephilim could wrench them apart. She had no idea how she knew, but it was enough. They could handle everything else.

  Their uninvited guest disappeared, and Fox eased from her sensitive sex, drawing a hiss from both of them. When he pulled her around, she went into his arms and took the loving kiss, an
d a rumble filled his chest, and it sounded almost like a purr. Did foxes purr? After a long, wet kiss, he released her mouth and rested his forehead to hers.

  “Mine,” he told her, and he sounded so utterly content, it roused her pig-headed side.

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a grin. “I expect more of the same later.”

  His laughter was more than reward enough, but all too soon he sobered and helped her into the bathroom. They showered together. She’d been uncertain how it would work with her wings, but he figured it out. At least the room and doorways were large enough for her.

  Clothes awaited them, including a top with buttoned slits designed for wings. They didn’t talk, only worked together, and he stole a kiss from her or she a caress from him. When they could no longer delay leaving the room, she caught his hand. “What will happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He drew her into his side and slid an arm around her waist. “I will not leave you.”

  “I know.” He hadn’t, not from the moment she’d crashed into his room. With little to no reason to help a street rat, he’d helped her. Protected her. She would treasure that, no matter what came next.

  “Be brave, little one. You’ve changed our world.” He pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose.

  Swallowing hard, she nodded. “I’m ready.” They might as well get it over with. Her wings tingled when Fox opened the door. The nephilim wasn’t alone. Whoever else was out there, she could feel them. And her gut churned.

  More than just their world was about to change.

  Chapter Five

  From the moment Enoch swept them back to New York and the midtown high rise that was home to the Watchers—and from which Enoch, Kincaid, and Sage ruled—Fox had demanded to stay in the cell with Jubilee. Protecting her, not claiming her, had been his agenda. But he'd inextricably bound his fate to hers. Not that Fox regretted a single moment. Should Enoch, Kincaid, and Sage find against the lovely young angel and try to execute her, he would die with her regardless. Her blood hummed in his system, and the low-level awareness of her he’d had since the moment she stumbled into his room had dialed up to full volume.

  Uncertainty coursed through her, though it had been tempered by pleasure. The lazy heat he’d stoked in her brought her tremendous comfort, and Fox was smiling as he guided her down the hall and into the meeting room. Enoch stood in the center, flanked on either side by Kincaid and Sage. Kincaid was a demon princeling in his own right and Enoch’s oldest friend. Kincaid was dark to Enoch’s light; they were twin swords cast of dueling flames. Sage was a tall woman who would be well-matched with either of her partners, but to his knowledge nothing romantic had ever existed between the three.

  Knowing his thoughts would be an open book to Enoch, and hoping the connection would feed the information to Jubilee, Fox didn’t bother to cloud them. The witch Sage was the most powerful in the world, or at least she was the most powerful as far as they knew. Most witches didn’t dabble in the arcane war between heaven and hell, but Sage’s fondness for Enoch and Kincaid had involved her. She’d found the key to use their blood to turn humans, and, when the three of them melded their powers together, they were formidable.

  Formidable enough to kill one of the heavenly host and the higher demons. In addition to Enoch, Kincaid, and Sage, three demons, three angels and three shifters waited for them in the crowded room. The assembly included Cara. The youngling’s presence was a curiosity, but then she’d heard the rumor, and Fox had consulted her. Aja was also there, and the she-cat looked damned annoyed, but she stayed behind Kincaid, and, whatever objections she might have voiced before they arrived, she kept her disapproval to herself for now.

  Silence blanketed the gathered, and Fox stopped a half-dozen steps away from the assembled. After a squeeze to Jubilee’s waist, he let her go and edged in front of her. She pressed her hand to his back but made no attempt to pass him.

  He loved her all the more for it.

  No one said anything immediately, and Sage threw up her hands with a disgusted snort. “Men.” Focusing on him, she smiled. “You’ve mated, Kitsune.”

  “Milady.” He bowed his head slightly. “Yes.”

  “And to an angel.” Her sharp gaze traveled past him to Jubilee. “How do you come to be amongst us, Seraphim?”

  “I’m assuming your buddy Enoch dragged us here.” The tart response was so Jubilee that Fox was hard-pressed not to laugh. “As for how I met Fox, well, I was running from some drug dealers.” And she was worried about her brother. An image of the young man, a teenager from his mode of dress and attitude, flashed through Fox’s mind.

  “We will find him,” Fox said in a low voice meant for her ears alone. “And we will deal with Andropov.”

  “Really?” Kincaid snorted. “You’re making plans, Fox? You haven’t even heard our judgment.”

  “If you were going to kill us, you wouldn’t put us through this show.” Of that, Fox was certain. He’d had two hundred years in their company. They weren’t melodramatic. If Enoch wanted someone dead, he simply killed them and moved on. “So we have a future.” He said that as much for Jubilee’s comfort as to spell it out for the founders.

  Kincaid glared at him and paced away, but Enoch shook his head. “Chaos from a kitsune. Only you would find an angel in a hotel in New York.”

  “He found one, and he’s mated to her, but the bigger question is why didn’t she know she was an angel and how did they bind her wings like that.” Sage pursed her lips and closed the distance between them. “May I see your foot, Seraphim?”

  “My name is Jubilee. Jubilee Spector. And the last time someone wanted to see my foot, I ended up with wings. So forgive me if I’m not in a hurry to repeat that experience.”

  Sage giggled, and her gaze warmed. “I like her, Fox. She has spirit. Nowhere near as dry and self-righteous as the others I’ve encountered.”

  “Sage won’t hurt you.” Fox glanced at his mate. His mate. He didn’t care what other label they put on her; she was his, and possessiveness flared in his blood.

  “You said Enoch wouldn’t hurt me either.”

  He couldn’t blame her for protesting.

  “Enoch didn’t hurt you, little one.”

  The nephilim in question moved up to join them. “The marking on the bottom of your foot was in the angelic language. And it was a binding of your true name. When I touched it, I unlocked the binding, and you were yourself again.”

  “That makes no damn sense.” Jubilee shifted, but, instead of coming out from behind Fox, she pressed closer to his back. “I grew up. I remember being a kid. You’d think I’d remember being an angel.”

  Enoch shrugged. “Pet, we don’t even know how they snuck you over the line. We monitor the gates of heaven and hell. We know when they open. They haven’t in years beyond your counting.”

  “He’s right. Our task is to keep the balance. We would know if the host had sent an angel. That you are even here…” Sage let the words drift off, and the puzzled frown on her forehead deepened. “Though if you are here.”

  Kincaid pivoted, and a fresh thread of tension coiled through the room. Fox heard the unspoken words. If heaven had acted, then so had hell.

  “Is it possible for an angel to be born?” Fox asked into the taut silence.

  “We don’t know.” Sage answered before any of the others could respond and spread her hands wide. “The automatic response would be no, and those born of angels and humans are among us already. What she is, well she is pure angel. Even I can see that. She glows with the light of heaven. It shines from within. You’ve mated with her, and the light is burning in you.”

  Which explained why the demons were all keeping their distance. Even the shifters looked uncomfortable. Only Enoch and Sage came close. Jubilee seemed to make up her mind, and she moved out from behind Fox, grasping his arm for balance, and lifted her right foot.

  “You can look,” she told them. “But don’t touch.”

  Fox agreed with that s
entiment, and he watched through narrowed eyes.

  Sage sighed. “It’s gone.”

  “Probably erased when it was broken.” Enoch sounded as though he’d expected that result. “Does your brother have a similar scar?”

  Disappointed, Jubilee put her foot down and then shook her head. “I don’t think so. I always thought I got it because I stepped on glass as a baby. My mom told me I was very clumsy when I was young, and that it took me longer than most babies to learn how to walk.”

  “Because you expected to fly.” Again, Enoch made it sound reasonable. Fox stared at his oldest friend.

  “Watchers will go on alert. Send word out. If she is here, there is the possibility of other angels and demons. They must be found and…”

  “And what?” Jubilee asked, worry climbing in her voice. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Pet.” Enoch shrugged. “We may do nothing. Like you, they may be locked into a human existence. We’re not going to let them free if we need not. As for you? You have to choose.”

  Fox held his breath.

  “I choose Fox.” The complete lack of hesitation filled Fox with joy.

  “Yes, we’re aware of that.” Sage smiled and touched Enoch’s arm before he could respond. “We meant your side in the coming war.”

  “I thought you were trying to keep the war from happening.” Exhaustion punctuated the confusion in Jubilee’s tone. Tugging her back to him, Fox wrapped his arm around her middle. Her wings were like silk where they touched him, and she flared one. As she tucked in closer to his side, the wing brushed along his back.

  It was the single most erotic thing he’d ever felt, and his cock hardened like steel. Mentally disciplining his libido, he focused on his mate. She needed his strength, not his lust.