by Joy Nash
“Ah, caraid. I hate seeing you so frightened.”
The unexpected sympathy in Cade’s voice, the profound understanding she sensed from him, made the tears flow harder. Cade’s arm slipped beneath her shoulders. Seating himself on the bed, he settled her in his lap. The smooth rim of a cup pressed her lips.
“Drink.”
Cool water flowed over her swollen tongue. She gulped until the cup was empty. But with one need fulfilled, she became all the more aware of the others. Her breasts felt swollen, the tips unbearably sensitive when the rough wool coverlet shifted across them. A soft moan escaped.
Cade set aside the empty cup. Maddie grabbed his hand and pressed it to her breast. Her nipple beaded against his cool skin. His arm tightened around her as he rubbed in a circular motion.
Nothing had ever felt so good. For a moment. The sensation faded too soon, leaving her bereft and yearning. She stared up into his face.
“Is this the crisis?” she whispered. “The one you warned me about?”
His blue eyes had never looked so grave. “It’s part of it. But not the worst. Not yet.”
His quiet words frightened her. She felt as though she’d been flung into a mad inferno. If this wasn’t the worst . . .
“I . . . I need you.” She couldn’t stifle a moan or stop her body from writhing, her lips from begging. “So badly. Please. Make love to me.”
It was as if he’d been only waiting for her invitation. He stood and shucked his clothes without speaking. She watched him from her position on the bed, her breath shortening with each moment. His body was beautiful, all sculpted muscle and sinew. The meager sunlight that stole in past the shutters painted his large form in soft gold. Only his right arm remained dark, rendered almost black by the twisting tattoos.
He untangled the blanket from her legs and dropped it onto the floor. He replaced it with his body, covering her from breasts to toes. His weight bore her down into the lumpy mattress. It was glorious.
His erection, hard and hot, nudged between her thighs. She throbbed for him there with a deep pulse that seemed to well from her inner depths. She tried to open her legs, tried to welcome him into her body, but his knees kept her thighs pinned. His elbows constrained her arms. His blue eyes looked down on her, shadowed with something that almost looked like regret. His lips—his beautiful, mobile lips—remained silent.
Her lust began to turn painful. “What . . . what are you waiting for?”
“Maddie.”
Softly spoken in Cade’s lilting accent, her name sounded lyrical, almost magical. Maah-dae. She flushed, wanting him so much. And not just to chase away the fear, not only to banish the terrifying insanity lurking just beyond his shoulders. She yearned for something deeper. Something . . . enduring. But that truly was madness.
“Do you trust me, Maddie?” His voice rumbled, the vibrations transferring from his chest to hers. “Can you trust me?”
“I . . . I don’t know. But what does it matter? I need you. I’m begging you. Just like you said I would. Isn’t . . . isn’t that enough?”
“No. No, it’s not.”
Abruptly, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. The room lurched, then settled again. She found herself sprawled atop his broad body, hands braced on his chest. Her legs were parted over his thighs. His erection prodded hotly at her belly.
His hands rested loosely on her hips. Slowly he lifted his arms and tucked them behind his head. Her eyes followed the flex of his muscles, then collided with his watchful gaze.
“You want me,” he said. “Go on, then. Take me.”
Maddie, perched atop him, felt as though more than just her body was exposed to his eye. “You mean you want me to . . . to be on top?”
His grin was unexpected. “Don’t you know how?”
His smile seemed to stab her heart. The glimpse of the boy he must have once been devastated her. “Of . . . of course I do. It’s just . . . this way is so . . .”
His brows rose. “So what, caraid?”
Intimate, she wanted to say. Revealing.
Threatening.
He wasn’t holding her. She could have climbed off him. Could have grabbed the blanket or found her clothes. Could have retreated to the chair in the corner. She sensed he wouldn’t follow. But the shadows beyond the bed pulsed with the echoes of her glimpse into madness, and that was far more terrifying than any sexual vulnerability.
She encircled his shaft with her fingers, testing his size. He was big. Bigger than any man she’d been with. Slowly she stroked him from head to base. He lay still, allowing the exploration. But Maddie sensed violence under his calm, and she realized that he wanted. Perhaps almost as badly as she did. The discovery bolstered her courage.
She bent forward, trapping his shaft between their bodies. Her lips found his. His mouth opened, welcoming her tongue’s invasion. He smelled of desire and tasted like salvation. She delved deeply, drinking him in.
Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, his chest. She toyed with his flat male nipples. He was damp with sweat, his skin satin over iron muscle. The contrast fascinated her. She pressed her lips to the pulse at his throat. She ran her tongue along his collarbone, tasting salt.
Lower she slid, dragging her tongue over his chest and stomach. She opened her mouth over the head of his shaft and then, with a groan, took in as much of him as she could.
Her body’s dew flowed, bathing her thighs and his. This felt right, she realized. Inevitable, even. Her previous embarrassment faded to dim memory.
She sensed Cade inside her mind. Yes, she now recognized the steady presence she’d felt earlier as him. His life essence, his will. The invasion had ceased to be strange. It felt almost natural. The whispering voice, that other presence she didn’t understand, had been far more disturbing. But it had fallen silent. She hoped it was gone for good.
She allowed him to slide more deeply into her mouth. The tip of his shaft touched the back of her throat, and she relished his low moan of pleasure. His hands tangled in her hair, holding her head as his hips lifted—
And then he was pulling her up his body, covering her mouth with his, his tongue plunging deep. His hands molded her breasts, stroked down to her thighs. She lifted her head, palms braced on his shoulders, and gazed down at him. His nostrils flared. His blue eyes spoke volumes, silent but eloquent.
His hands slid to her hips. He lifted her, positioning himself at the entrance to her body. But it was Maddie who joined them, Maddie who lowered her body onto his rigid flesh.
She impaled herself slowly, sinking down by slow degrees as she softened and opened to his penetration. Her hands, still braced on his chest, shook. His skin was hot, slick with sweat. His eyes remained locked with hers. If the world had ended at that moment, she couldn’t have looked away.
He stretched her. Conquered her. Her breathing went shallow; her inner muscles contracted. Cade’s fingers bit into her hips. A grimace almost like pain touched his features, and he adjusted the angle of her body and yanked her down hard. She cried out against a blinding spike of pleasure. Too much. Too vivid. How could anyone endure such vibrant bliss? But it was only the beginning.
Cade moved beneath her, inside her, his grip anchoring her hips, his strength preventing her retreat. There was no choice for her; she gave herself up to his body. To the rolling waves of pleasure he unleashed on her senses. But soon, to her surprise, she found it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
Matching his rhythm, she strained to meet each thrust. He groaned and pulled her down, matching the length of her body to his. His tongue thrust into her mouth, pulsing, surging, mimicking the movement of their hips. She shuddered and gave herself over to pure sensation that was building deeper, wider, higher and higher . . .
He stiffened and went impossibly hard inside her. Finally, it was all too much. She broke and shattered into countless pieces. Cade caught her keening cry with his mouth. His big body shuddered beneath her as they traveled to a place of pure, mindless
perfection.
“My God,” Maddie said.
She lay beside him, her head pillowed on his chest. Cade was aware of her body, warm and quiescent beneath his arm. The scent of her contentment, the purple odor of fresh plucked violets, drifted past like a misty spring rain. It felt good, holding her. Despite everything, despite the grief and pain of the past weeks, despite the certain pain and danger of the future, he felt almost . . . happy.
It was unexpected. As a rule he didn’t invest much emotion in sex. At least, not since he’d been with Cybele. That encounter had trembled with all the turmoil of his newly discovered Watcher essence. It had been inevitable, he supposed, that he had fallen in love with her. But had it really been love? Up until a few days ago, he would have sworn that it was. Now, however, with Maddie in his arms, he wasn’t so sure.
Since Cybele he’d only had human women. His son’s mother had been only one of many after Cybele made it clear any physically intimate relationship they shared was ended with Cade’s emergence into full adept power. His subsequent sexual activity, a string of one-night stands, had been only minimally satisfying. Human sex just could not compete with a Watcher coupling.
With Maddie, he’d experienced even more than the explosion of pleasure he remembered from his union with Cybele. He was aware of a deep sense of fulfillment, of absolute rightness, that he’d never before known. Maddie was as sated as he, her body limp in his arms. Through their strengthened psychic link, he knew the utter repose of her mind.
“I had no idea sex could be like that,” she murmured, her lips tickling his chest. “It never has been before.”
Cade sensed she’d begun realize their union was more than physical. That he was inside her head. Did she suspect how he planned to use that connection? No. She wouldn’t be lying relaxed in his arms if she realized he was plotting her enslavement.
His contentment turned sour. “Watcher sex is more . . . intense than human sex,” he explained, his voice colder than he intended.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “That’s really what I am, isn’t it? A Watcher?” She swallowed. “A Nephilim.”
He exhaled. “Yes.”
She disentangled herself from his embrace and rolled onto her side, facing away. “It’s hard to absorb. So I’m not fully human. I’m half . . . what? Angel or demon?”
“I told you before. There’s no difference.”
She sat up. “Except that one is blessed and the other is cursed.”
“That’s right.” His lips twisted. “Despite great sex and miracle cancer cures, you might not consider Watcher life an improvement over a fully human one. Not that you have any choice.”
She wrapped her arms around her raised knees. “I know I’m not a saint, but what have I ever done to deserve being cursed?”
“You were born.”
“That’s hardly fair,” she protested.
“Is life fair?”
Her frown told him she didn’t like his logic. Too bloody bad. Philosophy was crap; the sooner she faced reality, the better off she would be.
He sat up, pity and guilt warring with practicality. Should he reveal more? There was only so much reality a person could face in such a short time. Without going mad, at least. He dragged a hand down his face. Maddie was cast adrift in a sea that would shortly turn raging, with only him as her anchor. What a mess. She deserved a better guide. But who? Brax? Artur?
A cascade of rushing anger impacted like a fist to the solar plexus. The thought of Artur touching Maddie boiled Cade’s blood. He’d see the bastard in Oblivion first. If Artur dared lay one finger on Maddie, Cade wouldn’t hesitate to issue a challenge. He’d kill Artur or be killed before he’d stand by and let his chieftain steal what was his.
The sheer violence of his emotions left him shaken. He drew a deep breath and tried to regain a measure of calm. He was getting too close, allowing himself to feel too much, and too deeply. He couldn’t afford to forget that Maddie was, by the very nature of her ancestral lineage, his rival. It would be foolhardy in the extreme to imagine any true trust, any true love, between them. Ultimately, they could have only one kind of relationship: master and slave.
Maddie, beside him, sat up and wrapped herself in the discarded blanket. Perhaps she sensed his mood through their psychic link, because her scent went from happy violets to something close to mud. His mind brushed her thoughts. He sensed embarrassment and fear and a touch of unsettled anger. They weren’t bound so securely that he could hear the exact words of her thoughts, but it was enough.
She needed space, he realized, as much as he did. He stood and moved a few steps from the bed. “Your clothes are there on the floor.” He nodded toward an untidy pile of fabric. “Why don’t you dress in the bath?”
She sent him an uncertain look. “Thank you.”
Dragging the blanket with her—as if he hadn’t seen every inch of her body—she scooped up her shirt and khakis and disappeared into the bathroom. He grabbed his jeans and shoved his legs into them. He heard a toilet flush and water running. When she emerged, her face looked freshly scrubbed. She wandered to the chair where he’d sat earlier and sank down on the ripped vinyl cushion.
“You came looking for me here in Israel. You knew I was Nephilim.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
There was no reason not to tell her. “An adept of my clan—Brax Cocidus—identified you. It was a tricky bit of detective work. Unaware dormants are indistinguishable from humans. It’s impossible to detect them until a near-death experience launches them into transition. When that happens, their bodies start to manufacture Watcher pheromones designed to attract an opposite-sex adept. The range is rather limited, though. Most often an adept isn’t at hand and the newly awakened dormant doesn’t survive.”
He watched closely for a reaction but saw none so continued. “Brax figured a way around the problem of proximity. He cross-referenced near-death reports from hospitals with police records of hellfiend activity. You came up on the radar.”
“How would hellfiend activity lead to me? I’ve never seen or even felt a hellfiend. I’m not even sure I believe they exist!”
“They exist,” Cade assured her. “They’re foul, evil beings, always looking for a way into a human mind. But if they sense the presence of a Watcher, they back off. They can’t influence or possess us. Our life essence is too similar to theirs.”
“DAMNers say the Nephilim are archdemons. That the hellfiends are under their command.”
“Such control is possible,” Cade admitted. “But difficult. Some Watcher clans try to use hellfiends as slaves, with varying degrees of success. My clan does not. We’d rather see them annihilated.”
“You’ve killed hellfiends?” Maddie asked.
“A few,” Cade admitted. “Druid magic can create strong illusions. A Clan Samyaza adept can shield his Watcher nature very effectively. We can get close to hellfiends, though it’s still tough to catch one. They’re disgusting things, though; as a rule, we avoid them, unless we’re after an outright kill. That’s not the case for other Watcher clans, however. Some pursue hellfiends with the intent to enslave. Which is why the hellfiends tend to flee whenever they sense a Watcher. After your near-death experience, the hellfiends fled your territory. That was the red flag that alerted us to your Watcher nature. Also, you joined an archeological expedition searching for evidence of the Watchers. That was no coincidence.”
Maddie frowned. “The moment I saw Dr. Ben-Meir on TV, I became obsessed. My dreams started even before I arrived in the Negev.”
“Not dreams,” he told her. “Memories.”
She shook her head. “Hardly. I dream about the Watchers. The original ones who lived five thousand years ago.”
“Your dreams are really ancestral memories of real events. All Watchers have them. They’re encoded in our genes.”
She blinked. “You mean what I see in my dreams is the memory of something that actually happened to my ancestors?”
/>
“Exactly.” Cade watched her. It was time to discover how useful Maddie would be to Clan Samyaza. “Tell me what you’ve dreamed.”
A small vertical line appeared between her brows. “I dreamed I was at a well, drawing water. The same well we uncovered at the dig. There was an older man nearby polishing a sword.”
Cade’s pulse quickened. “Who?”
“My father.” She flushed. “Or rather, the girl in the dream’s father. A Watcher.”
“Which one? Do you know?”
“Yes.” Her fingers twisted in her lap. “It was Azazel.”
Azazel.
Cade’s fist clenched on a visceral rush of triumph. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Maddie’s power came from the same root as Vaclav Dusek’s. With her enslavement, Clan Samyaza would bring Dusek’s power under their command. The field of battle would be level. The death of Cade’s son, and all the others who had died in the massacre, could be avenged. For the first time, Cade began to believe Artur’s desperate scheme would actually work.
Maddie’s eyes were troubled. “According to the Book of Enoch, Azazel was the worst of the Watchers. He was utterly depraved. But in my dreams he doesn’t seem like such a monster. He was kind to his daughter. She loved him.”
Cade went down on his haunches in front of Maddie’s chair. Taking her hands in his, he waited until she met his gaze. “There are two sides to every story,” he said. “Enoch was a man of Yahweh. The Watchers defied God’s law. Having done so, they remained unrepentant. Of course Enoch would describe them as depraved. In his eyes, the Watchers deserved the curse flung down upon their heads.”
“So they weren’t really evil at all?”
“I’m not saying that. Azazel was no innocent. Neither were his brother Watchers. Their descendants are far from blameless. Some have committed atrocities against humanity.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers one by one. “I won’t lie to you, Maddie. We share an ugly legacy. But we do share it. I don’t intend to let you face it alone. Remember that promise and cling to it when the darkness closes in.” Even after I betray you.