by D. M. Pratt
“You promised,” she said. “You promised to get me out of here. You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
“You’re not real yet,” Eve shouted at her.
“I am. I’m trapped. You promised you wouldn’t leave me here!”
“No! No! You’re in the future,” Eve shouted.
Eve ran. The corridor seemed to grow longer before her. Another room this time with two Millards, one young and one old, draped in shadows, talking.
“Eve,” another man’s voice called from behind her.
Eve knew the voice though she was unable to see the face on the figure. It was Beau. Eve stopped.
Beau stood in one of the countless rooms. He was more handsome than ever. His hand stretched out to her.
“Come with me,” he said. “I know how to get us out of here.”
Eve’s feet stepped back out of the room; she hadn’t even realized she’d entered into it.
“You’re not real,” Eve said. “You are not real!”
“Please don’t leave me,” the girl called out to her as she stood outside another door farther down the hall. It was Azura.
“I can help you. We can get out of here together. Please,” Beau said now standing in front of her.
Eve turned and ran. Suddenly, it wasn’t a hallway she was running down but outside where they had made love that first night in the topiary maze. It was night; the sky was velvet black, centered by the full moon and filled with a splattering of white stars. The trees of the maze formed a wall behind and in front of her; tall, dark shadows of small, inky, emerald green leaves shimmered in the breeze and caught the white of the moon flashing its brilliance off each of the small flat surfaces. It felt like each leaf was reaching out to grab her. The hot wind changed. It carried the scent of cloves and honey mixed with ripe peaches. It was Beau. She could smell him close to her. She turned a corner and ran into his arms.
“Listen to me. We don’t have much time,” Beau whispered to her.
She looked at him. He seemed real but then so had everything else that had happened that night. She wanted to believe him. His arms felt strong and safe. Beau looked down at her, his face caught in the white of the moon. The light made the blue in his eyes dance and the black of his hair look hoary in the moonshine. He kissed her gently.
“You’re not real. You and all of this is an illusion,” she said pushing his lips from hers and prying herself from his arms.
“This illusion is yours, but I can show you how to get out,” Beau said. “I can’t do it for myself, but I can do it for you.”
“Are you possessed by Gathian or Kirakin?”
“Gathian took me from Kirakin, but you gave him the permission to be here and you alone can help get us out,” Beau said.
“I don’t believe you,” Eve told him.
“You promised to save me. I heard it in your prayers. You are my only hope,” Beau said.
The sound of glass shattering broke the silence of the maze; a series of loud thuds, cracks and crashes echoed from behind the walls of the main house. They turned to see in the upper window of the master bedroom the two brothers fighting; two, enormous silhouettes, locked in a dance of death, battling from one end of the room to the other. They fought onto one of the stone balconies, wrestling for control. Kirakin shoved Gathian, Gathian grabbed Kirakin and the two Nephilim fell to the ground.
Beau grabbed Eve’s hand and made her run with him. Eve didn’t know what to do or who to believe. They reached a corner with two paths, Beau went left but Eve saw Cora down the path to the right. She wrenched her hand free and ran to her.
“This way,” Eve said, but as she turned to look at Beau he faded from existence.
Eve turned back to Cora. She was healed. No scars from the attack, no cuts or bruises. She looked perfect and incredibly beautiful. She was dressed in a flowing gown the color of new skin. Cora opened her arms to Eve and Eve, grateful to see her friend, rushed into her embrace.
“I was afraid you were dead,” Eve said. “We have to get out of here.”
Eve took Cora by the hand and started to pull her forward, searching for a way out of the maze. Cora stopped her.
“I’m pregnant with his child, Eve,” she said. “I can’t leave. Not now. Not ever.”
“This is all a trap… a lie,” Eve shouted.
Suddenly, Millard Le Masters stepped from behind Cora. He was young and handsome, his eyes the green of summer grass and his hair honey gold, shining bright as a crown in the moonlight that shone over him. He placed his arms around Cora.
“She is the mother of the children who will rule the world,” Millard said.
“No! This… is all an illusion,” Eve said, backing away from them.
“This is real,” Cora said.
“Please Cora, get away from him. Come with me,” Eve begged as she continued to step back.
“You have to join us, Eve,” Millard said. “You are the portal to the new world…the new way.”
Again, the battle between Gathian and Kirakin could be heard. This time it was closer.
“Join us,” Millard said. “You’ve seen it…these children have powers.”
“You’ll enslave us,” Eve said, knowing the truth as the words tumbled from her mouth.
“Only those who refuse to learn,” Millard said. “But all that the children can do will start the world again.”
His words sent a chill through her like none she could ever remember feeling in her life before.
Millard stepped toward her. Eve was trembling, panicked and confused. She reached into her pocket and felt Mac’s gun, drew it and fired. Millard looked at her with utter disbelief. He looked down at his chest. Blood bloomed across his white shirt, a scarlet bouquet of impending death, and his face transformed from young to old. He bent his knees as if to pray and fell face first onto the wood floor with a lifeless thud. His blood flowed from his body, forming a crimson lake that pooled around him, mingling with the first ring of white powder. She was back in the tower. Eve looked around at the open door across the atrium on the upper floor. A small knife lay a few inches from Millard’s hand. He meant to kill her, but she had killed him first. Eve looked in the room across the atrium and saw Beau standing inside a cage. She heard feet pounding down the stairs. The female doctor had run past in the confusion.
Suddenly Eve knew what they did not. She alone understood the incomprehensible reality, the key to this realm and all others. In her mind a great book opened and she saw the missing piece of an ancient, long forgotten puzzle. Evine held pieces as had Kirakin and Gathian, but none of them understood what she understood. Evine shared what she knew and it had cost her everything. Evine had known who and what Eve was and that she would wake her from her dull sleep. Evine knew this knowledge could not be taught, only remembered. The old woman told her as much as she could, gave her what protection she was able to distill from the wisdom left behind in the mystic writings buried in the bible and torah and all the other ancient scrolls and carvings that had survived the millennia of time. It was all waiting for Eve to rediscover… for this moment. Eve was the portal, the keeper of truth, the giver of life, the first Nephilim. Gathian and Kirakin were keys; Beau and Millard had been the chalices. What happened now was up to her. She alone held the power and in it the balance of life and death not only for herself, but for Cora and Beau and all who walked on this world.
Eve closed her eyes. This realm had to be her imagining. Suddenly, she stood in a void, her body naked and her skin pale as shades of soft pink and blue emanated from her, creating a haze that glowed around her. She opened her arms and a soft wind rose, brushing over her nakedness and pulling at the tiny hairs on her arms. Her hair fluttered and she felt the coolness of a million tiny ghost-like fingers brush against her face and neck, making every tiny hair stand erect on her body.
Eve looked down to see that she was draped in a dress of the finest silk. It was the same fabric Gathian wore. It shimmered as if made of liquid diamonds, rippl
ing as a wisp of breeze blew, warm and soft. The wind kissed her back and gently pushed her forward. Eve floated. Her feet never touched the ground.
She watched as she drifted across the hall and into the room where the real Beau was being held. The sound of the twins fighting echoed in some distant faraway place. The crash of the iron gate rang out in the distance, all of it was no more than a whisper. With a single touch the lock on the bars that held Beau dissolved.
“Come,” Eve said.
Beau took her hand. She felt his fingers intertwine with hers. A sharp snap filled her ears and they materialized inside the Gregoire house, floating past the entrance into the main hall. She smelled new paint on the fine wood of the wainscoting, which blended with the pungent scent of marble and furniture polish. Everything was made new and clean, done as she would have wanted had the manor been hers. Before them a large, square table with a travertine top anchored the atrium. On top of it sat a large crystal vase holding a huge spray of flowers four feet wide and equally as high. Calla lilies and star gazers, roses, chrysanthemums and tubules so fragrant and sweet the bouquet gave her a feeling of peace.
Time slowed as together they ascended the left side of the great double staircase. Never touching a step, they reached the top floor and moved toward the master bedroom suite. As they passed the grand window with its arched frame Eve looked out on the full moon. It hung high in the night, backed by a sprinkling of stars that blinked and twinkled against a great black pillow of sky. She felt Beau squeeze her hand as they moved down the hall.
Eve reached the main double doors to the master suite. The brass curved handles with their fleur de lis carvings felt smooth and cool. She pulled one down and with a click the door opened. For the first time she felt her feet touch the soft carpet. She walked past the back window that overlooked the garden. It hung open and its curtains rolled, rising and falling on the breeze, graceful as an undulating sea of sheer cream-colored waves. Now and again the moon would appear from behind a cloud, watching all that was unfolding. The room was warm, soft against her skin as if she and it were one. She breathed the air and let the scent of peaches and honey fill her every breath. It smelled so sweet, so succulent, so ripe, her mouth began to water, hungering for the promise of their offerings. She turned to face the bed where Beau lay waiting.
He sat atop a pile of cream and ivory linen pillows on a feather bed, its covers tossed back. His naked body was young and firm and perfect. His black curls caught the moonlight in twisted ribbons of silver on ebony. It gave him the look of an angel aglow with a halo. Eve came close to him and sat softly on the bed. She looked at him. With her right hand she cupped his face to study and search for who or what awaited her in this man. His eyes, azure and cobalt with flecks of gold, looked longingly at her. In them she saw kindness, the one emotion she’d not remembered seeing before. Each time before the Nephilm had been in command of their passion. This time it was Eve’s reality. Beau had been a human pawn, used by the Nephilim. This time she was in control of his body, mind and soul and she would release him. His gaze had the sweetness of complete, unconditional surrender. They both knew it could happen no other way. They understood that once they consummated with an act of pure love, both of them would be free.
She let her hand slide down his chest. He watched her drag her fingers gently down his body, letting each finger ride on a cushion of air that flowed between his flesh and her fingertips. She leaned forward, her eyes staring into his, her face hovering over his. She placed her lips just above his… gently… allowing her lips to softly brush against his lips. Breath mingling, face to face, she turned her head from side to side, lighter than a feather and gave a kissless kiss that brushed his lips against hers. Eve stopped; with eyes open and her lips pressed against his. A rush tingled through her body. They kissed slow and long again and again. Her hand moved across the hard double mounds of muscle and flesh that formed his chest. He lay, hungry, waiting for her to take him. His surrender was in their unspoken agreement. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against one nipple, gently pinching the other between his thumb and forefinger. He squeezed it slowly, adding pressure ever so lightly. At the same time Eve opened her mouth and dropped down his chest to let her tongue slide across him, licking back and forth, circling and rolling the nub of dark flesh against her lips until it rose to attention, hard and ready. Slowly, she sealed her mouth over it; hot breath, warm and wet, met dry skin. Beau matched her move cupping her breast and placing his mouth over one nipple. He sucked as gently as a new born baby longing for the taste of her to flow out. His skin was so firm and tasted so sweet. There was nothing bitter or spicy. This was not the Nephilim, not Kirakin or Gathian with their fiery hot passion. But he didn’t taste of honey and peaches either; Eve realized that was the scent that came from the two of them combined, bodies cooked in the friction of flesh against flesh, a passion that melds two into one.
Eve drew her lips together and erotically kissed his obedient nipple. She perfectly placed several more kisses, slow and sensual, deliberate, as she moved down his chest. Kiss by kiss she descended while occasionally the flick of her tongue licked him. She drew back her lips and bared her teeth, biting softly into the flesh just above his navel and allowing her tongue to play in the dark trail of hair that beckoned her deeper. Beau moaned. His hands moved sensually over her. Eve looked up and their eyes met. She smiled as she watched him trying to hold back the passion that was building inside him. He leaned forward to pull her up and kissed her again: harder, deeper.
Her fingers found his cock. It lay firm but not hard against his stomach. Even partially flaccid he was well endowed--long, full, smooth. With her touch she could feel a surge of blood course into him. She lifted it, her eyes still on his, his tongue slipping in and out of her mouth. Eve pulled away from his kiss and lowered her face to take his dragon as it awakened between his legs. Eve kissed his phallus gently, sensually, lovingly. She parted her lips and slipped it into her mouth, letting her tongue lick and taste as she rose and fell over him until his manhood was wet with her saliva. Then in one swift, deft motion, she pushed him down her throat. Beau moaned, deep and long. Again he surged with blood and his erection locked into rock hard, living, throbbing flesh.
He reached for her, but Eve grabbed his wrist and stopped him. Her grip and his desire to take over struggled briefly but what she was doing to him with her lips and teeth weakened him. His hand closed into a fist as he grabbed her hair. He shivered as he succumbed to the pleasure she gave him. Eve looked up to see his eyes roll back and then his head.
“Eve,” he whispered.
She lifted her face and dragged her tongue up his stomach, licking him like a lollipop, biting and sucking tiny bits of flesh, ensuring every inch of his skin was titillated. Her kisses moved up and across his chest, like tiny wet hands of delight. She bit harder taking little tastes of him as she slid her body up his, flesh against flesh, up and up, rubbing her entire body up and down and back and forth against his until her mouth reached his neck. He tilted his head, baring his neck as if she were a vampire and he was begging her to take his life blood. She obliged, biting and sucking on his flesh. Her hands were everywhere, touching, feeling, their breath, not yet in sync. Eve pressed her body hard against his, nipple to nipple, pelvis to pelvis, and like a hawk hungry to take its prey, she kissed him. It was a long, deep kiss filled with such passion he could not help but return each one, daring to match her ferocity with his. At that moment Eve reached down and grabbed his balls with her hand, gently but firmly. Beau sucked a great breath of air and moaned with pleasure. She didn’t release her mouth and he drew the air, using her breath to fill his lungs. His body arched under her and then fell in rhythmic, alternating waves of ever increasing pleasure. Her tongue pushed into his mouth and intertwined with his tongue. She was the peaches and he the honey. Combined, they were all things pleasure. Eve grabbed his cock. He was big, full and hard. She was wet and ready. She rubbed the tip of his passion against her cli
toris, bringing herself to the edge of orgasm and pulled him closer to the all the wet, tight pleasure that waited deep inside between her thighs. She made a series of circles on the outermost ridge to her cave of delight, ready to take him.
Beau shuddered and in one motion flipped her onto her back. Before she could open her eyes he moved down her body, one hand squeezing a breast, his mouth completely covering the other. His fingers slipped inside of her and then up into his mouth.
“Yes,” was all he said as he tasted her juices.
In the next instant his face was buried between her legs, his mouth drinking her liquid ambrosia. He sucked and licked her clitoris until it rose hard and hot into an erection. He alternated between tongue and lips, teeth and a blur of head shaking that sent shock waves through her. He warred on her nipple with one hand, his fingers battling over which could give the erect flesh the greatest pleasure. Gently pulling and pinching, releasing his fingers to grab her breast and squeeze, he was firm and unbridled, but not cruel, moving his hand from left to right and then back. He slipped two fingers inside her and played in the sweet creamy sea that flowed there. The rhythmic motion of his hands, mouth and fingers were building her body into an exquisitely volcanic crescendo. Eve could hear her breathing increasing to a fevered pitch. Her body undulated as if caught in the force of a torrential, fiery wind.
“Now,” she said. “I want you inside me.”
Beau lunged up and forward and slipped inside of her, full, smooth, hard, pushing in as far as he could reach. He placed his lips against hers and kissed her. Eve pressed up, pushing him under her and rode him like a wild stallion. His chest heaved and arched as he grabbed the head board and matched her every move. There was no time or place…only passion.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Mac, Hanover and the other officers searched through the fallen remains of Thibodaux Asylum. Flashlights darted in the pitch dark like giant fireflies aiming their light through the blackness whenever the moon slipped behind a thick cloud as it drifted across the night sky.