by Michele Hauf
Did that mean Ashur cared for the mortal muse? Perhaps.
“But it’s not love,” he muttered, and stood. “It is merely lust.” Of which, he was free to dive in headfirst.
Six stood in the kitchen slicing a pear on a cutting board placed on the table. “Sorry if I offended you,” she offered without turning to him.
“You did not. I needed some air.”
“Get some thinking done? Strategizing?”
She expected him to defend her, which he would. So why did he seek means to extend their time together before the angel arrived? “Six, did you love the man who fathered your unborn child?”
She swung around to look at him. The cut pear wobbled on the table behind her. Running a palm down the simple flowered dress she wore, she finally managed a shrug. “No. Yes. Maybe for a while. I’m not sure what love is. Well, there are so many forms of love.”
“You mortals tend to make everything more complicated than it needs to be.”
“Is that so? And you are a master of love?”
He hung his head, sighing through his nose.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean— I meant, well, take young love. When you’re a teenager and you share that first kiss and the boy tells you he loves you, you believe him and you want to marry him and have his children.”
Ashur lifted a brow.
“That’s love,” she countered. “You can’t tell me it’s not. And there is the adult, passionate love that totally blows teen love out of the water. It is sexy and sometimes dirty and so wonderful. And that’s real love, too. And there’s parental love for their children. It’s complicated, as you say. I think I’ve known different kinds of love at different points in my life, but never a true love.”
“True love is yet another kind?”
“It’s the kind of love I desire.”
“So many means to ultimate punishment, then.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“I think you’ve known it,” she said.
He had not told her he loved a mortal woman. And love had been tortured from him. There was no way she could read conflicting emotions from him now.
“When you described joy to me,” she said. “I don’t think it was joy, but rather love.”
“It was joy.”
“Maybe at first, but seriously? What you witnessed was love the mother had for her child. And a new and perfect love a child has for its mother. My God, that would be so wonderful.” She smoothed a palm over her stomach. Her eyes did not smile as did her mouth. “And I think you loved them both.”
“No.” He reared back, flinging a hand through the air, not sure if he wanted to punch something. Instead he shrugged his fingers through his hair. “Love was tortured from me.”
“What?” She set down the paring knife. “You’ve…been tortured?”
He’d said too much. Ashur stalked to the doorway, but slammed his palms to the frame.
No. This was not the way to remain strong. He would not leave again. No mere woman would defeat him twice in so little time.
“Torture is a way of life for the Sinistari,” he said. And leave it at that.
Turning, he crossed his arms over his chest and defied her to question him further. He’d silenced her with his force. She nodded and turned toward the table, toying with the pear halves.
“We are not alike in any way,” he added. He must push her away though he wanted to pull her closer and nuzzle his face in the luscious waves of her hair.
She again nodded and brushed her neck with her fingers. She’d tied her hair in a loose ponytail with a bright blue scarf.
“Don’t scratch, Six.”
“I won’t. I have to. It’s… Oh.” She slammed the knife on the table and turned to him. “Please, will you…?”
Ashur inhaled shallowly. If he crossed the room and put his tongue to her flesh right now, he wasn’t sure he could stop there. His fingers curled into his palms. The woman would be his undoing. He should allow her to scratch, to call Zaqiel to them and complete the task.
But he wasn’t prepared for Zaqiel yet. He’d learned the world; however, now he wanted to learn this woman. Because if he didn’t do it now, the opportunity would not exist after he’d slain his prey.
Six clasped her hands before her and twisted them in an attempt to keep from scratching. The fix was simple—but too easy.
Ashur crossed to her and swept her into his arms. So lithe and weightless, she felt like a captured bird in his grasp. If he held her too tight she would break.
Perhaps you should break her so Zaqiel will have no use for her.
That angry thought had come from his darkest depths. His black heart burst with caged and angry souls. It didn’t shock Ashur. Yet if he killed Six that would take care of nothing at all.
As well, she was already broken, wasn’t she? Unable to carry a child to term. Once Zaqiel learned the truth—or if the muse was damaged by Ashur—the Fallen would be on to the next muse. The angel would not stop until he had procreated.
Six’s fingers dug into his shirt. Her whimper stabbed through his skin and prickled beneath. It was a good feeling. One he must indulge.
Bending to her neck, he licked the flesh. Salty and sweet, he tasted the tang of pear juice from when her fingers had stroked her flesh. “That is the scent,” he muttered.
“Pears?”
“Yes, I had no name for it the first time I smelled you. It is your scent.”
“It’s a fruity perfume I always wear. Why does demon saliva counteract an angelkiss?” she wondered aloud.
“Not sure. I just know it works.” He licked a trail up her jaw. Her hair feathered across his face, tempting him to dive into the lush darkness and lose himself in a softness he had not touched for literal ages.
“Can a demon give me a demonkiss? And would an angel’s saliva counteract that?”
“Stop talking, Six.”
“Sure. Mmm… Yes, right there.”
“Does it itch here?” He stroked his tongue down the opposite side of her neck.
“No. Just…”
The subtle sweetness of her threatened to push his ramparts wide-open, to release the demon’s needs. Don’t deny yourself.
“I want more of you,” she murmured.
“You should not.” He kissed her jaw. Her mouth found his and their tongues kissed. “But I do. I must have you.”
“Yes. More of you, my demon lover.”
“Stop talking, Sex.”
She abruptly pulled away from their kiss. Her green eyes sparkled mischievously. “You just called me Sex.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes you did. Got a certain topic on your mind, big boy?”
“I did not.”
“Did, too.” Now her eyes smiled as wide as her mouth. “Doesn’t matter. Just kiss me and no pulling away this time.”
“I am finished arguing with morals. Those are your mortal devices. We Sinistari heartily partake in lust. I want to touch you, and I will.”
He lifted her and set her on the table. The plate clattered and half a pear rolled to the edge to balance precariously. She wrapped her legs about his hips and he stroked his palms over her smooth legs.
Gliding his way along her body, he pressed her hips to secure her tightly against his groin. The position moved them close, a tight hug that allowed her to know exactly how hard he’d become.
Moving his hands up her torso, he thumbed her breasts, stroking the nipples. She reacted by arching her back, giving him free rein over her intimate zones.
In between kisses, she managed to breathe, and asked, “Where will you go when you are done here? When the angel is slain? Will you… Can we…?”
He suspected she was looking for him to say they could be together. And that sounded like an interesting future, but it wasn’t his reality. “I will go where I am commanded.”
“Oh.” She kissed his ear, and used her teeth to tug the lobe. “So who is your comma
nder? Some great demon from Beneath?”
“I am the great demon from Beneath,” he said with a growl. “Ashuriel the Black, Stealer of Souls, Master of Dethnyht.”
“Cool. You have a crown or something?”
“I do. It is fashioned from the feathers which remain after I’ve slain an angel.”
“Oh.”
And she was starting to think too much. Never good in a situation better left to lusty abandon and surrender.
“You would not believe me if I told you who directed my actions.”
“Try me.” She leaned back, pressing her palms to the table. Her nipples peaked beneath the silk blouse, tempting him deliciously. She hugged his hips with her knees. “I believe in angels and demons walking the earth. I bet there’s not much you could tell me that would shock me.”
That was a bet he would win. Unfortunately.
The makeout session had officially ended. Ashur stretched back his shoulders. A goddess posed before him, displaying herself for his admiration. Her cheeks were flushed brightly and her lips were bruised red.
Damn, if he didn’t want to strip her bare and kiss her everywhere.
It could wait. Everything could wait.
She wanted truths?
“My commander,” he said, “is Raphael. An archangel.”
Chapter 14
Obviously he could shock her.
“An angel?” Eden slid off the table and accidentally stepped on the pear slice.
Ashur stood with hands at his hips. His lips were still burnished from their kisses. She wanted to lick his bare chest, to fuse herself against him as if she were the filings to his magnetic field.
But first she needed to get things sorted out.
“I thought the angels were the bad guys?”
“The Fallen are. The upper echelons are most definitely not. The archangels are His right hand. Raphael is the one who forged me, sent me on my task, had his lackey punish me for my sin and then summoned me again.”
“Seriously? Raphael. I’ve read about that angel.”
“Whatever the mortals have recorded about the angel is likely inaccurate. It is Raphael’s concern no Fallen should accomplish its task. Though some have. That was an oversight made while I was Beneath.”
“You mean fallen angels have actually had sex with women? Gotten them pregnant with…?”
“Nephilim have been born to walk the earth. They’ve been quickly dispatched, yet not always by slayers. David took out Goliath, the giant of Gath.”
“No way. Really?” The whole bible lesson was fascinating, and frightening. “But Goliath was a grown man.”
“When the nephilim is born it matures to adulthood within seventy-two hours.”
“Oh, my God. That poor mother.”
“The mother may not be aware if she is dead. I have not heard of a muse who has survived the birth.”
Eden’s legs wobbled. She clutched the edge of the table and tried to keep her mouth from gaping. She wouldn’t survive the birth? Not that it mattered. She couldn’t carry a child to term.
But what if she could? What if, after some supernatural entity had been placed in her womb, it was able to grow and be born? What kind of freak of nature was she? Seeing angels in her dreams and wearing an angel sigil…
“You’re calling Raphael a he and saying Fallen angels can have sex with women,” she blurted out nervously. “I thought angels were without sexual assignment. Or is that another mortal falsehood?”
“It’s easier to speak of them using the male pronoun, and Raphael often manifests in male form. Fallen can have sexual congress with mortal women only when they are in full or even half human form, thus rendering them with the correct anatomy to complete the task. In fact, they can shift no further than half angel form, and can never achieve complete angelic form again. Their feet have touched the earth so they lack divinity. It is why they cannot fly or look to the heavens.”
She clutched Ashur’s arm for support. “You won’t let Zaqiel get to me, will you?”
“Six, you know what I have told you.”
“Yes, I will have to draw him to me so you can slay him. But you’ll do it before he has sex with me?”
“Yes, I promise you.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise.”
“It is all I can give you.”
Meeting his eyes, Eden wondered at that statement. Was a promise all he could give, or all he wanted to give? Had she been luring him from the task by kissing him and encouraging his exploration of her body? He was a warrior with one sole purpose, and had been sent to accomplish it by a freakin’ angel.
“So this Raphael dude—”
“Do not speak his name unless you wish his audience.”
“Seriously? You mean I could call an angel to me by speaking its name?”
“Not any mortal can do it, but I suspect a muse probably could.”
“Cool.”
“Do not abuse the power, Six.”
“I won’t. I just wondered if you and he were tight.”
“I have been in his presence three times. Each time I did not speak, only accepted his command. We are not tight.”
“I suppose not. Demons and angels would not be friends.”
It was too much for her to think about right now. A change of subject was necessary. “So, are you hungry?” She toed the crushed pear.
“Not at the moment. Have you a cross or holy objects in the house?”
“I…don’t think so. What do you need them for?”
“If I can ward the house, that should keep you safe and leave me to track Zaqiel. I remember seeing a church in that village we passed through.”
“Villa Columbina. Are you going to raid it for holy water?”
Ashur lifted a brow, and she nodded in acceptance.
“I won’t be long.”
Antonio Del Gado ran his palm over the painting that had just been delivered by FedEx. All together, eight paintings sat unpackaged and lined along the wall of his studio beneath the streets of Paris.
He had never seen an angel like the ones Eden Campbell depicted. Well, he’d never seen an angel, save for the fluffy things on the pages of books he’d gathered for his research. Some, though, had been depicted wearing armor and wielding medieval weaponry.
“Are they truly fashioned from metal as she has painted?”
He wasn’t sure what to decide about that, but one thing was certain: she possessed some knowledge. On each angel, in each painting, a sigil had been placed. Different parts of the body displayed a symbol that was unique to each angel.
Antonio knew about the sigils. The Book of Common Angels had touched briefly on them. Four had been illustrated. He’d been lucky two sigils had been associated with a name—Zaqiel and Xymyr. The summons required the sigil and the name. He’d collected quite a few sigils, but hadn’t names to match beyond those initial two. And until he had more names, no more Fallen.
But more importantly the exact match of Fallen to muse must be made. The blood grimoire he used to conjure the fallen to earth was most specific.
“Has she any idea?” he murmured to himself. “I think I need to talk to Eden Campbell. But where to find her if she is not in residence?”
He’d instructed Bruce to give his name to the artist at the gallery. He could sit back and wait until she called him, thanking him for such a large purchase, or he could be pro-active and send out hunters now.
The demon wasn’t so stupid he thought he could tell her about the power she wielded, and then expect she wouldn’t try it out. Besides, she needed to know things, right now, that would affect the outcome of this nasty chase.
Thinking the angel’s name over and over, Eden walked the sunlit path along the vineyard.
“Raphael,” she called softly. “Raphael?”
What had she read about angels? They were almighty and powerful. Humans could not look upon them in all their glory. They could smite or impart feelings of well-being. They could change a human’s
emotion through vibrations. And they were ruthless warriors.
Yet were the kind and benevolent guardian angels even real?
Zaqiel didn’t appear so almighty, and she could certainly look at him, much as she wished not to. Must be because he was not in his glory. Ashur had said a fallen angel could not resume the appearance he’d once possessed while in heaven. Make that Above.
And the only way a Fallen could have sex with a muse was in half form. Half man, half angel. Eden had painted a few like that. Their bottom halves male and human, while from the torso up steel and glass made up their bones and flesh.
Much as she admired the angel on canvas, she did not want to see one in half form standing before her with lust in his eyes.
She glanced to the clouds floating through the pristine blue sky.
“Maybe I shouldn’t do this. I don’t know what I’m calling to me.”
A flash of lightning through sunshine flooded Eden’s peripheral vision. Shivers racked her shoulders. She gasped on her own breath. Foreboding tightened her neck muscles and clenched in her gut.
It was too late to change her mind.
A tall, thin man with golden hair that shimmered in the sunlight walked the stone path bordering the vineyard. The brown plaid suit was not fitted well, tighter at the shoulders and hanging at his hips. Hands clasped behind his back, he reminded Eden of a schoolteacher, perhaps a nice one, but one could never be sure when he might show his true colors and pop a quiz on the classroom.
“Eden Campbell,” he said. His tone admonished and accepted at the same time. “What’s up, love?”
A British accent? That was weirder than the suit.
“Yes, well, bespoke certainly isn’t what it once was.” He tugged at the hem of a short sleeve.
Where were his wings? The blinding light? A plaid suit?
What had he asked her? What was up? She couldn’t say she was just checking to see if her summons had worked. That would anger him. If Eden knew anything, one mustn’t anger an angel.
“Indeed not.”
“Can you read my mind?”
“I know all about you, Eden Campbell. Reading your mind would be banal and, frankly, beyond me. So get on with it. My time is not your time.”