by Michele Hauf
Chapter 22
“I can’t get a read on the Fallen.” Ashur exhaled and leaned against the wall.
He was locked inside the house with Eden, waiting. Waiting for the angel to strike. For his reality to crash. Could he kill her for a soul?
Should he?
Any Sinistari would. And he was master of them all. What kind of demon was he if he considered the consequences of his actions?
“You’ve been concentrating all afternoon.”
“Huh?” He realized Eden had been in the kitchen the whole time as he struggled with the conscience he suddenly hated.
“Let me show you my favorite place in the whole world.” Eden waved an open bottle of wine, directing Ashur to follow her.
“Wait! You’re going outside? I need to open the wards.”
She stopped abruptly, her hand on the doorknob. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I desperately need a breath of fresh air. Is it okay?”
Ashur nodded as he focused his open palm on the ward marking the door. The ward glowed blue, and he moved it with a gesture of his hand to the side wall.
“Cool.” Eden walked through the door. “You have to reset it when we come back in?”
“Yes. Don’t let me forget.”
Eden walked backward across the stone courtyard. She gestured with her forefinger as if luring him to a secret location. He followed, his eyes never leaving hers. The connection stirred everything that had developed between them. She was feeling frisky, and he was, too.
With a human soul he could have moments like this every day.
If he had a human soul, that would mean Eden was dead.
She sat on the hammock and patted the ropes beside her. “Like it?”
Shoving the dire thoughts out of his brain, Ashur forced a light mood. “Can we both fit on there?”
“This is a double-wide. You sit and we’ll slide back at the same time.” They managed the maneuver with some chuckles, and Eden held the wine bottle high until they were comfortable on the creaky, but sturdy rope swing. “This has always been my favorite spot. Look at the sun through the leaves overhead. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
“I suspect the beauty is enhanced by your memories.” Ashur clasped her free hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the space between her thumb and forefinger, then dashed his tongue along the curve of it.
The taste of her was addictive. He wanted it all the time.
“What of your memories? Do you remember what it was like on earth so long ago?”
“Simpler. Tougher,” he said.
“Not so many people?”
“Exactly.”
“I know you’ve only been here a short time,” she said, “but I wonder if you ever think about becoming like us?”
“Like you?”
“Just human. Mortal.” She drew his hand to her mouth and pressed her lips to the side of his thumb. “Not living with the threat of being banished to some weird hell I can only imagine—and probably don’t want to imagine. Not having to kill.”
“You will never understand killing is my mien.”
“I get that part. You’re a demon. Demons kill. Someone has to keep tabs on the nasty angels.”
“And you would wish me to sacrifice what I am and leave all those nasty angels, as you call them, to torment innocent women such as yourself?”
She shifted on the hammock, rolling to her side, and ran her palm up under his shirt. That touch he liked. Brazen, demanding, it quickly stirred him to desire.
“I like that you’re a hero and all,” she said, “but sometimes I think I’d like to keep you all for myself.”
He thought the same, impossible as it was.
“Ashur.”
His name on her tongue sounded too good to be demon. Her touch did not preach patience. He was no master of virtue, yet he wanted to hold this moment, to cleave to it as he had joy, because it may never again be this sweet.
“I must be selfish,” she said, “and tell you I wish you wouldn’t leave me after this is done.”
“I won’t know what the morning following Zaqiel’s death will bring to me. Let’s not look that far ahead. Actually let’s look ahead. Like at what my ass is going to look like when I stand up from this torture device. It’s uncomfortable.”
“You think? I love this hammock.” She rolled and stepped off, reaching back a hand. “Come on, wimp.”
Ashur stood and lifted her over his shoulder in one fluid move. He swatted her ass and charged the house. “For that, you will be punished.”
Once inside, he turned and with his free hand, directed the ward back over the door. It settled into position and flashed blue once.
Laughing, he ran up the stairs, her body held easily over his broad shoulder. Indeed, he did not know what the morning after Zaqiel’s death would bring. But he wasn’t about to kill Eden to gain a soul. Because with her gone from this world, what would be the value of his human soul?
What was different about making love to a demon rather than a man? Physically, he was completely human. No horns or…well, Eden didn’t know what anomalies to look for. But she didn’t find any as she explored Ashur’s gorgeous body. Hot and moist with perspiration, he was perfection.
She glided her fingers up his leg, enjoying as his muscles tensed with her touch. A moan from her lover danced in her heart. It was as if he’d awakened to her, and she in turn had found someone so unique, she felt as if only he fit in her life.
And inside her. Eden nestled her mons against his soft penis. He was spent after half a dozen orgasms. As was she. Though she sensed he was ready for another round when he began to harden against her stomach.
The man had stamina. She’d never been so thoroughly sexed in all her life. Must be because he wasn’t human.
He was certainly demonic in bed. And she loved it.
Eden moved up as Ashur rolled onto his stomach and dropped an arm over the bed’s edge. Pressing her breasts to his smooth hard ass, she kissed his back and traced her tongue along his spine.
Ashur growled lowly, a satisfied sound.
She smiled against his skin. “You like that? You’re so hot. It’s like you’re a furnace. A girl would like to have you around in the wintertime.”
“I haven’t seen snow for a millennium.”
“Then I hope you stick around to see it this year. I want the first sledding date in Central Park to be with you. We’ll follow by stripping down to bare skin before the fireplace in my penthouse and sipping hot chocolate.”
“If I am on this earth when the snow falls, you will not be able to keep me from you. Eden,” he said on a purr. “Beautiful name.”
“You’re crossing the line of getting personal by using it.”
“You’ve tugged me over many lines, Eden.”
“You like it.”
“I do.”
Fingers gliding along the rumpled sheets, Eden tickled her tongue toward the back of his neck where fine dark hairs flowed into the thick tousle upon his head. He had a few freckles.
Eden glided her fingers up his neck and into his hair. There she saw something dark against his skin. A design? It was as if he’d grown hair over a tattoo.
It struck her as odd. “Ashur?”
He grunted, halfway to sleep.
“Lover, there’s something on the back of your skull.”
Another grunt, but he was listening.
“It looks like a tattoo, but could be something else, though I don’t know what. It’s black, like ink.”
“Never had time to get a tattoo. Not particularly interested in one, either.”
“It’s shaped like— Oh, my God.”
“What?”
She stretched her arm up by his face, revealing the sigil. “It looks like this. A six!”
The mattress bounced as Ashur rolled over and slid off to stand in one fast motion. Eden was flung off him and sat sprawled across the rumpled white sheets.
“Are you sure?”
She nod
ded and gestured with a shrug. “You want me to get a mirror and show you in the bathroom?”
A flash of realization thundered her heartbeats. She hadn’t made the connection until she’d said the number herself. And Ashur had to think the same thing as she—
Ashur shuffled into his jeans and grabbed his shirt. His abs flexed as he tugged it over his head and stretched back his arms, fisting his fingers. Concern narrowed his brows. His eyes were dark, lacking in color.
Eden gave his eyes a double-take. She’d never seen them like that. “Where are you going?”
“I need to go talk to someone.”
“Right now? But what about—”
“You’ll be safe. The wards are strong so long as you don’t leave the house without my assistance. It won’t take me long. I’m sorry, Eden.” He leaned in to kiss her on the mouth. The kiss was too quick, but his fingers lingered in her hair for a moment and he drew away to trace her gaze with his. “I cherish you.”
She caught her breath as her heartbeat stalled. Cherish her? That was awesome. Was it close to love? Almost. Maybe it was his form of expressing love?
No. Love was forbidden to his kind. What would that mean to them being together? He’d be banished again. Sent Beneath. She did not want his love if it meant he would be tortured for it.
By the time she’d summoned her voice, Ashur had marched out of the bedroom, leaving her alone on a sea of sheets.
“I cherish you, too,” she whispered.
She stroked the birthmark on her forearm. It had been there since birth. She’d not associated it with the number six until third grade when they’d learned Roman numerals.
Did it mean what she now thought? Were she and Ashur meant to be together since before they both walked this earth?
Chapter 23
The interspace between earth and Above was colder than the Arctic Circle. The mortal clothing Ashur wore did little to protect him from the elements. The cold couldn’t kill him; it would just give him a hell of a brain freeze. He could shrug off his human costume, but his demonic form would offend his master, so he endured.
Ashur shivered and called again for Raphael.
He slapped a palm across the back of his neck. Six?
In all his uncountable centuries he had never known. Never before had any of his lovers noticed the telltale mark. Not even the woman from Macedonia. What was her name? She’d probably never seen the mark because their couplings had been more tame, not as exploratory as those with Eden.
Yet as soon as Eden had described the mark to him, he had innately known. What else could it be?
“Now what?” The angel beamed before him, partially formed with shoulders and a torso, but mostly light. It wasn’t a warm light, either. Angels were never warm, despite popular belief. “You’re going to freeze your mortal dick off if you spend any amount of time here, Sinistari. Then what fun will you have tromping through sin as if it were an all-you-can-eat buffet?”
Much as he wished to snap at Raphael, Ashur held his tongue. He revered the archangel, for reasons beyond his comprehension.
“Why is Zaqiel still alive?” Raphael prompted. “And for that matter, the muse still breathes.”
“Zaqiel will not live another day.”
“That had better be a promise and not hope.”
“Hope is not in my arsenal.”
“If that is what you wish to believe. What of the muse?”
“I am…considering the task.”
“Considering?” The archangel scoffed. He knew all truths and lies. But it hadn’t been a lie. Ashur was almost sure he would not kill Eden. But almost wasn’t completely.
“Was I once…?” Ashur’s teeth chattered. He couldn’t believe it, but he’d never known exactly how the Sinistari were born—rather, forged. “How were the Sinistari created?”
“They were forged of a metal unknown to mankind before their feet hit the earth and then they were matched with the blade previously crafted from their rib bone.”
He’d known the blade was created from his form. But what form had that been?
“Before my feet hit the earth?” he asked. It was impossible, but only one explanation made sense. “Was I once an angel?”
He felt Raphael’s disappointment in his icy bones. “Yes. But now you are demon.”
Incredible. And completely insane. “Was I one of the two hundred?”
“Yes.”
Raphael’s abruptness afforded Ashur little time to process the truth now, but he needed to understand. “Explain,” he insisted. “Please.”
“When the two hundred fell,” Raphael said, “their ranks were decimated. Those twenty were chosen to become Sinistari.”
“Why?”
“It was anticipated there would be a need for them,” Raphael said sternly. “You’ve got willful angels walking the earth in search of human females. It’s not all romance and roses. So the demon Sinistari were forged from the hard metals strafing through the earth.”
That Eden was so amazed at the hardness of his body had only reminded him of his origins.
“We are tough to exterminate, we angels,” Raphael said, “but our own kind can do the job rather nicely. Fact is, only an angel can slay another angel. The Sinistari were a necessity born of the fall.”
“But if I was forged from the earth’s metals, then how…?”
“The blade. You are a different substance than Dethnyht. Earthly. But that blade is pure divinity, created from your angelic form as you fell.”
He ran a palm over the blade sheath at the back of his hip. “And the poison?”
“Softens the hard angel flesh. Makes the blade go in real swell.”
The archangel tilted his head wonderingly. That he allowed Ashur to process this now was a boon he did not have to offer.
“I was once an…” Ashur slapped a palm over his still heart. Icy wind permeated his steel flesh. Feeling anything, even pain, was not to be disregarded. For how soon before he was returned Beneath? “That means I had chosen to fall. That I was once Grigori. I was once a part…”
“Of the mutual curse that formed the wicked pact to fall. Yes, yes, get over it, demon. You have always been and always will be divinely created.”
This was difficult to digest. “I was once divine?”
Raphael nodded. “Divinity alters little with the form. It is still within you.”
“Impossible. I am Sinistari. I am evil.”
“Your perspective, which, I gather, is based on the perspectives of others. I was startled you so easily accepted the label all those millennia ago. There are billions of perspectives, depending on who is doing the looking. One must never subscribe to any other than his own.”
“But the Fallen—they are not divine. His divinity was swept from them as the halos left their heads and their feet touched the earth.”
“That is true. A halo was swept from your head, but your feet did not, indeed, touch the earth. You were forged mid-fall and sent immediately Beneath.”
Ashur let out a huffing sigh. He possessed divinity? Impossible. That would make him more divine than the fallen angels he stalked.
No. He could not— Perhaps, though, that was how he had been able to once love?
“Indeed. That was an oversight,” Raphael added. “Love and demons don’t mix. Yet it was a residual from your former divine nature. Unavoidable, really.”
And this bastard had tortured the love from his flesh and steel bones with relish and a wicked smile.
“That was Ariel, not me.”
“You made the command.”
“And do you protest the punishment was unfitting?”
Ashur hung his head. “No.”
“Damned right.”
“So if twenty were taken and forged as Sinistari, then there have only ever been one hundred eighty Fallen?”
“Yes, well, forty-seven were extinguished before and during the flood. And eleven Sinistari remain.”
“So that means there are more mus
es than Fallen,” Ashur said, quickly working out the implications. “Unless there were only one hundred eighty muses?”
“Two hundred, actually. Which leaves extras. Some Fallen go after other muses after they’ve impregnated their own. When that happens, that means you guys haven’t been doing your job. Sort of like Zaqiel. His muse was dead by the time the chap got to her, so he’s been stalking others.”
He knew that.
Ashur gripped the angel’s shoulders. They transformed to molten heat under his fingers. Amidst the Arctic storm, he relished the heat, so did not let go. “What sigil am I?”
“You mean to ask,” Raphael corrected slyly, “what sigil were you?”
“The sigil has never been replaced by another Fallen, so I still am.” Ashur was not sure what he was saying but at the same time he knew it for truth. When he’d originally fallen—he could not remember that time—he must have been one of the two hundred destined to mate with mortal females.
“Yes, but it’s not as though you can do the task a Fallen does—create a nephilim. The sigil is merely that. A forgotten design. A symbol of connection to a mortal muse.”
“And?”
“Very well. You, Sinistari, are number six.”
Chapter 24
Empty wine bottle in hand, Eden strolled down the hallway. The recycle bins sat outside the back door. There was an old man in the neighborhood who went around monthly and collected wine bottles from everyone. He crushed them and sold the tiny bits as mulch for gardens. Eden had noted a few gardens on the drive here that glittered under the sunlight.
She pressed a hand to the door, but stopped before the latch clicked open. She’d almost forgot. The wards. She was trapped inside until Ashur got home.
He’d left her bed so quickly, she would take it as rejection if she hadn’t known what had been on his mind.
He suspected the same thing.
Setting the wine bottle on the laundry sink, she leaned over and toyed with the constant drip no amount of fussing with the handle would stop.