by Michele Hauf
“Look all you like, Eden. You’re mine.”
“Don’t say my name,” she hissed. That she’d the audacity to speak to him bolstered her confidence. “I’m Six to you.”
“Six, sex, it all sounds bloody delicious.”
She realized with a gasp he was in the form Ashur had said was necessary to have sex with her. Half angel, half human.
“Pity your demon lover didn’t refresh those wards. The fellow invited me to dinner with open arms, so to speak.”
Eden swallowed and eyed the halo over Zaqiel’s shoulder. If it could be used as a weapon, could she wield it?
He caught her focus and turned. “Ah! What in blazes are you doing with one of those? Such pretties are not for human consumption.”
The halo didn’t glow blue when he touched and sniffed it. “Is it yours?” she asked. Slowly she walked her fingers along the countertop toward the drying dishes and knives.
“Mine? Hell no. It only glows for the one it loves, darling. I’ll be damned if I can find mine. Would like to. It would serve as a nifty weapon. Not so sure I need the soul, though. Mortal death is so vulgar.”
It glowed for the one it loved? Meaning…the one it belonged to. The few times Eden had seen it glow Ashur had also been present. Did it belong to him? If so, it held his earthbound soul.
“You know vampires are looking for these things? Bloody fang-faces.” He twanged the halo with a snap of his finger, then danced back to her and stuck his face into her personal space. The spike piercing his lip wobbled as he spoke. “You know what I’m here for,” he said matter-of-factly. “So let’s get to it before loverboy returns, eh? It doesn’t take long, and I promise I won’t hurt you…too much.” He preened the feathers on one shoulder; the fine black filaments glowed blue on the tips as his fingers stroked over them. “We can do it here where there’s lots of room for my wings to stretch out. I think I’ll pin you to that wall.”
Eden whipped her arm about, slamming his head with the plate she’d grabbed. It shattered against his skull. Zaqiel yelled, which provided enough distraction for her to slip past him and run for the front door. If the wards were broken she wasn’t about to stick around and trap herself inside with a horny angel.
The Fallen stood before the door. Her palms slapped his steel chest. The contact stung and reverberated up her arms.
A flick of his tongue snaked out at her. “I’m going to make you itch all over.”
Clamping her head between his hands, he licked along her cheek and up across her forehead. A hot burn bloomed in his wake.
Eden kicked and struggled but he held her easily. His tongue traced her jaw. And then she was airborne, slung over his arms and cradled as he ran up the stairs and into her bedroom.
“Changed my mind. We’re going to throw in some romance with the deal. Have you any rope?” he asked, tossing her onto the bed as if a discarded pillow.
Eden scrambled off, but again, he beat her to the door. “Ah, you should know I am quicker than air.”
He slammed his forearm against her throat, pinning her to the door. “Not funny, pretty one. And if you’re not nice to me I think I will feed you to the vampires. I promise you’re going to like angel sex much better than demon sex. You think he’s got something you want? Wait until you see what I have for you.”
“You have no feeling,” she countered. “Sex is merely a task for you.”
“Do you see me arguing? Feeling or not, I’m in for the prize. But oh, correction—I can get pleasure from a muse.”
“I’m not your muse!”
“Doesn’t matter. After I’ve done my match, the rest of you are up for grabs.”
“What would He think of you?” she cried.
The statement stopped him momentarily. “No, no no, not going to get me with that one. I do miss Him. But He abandoned me.”
“Because you fell.”
“Because He was not as loving as you mortals would care to believe. Care to partake in holy ablutions with me, muse?”
“I can’t carry a child to term!”
Zaqiel scoffed. “Certainly no mortal child. But my progeny? Oh, yes!”
One slash of his arm sent her soaring onto the bed where she fell onto her stomach and face. Eden struggled with what to do, how to flee. Where was Ashur? Before she could think, she was quickly wrangled and her wrists tied to the headboard with the belt Zaqiel drew out from his belt loops.
Ashur had promised to protect her. It was the only promise he had ever given her.
“I do love to play a bit before the holy event.” Zaqiel tugged the belt tightening her hand securely to the iron bedpost. “You ever see an angel in all his glory? No, of course you haven’t. It would render you senseless and you’d be dead, which would rule out any chance of you carrying my nephilim.”
“You can’t get all your glory up. You sacrificed that when you fell.”
“My, my, aren’t we a smarty-pants.”
“You’ve no wings. You can’t do this without them.”
“Heh, heh.” He stepped back and stretched out his arms. Tilting his head back, he then shrugged his shoulders.
Silver metal screamed out from his back and shoulders, stretching, growing, crashing through the window and tearing the plaster casements. The wings grew out thirty feet. Eden couldn’t see where they ended. They moved fluidly, bending near his back thanks to gears that rolled on oiled cogs.
Zaqiel leaned over her. “How about these wings, bitch?”
“Is that any way to speak to the future mother of your child?”
“Oh, I do like you.”
He twisted, and his wings, while folding, still cut through the wall as if a knife slicing through butter. The ceiling cracked and Eden worried more that she might be crushed by building materials than raped by an angel.
She screamed so loudly her voice cracked.
A dark figure landed crouched on the floor before the bed.
It straightened, flexing black steel arms bulging with smooth muscles forged of something dark and sinuous.
Ashur.
Chapter 28
The Fallen had the audacity to attempt his woman. His woman. The one female walking this earth who had been put here specifically for him. No matter the original intent when he’d fallen, he would not allow anyone else to touch her.
Ashuriel the Black snarled and smashed a steel fist into his palm. The sound clanged like iron against a rail tie. He charged the angel. They collided in the center of the bedroom. Like steel pummeling brick, the sound rang across the surrounding acres. The house timbers shook. Glass clattered throughout the adjoining rooms.
Eden screamed. Bound to the bed at her wrists, she struggled. A red robe covered her limbs, yet Ashur couldn’t know if Zaqiel had been successful with his vicious deed.
“I will rip your head from your body,” he growled as he fought the angel’s supernatural strength. In his true form his voice bellowed.
“Fine with me, but that won’t kill me, demon.” He bashed a fist into Ashur’s face, crushing the sinus cavity. Thick blood ran down his throat.
She witnessed it all. He’d never wanted Eden to see him in his true form. It could not be prevented.
Kicking high, he wedged a foot into the angel’s gut and hiked him out the broken window. Ashur leaped. He landed on the ground with hooves, gouging out the soil and lifting a dusty cloud. The Fallen spread out his wings completely, an impressive span.
The wings were like additional arms to the angel. One bent forward, nearly stripping its gears, yet slashed Ashur across the chest. The razor-edged wingtip cut open Ashur’s steel torso. Though he was made of the hardest substances from the earth, he still felt pain.
Blocking the other wing soaring toward his head, he gripped the bladed appendage and yanked, toppling the angel forward. He delivered an adamant hoof to Zaqiel’s forehead, ripping it open to spill out glowing blue blood.
The Fallen flashed away. Ashur shook his head, feeling his left horn had loosen
ed. Black blood oozed down his face and he licked at the hot substance. Dragging himself up from the pummeled grass and dirt, he shook like an animal, flinging dirt clods through the air.
The angel was nowhere in sight.
Eden’s scream tightened every muscle strapping his form. Summoning Dethnyht to hand, he held it ready. Moonlight glinted on the tip. The poison stirred. Charging the villa and leaping, he crashed through the remainder of the bedroom window and landed on the floor.
The angel, in half form, looked up from where he knelt over Eden. Her robe was open down the middle, exposing her breasts and belly.
“Ashur!”
Half-human from the waist down, Zaqiel ripped open the front of his leather pants and gripped his shaft.
She must not know the horrors the angel could visit upon her. That thought steeled Ashur’s determination.
But even more, she belonged to him.
“This is my destiny!” Zaqiel yelled.
“She is not yours!” Ashur argued.
“If I don’t do her, then another Fallen will. You can’t kill us all!”
“Oh, yes, I can.”
“Thought you were supposed to kill this one?” Zaqiel growled. “You disobeying orders on behalf of a wishy-washy heart, Sinistari?”
“She’s mine!” Ashur dodged the slash of the angel’s wing.
“Is that so? If you’re so lovey-dovey for the muse, then why not allow her the one thing she desperately wants? You know she wants a child. And who is the only one who can give her that desire?”
Ashur paused. Yes, a child. That was what Eden wanted most. It was what he wanted for her. She’d been right all along. The joy he’d thought he felt—it had been a deep and pure love.
Forced away from the bed by the angel’s will, Ashur’s body soared out the broken window and landed in the stone courtyard. He’d let down his guard. Zaqiel had taken advantage of that.
Eden’s scream echoed across the countryside. It fixed into Ashur’s skull and tore at his pulsing heart. Yes, it pulsed. He had a heartbeat.
Because of Eden.
Roaring and stomping the stones that cracked under his hooves, Ashur leaped for the window.
Crossing himself from shoulder to shoulder, and from head to gut, Ashur then plunged Dethnyht into Zaqiel’s back. The weapon did not go in easily. It was like pushing a steel rod through granite. The poison on the tip burned through angel flesh and made entry only a little easier as it chewed away at the seemingly impermeable metal bones and innards. It sought the light within. The solid glass heart that had once held grace and divinity.
Ashur’s fists slapped against angel flesh. Dethnyht had pierced the heart.
Holding the dagger handle securely, Ashur lifted the flailing angel from the bed. He writhed and screamed in a high-pitched tone that shuddered the walls. Ceiling plaster crumbled to the floor and bed.
Ashur flung him to the floor before the window. Brilliant light burst from the entry wound in the angel’s chest. Zaqiel struggled, his bent wings tearing across the ceiling. Plaster fell in chunks. Ashur leaped onto the bed and stood over Eden, protecting her from falling debris. A chunk hit his back, dented it and bounced onto the floor.
Death enveloped the Fallen in its bold and brilliant grip. Arms stretched across the floor, its chest spasmed and heaved and every pore opened and released the shimmery souls sacrificed upon Zaqiel’s fall. The souls of those Zaqiel had taught the arts upon his fall, and then had stolen in payment.
Ashur glanced down at Eden. She lay motionless. Blood dribbled from her forehead. Had the angel harmed her? He moved to touch the wound, but recoiled. If he touched her in his natural form he might crush her skull, as heavy and powerful as he was like this.
Was she dead? He stared at her chest. It did not rise and fall with breath. No! She cannot—
“Ah, I knew I’d be seeing you sooner rather than later.” Blackthorn toed the fallen angel dust on the floor then tapped his cane against the side of his shoe.
Ashur growled. He would rip the psychopomp’s head from his neck—
“Not your call, Sinistari. Unless you’re willing to make a trade?” He inclined his head to look over at the floor.
On the floor, amidst the plaster and rubble, the angel expired. Souls swirled up from Zaqiel’s chest. The prize waited.
If Ashur did not move now, he would lose them. Yet Eden…
If she was dead, there was nothing he could do now. Raphael had gotten what he’d demanded. And once again the master of the Sinistari had completed his task. Blackthorn would take her soul Beneath— No!
“Take them,” Ashur said, moving protectively before Eden’s body. “Quickly and be done with it!”
Blackthorn posed over the Fallen, his arms extended and chest high. The thick cloud of glittering lost souls spun before him as if unsure, seeking. Gathering his arms slowly before him he collected the souls. They sparkled and clung to his body, hair and clothing, until he was amassed with them all.
“Ashur,” cried a weak voice from the bed.
He cocked his head. A movement on the bed alerted him. She was alive? But the psychopomp would not have arrived if she hadn’t been— The souls. Of course. Blackthorn had not come for Eden; he’d come for the abandoned souls.
“You trickster!” He lunged for the psychopomp.
“Please, Ashur, don’t…”
She dared to tell him what to do?
Ashur gripped Blackthorn by the throat and began to shake him above the floor. Stealing souls was what he deserved. He was a demon. He always would be. He would never change. She could not change him.
“Let him have them!” Eden cried weakly.
The shimmering souls began to fall away from Blackthorn as Ashur shook him. He started to inhale, to selfishly consume the prize, but Eden’s voice blocked his innate desire to possess.
“I love you.”
The world stopped. Blackthorn hung limply in Ashur’s grip. The souls shivered.
And Ashur’s demonic heart pulsed. The black lump of metal had not been designed for love. Nothing could get inside unless he willed it.
Not even Eden.
And yet, he could not do it. These souls…
He flung Blackthorn away from him. The psychopomp flew out the window and dematerialized midair in a glimmer of souls.
Zaqiel’s ashes gleamed upon the wooden floor as if fine glass crushed beneath a stampede.
Ashur bowed his head, closed his metal eyelids. A loosened horn dangled, but he was not broken. Far from it.
Yet he sensed something inside him cracked and broke in two pieces. He slapped a palm to his steel chest.
It was still beating. For her.
Impossible. He must not let her in, never again.
“Ashur?”
So soft her voice. Too soft for one so ugly and cruel as he.
He had not wanted her to see him in this form. His true form.
Yet are you not an angel in origin?
Angels can be far more wicked than demons.
He could not look at her for he was ashamed. It was the worst feeling he had known.
“You…I’ve…seen you before.”
Her painting. She’d known him before he had known her. They’d been destined for each other.
Ridiculous.
He could never have her. Not like this. She deserved something human, someone real. Someone who could wrap her in mortal arms without crushing her. A man who could kiss her and mean it when he said he loved her. Not a beast blackened by innocent souls.
Yet she had tamed him briefly.
He’d prematurely declared that he cherished her. A roundabout means to confessing love. He knew it was love. She knew it. Surely Raphael knew as well.
He would take the punishment afforded the crime, deservingly.
Reaching back, Ashur flicked a taloned finger across the belt binding one of Eden’s wrists to the bedpost. She could free herself now. But not before he made sure she would never suffer his
presence again.
Turning to the shattered window, Ashur took a step away from all he desired. The one blessed piece of his heart that had opened to Eden’s love now fell away. It broke upon the floor, and was crushed beneath his hooves.
“Wait, Ashur! I have your halo!”
He smirked. He had suspected that it might be his after learning his truth. Didn’t do him any good now.
As the Stealer of Souls leaped out and high into the sky, the cries from the woman he loved fixed into the darkness in his chest, becoming a part of the faint pulse. But there was not room for such emotion. The imprisoned souls attempted to push her back out.
Chapter 29
Ashur had left—but he would return.
Eden repeated that thought like a mantra.
Hours later the bedroom had not changed. A corner of the plaster ceiling lay crumbled upon the bed. The window was shattered. Wood floorboards were crushed where the immense demon had stepped. Angel ash lay upon the floor glimmering like cut diamonds.
Eden sat on the floor by the door, her knees up and palms pressed to the wood. Shock had kept her there for the first hour. Disbelief, fear and yes, relief, had twisted her muscles, stretched and pulled them, and now they were so utterly weak, she simply could not move.
Much as she wished, pleaded and prayed, Ashur did not return.
And she knew in her heart he would not return. He’d turned a look over his shoulder at her before he’d leaped through the window. Shame had spotted two white pinpricks in his dark blue eyes. The demon had revealed his true form to her. And he dared not show himself to her any longer.
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “I love him no matter his form.”
The demon had not been vile or ghastly. He’d been beautiful. A black steel beast intent on her protection. Just like the angel she had painted. It had never been demonic, her work. She had known, somehow, of his angelic origins.
“Come back to me, Ashur.”
She wept, releasing the fear and utter terror Zaqiel had infused into her soul. An angel had terrorized her.
And a demon had rescued her once again. For the final time.