by Lisa Olsen
Lying down on the bed, I closed my eyes, convinced I’d never be able to fall asleep with everything going on or I’d immediately get pounced on by Azazael in the Ether the moment I slipped past consciousness. Instead, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep almost the instant my head hit the pillow.
*
It’s hard to say what time of day it was when I awoke. The sky was a lighter purple but there was no sun visible in the sky. The air had warmed up considerably, but as I sat up higher, I saw that was probably because of the firepit thing at the foot of my bed. (I have a friend in the SCA who could probably give the object its correct name, but firepit thing was good enough for me)
My gilded cage looked much the same as it had the night before, the lit fire the only sign that anyone had been in there since I’d fallen asleep. Except for… the ornately wrapped box on the dressing table. Large enough to hold a new coat (which I hoped for), it sat wrapped in shiny, gold wrapping paper with red and green ribbons, and a huge bow in the center.
I approached the box cautiously, after all, what might pass for a gift in a demon realm? Curiosity got the better of me though, and I carefully peeled open the wrapping paper and lifted the lid of the box. Nestled inside was a pretty dress in a deep red that reminded me of a Grecian style. Golden sandals designed to lace up the calves were in the bottom of the box, as well as several smaller velvet lined cases filled with jewelry dripping with rubies. My first reaction was to swap out my work clothes for the lovely dress, but my hands froze a few inches above the box. What would I accept if I said yes to Raum’s gifts? Would it mark me as his in some way? Because I so wasn’t his, regardless of what I’d said in the throne room the night before.
I was wondering how to ring for room service when the door opened, and Nelo arrived, bearing a covered tray, right on cue. “Forgive my impertinence, Mistress, I thought you might be hungry now.”
“No, you’re right on target with that one, Nelo. Thanks,” I smiled at the little guy, my mouth watering as he uncovered the tray to reveal an attractively arranged assortment of sliced meat, cheese and fruits. Too hungry to care if he’d slipped anything into the food, I made myself a sandwich, wishing he’d brought mustard, but that was too much to hope for, I supposed. It wasn’t until after I swallowed the first bite that I thought to worry what kind of meat I was eating. That only slowed me down for a tick though, I was too ravenous to question a meal.
Nelo fussed around the room as I ate, making the bed, straightening things. “You did not like your gift?” he asked, picking up the wrapping paper.
“I like it alright,” I answered noncommittally.
“Do you need assistance in dressing? I could send for a maid…”
“No thanks, I’ll stick to my own clothes for now.”
“You refuse my lord’s offerings?”
He seemed surprised, and I nodded, popping a grape into my mouth. “You guessed it, buddy.”
“Nelo.”
“Huh?”
“My name is Nelo, but you may address me as buddy if you wish, Mistress.” He bowed low again and I waved him up.
“You don’t have to keep bowing when it’s just us in here, Nelo.”
“As you wish, Mistress,” he bowed again and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.
“You don’t have to call me Mistress either.”
“As you wish, Mistress,” he bowed again, but I thought that time he might be smiling. Feeling fuller, I slid my plate towards him.
“Are you hungry? You can have the rest of my sandwich if you want.”
“No, Mistress, that would not be proper.”
“Not proper? I’m not gonna eat it, it’ll be garbage if you don’t take it.” I waved a thin slice of meat in the air and his eyes followed it before he shook his head again.
“No, thank you, Mistress.”
“Suit yourself,” I shrugged. “Hey, does this happen a lot? Girls get kidnapped, you wait on them hand and foot, and Raum plies them with fancy gifts?”
“Oh no.” Another shake of the head was given. “Usually they die right away unless my lord takes a fancy to them.”
“That’s comforting,” I muttered.
“It is?”
“No, Nelo. It’s called sarcasm.” It was almost as bad as talking to Sam… “What about Oriana? It looks like she’s been here a long, long time.”
“She…” Nelo fell silent, his eyes dropping to study the stone floor and I was at a loss for why until the door swung open again, and in sauntered Raum, wearing a burgundy smoking jacket over black, silk pajama pants.
“Did you miss me?”
Chapter Ten
“You’re not wearing my gifts,” Raum frowned. With a snap of his fingers, I was dressed from head to toe in his finery, like an instant makeover, including elaborately styled hair, jewelry and makeup. It would have been a pretty cool effect, unless I dwelled on the fact that he could snap his fingers at any time and leave me without a stitch on… “There, that’s more pleasing. Don’t you think, my lady?”
“You’re a man of many talents,” I murmured, a little dizzy from the rapid transformation.
“That will be all, Nelo.” He gave a distracted wave and Nelo popped out of view. I missed the little guy instantly, the last thing I wanted was to be alone with Raum. “Now then, it’s time for us to get to know each other properly.”
“Would you like some wine?” I backed up towards the table, refilling the goblet from my leftover meal.
“You’re not a tease, are you?” he shook his head, a tsk, tsk, tsk sound coming from his lips. “Actually, strike that, I enjoy a good tease every now and again,” he grinned, stalking me slowly, in no apparent hurry.
Super, a psycho with plenty of time to burn. How would he try to fill the hours? “What do you want from me exactly?” I asked, fighting the urge to back away again. It wasn’t like I could escape him if he decided to pounce. “I know your kind feeds on the Grace. Are you going to eat me?”
“You Americans are so blunt, I love it!” Raum gave a short bark of laughter. “Yes, Mercy, I do intend to taste your Grace. It’s a rare and lovely treat for one of my kind, and have no fear, I don’t intend to squander it.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning we’re going to become very good friends because you’re going to be here a very, very long time.”
My chin came up a little, refusing to be cowed by the threat. “I wasn’t kidding before, there are people who will come looking for me. Adamiel, Samael.” I wasn’t above dropping a few names but he seemed unconcerned.
“No one can find you here, my lady. You are quite removed from the world.”
“No one?” I wasn’t sure if I could take him at his word or not, but some of the starch went out of my sails.
“Let me put it into terms you can understand, pet. We’re off the grid. Where angels fear to tread and devils never follow.”
As far as I knew, angels weren’t afraid of much and I didn’t think it’d keep Azazael from forgetting his dreams of freedom either. “I’m not so sure about that, there are a lot of people looking out for me on both sides of the fence.”
“Never find you here,” he shook his head.
“What if I call them?”
“Won’t do you any good, m’lovely. Even if they could get past the gate, no angel will set foot on Midian, so you’d best give that thought up.”
“Why not?”
“Shall I show you what we do with angels, my lady?” He closed the distance between us, pressing me up against the wall. “Now then… give us a little taste.”
No demon had ever looked at me as though he appreciated my feminine charms, it was all about the Grace, so I was surprised to find him so invasively into my personal space. As he pressed into me, I could feel that there were parts of him that were very interested in another kind of hunger though, and that filled me with a different kind of fear. The Grace bubbled up to protect me, unwittingly making it worse as I started to glow and he p
ressed harder. “Yes… that’s it…lovely,” he whispered, nuzzling in close to my neck.
I squirmed away from his touch but he held me there easily enough, his hand forcing mine to lie over his heart. “Do it,” he growled against my skin, squeezing my wrist painfully, but I didn’t have enough control to push the power on command.
“I can’t, I don’t know how,” I whimpered, trying with every fiber of my being to shoot him with the damned stuff so he’d be happy and let me go. A snarl tore free from his throat and I felt him clamp down on my shoulder, his suddenly sharp teeth piercing my flesh. I screamed in pain, and a surge of Grace burst out of my hand, suffusing his chest with white light. Raum’s bite on my shoulder intensified as his body stiffened against mine, his mouth pulsing rhythmically against my torn flesh as he absorbed the power with a groan of pleasure.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, his mouth eased up and the white hot agony subsided to a dull throbbing pain, which lessened under the raspy touch of his tongue on the wound. I kept my gaze resolutely turned away as I got a hold of myself, refusing to look at him or what he’d done to me. Raum continued to lazily lap at my shoulder, and I have to admit, it didn’t hurt anymore. I was too chicken to see if that was because it was magically better, or if there was a numbing agent in his saliva that masked the pain.
“This is going to be a long and fruitful partnership,” he said finally, pushing away from the wall with a twinkle in his eye.
“How is this a partnership?” It was impossible to disguise the loathing in my voice as I slipped out from his grasp. “You feeding off of me isn’t a partnership, it’s all take and no give.” My hand went to the wound to cautiously probe it, finding the skin completely smooth and unbroken. Thank God for small favors. Idly I wondered, if I started to pray, would God hear me in Midian? Or was I removed from His eyes as well?
“Give it time, m’lovely. It won’t always have to hurt like that as you gain control over your gifts. Soon you’ll come to appreciate the benefits to accepting me as your lord and master. Might could sweeten the deal a bit, make it more pleasurable for the both of us.” Raum leaned close again, reaching up to stroke my cheek and I turned away, swallowing back a wave of revulsion.
“I’ll pass, thanks,” I managed to get out, and his hold shifted to close around my throat, forcing me to look at him.
“It doesn’t always have to hurt, but it can. I can take your Grace in all manner of ways, pet. Best you remember that, before you reject my more than generous offer.” He released his hold on me, fingers brushing against the trail of tears that spilled from the corner of my eyes and bringing them to his lips. “So sweet,” he smiled, licking the tears from his fingers like they were nectar. “Think about what I said, Mercy. I think we could have a lot of fun together, you and I. But if not… well, that’s enjoyable too, isn’t it?” Raum smiled, his teeth stretched to wicked points and my shoulder ached just from looking at them. Without waiting for a response, he turned and left, whistling a jaunty tune.
*
I felt dirty after the incident, but the prospect of stripping down to wash was unappealing. A quick check in the mirror showed my shoulder was smooth and unblemished. There wasn’t any trace of blood on the dress, it was almost as if it hadn’t happened at all. Besides scaring me and the pain during the actual bite itself, he hadn’t done any lasting harm. So why did I feel like weeping?
Nelo showed up a little while later, but I didn’t feel like talking or even being seen. Drawing the heavy bed curtains closed, I lay back on the bed, tears flowing while I tried to figure out how in the hell I was going to get out of it before Raum decided he wanted to take our ‘partnership’ to the next level.
An hour later, I had nothing. If it was true that Midian was somehow shielded from the rest of the world, Sam or Adam might not have any idea what happened to me. As far as Ben knew, I vanished into thin air from his garage, he wouldn’t be able to offer any help. I hadn’t visited the Ether the night before, and I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d been too tired to dream, or if I was actually blocked from getting there in Midian. That was something, at least I wasn’t getting attacked on two fronts.
If I called for Adam, would he even hear me? Or would he be too afraid to come for me, as Raum implied? “Adamiel…” His name slipped from my lips like a prayer, and I felt stronger for saying it. “Adamiel, please come, I need you.” When Adam did choose to show up, he always came fairly quickly in the past, but I’d never tried calling him from another plane of existence before either. Closing my eyes, I focused on the faint link between us, that tendril of a bond I’d gotten used to since the gift of his Grace. I could feel Adam out there somewhere, but he felt far, even farther than before. “Ugh, this is ridiculous. Even if I call him, he probably won’t come,” I sighed into the empty room. Unless… unless I didn’t give him a moment’s peace until he came to rescue me.
Have you ever played that name game? You know, say your name is Matt, it goes Matt, Matt bo-batt, banana fanna fo-fatt, fee fi mo-matt, Ma-att. In my defense, I wasn’t sure what else to try. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Well, I tried it with Adam’s true name. Over and over again. Adamiel, Adamiel bo-badamiel… and so on, until it became a mindless rhythm in my mind, one round of it flowing seamlessly to the next, pausing only to breathe. I’m sure if Nelo was still around out there, he probably thought I’d gone completely bonkers, and hey, maybe I had.
The tune had long since fallen out of the song and become more of a chant when I felt a rush of air stir the curtains. My heart swelled in greeting a half second before I heard his familiar voice, like a caress. “You called?”
“Adam!” I pushed aside the bed curtains, half afraid it was a trick, but there he stood, looking good enough to eat in a pair of jeans and a slim fitting black t-shirt.
“I’d say that’s my name, don’t wear it out, but wait… you already did that.”
“You really came…” Maybe I was a little out of it from my emotional storm, but I couldn’t remember any of the reasons why I was mad at him in that instant, I was so glad to see him. But then he opened his mouth and I remembered.
“You do get that it’s dangerous for me to be down here, right?” There was a generous helping of annoyance delivered with that sarcasm, and I felt my temper flare.
“Oh and it’s not for me?” My voice rose incredulously. “Do you not get the concept that Raum wants to eat me? Slowly, over time.”
“Yeah, exactly. Slowly. You’re in no real danger for a while, have a drink and try to go with it for now. Me, on the other hand, if they catch me down here I’m toast.”
“Try and go with it?” I couldn’t believe he said that to me, how could I have been so far off base about his feelings for me? Was I confusing his gift of Grace for love? “Then why did you bother to come down here at all?” My eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“To get a little peace and quiet. Promise me you’ll let up on the nursery rhymes, will you?”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You risked coming down here to get me to stop calling you? That’s it? You’re not taking me with you?”
“Take you with me? Why would I do that? This is the best thing that could have happened to you. No one can get a line on you when you’re down here, not from either side. You’re safer here than you would be back in the world with the Five-Oh.”
I sank back onto the bed, the strength gone out of my legs. “You aren’t seriously going to leave me down here, are you?”
“Just for a little while longer while I work on a few things, you’ll be fine.” A careless shrug was given. “You look great by the way.” His eyes traveled appreciatively up and down my body, still clad in the red, Grecian dress, with all the jewelry Raum dressed me in.
“That’s all you have to say to me?”
“What do you want me to say?” he stared at me blankly and I felt something break inside of me.
“You know what? Forget it. If y
ou don’t know, there’s nothing I can say to clue you in about it.” He either cared or he didn’t, I wasn’t going to beg.
“Jesus, Mercy, don’t you think you’re making a big thing out of this? I mean look at this place, it doesn’t seem so bad.” Adam tugged on the bed curtains.
“Doesn’t seem so bad?” Do you have any idea what I’ve been through lately? I needed you and you weren’t there for me.”
“And yet you came through it just fine. You don’t give yourself enough credit, Mercy.” He seemed almost proud of that fact, but I took no enjoyment in it. Maybe it was even true, but it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t count on him. Not that I expected to be the center of his universe, but you don’t tell a girl you’ll come whenever she calls and then switch it off without ruffling a few feathers.
“Where were you, Adam? I called for you and you were a complete no-show. You heard me, didn’t you? Not only now when I made it unbearable for you, but you heard me before, right?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t sit around waiting to come to the rescue, you know. I have other things that put certain demands on my time, but now that I’m here…” he scooted closer to the bed and I recognized that look.
“You don’t even care, do you?” Oh, I was livid! I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, and I settled for shoving against his chest as I pushed past him, needing a little space between us. “You don’t care that Azazael tried to rape me, or the fact that I had to stab myself to get out of the Ether when he decided to try and ‘break’ me.”
Adam’s expression grew thunderous, all traces of amusement gone from his face. “He what?”
I wasn’t sure which part he was confused about and I was too upset to care. “Or that Raum used me as his own personal chew toy when he fed off me, do you? I guess it’s fine as long as it doesn’t leave a scar and I still look pretty for you, huh? As long as I’m quiet and out of the way, you’re happy.” I worked myself up into a good lather, the tears falling in earnest as I started to feel sorry for myself all over again.