In the Flesh

by K D Grace

  Michael fucked me, bruised me, ravaged me, and I welcomed the solid, battering ram humanity of him, sweating and grunting and thrusting, hand fisted tight in my hair, mouth leaving bite marks on my breasts and shoulders, stubbled cheek abrading the soft skin along my throat and above my nipples.

  Each time he drove me to the edge, each time I held my breath ready and needing and teetering on the brink, he pulled back. Then he watched me writhe, listened to me curse him and beg him, then curse him again. He watched me with hooded eyes, eyes full of hunger, but more than that, eyes full of something I was too desperate, too angry, too needy to interpret. And just when I was on the verge of tears, he’d mount me again, take me a little deeper, a little closer, sharpen the focus of my lust a little tighter, and pull back once more until I hated him, I loved him, I needed him, I threatened to kill him before he took me yet again.

  When, after an eternity, he allowed me to come, it wasn’t the release I’d been expecting; it wasn’t something I fell over the edge into as my orgasms usually were. It was a tidal wave driven by a storm, battering me, shaking me, breaking me apart in its aftermath. And while I convulsed, helpless and weak beneath him, he took his own release in wrenching, sobbing grunts.

  As he collapsed on top of me, he gasped against my ear, “There, you see. I’ve marked you.” He slid now gentle fingers across the bite mark already darkening above my left nipple. “You can’t belong to both of us, but you have to belong to one of us if you’re ever to be safe from the other.”

  “What the fuck? Belong to you? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I tried to shove my way from under him but he held me tight, letting me struggle as though he barely noticed it. “I told you we’ll fight him together, Susan. It’s the only way I know to win. He can’t take you if you’re tied to someone else,” he shrugged, “oh, he’ll still try, but at least it’ll be much more difficult for him.”

  “So that’s what all of this was about. You fucked me to mark me for battle.” I tried again to shove him off, but he kissed me as though we were simply having a quiet post-coital cuddle.

  “I said I could help you, Susan, and there’s a lot more to helping you than just making you come.”

  It was ridiculous that I should feel used by his revelation. I had been the one to use him, after all. Hadn’t I just wanted him to make me come? I mean, sex with Michael was way better than masturbating, when I knew full well I couldn’t have masturbated without giving Him more space inside my head.

  “Of course.” I avoided his gaze, which was no easy task since he was still on top of me, inside me. “I forgot, you were at Chapel House on business. Tell me, am I a part of your plan for stealing whatever it is you’re trying to steal?”

  “Your help will make it easier,” he said, shifting his hips just enough to make me aware that he wasn’t getting any softer. He was an angel, after all. Maybe that meant he was insatiable. Like it or not, my body responded to his shifting, but I forced myself to hold still. I would not be distracted.

  “You said you marked me. Well, so did He. What about His marks?” I nodded to the fingerprint-shaped bruises on my biceps. “He left his marks before you did.”

  “True, but His mark was given without your permission; fortunately I got you away before you gave in.” He placed a soft kiss on each bicep in turn and this time I did squirm.

  Then his words sank in and I shivered in spite of the heat of his body still on top of me. “What do you mean, you got to me before I gave in?”

  The muscles along his jaw tensed and relaxed and he looked away. “You woke up in your own bed, didn’t you?”

  I suddenly felt as though little insects were crawling up the back of my neck. “Christ, Michael, you were there last night? In the garden? You—”

  “I took you back to your room and watched over you until the dream dissipated. If I hadn’t, it would have been more than a dream.” He met my gaze again. “If I hadn’t been there, then more than likely either you or Annie would be dead by now and someone would be looking for a place to bury a body. I took you to your room and watched over you until morning. Then everything else that happened, me showing up at the door and Annie throwing you out… well, it was just a matter of timing.” He slid a warm finger along the blooming bite mark. “But this will make it easier for you.”

  “Maybe so, but I still don’t belong to you,” I said, shoving him with the flat of my hand. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

  He rolled enough to the side so that he was no longer crushing me beneath his weight, but he stayed inside me, still refusing to release me. “Gods never see it that way.”

  “But He’s not a god, you told me that.”

  “He thinks He is, and He shares a lot of common traits with the gods I’ve known. I suppose it’s possible He might be a bastard child of some lesser deity. But even if He’s not, entities connected with the earth, especially consecrated ground, have enough power to be pretty damn formidable, god or not. Whatever He is, He’s staked you as his territory, and you don’t have much of a chance for fighting back, unless you team up with someone who knows how to fight dirty.”

  “And you know how to fight dirty because you’re an angel?” I asked.

  This time he rolled completely off me and sat up on the edge of the bed, the long muscles of his back and shoulders gone stiff.

  “Michael?”

  For a moment he said nothing. I could hear his breathing suddenly fast and shallow above the crackle of the fire. At last he took a deep breath and replied, “I know how to fight dirty because I was once his lover.”

  Chapter Nine

  For a long moment I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I felt cold to my core, and there was a strange ringing in my ears, but worst of all I felt jealous. “You were his lover? How’s that possible?” I managed, forcing the words up through my throat, which threatened to close. “How the hell is that even possible?”

  “What do you mean, how’s that possible? You and I just made love. Same general principles.”

  “Same general principles, my arse.” I pushed up off the bed, grabbed the towel and wrapped it around me, feeling suddenly very naked indeed. I paced at the foot of the bed, jealousy just at the edge of my consciousness like the irritating buzz of a mosquito seeking a place to bite.

  “What? Do you think an angel can’t be vulnerable, can’t want the same things you want?” The smile that curved his lips was almost a grimace. “I was a lot more beautiful then than I am now. But beauty’s a fleeting thing.” He waved his hand absently, still not looking at me. “I knew that was a part of the price, and I didn’t care. I would have done anything.”

  “Well, if it’s beauty He’s after, He sure as hell doesn’t want me. Annie’s the one with the looks. Not me.”

  Suddenly he stood and pulled me to him, the look on his face shifting from confusion to complete understanding. “You’re jealous.”

  I said nothing. There was no point denying what had to be written all over my face. That Michael had been with Him, that Annie was with Him, and that I still wanted to be, in spite of everything, messed with my mind.

  “I understand your jealousy,” Michael said. “Once He’s touched you in some way, in any way, you can’t help but want Him. You can’t help but want Him to want you, and only you. That’s His power.”

  I didn’t reply. What could I say? Instead I turned my back on him, trying to focus, trying to be logical. I didn’t want to be jealous, and I didn’t want to want Him. I knew what the result of wanting Him, of giving into that want, would be, and yet, I still wanted.

  Michael grabbed my arm again in a grip that was none too gentle and pulled me back to him. “Susan, it has nothing to do with beauty, what He wants. Beauty is far more fleeting than… other things.” He lifted my chin with a thick curled finger, forcing me to meet his gaze. “That He wants you, I can completely understand.” He pulled me close against his still naked body, making sure I was fully aware of his desi
re for me, then he took my mouth in a kiss distracting enough that I would have been perfectly happy to linger in a lip-lock with him for twenty years or so. But then he released me, guided me back to sit on the bed, and pulled his jeans up over his hips.

  “Tell me,” I said, watching in fascination as he zipped his substantial self into the tight fit of denim. “Tell me what happened.”

  He shoved another log onto the fire, then plopped down into the wingback chair. For a long time he stared into the flames, so long that I thought maybe he’d chosen not to answer; maybe it wasn’t something he could talk about. But at last he took a deep breath and spoke. “I thought it would be easier being human.” He lifted a shoulder in a lop-sided shrug. “I suppose we all romanticize the things we wish for before we actually have them. We don’t know the pitfalls and the difficulties until we’re faced with them, and then they’re such a shock, sometimes it’s too late.” He forced a laugh. “You’d think someone who had spent eons as a being only slightly less than divinity would have been aware of the threat of demons and spirits and such things that do a whole lot more than go bump in the night. I’d even met demons and incubi and spirits of the land. They never seemed all that threatening to me, but then I wasn’t human, was I? I know it’s insane to think that I could forget, after all, it was a part of my job to protect humans, to ease their suffering from such beings.”

  He grabbed the poker and gave the log he’d just put on the fire a hard shove that resulted in a shower of popping and crackling sparks. After another long moment of gazing into the flames as though he sought wisdom there, he continued. “They were never any threat to me as an angelic being. I just assumed that would be true when I became human. I knew how things were. I understood, and I was still me, at the end of the day. Surely I was safe from such things. But I wasn’t, was I?”

  “How did it happen?” I asked. A part of me didn’t really want to know. A part of me couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else being with Him. But He was a monster, I reminded myself. He was bad news, very bad news. Even as I thought it I couldn’t keep from thinking about how it felt when He touched me, how it felt when He spoke to me, almost like His voice was inside my heart.

  “A part of my job was to be the Guardian of sacred spaces.” He smiled and shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint, but I wasn’t that Michael, not the archangel. I was just a Michael, and I was one of many whose job was to safeguard sacred spaces and the people who worship therein.” He chuckled softly. “I suppose you could say I was the divine version of a security guard. Not very glamorous, is it?”

  “And you were sent to protect people from… Him?”

  “Sort of,” he replied. “There are lots of beings attracted to sacred spaces because they are sacred. They shine like beacons to supernatural eyes. And because mortals come to those spaces open and more vulnerable than they are in more mundane spaces, they can be the perfect places for these divine parasites, for lack of a better term, to attach themselves.”

  “Are you saying He’s a parasite?” The idea made me squirm. I liked the idea of some divine monster, some misbehaving godling wanting to seduce me, but I wasn’t so keen on the idea of a parasite attaching itself to me.

  “More than likely he was the original guardian spirit sent to protect the place and its worshipers. Stability isn’t any more a given with protective and guardian spirits,” he shrugged, “with any kind of divinity at all, actually, than it is with mortals. And the truth is no one really knows what will drive them over the edge and when.”

  “And is the same true of angels?” I asked.

  “If you’re asking me how stable I am, well, I’m probably not the one to ask, but I think it’s pretty safe to say I’m a lot more stable than I was back in the day.”

  “Back in the day?”

  Now it was his turn to pace, staring straight ahead as though he could see into the distant past, as though he could see what had been as easily as what was. Maybe he could.

  “In the beginning, I was sent to help him, sent because the powers that be observed a growing instability in him. They thought he was just overly tired. Some guardian spirits attached to places are content to serve and protect their place in total anonymity, and pretty much for all eternity, without so much as ever wavering. They’re so connected with the place, they seldom have need for contact with the mortals who hold that place sacred.

  “But He,” a shiver ran up his spine, “He became fascinated with the mortals who worshiped in His space, and since that space had been a Christian place of worship for several hundred years, it fell to those who served the Christian god to set things right. It should have been easy for an angel. It should have been a walk in the park.”

  The silence stretched between us, broken only by distant thunder. It took a second for me to realize I’d been holding my breath.

  He moved to slip the throw from the back of the chair over my shoulders and I realized not only was I was still clad in just the towel, but I was shivering. I inhaled with a shudder and found my voice. “But it wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t.” He returned to pacing in front of the fire. “You see, the thing was, that I didn’t realize that something was amiss. I didn’t realize anything at all. In fact, it seemed almost the opposite to me. It seemed like everything was exactly as it should be and that He was…”

  “He was what?”

  Michael stopped mid-stride and stared into the flames, as though seeking answers there. “It seemed as though He was the only sane thing about the place, and even more than that, it seemed like He was a kindred spirit. He loved humanity. He was fascinated by their tenacity, their ability to be both strong and vulnerable. And He was particularly fascinated by their ability to live in the physical world. Oh, that was a weakness, of course it was. Mortality always is and always has been a weakness, the ultimate weakness. And yet to live in the flesh, to feel pain and suffering and joy and love and lust and tenderness, to experience the five senses—how could any non-corporeal being not crave that? How could any god think that to exist without flesh was superior to blood and bone and all the passion and trauma and chaos that went along with it?”

  “And clearly you shared His opinion,” I observed, nodding to his body.

  “I did.” He came to sit beside me on the bed and took my hand, chafing my cold fingers. “Though had I had any idea the cost back before I made the decision, back before I chose the path of no return, I might have been too terrified to do what had to be done.”

  “You mean that once you became human, you succumbed to Him and became His lover?”

  Michael shook his head slowly, and the chafing of my hand became a death grip. “Oh no, it wasn’t that at all. I became His lover long before I became mortal. In fact, I became mortal because I loved Him.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Wait a minute.” I jerked my hand away from his. “Let me get this straight. You gave up being an angel not because you were angry at God, or the gods, or whoever the hell it was you worked for. You gave up being an angel because you loved Him?”

  “Oh, I stand completely by what I said earlier; all gods are bastards, and to serve them is folly. They have no loyalty but to their own pride.” He reached to push a strand of hair behind my ear and I shoved his hand away. He simply shrugged and continued. “I felt that way when I was sent off to babysit Him. Well, that’s how I saw it at the time—me being sent off to serve a lesser being. I was a bit of an arrogant prick back then.” He offered a twitch of a smile. “Guess I learned a thing or two about who was the lesser being, didn’t I?”

  “But you said you became human because you loved Him. Care to explain that?”

  “Fuck, Susan, you make it sound like I’m a cheating husband or something. Yes, I became human because I loved Him, but if I hadn’t believed that I was giving Him a gift, if I hadn’t believed that it was what He wanted more than anything, I don’t know if I would have done it, okay? I… I just don’t know.”

  For a moment we
sat in silence, him twisting the edge of the duvet between his fingers. At last he spoke, avoiding my gaze. “I’m not sorry now. But for a long time… Well, let’s just say it was a high price I paid.” Then he added, as though I needed further explanation, which I suppose I did, “He was so genuine, so unassuming with me. I was completely taken in, completely unaware of His deception until it was too late.”

  I felt like I was invading his privacy. I felt like I was asking questions that were none of my business, and yet, my life was in this man’s hands, this ex-angel’s hands. So I asked anyway. “Why did He want you to become human? I would have thought as an angel you’d be able to… you know… a whole lot longer and you’d not… I don’t know… you’d not get tired. As an angel you’d have the stamina to keep up with Him.”

  This time the laugh was bitter enough to make goose bumps rise on my arms. “He wanted the feel of humanity. He wanted the touch of flesh and blood, even though He could only have it vicariously. No matter how often He took me, no matter that I was as insatiable as He was, I still wasn’t flesh and blood. I didn’t know it at the time, but He’d already developed a dangerous lust for mortals. Later, much later, after the woman I work for had freed me from Him, I came to realize that He fed off the humanity of his lovers.” The straight line of his jaw hardened like iron and his fists clenched. “He… He got off on using them up. It was only really good for Him if He knew that in the end they would sacrifice themselves for Him. A god complex, I suppose, but then who could argue with Him?”

  He glanced up at me, then looked away. “I guess He finds human mortality more arousing than any other part of being corporeal. Probably because the bastard never has to experience it.”

  “Jesus, this just keeps getting more and more convoluted,” I said. “Did you just say the woman you work for, the one you steal for, she saved you from Him?”