One thing was for sure, I thought, as I tugged Ambrose in between my thighs and Jonas up to my mouth: nothing I’d ever imagined held a candle to this. Before he entered me, Ambrose cradled my face in his capable hands. He lavished gentle kisses on my face, down my cheeks, finally planting one on the end of my nose. “I’ve waited for you my entire life,” he murmured, his eyes glowing with golden fire. “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have you.”
Where Jonas was enthusiastic and practiced, Ambrose loved me slow and easy, the gentle, unhurried glide of his cock coaxing me incrementally higher; every stroke felt like he was worshiping me, as if loving me was a privilege, not a right. I looped an arm around his neck, tugging him down to my mouth. I kissed him, not as practiced as Jonas, but giving every ounce of myself, as if I could infuse everything I was feeling into him, just so he’d know.
Jonas ran his fingers through my hair, adding to the cascading sensations surging through me. I let out a little hiss of breath. “That’s it, Cat,” Ambrose urged me, never breaking his deliberate, steady rhythm. “Let yourself go.” This climax started slow, a deep, coiling pressure that went on and on, rolling through me until I was completely, utterly limp.
Chapter Fourteen
Catherine
I didn’t how long I’d slept, but I woke with a sense of overwhelming horror.
“What time is it?” I scrambled for the edge of the bed, and almost made it, too. Right before an arm reached out and snagged me, pulling me back in against a warm body. Hot, actually, smoking hot. And that was before I even saw who it was. “Titus?”
“I volunteered to keep an eye on you while you slept.” He nestled me into the divot in the bed. As if he understood what I feared, he counted off on his free hand. “You only slept for three hours. Rex is back. Jonas and Ambrose are on guard duty. And you don’t have those dark circles under your eyes anymore.” He shook his head after seeing the look on my face. “Don’t worry, Cat. Everything will be all right.”
“How do you know?” I huffed. Apparently sleep had cleared my head of the sex-induced haze. “If that’s true, then we only have…twelve hours.” I was probably off a bit, but there it was. Half a day left, and so far, I still felt exactly the same.
Not powerful. Not powerful at all.
“It’s not the amount of time, Cat. It’s what you do with it.” Titus didn’t say it in a pushy way, or even a sexual way, more like he was giving an inspirational talk. He looked expectant, though, and then I remembered.
Right. Titus was the final piece in this angel—Nephilim—puzzle.
“Let’s say this works,” I said. “What happens to me? You guys already have your powers. Will my power be like yours?”
“We’ve never seen an Angel of Death in the flesh before. So I can’t say. But the texts describe your kind as veiled or cloaked, so my guess is, your power will be somewhat like mine.”
“And what is your power, exactly?” All of a sudden, I was alone in the bed, looking around for any sign of Titus. Phantom fingers ran through my hair, as if the air itself stroked my curls.
“This is.” His voice came out of nowhere, and even though it was dark outside, there was a diffused light in the room, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t see. It was that there was nothing to see.
When Titus’s fingers tugged through my tangled hair again, I leaned into his touch, closing my eyes, enjoying the erotic feel of his phantom caress. I could so get used to this. His finger drifted to my face, his thumb rubbing against my cheek, then slipping between my lips. Without a thought, I sucked it into my mouth and swirled my tongue around it. When he groaned, I felt a flash of jubilation. So, of course, I did it again.
“Catherine…”
I cracked open one eye. Titus was still invisible, but that groan… I did a little suck-and-spin move, and he groaned again, deeper this time. Satisfied, I released his digit and reached out into the nothingness until I found his body. I pushed gently, and a dip appeared in the mattress as he rolled onto his back.
“Gotcha.” I hummed, running my hands along his invisible body, making sure to investigate every crevice, feeling his tense muscles relax beneath my touch. “I don’t have to see you to find you. You’re giving off enough heat to be a furnace.” So far, all I’d discovered was hot, velvety flesh, but reaching lower, I bumped across his stomach and finally found what I was looking for.
His cock was thick, and I ran my hand along it as he gasped. “I remember the way you felt when we were flying,” I whispered, leaning in, gliding my hand up and down the length of him. “You felt good.”
“Transporting,” he corrected me in a husky voice. “We don’t call it flying. It makes us sound like birds.”
“Whatever. Semantics. When we flew through the air together.” I’d wiggled my way down to his waist, still stroking him, testing the steel beneath that soft skin. Just a taste, I thought, remembering how his thumb had felt in my mouth, the way I’d made him groan, as if he had no control over himself.
Closing my eyes, I licked the head of his cock, then took him in slowly, adjusting to his girth. I swirled my tongue around the edge of the head, exactly like I’d done with his thumb. It must be instinctual, this need to have him in my mouth—to taste him—because now I couldn’t stop. I wanted him to gasp and shudder for me, and for me alone.
“Goddamn it, Cat.” His hand curved around the back of my head, not pushing me down, but steadying me, and I heard another deep, guttural groan as I went deeper. “Stop, you have to stop.”
I licked my lips, then climbed atop him, the whole thing seeming totally weird, since he was still invisible. “Don’t hide from me,” I whispered. “Titus, let me see you.” He materialized slowly beneath me, a beautifully sculpted creature with black wings that flared over the side of the bed. “I knew you had wings,” I whispered hungrily. “I knew I wasn’t imagining things.” Seeing him sprawled out beneath me, an overwhelming sense of power rushed through me, and I rocked against him. He grasped my hips, hard enough to dimple my flesh.
“You are gorgeous,” I told him, planting my hands on his chest and angling myself up. I impaled myself on his cock, sliding down until his girth stretched me tight. “I’ve never done this before,” I admitted, unsure of how to go about this being-on-top thing. All I knew was this feeling of…control was addictive. “Tell me if you want something different.”
His fingers dug in even deeper.
“I’ll take that as a no.” I pushed up with my knees, then sank back onto him. A strangled groan came out of his mouth. After a few times, I discovered I could create my own pleasure, tipping my hips to create more friction, or increasing the pace. Titus reached up and found my hand, linking our fingers together.
This coupling felt sweeter to me than the others. As if we were an old married couple, taking our time, deeply and truly in love. At the thought, my heart stuttered to a stop, right before Titus popped his hips up off the bed, embedding himself into my core. The feel of his cock kicking inside of me—and I felt every inch—released the tight coil of lust spring-loaded inside me. I made some weird, garbled sound that blended in with Titus’s hoarse roaring, and then I collapsed on the bed beside him, our hands still clasped.
In love.
I couldn’t believe I’d actually thought it. But the mere thought of being alone again gave me the shivers. I’d gotten too used to this, too fast. Being accepted—loved—filled in a part of my missing soul.
Rex, with his sly humor and single-minded passion. Jonas, with his no-holds-barred enthusiasm. Ambrose, who looked at me with such reverence. And Titus, who wanted to be my friend, as well as my lover.
All of them so very different. Yet together, we made up the perfect family.
I sighed. “It’s too bad this didn’t work.”
Because there was no doubt we’d failed. Whatever this test was, I was still the same old pathetic, plague-trailing human. My muscles quivered so badly that I knew there couldn’t be an ounce of magic in me, no m
atter how much I might wish it was so. “I suppose we still have a few hours.” I rolled over, looked at the bedside clock and began giggling.
I laughed until tears rolled down my face, and Titus gathered me up, whispering calming reassurances in my ear. “What is wrong?” he finally demanded. “Cat, you’re scaring me.”
I pointed at the clock. “It’s four o’clock in the morning. For as long as I can remember, I wake up at this time, every night and look at the clock. It’s just…” I spread my hands helplessly. “After everything that’s happened, I half expected something momentous. Since nothing’s changed, it struck me funny, I guess.” I chuckled again, then clasped my hands around my middle, right before my breath went out in a big whoosh.
Fire nibbled at my insides, the kind of fire that was more like acid, and less like heat. It rose a little bit higher, as if it was trying to climb up my throat and out of my mouth. I squirmed at the intense burning sensation, then doubled over as it hit me tenfold. The look on my face must have been awful, because Titus looked horrified.
“Cat…?” While my teeth chattered, Titus laid me back down on the bed. “Don’t move. I’m getting Rex.” He yanked the covers up over me, then slammed through the door, yelling for help while my body began disintegrating from the inside out.
Chapter Fifteen
Rex
Fear lanced my gut as a very naked Titus raced toward me.
“Fuck, it’s happening. Do we know how to help her?”
Fear must be contagious, because my heart skipped a beat while I tossed him a blanket, already heading for the bedroom. “Catherine’s power is unique to her. We cannot help her with it.”
“Damn it, Rex, she’s shaking. She’s in so much pain.”
My hands clenched, then unclenched. “I don’t know what to do,” I told Titus, feeling impossibly helpless. Titus shook his head with disgust, then wound the blanket around his waist. Jonas and Ambrose must have felt the disturbance, because they burst through the door a second later.
I was already racing down the hall, toward a deep silence that scared me more than Titus’s panic. Even from here I felt her magic rising. Cat’s power shrouded the hallway in darkness, filling it with a pulsing energy that pressed in on me from all sides, forcing my steps to slow.
“I smell fire,” Ambrose said from behind me. “It smells like brimstone, Rex.”
I ground my teeth, pushing against her magic, just so I could take another damn step. Even though she wasn’t crying out, I imagined Catherine in pain, and dipped into my own magic, cleaving through hers enough to reach the room. The door to Ambrose’s bedroom was rattling in its frame, and from beneath it rolled billows of black smoke, tinged with fiery magic.
I hesitated before turning that knob. Afraid of what I’d find, perhaps. Or afraid for her. This particular bedroom was more than just a room. Ambrose had constructed a magic-dampening, fully warded panic room, meant to contain the most powerful of runaway magic.
We’d taken these precautions eons ago, because I didn’t want a smoking crater to be the only sign that we’d ever existed. Of course, survival depended on Catherine, and how strong she was. But seeing how her power was rolling right through the wards…
Hence my hesitation. She could transform into many things, not all of them good.
But my angel was strong. She’d survived on her own, and still cared about people. She’d been alone, but still knew how to love. If that wasn’t strength, then I didn’t know what was.
I flung open the door and shielded my eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
Catherine
Power became an endless coil inside of me, an ebb and flow of hideous fire that burned me up and then rebuilt me again, my flesh screaming in protest. I’d lost track of how long this misery had gone on. Hours? Weeks? Years?
I threw everything I had into fighting it. When, in reality, it was all I could do to keep breathing.
Another flare of incandescent heat exploded through me, and I coughed out a mouthful of ash and sparks, my tongue seared and raw. If this was magic, I didn’t want it. I wanted to go back to being a plague-trailing human, with no options and no hope.
That fate was surely better than being burned alive.
When the next lava-hot spear went through me, I didn’t fight. It rose and rose until I thought it might tear me apart, but then it subsided, only to be replaced by one even more savage. I rocked back and forth, swaying beneath this war that magic had declared on my flesh, feeling it in my very cells. But the next wave came…and faded away.
I licked my lips. They were dry and cracked, but…no sparks. And no ash.
Another wave came and went, and this time, I didn’t lose myself to the pain. This time, I rode the crest, teetering between pleasure and agony. When this one faded away, I was almost sad. In a flash, I realized I hadn’t expected to survive this. But I was still here. And I was still me.
The next time the fire came for me, I extinguished it, smoke swirling out of my nostrils like I was a dragon.
Chapter Seventeen
Rex
The second we burst through the door, heat hit me in the face, the kind that peeled flesh from bones. Thick shadows swirled around Catherine, painting her body in darkness, the only thing visible her face and those pale blue eyes. A pulse of power rippled from her, throwing Ambrose and Jonas against the wall, pinning them there. The wave crashed into me, and then broke, the punch of unbelievable power knocking me back a step.
“Don’t touch her,” I yelled to Titus, who looked like he was contemplating making a run at Cat. “She has to learn to master this herself. If you interfere, she could kill you.” Not that I thought Catherine would hurt anyone, but right now, it was taking everything she had just to survive the magic. I would give my soul to fight this fight for her; any of us would. But this was the final part of the test. To see if she was worthy of this gift.
She was clearly in pain, her body shaking, hands clenched, her legs barely holding her up. But she was still fighting, still standing, and my heart soared as she threw her head back and roared.
“That’s it, Catherine. Show it who’s boss.”
I knew she couldn’t hear me, but at least it made me feel like I was doing something.
A trail of smoke issued from her mouth, then a burst of cinders, still glowing bright. The tendons on her neck stood out. I watched the rise and fall of every breath, and her eyes grew completely blank as another wave of magic rose.
“She’s not going to make it, boss.” Titus’s voice was low as he tugged me backward a step. “Shit, it looks like the magic is eating her alive.”
My fists clenched at my sides as I fought the urge to go to her. “Goddamn it, Cat. Fight this.”
Her magic thrummed around us, and my ears ached from the unrelenting pressure of it. Titus was right, whether I liked it or not. She was losing control of the magic, and I wasn’t about to watch as it consumed her. I was reaching for her, prepared to snatch her to me, to smother the magic for her, when the smothering shadows began to thin, the pulsating air stilled and her face relaxed.
I watched, breathless, as the shadows were slowly reabsorbed into her body, her eyes glittering with an unholy light. “That’s right, baby. You can do this,” I muttered, watching her struggle for control. As the final layer of darkness disappeared inside Catherine, I released my long-held breath.
Then the remaining shadows coalesced behind her, forming a pair of dark, expansive wings.
“Ho-ly shit.” Jonas whooped. “We have ourselves an angel.”
Chapter Eighteen
Catherine
As the magic finally settled into the middle of me—somewhere just below my heart—and the fiery pain died away, I wanted to sob in relief. Instead, my unsteady legs failed me, and I pitched forward, right into Rex’s arms as he rushed toward me.
“Am I alive?” I mumbled, my tongue barely working, raw from the magic. Or maybe the screaming; I couldn’t be sure. He wrapped his arms a
round me, steadying me, taking the weight off my shaking knees. “Oh God, I thought I was dying. It sure felt like I was dying.”
Rex pulled me in closer, pressing his lips to the top of my head. “Very much alive.”
I might be on death’s door, but even I caught the tinge of amusement in his voice. “Did you bet against me surviving, or something?” I asked, opening one eye so I could see his face. He was definitely amused. “If you did, you lost.” My smug retort came out as a rasping whisper.
“Not so much a bet as a…surprise.” His eyebrows flicked up, his eyes glowing crimson. And that curved smile was definitely real. Something was up, and from the expressions on all their faces, the joke was on me.
He released me, and I toppled backward onto the bed, as if a great weight pulled me down. Half buried in a tangle of blankets, I stared up at him, my eyes—hopefully—promising revenge. I tried to roll over, and…couldn’t. Something was weighing me down, something I couldn’t see.
Titus leaned in and offered me his hand. “I’ll be happy to teach her, Rex. Although it could take years.” From his back, shadowy wings appeared, the tips brushing the ceiling. I clapped my hand into his, and he pulled me to my feet, nodding over my shoulder. I followed his eyes and saw a similarly dark pair sprouting from my back. Well, look at that. I have wings too. On a whim, I tried to flex them, and my back muscles cramped up.
“I guess I should have asked about side effects,” I joked, my voice still hoarse. “I mean, holy shit, why didn’t any of you guys tell me about this?”
“It’s different for each of us, when we come into our powers. Only Titus ever ended up with wings,” Rex explained, placing his palm over my heart. “But there’s one change that affects us all. Can you feel it?” he whispered. I did. The sensation was wonderful, a warm pulsing, as if my heart was expanding by the moment. “That’s the soul bond. It’s tying us together, forming an unbreakable knot.”
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