“I... kinda... ported and got it.”
If Ramiel’s eyebrow arched any higher, it would have been considered part of a toupee. “You port? Since when?”
She tried to sound dismissive. And innocent. And not like a liar. “I just sort of figured it out. I had a lot of time on my hands, waiting around here.”
“But you can port?” This time, it was Jerry doing the asking. “Why didn’t you just come to me then? Instead of forcing me to spend almost a week in the company of the world’s most reluctant lovers?”
“What?” Riona asked. “Who?”
Jerry lapped his hand through the air. “Dee and his new fling. You’ll love her. She’s as much a sarcastic pain in the ass as you are.”
Riona sulked. “Remind me again - why did I miss you exactly?”
With a jerk of his hand, Jerry possessed her, letting his eyes linger on the contours of her lips, while pressing his fingers into her hips. “Give me twenty minutes in a private room and I’ll show you.”
“Excuse me, mind if I interrupt? A moment ago, you told me a minion of Hell is in possession of Michael’s sword.” Pamplona bulls in their huffiest snorts had nothing on Ramiel. “Also, that Riona can leap across dimensions, and the same said minion of Hell managed to cross into the nephilim realm, although that theoretically isn’t possible because all portals between the Underworld and here were closed off when Hades was overthrown.”
“They were?” Riona asked.
Ramiel shifted his weight. “You mean to tell me you spent a whole week with the Hadeses and he didn’t drive you insane, always lamenting about how he once was king and Zeus forced him to place stone over all the portals so they could never come back here?”
The writing on the boulder! Hades claimed that only he could control the stone, which blocked the way.
“I think he reopened one,” she said meekly.
“What?!” Jerry and Ramiel squawked together.
“I saw him open a path through a solid boulder.”
Beyond that, she would have to plead the fifth. If only they didn’t pursue it.
Right, like a former gnosis demon and an archangel would let her observation of a gate to Hell being opened. She needed a distraction. She needed a ruse. She needed...
“Dee!”
Just at that moment, the domineering demigod came into view with a drop-kick, beautiful redhead in tow. There truly was a god, and he was merciful.
“Good, they found you,” the demigod said. “Now, can we get the hell out of this place?”
“Hello to you too, stranger. Who’s your... Anwen?”
The redhead stuck out a hip. “Is my name public knowledge or something?”
“What do you mean?” Dee asked.
She motioned towards Riona. “No one told her my name. Just like with that demon in London who pinned me in the loo.”
“For someone who was working in a psychic’s shop when we found you, perhaps you should appreciate that more.”
“She’s not psychic,” Ramiel said to Jerry. “Looks like our little Riona is blossoming into angelhood. Now, sweet, you might notice you’ve got feathers in some funny places, but that’s normal. Oh, and you’ll also know everyone’s name and be able to speak lots of languages. It’s just an angel thing.”
“Wait !” Dee snapped. “Is it possible the thing that cornered Anwen in the bathroom wasn’t a demon at all, but a Grigori?”
“But why would a fallen angel be after me?” Anwen laughed. “I may be a quartergod, but I’m nothing special beyond that.”
Her two pillars figured it out, but obviously had no plans to share. Instead, Dee pulled Anwen to his side.
“They were probably looking for us. The Grigori may have been in the bar already when we came in. We can’t sense them the way we can demons. She may have been tracking us, waiting for a chance to jump us. When she saw me kiss you, she probably thought playing with my hookup could be useful.”
Riona’s eyebrow rose higher than the arches at a McDonald’s drive-thru.
A rush of explanation flew from Anwen’s flushed lips. “We didn’t hook up. The bastard got me fired from my job. He was just buying me a pint to make up for that.”
“Actually,” Jerry interrupted. “I’m the one who bought you the pint. For which you still owe me nine euros, by the way.”
“Seeing as I’m now not only unemployed, but running from demons, and mixed up with fallen angels, I’d say we’re about even.”
“Wow, you guys all have a serious case of ADHD tonight, don’t you?” Ramiel pointed a finger at Dee. “I know you want to leave, and I get why. Unfortunately, as there now seems a serious possibility that either demons or Grigori could be in Olympus, and an open portal to contend with, I don’t think it’s safe to head out tonight. Not without sufficient protection. I can get some other angels down here to form an entourage, but I can’t port up to Heaven until I’ve discharged my duty.”
“Your duty?” Riona asked before the realization hit her a moment later. “You’re here to remove someone.”
“I know, kind of makes me a buzzkill, but it’s one of our obligations.”
“Okay, I’m so never going to do that,” Riona declared. “What if I port to Heaven instead?”
Ramiel gave her a syrupy smile. “Baby, it’s great that you can pop out to get milk, or see the Paris Opera at will. Really, it is. But releasing all bonds with your mortal coil, and embodying a soul in a semi-transient realm of consciousness is reading a little above your grade level right now. No,” his tone flattened, “you guys have to stay here tonight.”
“In Olympus?” Dee asked.
“In Zeus‘ palace,” Ramiel clarified. “If, by chance, any fallen angel does show up, I want you guys gripping onto his toga like Princess Leia on Luke while he hurls lightning and toasts those bitches.”
Riona watched with growing dread as Dee’s fists clenched. Uh-oh. She’d seen that look on his face before. It was the same look he gave a demon right before offering it complimentary rhinoplasty.
“One night won’t hurt you, you oaf.”
Anwen possessed magic Riona could only dream of. With one hurled insult and a slap upside the back of Dee’s head, she had the Hellenic Hulk cowering like a shamed puppy.
“My feet are killing me and I need a shower like a priest needs whiskey,” she said. “I don’t really feel like dying tonight, and didn’t you swear to protect me, come Hell or high water?”
“Fine.” Dee rolled his eyes and stashed his fists in his pockets, before putting one arm around Anwen and turning her around. “But in order to guarantee your safety, you’re forbidden to leave my side. You’re staying in my room. Jerry, Riona... I’ll ask one of the servants to make up a room for you. Ramiel?”
“Angels don’t sleep,” he said. “Besides, I’m on call.”
“Good night then,” Dee said. “And if anyone needs us before morning, that’s just too fucking bad.”
Chapter 39
This time, when they passed by the tables full of pictures, Anwen didn’t even glance at one. She kept her eyes trained forward, each rigid step reflecting the tension in her body.
Dee laced their fingers and pulled her to a stop. “You don’t have to do this.”
Her eyes went wide. “Do what?”
“You’re wound up tighter than a Swiss watch,” he said. “Don’t worry. If you’re not ready, we won’t do anything.”
“What makes you think I’m not ready?”
“Besides the rigor mortis you’re displaying, which exceeds that of the average Tony Bennett concert attendee?” he asked. “Well, let’s start with how you avoid looking into my eyes, and how your face twitched when I touched your hand, and how I’ve been asking you telepathically for the last two minutes if you’d prefer to have your own room but you haven’t answered. You’re too wrapped up in your own thoughts for mine to get in.”
Anwen coughed a laugh. “For your information, Dionysius, I have no intention of sleeping
with you tonight. Well, maybe in the literal sense, but only because this place gives me the creeps.”
“What? Why?”
“I can’t explain it. When we first got here, I was in awe. The longer we’re here though... It’s like when you know you have to be somewhere or call someone, and it’s really important, but you just can’t remember who or why or where. I feel like if I don’t connect it, something tragic is going to happen.”
“You haven’t checked your phone in a while. Maybe you should see if any reminders popped up,” he joked. He took the back of her hand, and drew it to his mouth, before pressing his lips to the milky skin. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, and we’ll be gone tomorrow. For tonight, take a hot shower, crawl into bed, and let me hold you.”
Although it was the better part of three decades since he’d slept in his old bedroom, he remembered all the nooks and crannies like a familiar drink at a favorite pub. He set up Anwen in the bathroom with a few towels in the en suite before turning to peruse the books he left behind on the shelf. When he spotted a book of baby names, his heart nearly seized.
Clare adored highlighter pens, and often said she thought they were one of the greatest inventions since CDs. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, thinking how out-of-date the points of reference were. As he flipped through the pages, back to front, splashes of blue, yellow, green and orange enhanced the front half. Dee stopped when he got to the middle of the book, where the boy names ended and girl names began. They were to have a son, so what would have been the point? But a line of pink, which bled through the backside of the second page in that section, drew his curiosity.
“Going to read me a bedtime story?”
Wrapped in a swath of towels, Anwen emerged from the bathroom with a cloud of steam that formed when the hot, damp air hit the cool, dry breeze. Dee crooked his finger, beckoning her.
Anwen squinted, trying to read the florescent green text in the dim light. “My name?”
“In a book of baby names.” A faltering smile flashed across his face and died just as quickly. “Clare was pregnant when she died. You know why she highlighted this?”
“She had good taste in names?” Her voice rose up at the end.
“We were expecting a son. She was trying to tell me something.”
“That she had good taste in names?” Anwen repeated.
Dee pulled the redhead closer to him, seating her across his lap. “She knew about you. She saw you coming.”
“But how is that possible? She died before I was born.”
“She was a seer.” When Anwen’s eyebrows furrowed, he continued. “She could see certain things about the future. Not like she could control it; or just see whatever she wanted. But every so often – poof! – her eyes would cloud over and she’d have a vision.”
“And you think she marked this book on the off chance that you’d flip through it someday and stumble over my name?”
“No, I think she marked the book because she saw this very moment. This moment when she told me, you were the one.”
How could he not have kissed her right then? As Dee drew Anwen’s face down to his, he felt a sigh of emotion going through him, an easiness of spirit he had not felt for decades. He lost his wife and their child; and believed he’d never feel complete again as long as he lived. But maybe he could still be mended. The cracks would always be there, but he would fill them in with the new love he fostered for this woman.
And all that sappy stuff went flying out the window as his heart ordered his bloodstream to head south and man the battle stations.
Anwen maneuvered herself to straddle him in the chair. It took a nanosecond for his body to realize nothing lay between their potential union, but his pants and her permission. Dee’s hands anchored on Anwen’s hips, pulling her over the bulge that spontaneously formed between them. Her kiss floored him; and unlike her previous engagements, this one lacked all confusion. Only a woman who wanted to surrender could kiss like that. And as if there was any doubt, when her right hand went down between them and began fiddling with his zipper, where they were headed became obvious.
“I told you,” he groaned as her hand found flesh beneath the denim. “We don’t have to.”
Startled, she pulled back. “You don’t want me?”
He twitched in her hand. “You see what you’re doing to me? Of course, I want you.”
“Good, then shut up and make love to me.”
Dee flattened his hands against her backside, keeping Anwen pressed to him as he stood up and made for the bed. Gravity competed in the cockblock of the year award as his pants fell down around his ankles, sending him and Anwen on a crash course to the ground. Only they never hit. His eyes peered open to see that Anwen had levitated them about a foot-and-a-half above the floor.
“Can you stay like that? Like, up in the air?” he asked has he pulled himself off her, his knees getting rugburned. While still secure around her chest, the angle made the towel fall away from her hips, exposing her sex to the cool air.
Confused, Anwen lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I can, but.... Oh, my god. Yes.”
Her legs hooked over his shoulders as Dee brought his lips down to taste her. One thing was for sure, Anwen’s ability to float introduced a whole new realm of adventure and possibility for his already highly-diverse repertoire of lovemaking techniques.
“You brilliant bastard, how do you do that?”
He could have answered her, but would have had to stop. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. Instead, Dee’s tongue explored her, venturing through her ridges and valleys. His eyes took in the length of her body. Arched back, he couldn’t see her face. What he did see, however, were Anwen’s hands, taking advantage of the towel loss, and working her fingers over the contours of her breasts to enhance her pleasure.
Fuck. Him. He found a lover who wasn’t shy when it came to touching herself. In fact, it happened to be one of his own greatest turn-ons, and he had to stop himself from climaxing at the mere sight of her taut nipples peeking between her forefingers and thumbs.
Her hips jerked as he worked her. She couldn’t last long, and he debated asking her to come down to him so he could feel himself inside her when she did. Then, remembering she’d never made love before, he resisted. At least, for the first round.
The tempo of her instinctive pulses increased, a growing drive that she seemed all too anxious to enact. Dee moved his tongue back up to the source of her sensation just as Anwen started to come apart.
“Dee, yes. Oh, god... Dio!”
He harrumphed as her body fell from suspension and landed on the floor. Stricken with panic that she could have been hurt, Dee fell over her, smoothing his hands over her hair.
“Anwen? Are you okay?”
To his surprise, her answer came in the form of a moan. “So okay. Only...”
Her hand went down to where his erection pressed into her stomach.
“Do it.”
“You sure?”
“Very.”
As his hips aligned to hers, he worried that she might be hurt, and this glorious ecstasy would end because of something as stupid as a human design flaw with the female body. Instead, when he pushed inside her, he encountered something much more startling.
Memories.
Meeting Clare for the first time at a donut shop in Baltimore, the night she told him he was a Pure Soul and awakened him. The first time they danced together, three nights later, at a Fireman’s Benefit Ball. Their first kiss on a balcony in the rain. Proposing to her on Groundhog Day a few months later, because who would have thought a marriage proposal would have come on Groundhog’s day? When she told him her answer was yes.
The first time they made love, and how it felt to be inside the woman he loved finally. His utter certainty that this woman was his destiny, true love, and she completed him. Proof that there really were such things as soul mates. He’d found his, and no other could ever suffice.
Coming full circle, and finding
love again, with the same woman he always loved.
“I see it too,” Anwen said. “Our life before... It’s all coming back now.”
Dee stilled, turning to look deeply into her eyes. “It’s impossible.”
“It’s not. It’s...” She licked her lips. “Dio, it was all planned this way.”
A tear threatened to fall down his cheek. “Anwen was highlighted in the book. It wasn’t because it was meant to be a blessing.” The tear broke away, and several others quickly followed. “You were telling me how to recognize you again. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I couldn’t,” she cried. “You had to unlock us. The cost for our reunion was my ignorance. Until you figured it out, I didn’t know either.”
“Clare?” he asked.
Anwen nodded. “You cannot believe how much I’ve missed you.”
His heart leapt into his throat, pulsing as he kissed his wife. Perhaps in a different body, and with a lifetime of experiences he’d come to know, but definitely the other half of his soul. Restoration, reclamation, and resolution. Dee was once again beside the woman he loved.
“How?”
“It was all Hades’ idea.”
“Hades?” Incredulous, Dee repeated his name.
“Yes, but...” Her eyes went wide as she scooted her back against the foot of the bed. “We need to move.”
“Wait, what? Where? Look, you can’t just tell me you’re actually the reincarnated soul of my wife, then run away.”
“If we don’t go right now, you’re never going to lose your regret. You have to make amends.”
“Amends with Hades? I don’t think that’s possible.”
Anwen picked up the towel and finished drying herself off. “Not with Hades. With your dad.”
Chapter 40
“Gentlemen, please. I’ve had marble slabs carved in my image that weren’t as stone-faced as the two of you.”
To his credit, Ramiel tried to find a sense of calm in his soul, if only to neutralize the hostility threatening to overtake him. Besides, there was no cause anymore, was there? If Persephone were to be believed, Hades and she were no longer a thing. He let his shoulders fall, his snarl unfurl, and his fists ease as he put his palms flat down on the arm of his chair.
Hex Goddess (All My Exes Die from Hexes Book 3) Page 25