“One last thing. My free time. What little of it there is, it’s mine to do with as I wish. Correct?” He put enough steel into his voice to reinforce that it wasn’t truly a question. That time was precious to him and he wouldn’t budge on this.
“Azrael.” All three heads turned to look at him with dark, knowing eyes. Atropos spoke with gravity. “Yes, your time is your own. We value your service and know you hold no blame in what happened with Andras. We will find you new trainees and in no time you will have a unit of Runners to command. Under your tutelage they will no doubt serve with the diligence and dedication we have come to appreciate from you. You’ve earned it and we would trust no other in a command position.”
He fought to keep his stony expression in place when in reality he was surprised his jaw hadn’t hit the floor. In the three thousand years he’d worked for them, they’d never given him the slightest hint they were satisfied with him as their only Runner.
“We will be adding one more task to your list of responsibilities.” Little Clotho, the spinner, added in a somber voice, “The seven babes Belial touched will need protection and guidance. They must be protected at all costs.”
“Will we find them all?” He looked to Lachesis, the drawer of lots. As the one who measured the threads of life and wrote the books of design, she would know best.
“It pains me that I have no control over their destinies. They will have to forge their own path and it will be a treacherous one. I pray that we find them all. They will be our only hope.”
How could seven unborn babes control so much?
“You have time of your own left. Go back to your vacation before it’s gone. And never doubt that we value you or your service.”
When the Fates commanded one to take a vacation, it wasn’t an order to be questioned. He closed his eyes and made the jump to his boat. The sun called his name.
He stripped down to nothing but his pants and dropped down to his lounge chair to soak up as much of the heat as possible. He closed his eyes.
A pair of emerald eyes stared right back at him, filled with more warmth and compassion than the ball of flame in the sky could ever hope to give him. He’d be lost without her. And she may very well end up in danger because of her heart and dedication. She’d need his protection and he needed her in his life.
He hoped it was enough.
Chapter 19
Diane fought the urge to fall face-first into her cold bed. The previous two days had flown by in a whirlwind. Searching for Belial’s other victims, who were nowhere to be found, had taken more time than she’d expected. Marie, a sister of one of the waitresses, had suffered a similar assault. While she’d thought she’d had a possible lead, it hadn’t panned out. The woman seemed to have vanished into thin air. She couldn’t say she was surprised after what happened, but she was near sick with worry. The twisting in her belly ensured she wasn’t capable of giving up.
Alice had taken over management of the club and made sure it ran like a well-oiled machine. Hellfire would always be hers, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take advantage of the excellent help already at her disposal. Thanks to the pay increase she’d been given, her new manager had been able to quit her second job as a hotel maid. Knowing Alice would have few more hours for her son and sleep made the decision easy.
Brick continued to escort Alice home each night. Some nights the two were back to their easy work relationship. Others, she could almost see the tension and unanswered spark of attraction arcing between the two of them.
Neither one was talking about it, despite her gentle prodding.
She regretted that she couldn’t explain everything to them. Maybe it would ease their troubles and maybe it wouldn’t, but she hated that she was lying to them by omission. But what could she say? Oh, by the way. You know that serial killer everyone was afraid of? He’s gone now. I saw the devil himself snap his neck so everyone is safe. It’s all good now.
Sure, that would work.
Soon she’d need to have her powers rebound. It was a necessary evil, but that wouldn’t make it any less painful. They were a vital part of her, and the emptiness their absence had caused would return. And without them, there would be one less tool to use in her quest.
Azrael’s world wasn’t the only one that had been turned upside down.
Against her will, she’d probably spent more time than was healthy worrying about his absence. She told herself time and again to forget about him and the closeness they’d shared. It had been a lovely change of pace in her quiet life, but it was time to make the return trip from fantasy and rejoin the real world.
The lecture hadn’t worked.
No matter how hard she’d tried to cut him from her thoughts, he refused to leave. Her heart refused to listen, and she knew that time wouldn’t change her feelings. Without him in her life, she might as well be back in Unearth. Yes, thankfully she had her bar and its family, but without them and Azrael, she had nothing. It hadn’t been that she’d lived in the wrong place but that she’d been missing the wrong type of connections from her life.
She’d found them both on Earth.
Lauren, she had finally discovered, was the name of the victim she was trying her best to heal. It was a constant struggle. Physically she’d begun to show definite signs of improvement, but her mental health was a completely separate battle. The mental traumas Lauren had suffered led to nightmares and a strong reluctance to rejoin the world of the living.
The only weapon she’d found in the battle to keep Lauren from regressing into a catatonic state was her pregnancy. The thought of having a daughter to care for gave her a motivation to live that she might not have otherwise found.
She’d had no choice but to be brutally honest about the demon who’d raped Lauren, her own powers, and the prophesized path that lay before her unborn daughter. Instead of disbelief or horror, it seemed to reassure Lauren that what happened had been real. She’d been through hell and survived. And she was sane.
With thoughts spinning in a dozen different directions and a determination to find the others and the way to help them, she finally lay down and slipped into a long-overdue sleep.
Chapter 20
She stepped into the steaming shower hoping to clear the sleepy haze from her aching head. Fatigue and worry threatened to drown her, and she feared if she didn’t find a solution soon, she’d drop all the balls she juggled.
She wet her hair and then turned to face the hot spray. She arched her neck and let the water’s heat soothe her. She could have easily used her powers to instantly cleanse herself, but the ritual soothed her tired body and helped ease her stress. She might as well get used to living without the benefits of her powers. Before too long she’d be near human again.
She reached for her favorite bottle of body wash, but her hand met empty air. Her eyes opened in confusion as she looked to see where it had gone.
“Let me.” Azrael’s soap-slickened hand slid up her belly as he pressed his hard body against her back. “The first night I met you, I fantasized about this. When I imagined the sight of your beautiful hands slicking the soap over this gorgeous body of yours, it gave me one of the fiercest hard-ons of my life. This reality is so much better than the dream.” He turned her to face him. There she saw desire, affection, and maybe even a touch of worry.
When she opened her mouth to ask him where he’d been, he swallowed her words like a starving man. His mouth settled over hers as if he planned to move in and stay there forever. “Later.” It was barely more than a muttered curse as his hands cupped her face. He held her tenderly for the briefest of moments and then he dove back into the kiss. He suckled her lips, licked into her mouth, and filled her with his dark flavor. He pressed her body against the shower wall until she was surrounded by nothing but his hard body and wicked scent. The combination was lethal to her self control. She couldn’t have found the will to fight him if her very life depended on it. Muscles slickened with water bunched and rippled as if h
is body had a mind of its own and he fought to remain in command.
She threaded her hands into his hair and dove into his kiss with total abandon. Gods, how she loved his hair. Legends said that on his first trip to deliver a soul to the heavens, the angels cried with envy. She believed it. He’d proved to her there was so much more than even the legends knew.
The press of his hard body filled her with heat, reminding her why she’d felt so empty and cold in his absence. Healed, energized, she and her body came alive for him.
Why was he here now? Drowning in a tide of rich sensation, she couldn’t bring herself to demand the answers to questions she needed to ask. At this very moment, all she needed to know was that he was here in her arms. She needed his touch, and judging by the way his strong hands trembled as he swept them down her shoulders, he needed hers just as badly. But why had he left if she was so important to him?
His palms cupped her breasts as he worshipped them with his wicked touch. Her nipples hardened into aching points and arousal flooded her, making her desperate for his every touch.
He picked her up, set her high on his waist, and suckled at her breast. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist, and she felt the press of his heated skin against her core. A desperate, hungry ache set in, tormenting her.
As he fed on her breasts, sending torrents of sensation straight to her pussy, she felt the insistent press of his cock, seeking between her legs. She ran her hands over the sculpted muscles of his chest, ran her fingers over the dark circles of his nipples, savoring the differences in their bodies, his hard and defined, hers soft and giving.
“Azrael, please, I can’t wait.”
“Yes, you can. You will.” The man had the willpower of a saint and the wicked, sexy moves of an incubus. Where had the Fates found him?
One strong arm wrapped around her back, and his fingers began teasing her clit from behind. The wicked torment made her wild with need. She writhed, trying to entice him closer, but he only continued to grace her clit with light, gentle touches, enflaming the swollen bud further. It was a desperate knot of quivering nerves. Even the lightest of his touches weakened the last minute remnants of her will and drove her one step closer to madness.
His mouth moved to the other breast, sucking at the pleading, straining nipple as he blanketed her body with his. Ripples of pleasure began at her breast, raced to her pussy, and intensified the deeper they spread.
A devious finger slipped into the heat of her core and pressed up against her most sensitive spot. She bucked in his arms as lightning shot through her, spiking her need into a feverish frenzy. Her hands clawed his back urging him on. She leaned down, found his ear, and nipped at the soft flesh. Azrael groaned in response and bit down on her aching nipple, but he continued on, teasing and tempting without delivering the one thing she needed desperately.
His muscled arms trembled, his breath came in shorter lengths. He was as close to the edge as she was. And she knew just how to get what she wanted. She broke his hold on her, and with a saucy smile on her face, she pushed him back away against the opposite wall of the shower. Breaking the contact with his body might have been one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
She turned her bare back to him and stood with her legs slightly apart. She arched and leaned forward, giving him a view of what waited for him. A low growl rumbled deep in his throat as a pair of greedy hands grasped her hips and tilted her further.
The taunt was like waving a red cape at an enraged bull. His hands braced hers against the tiles of the wall and then moved to her hips, positioning her exactly where he wanted. She looked over her shoulder to see him take his cock in hand and step forward. With the other hand, he spread the lips of her sex and circled her weeping pussy with the tip of his cock.
He slowly pushed into her, tormenting the sensitive flesh with his patience. Just when she thought he was almost there, he drew back and the ridged head dragged against her swollen flesh. His finger pressed against her clit as his cock entered her, filling her with ecstasy. On the second slow penetration, he filled her to the end and then began to pump with long hard strokes.
Each movement sent waves of exquisite sensation rushing through her.
His pace increased as he rocked against her hips, filling her with each thrust. Delicious friction owned her with every breath she took. Again and again he pushed her closer to the edge where, with a great rush of sensation, she exploded from the inside out. Every muscle in her body quaked with pleasure as his began to do the same within hers.
Silently, with his heart thundering against her back, he held her as if he couldn’t bear to ever let her go.
Chapter 21
“How is she?” After they’d silently dried each other and dressed, Azrael stood at the door to Lauren’s room watching patiently as Diane checked on the woman’s fragile progress. Lying in the soft glow of candlelight, she resembled a pale and silent ghost. Some of the swelling in her face had eased, and the patchwork of stitches and bruises had faded until they’d become a yellow-and-green jigsaw puzzle.
There was no doubt it would be a long, hard fight, but Diane had faith that together the two of them could do it.
“She’s healing slower than I’d like, but at least we’ve made some progress.”
“Then I’d have to say that she is a remarkably brave woman. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to fight when you’re so helpless and broken.”
“Honestly, at this point, I think the love she has for her unborn daughter is the only thing keeping her heart beating. Without the baby she carries, I don’t believe I would have a chance of saving her.” Diane quietly closed the door to Lauren’s room, and they moved to the living area.
She sat on the couch and curled her feet beneath her. She’d expected him to sit with her, but he began to pace the length of the large room, his heavy boots never making a sound against the hardwood floors.
As much as she’d like to pretend she understood where things stood between them, she never lied to herself and wasn’t going to start now. She needed to face the truth and find out why he was back.
“Azrael, why are you here? I’m happy to see you, but I’ll have to admit to not knowing what’s going on here. With you, or with us.” She hadn’t intended to let that little bit of sadness into her voice, but it was there regardless, plain for him to see. It was just as well. She didn’t have it in her to play games. Too much was at stake, and she was so damn tired.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer. Before all this started, I was on one of my very few vacations. I’d just begun to relax when Lilith showed up and turned my world upside down. I was furious she would be so selfish as to take the only free time I would have for possibly another two hundred years. When I left here the other night, I delivered those wretched souls to Abbadon and then headed straight to the boat and my vacation. I had every intention of using every last second of my free time in peace and solitude.”
Even as her own feelings were in turmoil, she couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy as he continued to pace and run his hands through his hair. On the other hand, it was a little comforting to know she wasn’t the only one who felt as if she were walking on unfamiliar ground.
“Is your vacation time up now?” She watched his long, muscled legs eat up the room in just a few strides. Again and again. He reminded her of a great caged beast, anxious and tense.
“No, it’s not. I still have this one night left before I return to service.”
Her breath caught deep in her throat as she watched the one and only Soul Runner settle on his knees below her, as if she were his queen. He took a deep breath as his gorgeous burgundy eyes looked up into hers.
“When I returned to my boat, I expected to find peace, but instead the only thing I found was an ache deep in my chest. I was lonely. There was no longer any comfort in the ocean’s vastness. Despite finding the warmth and quiet I’d searched for, I miss
ed something even more vital.”
He wasn’t talking about her or what they had together, was he? In the short time he’d been gone, she’d ached with that same hollow emptiness, even when she was surrounded by crowds of people at the club. Was it really possible he felt the same as she? After a lifetime of self-imposed loneliness, she was too scared to open her heart to hope.
She wanted to look at the floor or his boots, anywhere but into his eyes. That wasn’t fair. He’d come back to her and opened his heart to her. Regardless of the outcome, she needed to do the same with him. She made herself hold his gaze and ask the question that made her fear and hope at the same time.
“What were you missing?”
“You. After I returned to my boat, it didn’t take long at all to realize that without your presence, the warmth of the sun paled in comparison to the soft light of your moon. Without you in my life, I have nothing but darkness.” He gripped her small hands in his larger ones. The hands that carried death every day cradled hers as if they were made of the most precious crystal.
“Who would have thought Lilith would be the one to give me the greatest gift of all, someone to love? Diane, I love you. Without you I am nothing more than a slave to the Fates. You make me a whole male and I want more for us. Will you let me be a part of your life?”
How could she resist when one of the strongest immortals in existence, complete with his heart of gold, sat at her feet and poured his soul into her lap? He was so much more than she’d ever hoped to have. His strength, compassion, and loyalty were all tied up into the sexiest package she’d ever seen. She took her hands from his and grasped his in hers as best she could.
“Azrael. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Since you left, I’ve been so lonely. When you didn’t return, I feared I would never see you again. My chest ached with the loss. I’m not sure how I could survive without you in my life. I love you, too.” He rose to his knees, grasped her hips, and pulled her into his tight embrace.
Hawthorn, Amy J. - Azrael's Light [Demon Runners of Unearth] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 13