by Larissa Ione
Now she was the one growing soft. Seeing her big, powerful mate brought to his knees by grief tore her apart.
“You do what you did with me,” she said gently. “You let your children in.”
“But the guilt—”
She went to her knees in front of him, tears rolling down her cheeks now. “What’s done is done. But look at the progress you’ve made. Look at what you’re doing for your children now.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Look what I’m doing to them. I sent Hawkyn away. I treated Idess and Mace like strangers. I want my young ones here and it pisses me off that the Council won’t allow it, and yet, I’m a little relieved.” His bloodshot eyes searched her face. “Why?”
Reaching up, she cupped his cheek. “Because you’re afraid of losing control.”
The flames licked at his pupils again. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Nothing?” She stroked his jaw with her thumb, soothing, long strokes meant to bring him down, to give him a chance to think instead of react. “You’re not afraid of losing all you’ve built here for yourself? Your children? Me? I think maybe your problem is the exact opposite. You have so much to lose that you can’t help but be afraid of losing it. I know I would be.” Leaning forward, she brushed her lips over his. “The key is to put aside the fear and just...live. You have a fabulous life, Azagoth. We have a fabulous life. And it’ll only get better as we add to it. We’ll find a way to locate your children and bring them here.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he rasped.
“No, you don’t,” she teased, “but you got me, so we’ll just have to find a way to deal with it.”
Right there in the hallway, he tugged her against him, tucking her head against his shoulder as he held her. “I love you, Lilli. I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” she whispered. But sometimes she wondered if it was enough.
Something told her this wasn’t over, and she didn’t know if she was capable of giving him what he needed.
Chapter Fifteen
Aurora had never wanted to kill anyone as badly as she’d wanted to kill the bastards who had tortured Hawkyn and stripped him of his wings right in front of her eyes.
She’d actually tried. But even as she’d formed a ball of fire at her fingertips, the one called Moze had snuffed it. All he’d done was shift his gaze in her direction and her entire body went as stiff as a statue, completely immobilized. She’d been forced to watch in horror as the bastards ripped Hawkyn’s amazing wings from his shoulders and tossed them to the bloody floor, where they’d withered and vanished.
Funny how she’d been as frozen as an ice sculpture but tears had still streamed down her cheeks in hot rivulets. How had Hawkyn endured the agony? Not just the physical pain, but the emotional misery of having his own brothers dismember him like that? She took back every negative thing she’d said or thought about her own brother, because truly, when it mattered, he’d been there for her. And she knew, without a doubt, that if she called him, he’d come to her, no matter what.
Hawkyn’s family was the definition of dysfunctional, and her heart bled for him.
“Aurora?”
Hawkyn’s scratchy voice jolted her out of her thoughts, and she put down the book a female named Jordan had given her to pass the time. Sure, she wouldn’t have chosen a demon compendium as a beach read, but it had definitely occupied her mind. Who knew that raptor horrors enjoyed dining on pomegranates as well as people?
She hurried over to the bed Jordan and two other Memitim had laid Hawkyn’s unconscious body on before cutting off his shredded, bloody shirt and tending to his wounds.
“How long...” he rasped as he pushed himself up on one elbow. “How long have I been out?”
“Half a day,” she said, taking a seat on the stool next to the head of the bed. “I got some sleep over there.” She gestured to the cot a Memitim whose name she didn’t know had set up for her along the far wall. “I also got a shower and pancakes. Are you hungry? I can go down to the kitchen. It’s two in the morning, but they said I can get anything I want.”
For some reason, he smiled, amusement settling over features that had, just hours ago, been drawn in pain, even as he’d slept. “You’re settling in, huh?”
“They’ve made it easy. I think they’re rattled by...” She didn’t want to say it. “By what happened to you. They’re bending over backwards to be nice.”
Jordan and another Memitim, a male called Drue, had seemed to think she needed company, and had shared a lot of Memitim and Heavenly history. She’d listened, fascinated, and if she hadn’t been in dire need of sleep, she’d have loved to talk to them all night.
She reached for the pitcher of water on the bedside table. “Are you thirsty?”
“Yeah.” He sat up with a wince and shoved the pitcher aside in favor of the bottle of vodka Jordan had left for him, along with a change of clothes.
He was going to look amazing in those black leather pants.
“Jordan said you guys aren’t supposed to have any alcohol except wine, but that those Heavenly bastards waived the rule for you this once.”
“How thoughtful.” Anger practically bled from his pores as he unscrewed the cap and took a swig.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I couldn’t help you. I tried, but...”
Swinging his legs over the side of the mattress, he glanced at the bucket of red-tinted water and the bloodstained rag she’d used to clean him up as he lay bleeding on the mattress. She’d been shocked at how quickly the deep lacerations in his back had healed, and she was even more shocked at how he was moving around just twelve hours later, as if nothing had happened.
“I hate that you had to see that.” He cursed and shoved to his feet, the muscles in his arms and bare chest flexing with every motion. “I hate that all of this is happening to you. Drayger, having to hide, my asshole brothers. I’m sorry.”
Startled by his apology when he was the one who had lost his wings for helping her, she poured herself a glass of water with a shaking hand. This was a male who she’d been convinced would deliver her to a serial killer if his duty required it, and yet he was clearly trying to protect her.
He’d lost his wings because of her.
I’ve always done my job even if it didn’t make sense. Even if I felt that what I was doing was wrong. But I’m invested in your well-being now. I’m invested in you. I will find a way to keep you safe.
Shirtless, his jeans streaked with dried blood, he still managed to move with smooth, lethal grace as he paced the small room and drank from the bottle every dozen steps or so. “I’m going to request a Primori reassignment. I’m getting rid of Drayger.”
Whoa. “You can do that?”
“Theoretically. But it’s up to the Memitim Council. If they go for it, I won’t have to protect Drayger anymore. He’ll be some other Memitim’s problem, and I can concentrate on keeping you safe.”
“I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you isn’t enough.” She swallowed, her eyes watering with gratitude. He’d lost his wings because he’d tried to save her from Drayger, and now this? She could never repay him. Not in a million years. But there was something she could do for him. “I know it’s not much, but I can take away your pain if you want.”
“I’m not in pain.” He guzzled a good fifth of the bottle.
“Yeah,” she said, “you are. And I can take it away. Well, it won’t be completely gone, but it’ll be manageable.”
“I’m fine.” His voice pitched low with a dark, alcohol-soaked rasp. “I’m healed.”
She moved to him, planting her palm on his sternum, careful to keep her energy siphon turned off. She didn’t need the mind-scrambling incoherency right now.
“I’m not talking about physical pain, and I think you know that.” Tentatively, she eased her hand to the right, covering his heart. It thudded faster now, his pulse pounding into her palm as if trying to match the cadence of her own heartbeat. “I can help. Please, l
et me help.”
A battle warred in his expression, a look she’d seen before, back when her brother had come home from a mission that haunted him. He’d wanted to talk, but his pride, or maybe his military orders, hadn’t let him.
“No one has ever helped me before,” he said, his single-barrel-whiskey smooth voice turned rotgut-vodka rough. “No one but my siblings.”
“You lost your wings because you helped me.” She stepped back so she didn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him and so he could see every genuine emotion on her face. “Jordan explained how much of a risk it was, and what you stand to lose by breaking rules. I don’t understand this Memitim Council thing, but it sounds like there’s nothing more you want than to sit on it and change things for the better. So let me do this for you. It’s the one thing I’m really, really good at.”
For a long, torturous moment, he said nothing. Then, finally, the hard set of his shoulders relaxed, although the wariness in his eyes remained.
“How?”
Man, she needed a drink for this, and his vodka looked tasty. “There’s a reason I’m a masseuse,” she said, holding out her empty water glass with a gesture at his liquor bottle. As he poured a generous couple of shots, she continued. “I recharge my powers through touch. I absorb negative energy and emotions and turn them into fuel for my abilities.” She sipped her drink, enjoying the sting of alcohol on her lips. “My clients leave feeling happy and lighter, and I’m now Portland’s most in-demand masseuse.”
And not just Portland. Spas all over the country wanted to hire her, offering her more money, places to live, exclusive client lists. She’d even been approached by the owner of a world-renowned Swedish resort and a Hollywood celebrity wanting a personal live-in masseuse. Thanks, but no thanks. She liked her quiet life of obscurity and didn’t want to move. Portland suited her. With its quirky and laid-back personality, world-famous restaurants and breweries, and endless things to do, the city felt like home the way Sacramento, where she’d grown up, never had.
“So you want to give me a massage?”
“That’s one method. It’s the slow one.” She paused for a heartbeat and then, before she changed her mind, blurted, “There’s also a fast one.”
“Yeah?” He took a swig of vodka, the tendons in his throat undulating with each swallow. “What the hell. Let’s do the fast one.”
“Don’t you even want to know what it is?”
“I don’t care what it is. My father kicked me out of his realm, I probably lost any chance I had to sit on the Memitim Council, and two brothers I’d never met just dug my wings out of my body with their bare hands.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Fuck it. I can handle anything. Just do it.”
Abruptly, her body flushed with heat, but her brain balked. She generally avoided the second method, the one that was the hallmark of her succubus heritage. It was too intense. Too intimate. When her partner orgasmed, more than just his seed rushed into her body. She got a blast of power so pleasurable that it would send her into an extended orgasm of insane pleasure, but she also got a head full of emotions that came with little or no context. There might be a mix of sadness, anger, love, jealousy... And unless her partner told her everything he was feeling ahead of time, she was left with a knot of emotions that tangled her up inside for hours. It was one of the reasons she’d avoided relationships.
But damn... Hawkyn tempted her. Yes, he was angry right now, but angels were good, right? How much emotional baggage could there possibly be?
No one has ever helped me before.
Okay, maybe there was a lot. Everyone she’d talked to had mentioned that Memitim grew up in the most atrocious situations imaginable, and even after they’d been plucked from the human world and introduced to the work they’d been bred to do, life still didn’t seem that great. How could it be when you had no choice about how you lived or the job you were doing? She might have gone into the spa business because it seemed like a good way to collect the energy she needed to survive, but the truth was that she enjoyed it. She liked making people feel good. Happy, positive people were what the world needed. And from what she’d seen, Memitim could especially use some sort of underworld spa.
“Well?” He stared at her from across the room, his hand wrapped in a death grip around the bottle, his gaze holding the same smoldering intensity she’d seen in his father’s eyes in the portrait downstairs.
God, what was it going to be like to have all that intensity focused on her? Touching her? Inside her? All he had to do was look at her and she shivered with violent tingles.
The cold air in this drafty castle just got warmer. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Warn me.”
She huffed. “When I said not to say I didn’t warn you... I was warning you.”
His lazy, lopsided smile made her groan. He was teasing her. She loved these glimpses, brief as they were, into his off-duty personality. He’d been on the go since they’d met, in a constant state of motion, and despite the shitty circumstances, it was nice to see him relax a little.
Of course, that could have something to do with the ninety-proof bottle of attitude adjuster in his hand.
She eyed her own glass of liquid bravery, but really, she didn’t need it. Even if her succubus genes weren’t already going to work, preparing her body with a hot rush of desire, she’d want Hawkyn.
And she’d want to help him.
As he gulped down another swig of vodka, she set her glass on the little end table and turned to him.
“Here’s another warning.” She pulled her shirt up over her head. “Some scenes may be too intense for young viewers.” She tossed the shirt onto the mattress and reached around to unhook her bra.
“What are you doing?” he croaked, the vodka bottle frozen a few inches from his mouth.
“Sex. That’s the fast method.” She dropped the bra on the mattress and flushed at the way he stared at her exposed breasts. “You game?”
For a long, tortured moment, he said nothing. Oh, God, what if he refused her? How embarrassing. She’d made a huge mistake, and she looked like a desperate fool. Choking on humiliation, she lifted her hands to cover herself, but he shook his head.
“Don’t.” His voice was a low growl, sultry and dark, so resonant it hit her between her legs. “You’re beautiful.”
“Does this mean—”
He was on her before she could finish. His lips came down on hers and his body pressed her into the cold stone wall and both his hands gripped her shoulders so firmly she figured she’d have bruises later.
Awesome.
Chapter Sixteen
Hawkyn was going to do this. He was going to fucking do this. Sex with his first female in centuries. He was going to break all the damned Memitim rules, and he was going to do it well.
And he was going to do it with the amazing female standing in front of him. A female who had every right to hate him for his role in protecting the violent murderer who was hunting her. Hell, he was starting to hate himself.
Her hands gripped his waist, and the self-loathing drained away, replaced by a searing need he hadn’t felt in a long time. No, he’d never felt this, the driving desire to be with someone not as a temporary escape, but as an all-in experience. What happened between them might not be the first step to forever, but as a Memitim, he couldn’t have that with anyone but another angel anyway.
The sudden idea that he would mate with an angel one day jolted him. He’d assumed he’d pass all his Memitim tests, do his job on Earth admirably, and join the Council before settling down with a female. But as Aurora’s lips nibbled his jaw and her hands caressed the sensitive skin on his back where his wings had once been, all he could think about was being with her.
He didn’t even care if she could ease his pain. It didn’t matter. He’d spent his entire Memitim life taking care of others, others who didn’t deserve it. Every scumb
ag he guarded ate a bit of his soul, and it was high time he did something life-affirming for himself.
See, this was the kind of thing he’d change if he made it onto the Memitim Council.
Except that he knew damned well that wasn’t going to happen anymore, and the feeling of loss in the space where his wings should be made that achingly clear.
“No,” he gasped, breaking away from her. He stumbled backward, knocking over the TV tray in the corner and sending it crashing to the floor. His vodka bottle shattered, spraying alcohol everywhere.
“Hey,” Aurora said, alarm flickering in the depths of her ocean-blue eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t. He was a fucking head case. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just... It’s been a long time.”
“For me too,” she said quietly.
“How long?”
“A few years. You?”
He snorted. “A few centuries.” A few long centuries.
“Seriously?” She moved toward him, her full breasts bouncing tantalizingly with each step. “Wow.”
“We have to take a vow of celibacy.”
“Damn,” she breathed, stopping in her tracks. “Then we can’t do this.”
“The hell we can’t. I just have to get out of my own head.”
“You’re worried about the punishment, aren’t you?”
He snorted again. “I don’t give a shit about it. I’m sick of the damned rules. I’m sick of the bullshit.”
“Then what is it?”
“You know what?” he asked as he closed the distance between them. “It’s nothing. It’s absolutely nothing.”
Because fuck it. The moment he’d flashed into the dark parking lot and interfered in Aurora’s abduction, he’d known on some level that he was tempting fate. He’d told himself he was cool with guarding evil people, but now he could admit to himself that over the years a hairline fracture had formed in the compartment where he’d kept his indifference.