by Alison Paige
“Clean that up,” he said, catching her midnight eyes taking in his naked form. “We leave tonight.”
Akram strode from the room, refusing to give more weight to Morrigan’s passing physical interest than it deserved.
So she wished to be free of him. He should release her. Let her remember what it was like to be without the comforts he provided.
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. And not just because he enjoyed the luxury of her skill at securing him hosts. He needed her, but he’d be damned if he’d play the sentimental fool.
“Sentimentality…pfftt,” he said to himself, taking the carpeted oak stairs two at a time. She’d take it as weakness, and to his mind it was.
Akram, ancient demon, survivor of torments and time’s unending march, would have none of it. He would not be torn asunder by a woman.
On the second floor of the mansion he slammed the bathroom door behind him, striding to the long double sink. His spirit had worked its magic on the new host, taking back years lost to abuse and neglect. He was still filthy and smelled like dung, but the flesh had tightened over hard muscle, once-rotting teeth were healthy again, and some of the gray hair had returned to its original ebony shade.
Akram turned his chin from side to side, eyeing his reflection. He needed a shave, but the silvery shoulder-length hair suited him. Or it would once he’d washed it.
He closed his eyes, his spirit warming as it pulled energy from the host’s soul. An exhale gushed from his lungs. Damn, it felt good to soak his spirit in a full, deep well again. Every day that well would grow shallower, every day there’d be less and less to sustain him. Akram pushed the unpleasant worry from his mind.
He opened his eyes and stared into the dead-gray eyes of his brother. No. Wait. Akram shook his head. Richard wasn’t his brother. He was the brother of Daniel, the host whose body Akram now possessed.
Akram clenched his jaw, braced his hands on the sink he knew was there but couldn’t see through the memory the host forced him to witness. Jeezus, he hated this part, the last fit-‘n’-fight of the host trying to oust him. It was always a wretched experience, some vile memory he was forced to endure, touching, smelling, feeling every nuance as though it was his own memory.
Akram’s gaze shifted to his hands, shocked for a moment to see them tight around his bother’s throat, his long fingers turning white from the squeeze. But they weren’t his hands, it wasn’t his brother; it was Daniel’s, his host. Not that it mattered. The emotions storming his brain were real enough.
Morrigan had a habit of choosing the worst dregs of society, those souls whose after-death trip would likely be short and at a downward tilt.
Pure, absolved souls use pity as a weapon in the battle for possession—heartfelt glimpses of loved ones to try to play on his guilt, try to break his heart, his determination. The wicked used their sins against him, trying to shock and disgust him into letting go. Neither worked, though both were a torment to endure.
This host’s last stand was no different. Richard, the brother, flailed at Akram’s shoulders and head in the vision, though the slaps that stung his cheeks and rattled his brain were as real as anything.
Akram ignored the pain, Daniel’s anger burning through him, tightening his hands, shifting his weight to press everything he had against his brother’s miserable neck. Why can’t Richard mind his own damn business? Just shut up, you stupid jerk. Shut up. Shut up.
The flesh around Richard’s lips shifted from red to blue, the color quickly spreading to his cheeks, around his bulging eyes, across his forehead.
Richard clawed at Akram’s hands and arms, desperate to break his grip. Blood beaded along the scratches, the wounds burning like acid, but he ignored it. The little jerk never could beat him in a fight.
Then suddenly his kid brother stopped. Stopped slapping, stopped scratching…stopped moving. It was over. Richard stared up at Akram, his blue eyes dulling. Shit. He was dead. Akram had killed his brother. The knowledge slammed through Akram so hard he couldn’t breathe.
He sat back, resting his full weight on Richard’s chest. His kid brother was dead; he wasn’t breathing, couldn’t talk—ever. Akram—Daniel—was safe. She’d never know. Their mother would never know he’d gone back on his word and started gambling again. She’d never know he’d stolen her medications to sell to cover his debts. She’d never know the truth about why her savings account was empty, why she was suddenly destitute. She’d never know.
A huge swell of relief swamped through him, made him giggle like a loon. He looked at his hands, so powerful, like a god. He’d taken his brother’s life and stopped him from ruining everything.
Akram’s pulse thundered in his ears, joy and disgust, terror and relief, all mixed and churned inside him. His head spun. He’d hide the body. No one would ever know.
No one ever did.
The vision ended. The battle was over. Richard’s soul had tried its best to oust him and failed. The body was Akram’s. The vivid memory, the crazed, manic feelings would never fade, never leave him even after he shed this body. Now and forevermore he knew exactly what it was to murder. But then, he’d already known that and worse. Such was the price he paid for the feast. A price Morrigan seemed determined to make him pay dearly.
He’d often wondered if it was a conscious choice, or did her subconscious automatically target tainted souls to make her own sin in aiding him less profane? Perhaps she chose the rancid souls as a kind of punishment for him.
Akram straightened, shoved the long, greasy hair from his face and went to turn on the shower. After a few seconds the water was hot enough to form a thick steam cloud above the glass stall. Hell’s bells, he needed a hot shower about now.
He climbed in and snapped the glass door closed behind him. His back to the showerhead, Akram closed his eyes against the hot water cascading over his new face and down his body, his mind still on Morrigan. Always on Morrigan.
Akram certainly didn’t believe he deserved punishment, no more than the lion that feeds on the young wildebeest, or the whale that waits in stealth for the weak seals and penguins to set to sea.
Like any living thing, he must feed to survive. He could provide for himself, but the Raven shape-shifters’ unique gift for stupefying their victims into quiet compliance made the taking of the body and soul far more efficient. Without his Raven, Akram would spend all his time hunting and overpowering his next meal before the current soul was depleted and the body ash.
The Raven Morrigan enabled him to live, to enjoy the short time he had in each body. In return he provided her with the luxurious lifestyle her kind craves the way mammals crave air. The symbiotic partnership between their kinds, the Leshii and the Raven, was one forged through the ages. Akram was simply the first foolish Leshii to fall in love with his huntress.
Irritation tightened his shoulders. He shook the thought from his mind and grabbed the shampoo. There were far more pressing matters to concern him. The body he possessed may have belonged to someone else, but it was his now and there were standards any respectable Leshii demon must abide.
Akram took his time washing and rewashing. When the water finally ran cold, he stepped out, wrapping himself in the thick, terry-cloth robe, toweling dry his hair.
He cleaned and clipped his nails, trimmed his wild brows. He combed his hair until it hung in damp silvery waves to his shoulders. A nice strap of leather held the strands in a neat tail at the base of his skull while he shaved.
Akram studied the thin line of hair he’d left over his top lip and the small triangle he’d left beneath the center of his bottom. Normally he wouldn’t bother with such detail, easier to keep a face shaved bare than fiddle with mustaches and such. He wasn’t in the bodies but six or seven months. What was the point?
However, he’d noticed that most of Morrigan’s choices for hosts had some form of facial hair, whether it be scruffy beard stubble or groomed goatee. He wondered if that, too, was choice or happenstance. Was it a point of at
traction for his beautiful young Raven, or yet another reason she found to feed him their soul?
Not that he cared either way. This was an experiment, that’s all. Curiosity. He’d use himself as a test subject, study her reaction. If she seemed pleased, he’d make a note to consider it as yet another way to keep his Raven happy and working at her best. If she seemed repulsed…
His gut twisted as he studied his reflection. He didn’t think the groomed strip of hair and small tuft was unattractive on his host. The body looked to be in its late thirties, the premature gray giving him an air of class and wisdom Akram liked. But would Morrigan?
An unhappy Morrigan could be a troublesome bird. The woman gave merit to the mortal saying Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…or not. Irk the spunky female, and his next host might arrive missing parts no man cares to go without.
He pressed his fingers along the line of hair, tugged the tuft above his chin, turning from side to side. Maybe he should shave the hair off like always. So close to the end of their time together, perhaps it was best not to ruffle feathers.
Bugger that. If he changed nothing between now and the last host she was obligated to bring him, then nothing, in fact, would change. Akram was loath to admit his growing attachment to Morrigan, but there was something about her he’d truly miss. Why let her slip quietly from his life when everything he was screamed to rage against the loss of her?
A firm nod to his reflection, decision made, Akram turned to go dress and pack. Time was running out and the demon had much to do before his plan to win Morrigan for another fifty years could unfold.
CHAPTER TWO
After so many years together Akram had grown to abhor Morrigan dwelling in her Raven form. “Please, Morrigan. Walk at my side. When I told you I wanted to show you the city, a bird’s eye view was not what I had in mind.”
Morrigan shook herself on his shoulder, drawing the eyes of passersby in the narrow streets of Sorrento, Italy. Yet another reason Akram dreaded walking in public with the silken-feathered Raven on his shoulder. She drew far too much attention for his liking.
People, tourists mostly—not that it made a difference—seemed to take her presence as an invitation to press into him, touch him, poking their fingers at Morrigan as though she might actually hop on.
“What a beautiful bird,” one rotund, loudly dressed, big-haired woman said. American, no doubt. “Can I pet it?”
“No.”
Akram spotted a jewelry store up ahead, just beyond a fruit stand filled with oranges and bananas, lemons the size of grapefruits, and grapefruits the size of…grapefruits. The display spilled halfway across the ancient narrow street forcing him to pass nearer to humans coming the other way. He clenched his jaw, turning sideways, careful not to rub shoulders.
He stopped at the jewelry shop’s window and tipped his chin at the display of shimmering gold and flashing silver. “Walk at my side, Morrigan, and you may have your pick.”
The ink-black Raven cocked its head, its midnight eyes darting to the window, to the people walking by, to the afternoon sky overhead. After a rude-sounding caw she launched into the air, the push-off enough to rock his shoulder.
Within seconds she’d vanished above the ancient Roman rooftops.
Old fears seized Akram’s gut. He exhaled, forcing the worry from his body. She would return. Morrigan always returned. Even after he’d stopped attaching the tethers he once insisted upon in her fowl form, she stayed with him.
What choice did she have? She knew the punishment for escape. If she didn’t return he’d consume her soul, which he kept as insurance for her service. The thought pinched his chest, tightening muscles. He exhaled again, then inhaled, slowly and deliberately, trying for a single, unshaken breath.
Bother these idle thoughts and cares!
He would end her. He would. No matter how accustomed to her company he’d grown, he’d devour her soul without mercy. At least, that was the only possibility he’d allow his mind to entertain. If there was another option, his heart kept it well hidden.
Akram studied the waterfall of necklaces and bracelets, earrings and anklets, filling the deep window display. A delicate white-gold necklace in the back caught his eye. Its glittering diamond captured in a matching bird’s claw dangled at its center. The necklace would look stunning around Morrigan’s slender neck, set against her wealth of black hair, against her pale, milky skin.
He’d given her diamond earrings years ago. She wore them constantly. He read nothing into that. Though if one were to ask, it would seem to indicate, to him at least, he wasn’t so despised that his gifts were unwelcome.
The idea tickled a smile across his lips. He licked it away, cleared his throat. The point was, the necklace would go nicely with the earrings. However, the choice was hers. Whatever got Morrigan on human feet would do.
Akram rubbed the back of his neck at the base where Morrigan’s soul resided. His fingers pressed the mark indented in his flesh, tracing the twisting, intersecting lines that to the laymen might appear to be a Celtic design, the top shaped somewhat like a bird’s head.
The truth of the design was a mystery to him, a part of every Leshii demon who held rule over a Raven. Like human fingerprints, everyone has them, but why they swirl this way or that can’t be known. The Raven’s mark simply appeared in the shape it would, always at the same spot on every body he possessed, and held the soul of his Raven huntress captive until she fulfilled her duty to him.
Once she offered her replacement, the design would alter slightly to house the new Raven’s soul. The change was negligible as far as he could tell, a line twisting right, instead of left, going under one way rather than the other. It mattered not to a Leshii demon.
Akram’s finger followed the lines, knowing the intricate design of Morrigan’s soul by heart, knowing that when it changed this time…he’d notice. He forced his hand away, tugging the shoulder seams of his blue crew shirt, straightening it on his body.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks just as the mark tingled, like a million spider feet dancing over his flesh. She was coming.
Akram turned his chin, looking down the lava-stone street. Morrigan rounded the corner, her long legs navigating her body like a boat through water. Fluid grace, precision in every move she made, aware of every inch of her long, slender body.
She was sixty-five years old chronologically, but she appeared no more than twenty-eight. And a young twenty-eight at that. Another reason her kind served so perfectly the needs of his. Akram hadn’t a clue how old he was, older than the first fall of Rome, younger than the birth of Egypt. His kind did not age. Ever.
Morrigan wore the same snug black jeans and knee-high, thick-soled boots as always. Her black T-shirt was short-sleeved this time, her only concession to the warm Mediterranean weather. She could dress herself however she chose, a perk of being a shape-shifter. Foreign objects, however, like jewelry, were incorporated into the whole when she shifted, then returned to their natural state when she shifted back.
He presumed that intergrading the additional matter wasn’t entirely pleasant, which explained why she kept so few possessions. Her bow and quiver, the knife sheaths strapped to her forearms and around her right thigh, were a part of her. She could meld them into her body at will, making them invisible when necessary. A convenient ability for airport security searches and such.
She’d used the old leather straps of her tethers to tie her long, blue-black hair at the back of her head, and he could see the earrings he’d bought her sparking on her lobes. Her onyx eyes met his and Akram warred against the sudden race of his heart, tightening his brow and forcing the corners of his lips flat.
The organ between his legs twitched and swelled, tightening the otherwise comfortable fit of his cargo shorts. About this he could do nothing. Troublesome as it was, beyond tolerance, it wasn’t the first time his host’s body responded in such a way at the sight of his Morrigan. The reflexive reaction never ceased to catch h
im by surprise, and it took all his will now not to reach down and relieve the strange ache.
In all his years he’d never been harassed by such a disconcerting physical response. He was spirit, animating, the host body like the hand of a puppeteer. Was the puppet master soaked through when the dummy was left in the rain? Would a tickle to the puppet’s belly bring a chuckle to the puppeteer’s lips? No. Then how to explain it? He couldn’t. No more than he could deny it.
He’d tried, with varying measures of success, but inevitably the desire would build so strongly within him it threatened to consume him as surely as his spirit consumed souls. But what to do when you cannot move, cannot think or speak, for the want of a woman who lives and breathes for the moment she can escape you? His solution still sent a mix of shivers, both repulsive and erotic at once, down his spine.
The knowledge that he’d stolen into her room while she slept, and the surety he’d do it again, twisted his gut with disgust and pulled another hard tug of arousal through his cock. In her sleep she was helpless, unaware and so sinfully compelling. Her defenses lowered in slumber, her unconscious mind untroubled by thoughts of clothes, leaving her slim female form naked for his unblinking observation. The sight pushed him to do things he still struggled to understand.
Before he could connect thought to action, his hands would move to the aching pressure of his swollen cock, stroking his sex through his slacks, wanting to touch her with it, stroke himself between her pale supple thighs. Was it wrong, perverse? He didn’t know. Couldn’t bring himself to ask.
Instead, he would brace his knees against the foot of her bed, unfastening his belt and the button beneath. The soft rip of his zipper seemed to thunder in the room, yet she never roused, never fluttered her eyes. His slacks would drop to his spread knees, his underwear he’d easily shove low enough to free the engorged organ between his legs and the oh-so-sensitive sack beneath.