The Angel's Hunger (Masters of Maria)

by Holley Trent

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He kept her moving all the way to the back where, behind a varnished door, lived a small, but well-equipped lavatory. They weren’t going to both fit in there, but that didn’t matter.

  He nudged her inside. His frame blocked the doorway. No one would see past, if they were foolish enough to get close.

  He tugged at his belt buckle, unbuttoned his pants, and let down the fly.

  Noelle didn’t need guidance. She delved her hand down the front. Warm, soft, strong fingers found his screaming appendage. She gripped him at the base and, encircling him, started slow, cautious tugs.

  He closed his eyes, widened his stance, and turned his face heavenward.

  He hated the thing he was. Hated how desperate his penance made him and how limited his control was. He was supposed to be strong and majestic. Instead, he was standing in the doorway of a fucking airplane bathroom needing to be tugged off because some Coyote had gotten under his skin. He was a joke.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “In for a penny, in for a pound. We’ll figure this out like everything else.”

  Threading his fingers through his hair, he scoffed silently. He loved her for her hope that there was anything new to figure out. She’d always thought that every problem had a solution, but he’d been on Earth for long enough that he knew that wasn’t necessarily true.

  There was lotion on the counter—likely there to counteract the hostile effects of dry airplane air on sensitive skin. She squeezed a pump of the cream onto her palm and then transferred the cool liquid to him, lubricating him. She could move her fist faster without the friction—she could draw out the mania that much sooner.

  That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her, not prescribed hand jobs.

  “Noelle—”

  “Don’t get maudlin on me right now.” She slipped her other hand into his pants and found his sac. “Don’t you dare. I didn’t invite that when I let you touch me.”

  Gritting his teeth, he nodded, and thrust his hips forward, helping her drive him to that place. Helping him empty out, because that was all she was doing—a practical emptying.

  “What did you do to deserve this?” she whispered. “What kind of angel were you that you would be so severely punished for leaving the fold?”

  “Just one who was too curious. Too … hungry.”

  He shouldn’t have wanted the things humans had, but he’d been weak and he’d bowed to temptation. Food. Flesh. Music. Art.

  Pain.

  He put his head back and tried to steady his breaths as heat pooled in his gut. “I … I had power, but I wanted exhilaration.”

  She squeezed her fist around his crown and added her other hand to his shaft, milking him as he thrust desperately into the sheath she made for him.

  “I wanted more.”

  “And you got it.”

  “More and much less.”

  “More with restrictions.”

  “More with a reminder that every time I consumed …” He gripped the doorway and forced air through his clenched teeth. His lower core tightened and the heat in him surged in a way that both hurt and thrilled. “That every time I consumed, I’d be feeding an addiction there’d never be a cure for. That because I wanted it so badly …”

  The electricity coalesced and burst through him. It stole his breath as he shot his seed into her hands, still thrusting because he couldn’t stop yet. Not until he was empty, or he’d need her again too soon.

  “Fuck.”

  He stilled, scoffing at himself. He came in her hand like she was just some concubine who’d taken pity on him in a dark hallway, and she turned her gaze up to him, appalled, but he had to finish.

  “That because I wanted it so badly, I’d be humiliated every time I allowed myself to get it.”

  Noelle withdrew her hands from him. The crease between her brows deepened.

  “Now you know.”

  “Tamtasu.”

  “I understand if that disgusts you.”

  “Tamatsu,” she said tightly, shaking her head. “You just spoke.”

  Of course he hadn’t.

  “Tamatsu, you said ‘fuck’.”

  “No. I couldn’t have.” He put a hand to his throat.

  She put a hand against his bare belly. “Try. Say something again.”

  “I don’t see the point of—”

  She yanked her hand away, gasping, and stepped back, too, confused. “There it is.”

  He tried to push some sound out again, but he couldn’t—not with her hand gone. Hurriedly, he grabbed several paper towels out of the dispenser and cleaned the sticky spend off her hands.

  “There’s your voice. That’s not the way the magic is supposed to work.”

  Jaw flapping, she washed her hands, staring over her shoulder at him.

  “Hurry up. Hurry up.”

  He didn’t understand what she’d meant. She needed to explain.

  He didn’t wait for her to dry her hands. He put his hand to her bare neck. “What …” He cleared his throat. His voice sounded like his throat had been seared with hellfire—the words sounded as though they’d been blared from the bellows of Satan’s pipe organ. “What’s happening?”

  “Your voice. I thought I’d sent it away, but I didn’t. I couldn’t draw your voice back because it never went anywhere.”

  “But I’m talking. I don’t—”

  Putting a hand over his mouth, she shook her head, stricken. “We can’t talk at the same time. I have your voice. I’ve always had it, and I can’t give it back. It merged with mine.”

  Removing his hand from her neck, she ducked away from him, cheeks pink and eyes wide. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this could happen.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I hope he didn’t vanish because of something I said.” Blue, fortunately for his health and longevity, managed to deliver the line without a hint of smarminess. With Noelle’s mood being the foul murk it was, if he stepped one Coyote toe out of line, she was going to end him. She’d send him sailing through the window of his own plane and worry about the depressurization later.

  Didn’t matter that they were five miles up. She was an elf. Assuming she didn’t fall on any fae-forged swords, she could possibly survive the drop.

  Why am I even in this stupid plane?

  She hadn’t known what to do when Tamatsu had teleported away. After she’d spat the word soup to tell him that for eight hundred years, his voice had been in her body, absorbed into her own, he’d looked at her with a mix of confusion and hostility that had made her blood go cold. Then he’d vanished, and she’d stared after him, still not knowing how to fix things. There was no precedent for them to look back on.

  She’d gotten on the plane because Blue had said, “Let’s go,” and her brain hadn’t been able to brook a refusal.

  “No,” she said hostilely, rooting her phone out of her tote.

  Blue bounced his eyebrows. “Well, all righty, then.”

  She needed to talk to someone. Clarissa could talk her down from the ledge. She, better than anyone, would know how to handle the unpredictable natures of Fallen ones.

  “Meant to tell you though,” Blue said, “you could have given me a little hint in advance that you were going to bring a being as deadly as him along with you. That would have been nice. I nearly swallowed my tongue when you walked up.”

  Of course, Noelle had neither Wi-Fi nor a cellular connection. They were descending, but she didn’t yet have a signal. She wanted to have a plan of action from the moment her feet touched the ground in Maria.

  Willa could wait, and Blue would have to, too.

  Blue shrugged. “I’ve got a good base of knowledge about the arcane, but I don’t know anyone who’s ever met an angel in person.”

  She stared out the window at the runway and the small town beyond it.

  Pretty little place. Quiet, but friendly. There was an actual community, and Noelle hadn’t really had one sinc
e the elves had scattered. Her community had been her plus Jenny, and she realized that she needed more. Perhaps seeing Clarissa again had reminded her that she needed to have some people around her who knew her.

  “They’re everywhere,” she muttered in response to Blue’s statement, and tapped the toe of her shoe impatiently. “Fallen and not Fallen.”

  “How’d you happen onto that one?”

  “Luck. I was in the right place at the right time.”

  “And when was that?”

  Slowly, she turned her gaze from the window and stared at him. She wasn’t in the mood to be coy, but there were certain questions men knew damned well they shouldn’t ask a lady. “Many centuries before you were born.”

  “Fair enough.” He turned to Kenny. “When we touch ground, I need you to give my pop a call and let him know the schedule isn’t going to have any wiggle room in it tomorrow.”

  Kenny winced and loosened his bow tie a bit. “You think he’s going to believe you?”

  “I don’t give a damn if he does or doesn’t. If he wants me to prove I’m not in town, I can, if only to soothe his ego. He’s gotta understand, though, that even if I were available, I wouldn’t give him what he wants.”

  “Am I preventing you from being present at some other obligation?” Noelle asked.

  “No. To be perfectly honest, I appreciate having new reasons not to be at my father’s beck and call. The old ones were getting stale.”

  “I’ll ask you again.” The family drama of other supernatural beings was something she really wanted to avoid being a part of. All too often, arguments tended to turn into bloody fights. That was the one thing she didn’t miss about having family anymore. “Was there something critical you were supposed to be doing?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.”

  “I’d say your father would think that you marrying that woman is pretty critical,” Kenny said quietly.

  “You’re supposed to get married tomorrow?” She didn’t give a single damn if she sounded like a bitch, if Blue was abandoning some lady before she made it to the altar.

  He stared at her, unblinking. Unapologetic.

  “You’re a bastard.”

  He neither confirmed nor denied that he was. In fact, he didn’t say anything until the plane was skidding toward the end of the runway in Maria and Noelle’s phone buzzed with incoming messages.

  “Never met the chick,” he said coolly as he unfastened his seatbelt. “All I know is that she’s from the right kind of Coyote family, and she’s still young enough to have kids. I’ve seen pictures. She’s cute enough, I guess.”

  “But?”

  “But if I had wanted to get married—which I don’t—I’d like to do the deed with someone I picked myself.”

  “Are you a romantic, Mr. Shapely? I didn’t get that impression from you.”

  “Why, because I flirt? Flirting is simply a signaling of interest, but believe it or not, I do discriminate.”

  “And yet you came on to me.”

  “Fuck yeah, I did. I’ve got a thing for women who are bad for me, and you sure as shit move like you could put me on my back and take me for a hell of a ride. But if I’d known you were carrying a torch for one of those Armageddon-makers, I would have been on my best behavior.”

  Forcing out a frustrated breath, she unfastened her seatbelt, too. She believed him. He might have been a jerk, but he seemed to generally be an honest one. “I’d say that carrying a torch is putting things mildly. Among my kind, we call the sort of connection that Tamatsu and I have ‘tethering.’”

  “Never heard of that before. Is that something like having a mate?”

  “I suppose that comparison will do in a pinch, but there are some important distinctions. Tethering is a magical connection to a balancer. Procreation is just a small part of the bond.”

  “And he’s the only person who can do that for you?”

  “I believe so. I’ve never heard of any elf being able to be tethered to more than one person, even after their first partner has died.”

  “So, you love him?”

  At the intensely intrusive question, she stopped scrolling through her text messages and looked up at the Coyote.

  No smile, for a change. Not even an eyebrow cocked out of place. He was as serious as he ever was, and obviously in desperate need of a lesson on deep attachments.

  “I’ve spent the vast majority of my life linked to him, heartsick over him. No one else on this planet has ever found me so curious or so …” Running her thumb along the volume switch on her phone, she took as deep a breath as she could and let it out. “So necessary.”

  Not even Clarissa had needed her that much. She might have served the queen, but she didn’t really belong to her. Clarissa could have replaced her if she’d needed to. Noelle was Tamatsu’s foil, his balancer. He couldn’t replace her.

  “Yes, Mr. Shapely. I love him.”

  Turning his focus to the window, he nodded.

  She turned her attention back to her messages. She flagged the ones from the office to forward to Jenny, deleted all of the messages from Willa, save the last one, and paused at the message from Tarik.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?”

  “Shit,” she whispered. By then, he had to have encountered Tamatsu.

  “Everything all right?” Blue asked.

  “Sure. Everything’s fine,” she said drolly.

  Kenny cleared his throat as though he were hesitant to interrupt. “Is there someplace here to rent a car?”

  Noelle closed her eyes and stretched her legs out in front of her to roll her ankles. The joints throbbed as if hot pokers had been lanced through her bones, and she regretted wearing heels. Late fall was for flats and she always forgot that. “If memory serves me correctly, and it sometimes doesn’t this time of year, there’s a very small agency up the road. I think the company is Budget.”

  “That helps.”

  The pilot pushed the door open and greeted the airport worker on the tarmac.

  Kenny walked toward the front of the plane, phone to ear, corporate credit card grasped in his hand.

  Noelle scooped up her bag and stood, all set to return Tarik’s message, but Blue stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and a furrowed brow. “You want my advice?” he asked.

  “I’m not certain I do. You’re skipping a wedding tomorrow at which you’re supposed to be a guest of honor. Your credibility is on the rocks.”

  “Fair, but let me give you this advice, anyway. Ready?”

  Gritting her teeth, she waved her hand in a get on with it gesture.

  “My mama used to always tell me this, and she was a smart lady, so I believed her. You see, folks like us, well, we tend to forget sometimes that things aren’t supposed to be easy. The sooner we come to terms with the fact that we’re meant to have messier burdens than the rest of folks, the easier we’ll get through one day to the next. We’re not normal people.”

  “That’s an understatement,” she whispered. “But am I so wrong for wanting something to be easy for a change?”

  “Hell no, you’re not wrong for it.” He nudged her toward the door. “Naïve a little? Sure. I don’t care how old you are, but all of us fall victim to that on occasion. There are still too many days when I wake up thinking my father has given up on making me his sucker.”

  “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”

  “Then obviously, you don’t know enough about Coyotes.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” Carefully descending the stairs in spite of her wobbly ankles and weak knees, she kept one eye on the ground and the other on her phone. She tapped out and deleted three different messages to Tarik, and finally sent:

  I don’t understand why, but it seems I inadvertently absorbed Tamatsu’s voice. He can speak, but only when he’s touching me, and not at the same time I’m talking. What did he tell you?

  She didn’t expect an immediate response from Tarik. He’d sent the text two hours prior, right around
the time she’d lost her signal, and he was likely occupied.

  “I got a car.” Kenny waved his phone at Blue. “Someone from the rental agency is going to drive it over and take us to the office to fill out the paperwork. They’re holding the place open. They usually close at three.” He added in a mutter, “Gotta love small-town hours.”

  “I plan to learn to.” Noelle’s voice was tired as her phone buzzed. The message was from Willa.

  Well? I just saw a plane descend. Is that him?

  Noelle responded with yes, and then

  Is Tamatsu nearby?

  A less-than-subtle query, perhaps, but she didn’t know what else she could do. She refused to have him disappearing on her when his lust was riding him. She wanted to trust that he wouldn’t turn to another, but after she’d hurt him—again—she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d wiped his hands clean of her once and for all. Willa responded:

  I don’t know. I saw Tarik a while ago at the diner, but he was alone.

  Is he still there?

  Leaving Blue and his assistant on the tarmac, Noelle shouldered the airport’s office door open and walked past the clerk and then out the front door.

  She didn’t plan on hoofing it all the way into town—and certainly not in fuck-me heels—but she needed to put a little space between her and people.

  Blue poked his head out the door. “Where are you going?”

  “Once you get your car business squared away, set your GPS to the motel. There’s only one, and it’s right in the middle of town. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  “With your friend?”

  Noelle gave a dismissive wave and kept moving.

  No, he was in and out like a bat out of hell

  Willa had responded.

  Looked around in that spooky way and left abruptly. My father used to do that whenever he was getting a psychic tug from somewhere.

  “Shit.”

  Moving toward the road, Noelle sent a text to Tito.

  Could you ask your mother to give me a lift? I’m trying to find a guy and my body is betraying me. I’m at the municipal airport.