Possessed By You (Overworld Underground Book 1)

by John Corwin

  He shook his head, eyes locked on the sidewalk before us. "No."

  I waited for him to elaborate, but apparently, he had no plans to do so. "So we're down to one-syllable answers, are we?" I grabbed his elbow and planted my feet, jerking him around. "Explain yourself, mister." A knot tightened in my throat when I saw the emerald storm of pain brewing in his eyes. "I'm sorry, okay? You scared the hell out of me, and I ran like a startled cat. I want to understand what's going on here."

  "There's nothing to understand. I'm bad for you. You should turn around and never look back. Even if we wanted to be together, they wouldn't let us. They'll find me again, and push me out of this body. Coming back will get harder and harder until it takes me years to be able to do it again." His knuckles popped as his hands clenched tight. "Damn it, Emily, I want you. I usually take what I want. But with you, it's not just wanting anymore."

  I stepped closer, gripping his bare hand in both of mine. He shivered as our hands joined. "What is it then?" I asked.

  "I don't know exactly. It's as if I need you. Being apart from you hurts."

  A tear trickled down my cheek. "It hurts me too, Tyler."

  "That's why it's better if we end this. When they find me again, it'll hurt even worse when they send me back." He pulled his hand away, folded his arms across his chest.

  "No!" I shoved him. He didn't budge an inch, though alarm entered his eyes. "Can't you see I want to understand you? Can't you see I want to be with you? Do you know how painful these past few days have been for me?" Tears flowed freely down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed a hand over them, trying not to sob, and failing miserably.

  Strong arms embraced me and I felt Tyler's body heat against my cheek. I melted into his arms, unable to say another word, wanting more than anything to hear him say he wanted the same thing.

  "Every day is an eternity of pain without your smile to warm me," he said in a tight voice. "What I feel for you scares me to death, Emily."

  I looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes and said, "Me too. I don't want to feel this pain."

  He cursed. Looked to his left and motioned with his fingers. "Let's go someplace warmer and talk."

  "Your place," I said.

  "Are you sure?"

  I nodded. "I know you won't hurt me."

  He smoothed back my hair, gazing at me as if he could see through my eyes and into my very soul. "I would never hurt you, Em."

  "Then kiss me," I said, aching to feel his lips against mine.

  He paused for only a fraction before lowering his face to mine. I shivered, as the tension and pain flowed away from me, replaced by the security of his embrace, and the electricity of touch. The kiss went on, his hand tangling tight in my hair, sending tingles along my scalp. He pulled away, rubbed his nose against mine in a tender Eskimo kiss.

  "God, I've missed you, Em." He let out a shuddering breath.

  "You can use His name?" I said, unable to suppress a smile as joy warmed me from my head to my toes.

  He chuckled. "Apparently."

  "Does Joe know about you?"

  "No." He shook his head. "You're the only one."

  The only one? I felt special and insatiably curious to find out more about this...man. "Let's go."

  He kept an arm around my waist, never letting go even when we slid into the back seat of the SUV, as if afraid I'd fly away like one of those balloons should he let me go. Joe turned his head, a grin on his face. "Where to, Mr. Rock?"

  "Home, Joe."

  "Yes, sir."

  I closed my eyes and leaned into Tyler, drawing in his tantalizing scent and, for the first time in days, feeling whole again. The cold ache of loneliness melted away. We reached his flat minutes later and went inside. He looked at the mess on the floor, went around the counter, and poured himself a drink.

  "Would you like anything?"

  I almost refused, but even my inner ninny seemed to think a bit of alcohol might help loosen me up for whatever was to come. "White wine, please."

  He poured me a glass. Took a deep breath. "Are you ready?"

  I didn't think I could ever be ready for what he might have to tell me. But I nodded my head and suppressed a tremble of fear and anxiety. "I'm ready."

  Chapter 30

  He opened his mouth, faltered. "I'm not sure where to begin, really."

  "How old are you?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you mean, my natural form."

  "Are you a fallen angel? Are you thousands of years old?"

  He raised a hand to stop me. "I'm not sure if I can put it in mortal terms."

  Oh God, he must be even older! What would an entity that ancient want with me? I was barely a blip on the radar. I suddenly felt very small and insignificant.

  "I suppose," he said, eyes narrowed in concentration, "that I must be around thirty or forty in mortal terms." His eyes looked to the side. "No, wait. More like thirty. Because I remember glimpsing the mortal plane just after—" He stopped speaking again, his gaze unfocused. "I'm sorry. It's hard to relate it to this realm."

  "By mortal, you mean Earth?"

  "I mean this plane of Earth—Eden. I'm from a different realm, I guess you would call it."

  "Hell?"

  He winced. "It can be like that. Then again, Hell is where you find it. Or make it. We call it Haedaemos."

  "What an odd name." I opened my mouth to pepper him with more questions, then clamped it shut to let the poor man speak. Otherwise, he'd never have the chance to explain.

  Tyler took a sip of the amber liquid in his glass, and set it on the granite countertop, spinning the glass, looking at it as if his thoughts swam inside. His fingers stilled and he looked up. "My reality is like a different aspect of the mortal world. Or maybe this world is a reflection of it." He shrugged. "It's a spiritual plane. My progenitors were—"

  "Your what?"

  He smiled. "You'd call them parents. For us it's not quite the same thing."

  "It sounds similar."

  "Like I said, it's hard to equate things here with things there." His shoulders trembled for an instant. "My friends—companions actually—were always interested in the mortal world. About finding willing vessels and crossing over. Most of the beings in my realm don't pay attention unless someone here summons them. And in those cases, it just pisses them off."

  "Summon?" I felt my eyebrows crinkle. "Like magic?" I couldn't help but think of books I'd read. It seemed too fantastic. Then again, I was speaking with a demon.

  "I don't know if it's magic or not." He shrugged. "If you know the true name of one of our kind, you can use it to hold power over us." He swirled his glass and took a long drink. "My companions and I learned how to possess people. We did...terrible things. Things that didn't seem so bad at the time. But after a while, I started to identify with humans. I felt some kind of attachment I couldn't explain. The others—well, they didn't. I tried to stop them, but it didn't work out so well." His hand shook. The glass dropped to the floor and shattered.

  "Are you okay?" I set my glass down and took his shaking hands in mine. It was so strange to see this confident man suddenly afraid.

  His jaw tightened. He seemed to steel himself, straightened. "I traveled the world in the body of an adrenalin junkie for a while, content to let him control everything, although I'd take over at times. But I wanted more. I wanted to get to know people. I found Thomas Jones on vacation. He was drinking himself into oblivion, and gambling his money away. He had no intention of returning to work and entertained thoughts about killing himself." He procured another glass and filled it with alcohol.

  "He certainly didn't seem suicidal after you left."

  Tyler shrugged. "Regret and loss will drive people to extremes. I decided to help him. To turn his life around if I could."

  "Is that why he doesn't remember anything while you possessed him?"

  "When I take complete control, I have a way of suppressing the person inside. At first, it was fun doing his job, and making
friends, and trying to improve the company. And then..." He took my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist. "Then I met you."

  A pleasant shiver ran down my arm. "I'm not going to lie. You creeped me out at first." I gave him an apologetic grin. "I don't usually go for older men like Thomas."

  He laughed. "I don't understand why you affect me the way you do, Emily. I've met a lot of women over the years."

  I raised an eyebrow. "Do explain, Mr. Rock."

  Tyler grabbed another glass and poured more of the amber liquid. He took a long gulp, and I could have sworn I saw fear in his eyes.

  This doesn't look good.

  "Women." His throat sounded dry. "I experimented. Did a lot of crazy things. But never did anyone make me feel so...alive."

  I set my arms akimbo and pursed my lips. "I'll let you get by with that explanation for now, but I expect more details once you tell me about this deal you struck with the original owner of your marvelous body."

  He looked down at himself, and back up to me. "I told you that I made a deal with Tyler." His shoulders slumped a bit, and his gaze seemed to focus on something in his mind. "I lied."

  My mouth dropped open. "What did you do to him?"

  "When I found him, he was dying from an overdose of drugs in his office. I'd been watching him for a while, thinking he might be a good candidate. I knew he was depressed. I knew he hated his family and his life. Until that point, I hadn't thought he was suicidal."

  Horror crept up my throat. "Did you try to save him?"

  "I did. I tried to ask him why he wanted out. But it was too late." Tyler drew in a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "Being in a body when the person dies like that is so cold. So lonely." He looked at me. "The last thing I heard him think was 'Why?'. And then he was just gone."

  "Where did he go?"

  Tyler shrugged. "Wherever people go, I guess."

  "Wait—you're a demon and you don't know where we go when we die? Aren't you from the special section of the afterlife reserved for bad people?

  He shook his head. "Wish I knew, but I don't. If human souls come our way, nobody ever tells me about it."

  I found the concept of his demon plane absolutely mind-boggling. And I had so many more questions I wanted to ask. But for now, I had to force myself to keep a narrow focus. For now, I wanted to know about us. "So, the Exorcists caught you in Thomas's body and kicked you out?"

  "Almost." He pursed his lips, eyes looking up as if recalling a scene. "As Thomas I managed to get away from the Exorcists and came here. I knew the key code to bypass the security from having watched Tyler before. When I arrived here, I found him dying. When I have enough time, I can leave a body of my own accord, but my kind can't remain in this realm long in our natural state. So I switched bodies. Thomas Jones was unconscious when I left his body, so I just put him back in his car, staged a minor accident across town, and left him at the scene."

  His story sounded so strange, I found it hard to take in. "Wasn't it risky possessing a dying body?"

  He sighed. "The former owner—he actually called himself by his middle name, Hugo. Don't ask me why. Anyway, Hugo was chubby. He hadn't taken care of his body at all. After I took over, I got into shape. I ate well, studied up on business practices, and used some of the knowledge I gained over the years from possessing other people, and put it to good use."

  I took in his amazing physique, and wrinkled my nose in disbelief. "You managed to get into this kind of shape after only a month?"

  He nodded. "My presence speeds up the metabolism in the body."

  "That would explain why you're so warm." I was quite jealous. Why couldn't I have a super metabolism? "What happens if the Exorcists kick you out of this body? Tyler—I mean Hugo—is gone, right?"

  "I am Tyler now. If I'm torn from my body, I think it will die. And I'll be forced back to my realm. Every time I'm ripped out like that, it takes me longer to recover and come back to this place."

  "How long would it have taken you to return if they'd caught you this time?"

  He shrugged. "A month, maybe more. We build up stamina over time, but there are a lot of factors. A lot of things that could happen in my realm. Being exorcised is pure torture. You can't even leave on your own during the ritual. The pain—it's unbelievable." His eyes widened and his breaths came in short panicked bursts.

  "Tyler?"

  His eyes went wider, as though focused on some unseen horror.

  "Tyler!"

  Still no answer.

  I gripped his shoulders and shook him. "Please Tyler, what's wrong?"

  He jerked like I'd slapped him, stumbling back, and nearly knocking his drink off the counter. "Shit!" His eyes focused back on me. "Emily?"

  "What happened? Where were you?"

  He gripped his glass and polished off the alcohol. "Remembering. It's been a while since my last exorcism, but it's something I'll never forget. I—I can't talk about it. Can we change the subject?"

  "It's okay." I pressed my hands to his cheeks. I leaned up and kissed him. "We don't have to talk about it anymore."

  Tyler nodded, his hands folding around mine, his breaths growing calm as the tension eased from his body. "How do you do it?" he said after a long moment.

  "Do what?" I asked, reveling in the feel of his unnaturally warm skin against mine.

  "Make me feel...real."

  "You are real, silly." I smiled, and looked up into his beautiful face.

  "Am I?" He let go of my hands and walked away. Opened a kitchen drawer filled with junk, and pulled out a picture. He slid it across the counter.

  A man with brown eyes and a chubby round face looked back at me. He was tall with a bulging belly and a long unruly mop of brown hair. His eyes looked miserable even though the crowd around him looked happy. I spotted some party hats with "Happy New Years!" imprinted on them. Tyler slid across another picture of a young boy, clearly the same person from the picture with the same chubby features.

  "Who is this?" I asked.

  "Tyler Hugo Rock."

  My mouth dropped open. "But—you're so gorgeous! And he's, well, he's a bit homely, I must say."

  "As I said, my presence inside a body usually has some physical side effects."

  "Like Thomas's green eyes that are now brown?"

  Tyler nodded. "I can actually change the eye color if I try hard enough. But usually they change on their own. I think it's a reflection of my spiritual presence."

  I gazed into his green eyes. "And the body?"

  "I whipped my body into shape, but even pure weight loss and eating right wouldn't have made me look so different."

  "Is it because you're in there all by yourself?"

  He shrugged. "Perhaps. Maybe it's adjusted to look more like my true form."

  "I like it." That was putting it mildly. I absolutely adored his body. "You are real, Tyler." Saying his name made me think of something else. "What's your real name?"

  "Only I know my true name. I don't dare say it."

  "What did your friends call you?"

  He blew out a derisive laugh. "Friends? I'd hardly call them that, especially knowing what humans consider friends to be." He shook his head as if clearing it of something nasty. "As I said, they were companions. Nothing more. Our names are full of consonants and are extremely hard to say with a human mouth, unless you're Polish." His mouth quirked into a faint smile. He brushed a lock of hair from my face with a gentle hand. "I'm Tyler now, Em. I want to be Tyler and nobody else. Is that okay?"

  I kissed him. "It's perfect."

  He closed his eyes and breathed a slow sigh. "Thank you." After a moment, he opened his eyes and regarded me. "I understand completely if you—if you don't want to be with me anymore. I dreaded telling you. But after what you went through when I was nearly torn out of Thomas, I didn't want you to have to deal with that pain again. I had to tell you so you could be prepared. Even if telling you the truth meant you left me."

  I looked into this wonderful man's eyes
and felt my mouth spread into a wide happy grin. "Are you kidding me? You literally went through Hell to get to me. How many women can say that about their man?"

  His sculpted lips broke into a smile, and the confident twinkle returned to his eyes. "Technically, I went through Perdition to get to you."

  "Perdition? Isn't that the same thing?"

  "Nah, it's just a suburb of Hell."

  I burst into laughter. "You're so silly sometimes."

  Tyler caressed my cheek. "Only for you, Emily. Being without you was a living nightmare. I never want to go through it again."

  "How did the Exorcists know Thomas was possessed?" Dread consumed my happiness in a blink. "How do they find you?"

  He shrugged. "I honestly don't know. I've been discovered and exorcised before. I've also escaped them by leaving the body. But in the past my companions and I were so reckless, it was obvious the people we'd taken over didn't seem in their right minds while we used them."

  I took his hand and ran my finger across the palm. "How do you leave a body on your own?"

  Tyler trembled at my touch. "It takes time to disentangle myself, to discorporate. But I need absolute concentration and sometimes hours." His eyes squeezed shut for a moment. "They came so close to catching me this time."

  "Bastards," I said through clenched teeth. "Bloody wankers need to mind their own business."

  He laughed and squeezed my hand. "Exorcists aren't bad people. When I was younger, I did terrible things, taking people's bodies on joyrides. There are others like me who don't care about the damage they do to people or the havoc they wreak. It's a good thing to have Exorcists, believe me. They keep the truly bad spirits at bay. Unfortunately, it means I will always have to be careful."

  "You're rich now. Hire bodyguards."

  "Maybe you're right."

  "Of course I'm right." I gave him an indignant look. "I'm a woman."

  He laughed and pecked me on the nose. "You are quite the woman, Miss Glass." His voice lowered into a sexy rumble. "And you're mine."

  Chapter 31

  My body responded to the desire in his voice, sending a heat wave down to my stomach. "Are you using your powers on me?" I felt a smile playing on my lips. "Demon pheromones, perhaps?" I traced a finger along his jawline.