Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1)

by D H Sidebottom

  “I’m not sure what to do.”

  The woman’s flawless brow creased. “Do?”

  I shrugged, feeling stupid. “Should I bow, kiss your hand? I’m not sure of the etiquette.”

  She shook her head, giving me another of her brilliant smiles. “You need do nothing but talk to me.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed and cleared my throat. “What should I call you? Alpha? Almighty?”

  She leaned forwards, amusement on her face. “Well, I’m essentially your grandmother, but I’d like it if you call me Mary.”

  I quirked a brow at her. “As in the virgin?”

  She scoffed and shook her head. “Coincidence is sometimes cruelly mocking.”

  Taking my hand in hers, I looked down when a soft warmth stroked my skin. “Things are changing Willa. You need to be prepared.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening. Things are … crazy. It’s all a mess and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do,” I said, feeling completely inferior and useless. “Everyone is suffering because of me. I can’t fight. I can’t even aim a bloody gun. How the hell am I supposed to … do anything?”

  Her smile grew softer, her eyes radiating a tenderness that made me want to cry. “You expect too much of yourself, dear child. And things are not exactly how you see them.” I frowned, her riddles not making sense. “But there’s one thing you need to know.” I looked up at her expectantly, hoping and praying that she would give me some sort of direction, some insight into what made me so important. “Your parents love you, Willa. Your friends love you. Diablo loves you. Delilah loves you. Lincoln loves you. I love you. Rax loves you.” She chuckled when I mumbled something about his balls and a table tennis racquet. “You aren’t alone, Willa. You don’t need to do this alone.”

  “Do what? What am I expected to do?”

  I shivered when she brushed her thumb over my cheek, sliding my hair to one side. “I’m dying,” she revealed with a smile. How can anyone say that and combine their devastating revelation with a damn smile?

  Somehow I wasn’t surprised. Bitterness crept in and I looked at my mother. “Everyone is,” I whispered.

  “You will take my place, Willa Eden.”

  My head snapped round so quickly I’m sure my eyes wobbled in my head when it slammed to a halt. “What?” It came out high pitched and squeaky. “I can’t ... I can’t do … I’m not …”

  She laughed at my horror. “You will, dear child. However there is work to be done first.”

  Very gently she touched my cheek, her palm soaking my skin with warmth. “You must remember that not everything is as it may seem.”

  “A clue would be handy,” I grumbled then cursed myself at my rudeness, but Mary didn’t appear to be offended.

  “You must also remember that you are very, very special. You’re experiencing your evolving demonic side at the moment. Yet its rage is only because you subdue it. Allow it free, Willa. It, like Delilah, was born in you. You need it for the upcoming battle.”

  “Battle?”

  She nodded, her expression taking a sombreness that I didn’t like the look of. “Many are impatiently waiting for my passing. They think they are owed the presidency I am. But it’s not theirs to gain, Willa. It is yours. It was your father’s and now it is yours.”

  My mouth dried as my pulse threatened to send me into cardiac arrest. “I can’t … I’m just a healer. I can’t ‘save the world’,” I said, making air quotes.

  “Willa, listen to your heart.”

  I snorted. “How am I capable of doing that? It’s broken.” I winced, feeling stupid.

  Mary scowled at me. “You must give Rax a chance to explain. He’s your fated one, Willa.”

  “Fated?” I scoffed, growing angry. “He’s already having a child with someone else. We both know that we are granted one child in this existence. And if I do take Rax as my mate … I will surrender my chance to ever be a mother.”

  I felt foolish but it was this fact that hurt me more than anything. I knew Rax hadn’t slept with Tabitha while with me; I knew it deep in my soul. Yet it was the element that if I gave myself to Rax, he would never be able to give me something I craved for. Yet my soul was prepared to forfeit this very thing just for a life with Rax. But my heart was telling me that my existence would be nothing without a child. I was so torn and the ache grew more with every passing minute.

  “You will accept the right thing and you will be granted aspirations,” she said strangely. However I was growing used to her uninformative information.

  We both stilled when a voice whispered in my head.

  “Willa!”

  “Sadie?”

  “Willa! Help me!”

  Mary shot to her feet. “You must go. Your friend is in trouble. I’ll comfort your parents. Go.”

  I didn’t wait for her to repeat herself. Picturing Sadie, I hastily stepped through the hatch that appeared to my right.

  The lights in the alley I stepped into had been broken but I could still see everything in horrifying detail. Sadie was on her knees before a man that towered over her, her head bowed and blood dripping from a deep graze on her forehead. Around five or six dredgen stood in a semicircle behind the man, and as my gaze shifted to a body, Sadie’s spirit sibling, mauled and bleeding out between two dumpsters, I felt the rage start to simmer within me. The air shimmered around me, my fists clenching.

  Sadie sobbed, her head shaking from side to side. “I won’t tell you. I will never …” She screamed, her head tipping back when some unknown force seared red hot pain around her body.

  “You looking for me?”

  Every head turned to me. The dredgen licked their lips, smiles of delight making my stomach roll. My body wasn’t feeling the conviction in my voice. They each stepped aside and my eyes hooked onto the man holding my friend hostage.

  I swallowed, my mind struggling with what my eyes saw. Shrek, the monster from my dream, stood leering at me.

  “About time.” His familiar voice unsettled my stomach, nerves climbing inside me alongside the rage that was growing.

  The air popped and I was suddenly surrounded by Delilah, Lincoln, Jaron, Zak, Dexter … and Rax. Each stepped in front of me. I hated that they did that. I already knew I was useless in these situations but their actions only ground it home.

  “You want to play with her, you go through us!” Rax growled, but there was tightness to his voice, as though speaking was painful.

  I stared in shock when each of my friends were abruptly elevated in the air, mystical chains holding their bodies in writhing pain.

  “Stop it!” I growled. “You want me, not them.”

  “You’re right.” He laughed. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun before I get to you. I must say, Marie was a particular delight to play with.”

  The humming in my ears hit fever pitch, his admission unsettling the beast within me as it fought to rip this bastard’s throat out.

  Delilah screamed, her body contorting with the pain Shrek forced through her. But then each one dropped to the ground, their bodies slumped, unconscious.

  My heartbeat ceased when Shrek lifted another of his spindly fingers and Rax slowly lifted again. His body was flat as the monster manipulated him easily. Even in his forced coma his body twisted as hot agony surged through his veins.

  Shrek chuckled. “Aww, honey. I can smell your fear from here. You’re in love with this pathetic specimen? How futile that is when he’s about to die!”

  “Let them go,” I grated through the furious rattle of my teeth. “You don’t want them.”

  His smile grew crueller and a shudder tore up my spine as my skin started to stretch with unbelievable pain. “You want me to let him go?”

  Everything happened in slow motion. Shrek flicked his fingers and Rax flew into the air at a velocity I couldn’t focus on. The humming in my head and the pain scorching my skin exploded around me as a burst of flames erupted outwards, incinerating everything in its path. In the ve
ry same millisecond my arms were wrapping around Rax, holding him tightly to me as I guided him back to the ground.

  “Rax?”

  My voice made me frown. It was mine but it held a soft, sultry quality. It was then I realised what I’d done. Inhaling sharply, I took a hesitant look around me. The dredgen were blackened corpses but Shrek was nowhere to be seen, yet my friends all appeared unscathed. Their sleeping forms looked peaceful as something held them frozen in time.

  “Rax,” I tried again.

  Rax finally opened his eyes, squinting until he focussed on me. He drew in a long, noisy breath, staring at me as if awed. He shivered in my arms and I watched in horror as his body mutated and his handsome, if not terrifying, demon made a sudden appearance. For some reason this delighted me, my body slickening with heat and my insides quivering in need.

  One of his fingers, if one could call the long talon a finger, drew tenderly along my cheekbone, along my jawline and then I shivered when it shifted behind me and stroked along something that was familiar yet alien. “I want these wrapped around me when I take you, when I sink deep inside you, Seraph.” His gruff voice made me hunger for something I was unsure of.

  I stilled, shivering when he trailed another nail behind me. Taking a deep breath, I slowly turned. Beautifully patterned scarlet wings spanned out from behind me, feathers so soft and delicate rippling in the breeze. I lifted my hands and gawped at the long slender fingers that weren’t mine. My skin appeared to be thicker but smoother, and a red tint shimmered in the darkness around me. My boobs had grown and my stomach was flat. My body was encased in tight red leather, lace covering my legs, and boots similar to Delilah’s came up to my thighs.

  “Fuck, you’re stunning,” Rax/demon growled.

  Shifting beneath me, he stood, towering over me but not in a threatening way. His eyes were so soft and so full of adoration that I wanted to tear out my own heart and hand it to him.

  “I want you,” he snarled, his eyes darkening on me as they slowly roamed over me.

  Suddenly we were in Rax’s bedroom, the alleyway disappearing in a blur. My back hit the wall, my wings spreading out behind me as my body slowly slid up the wall. Rax’s demon stood, his eyes fixed on me as I slid higher and higher. My body wasn’t mine, each movement of Rax’s hands manipulating another part of me as he pinned me.

  I gasped when the front of my leather basque tore open, the laces that had tied it closed ripping like paper beneath his silent order.

  My breasts, my new breasts, spilled out into the air as my legs slid open. My body was on fire with a need that scorched every nerve ending within me until I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the demon before me.

  He stepped forward, Rax’s eyes still locked on me. I couldn’t move, my body his puppet as he strolled across the room to me, his magnificent form making my pussy tremble with excitement.

  The back of my head hit the wall when, like lightning, the demons teeth pierced the vein in my groin, the burst of pleasure it hit me with making me groan and gasp for breath. Bliss licked every sense, an orgasm chasing after the trickle of heat pouring into my veins.

  My hands twitched in need to touch him when his mouth then moved to the junction between my thighs. The most indecent sound rumbled from him when his tongue drew up my pussy, torturing me with ecstasy before his razor sharp teeth played lightly over my swollen clit, forcing another orgasm to break from the centre of me.

  “Oh fuck!” I whimpered when invisible hands caressed my breasts, my arse cheeks, inside me, in my mind, in my anus, every invisible touch driving me wild as my body shook.

  His tongue was doing crazy things to me, each swipe and stroke building a force inside me until the pressure broke in a scream of rapture, the orgasm surging through me too powerful for my mind to handle. My chest heaved as I gulped in stupid amounts of air, attempting to come back down to earth.

  I blinked in confusion when my groan was muffled by the luxurious comfort of Rax’s duvet. I was face down on his bed and it wasn’t until he filled me from behind and my back arched with the pleasure that my mind understood what was happening. The demon growled as he sank his cock deeper and deeper inside me, filling me with the most amazing feeling.

  “You’re mine,” he snarled as he thrust deeply, his fucking growing feverish as we both bucked and met each other’s drives with a ferocity that seared the oxygen in the air.

  Taking the reins, I forced us around until Rax was beneath me, my long fingers pressing into the depths of his pectoral muscles. Not allowing me my own way, the demon sat up and bared his beautiful teeth. Knowing what he wanted, I tilted my head to one side and allowed him my nectar. He roared in delight before sinking deep into the succulent vein that had plumped itself, ready for him.

  My movements on him slowed as a new ecstasy made its way around my body. Tranquillity, desire and need merged as my demon mate suckled on my gift. His eyes grew soft as they lifted to my face from where he nuzzled my throat.

  My wings slid forwards, embracing my lover in their softness as we both cried out with the force of our joint orgasm, our bodies clinging to one another as Utopia beckoned us to taste its offerings for a moment.

  “Mine,” the demon reiterated once again as we both slowly reclined and the deep comfort of my wings led us into the dream realm.

  Sgt Grant Miller stepped out of the twenty-four hour greasy café all the staff at the station used. It was cheap but it was always worth a visit for the coffee alone. That night Miller had filled his belly with chips and egg, heaped with a sickly amount of red sauce and salt, before making his way home after a long night shift.

  Still no word from Valerie or forensics; he was stumped on the young girl’s death. Miller didn’t like having no pathways to follow or no mysterious clues to get his teeth into and he definitely loathed it when the TV appeal that had gone out three days ago had proved fruitless.

  Just as he was about to get into his car, a whoosh of heat around him and a faint flash down an alley opposite the greasy spoon made Miller close his door and reach for the illegal Glock he kept hidden in the inside pocket of his jacket, checking it was loaded before slowly tucking it into the waistband of his jeans.

  Something in the sky caught his attention but when he squinted to look he found nothing of importance.

  However, on rounding the corner to the alley Miller stopped short, his eyes both perceiving but not believing the scene before him.

  “What the fuck?”

  Miller stood, unable to reach for his gun due to shock, watching in what was surely a moment of insanity as a couple of – things … monsters? Angels? - Lay huddled on the ground. At least eight bodies were strewn around the dark passage and a young girl knelt at the end, her head down and her long dark hair like a curtain covering her face.

  The air rippled and Miller blinked, but then everything changed.

  Vomit curled up his throat, his head shaking as his eyes scanned the area furiously, his mind struggling to cope. Squeezing his eyes closed again, Miller reopened them to the empty alley – empty except for the long-haired girl still knelt, her soft weeping making the depth of his heart hurt.

  “Honey?” Miller approached her slowly, not wanting to frighten the distressed girl any more than she already appeared to be. “It’s okay,” he tried softly, his hands out in front of him to show he held no weapon and was no threat.

  Gradually, the girl lifted her face to him. As her soft long hair swept from her face, Miller could feel his breath catch in his throat. Her large brown eyes locked onto him as fat tears leaked down her unusually pale cheeks.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her softly when she scrambled back. “I’m a police officer. My name is Grant. Grant Miller. Will you let me help you?”

  It was obvious that something serious had gone down here, something … inexplicably serious. The distress radiating from this girl, her terror and the smear of blood oozing from a wound to her head told him so.

  Crouchi
ng before the girl, still keeping his distance, Miller slowly reached into his pocket and brought out his badge.

  The girl’s eyes moved to it. She shook her head and tried to move back again but the wall behind her hindered her plea to escape.

  “It’s okay,” he tried again. “I want to help you.”

  “No police.” Her voice was like a purr to his senses, his heart rate slowing soothingly with each word. “No police.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, slipping his badge back into his pocket. “How about you let me help you just as a friend?”

  She frowned then, her face turning to the side so she could study him better. She was quite simply beautiful, the most delicate creature Miller had ever seen in his life, and at thirty-three he’d seen some lookers, but this girl had an aura about her that seemed to curl into Miller’s gut and ease every worry in his sorry life. It wasn’t just her looks that gained his interest, but the way she moved, the way her large eyes almost begged him to help her, the timid way she knelt before him and the indulgent sound of her quiet voice.

  “Friend?”

  He nodded and held his hand to his chest, what for he had no idea, but it seemed like a good thing to do right then. She swallowed, shifting slightly.

  “Let me help you up, honey. The ground must be ripping at your skin.”

  She cowered at first but eventually, her long fingers slipped into Miller’s outstretched hand, the touch making his heart tremble. She was so fragile that he was terrified he was going to hurt her as he helped her to her feet. “You need to go to the hospital,” he said as he studied the cut to her head.

  She shook her head quickly. “No.”

  “Do you want me to take you home?” Her eyes widened and for a moment she looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a damn truck. “I won’t hurt you,” he urged quickly, frightened that she would bolt. “What’s your name?”

  She swallowed, her eyes dropping to their joined hands. “S-Sadie.”