Of Alliance and Rebellion

by Micah Persell

  So, when she made a deep noise that vibrated from her chest into his and sounded anticipatory, Max nearly sprang back from her so he could see her face. He held himself very still, knowing he’d had to have misinterpreted that sexy noise. But then, her fingers started moving back up the inside of his thigh.

  Max found himself arching into her touch as those fingers burned a trail up the front of his hips and rested at the button of his fatigues. He could feel her uncertainty radiating from her in the sudden tension of her muscles. “I may … touch you?” she asked breathlessly.

  Max bit back the instantaneous desire to bellow yes into her ear, and instead managed a bitten-off, “Please.”

  She sucked in a ragged breath—for courage?—and began to fumble at undoing the aged button that barely held his pants together. Something most unwelcome, almost like affection, overwhelmed him. She may have never done something like this before. It made him feel simultaneously protective and resentful. If she was new to this, he had certain responsibilities. Didn’t he? He felt like normal, kind men were careful in these situations. Those societal expectations could go fuck themselves. And yet… He nearly placed a hand over hers and stepped away with some sort of excuse to end an encounter she may not be ready for.

  But then, the image of Oliver dying—again—surged to the forefront of Max’s memory, and any desire to be gentle with this angel’s sensibilities vanished in a violent death all its own.

  “Do it,” he spoke into the angel’s ear, resisting the urge to nibble on her earlobe. “Touch me.”

  Her breath hitched and then resumed in a quickened rhythm as she brought her other hand into the mix and used both sets of fingers to unbutton his pants. They breathed simultaneously as she spread the front of his pants apart, the sound of his zipper coming down echoing in the quiet cell.

  Max was close enough to her that he knew she wouldn’t be able to look down and examine him, and he was grateful, though he definitely wanted to feel her eyes on his cock. If she was inexperienced, she might not respond favorably to his size, and he could tell by the heaviness in his groin that he was bigger than usual.

  He could see the harried rhythm of her pulse in the flutter at the base of her neck as she skimmed hesitant fingers along the expanse of skin below his belly button. Max’s body jerked without his permission, and he hissed in a breath.

  He’d never felt anything as arousing as this brush of her fingers against his naked skin. His head fell back, and his throat worked up and down as he resisted the strong desire to speak to her—to whisper nice things into her ear: call her his pretty angel as he had done once before in a moment of low resistance; tell her how much she rocked him, both in how she looked and with what she was doing; beg her for more; plead with her to wrap her arms around him and hold him. Sentimental shit that he would never say in his right mind, and that he suspected she would deliver if he did. That he could not stand. He would completely break down in her arms.

  Her fingers maneuvered inside of his pants, and Max realized that as soon as her fingers had touched his skin, the discomfort—which had been steadily headed toward pain and had plagued him over the past two days, since hearing The One … it had vanished.

  The relief he felt was palpable, and with the relief came a renewed sense of urgency that she not stop touching him. Not until he was sure his relief would be long-lived.

  For the first time since this encounter began, Max allowed one of his hands to move away from the wall. He pulled his open pants further aside to allow the angel’s hand easier access to the aching erection within. Like they had coordinated the move, the angel took his cue and slipped her hand deeper into his pants.

  Her cool fingers brushed against his cock at the root where it was bent sharply down, trapped as it was in his pant leg. Even that light brush nearly unmanned him.

  “Soft,” she murmured.

  Max closed his eyes and the grip he had on his pants tightened while the knuckles of his other fist ground farther into the stone. “Take it in your hand, angel,” he whispered roughly. “Free me.”

  She muttered a sound of assent, and then she tried to wrap her fingers around him in the confines of his pants. It took some obvious effort, and when she tentatively tugged on him a couple of times, Max’s eyes rolled back into his head.

  “I cannot…” the angel paused. “I do not want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t hurt me,” he muttered. Not caring if his pants hit the ground, Max slid the hand that had been holding his pants inside next to her fingers. His pants stayed put, and their fingers brushed together as Max showed her how to wrap around him and pull him free. And then she held him in her hands.

  Max couldn’t prevent the earthy groan that rose from his chest at her first hesitant squeeze.

  “You feel…” The angel hesitated, and Max held his breath. “I am in awe,” she said on a breath.

  Max allowed himself to move into her grip slightly. “Move with me,” he whispered, forcing his hand to rejoin the other against the stone wall when he wanted to wrench her to him and thrust with all his strength. When Max next canted his hips forward, the angel moved her fist down his length with him.

  “Oh, God,” Max groaned. His fists unfurled, and his fingertips grappled at the stone wall. “Please,” he heard himself beg. “Don’t stop, please.”

  The angel’s breaths were near pants, they came so quickly, and she moved her fist over his length like this was a fucking dream, somehow knowing he needed her to move faster. Harder.

  Max’s eyes closed, and he admitted defeat. He knew he was not going to last. At all. What had begun only minutes before was going to be over in the next few heartbeats, and there was nothing Max could do to stop it. Even if he pulled her hand from his body, it wouldn’t help, because the memory of her fingers on him would take him to the finish line just as quickly.

  “Angel…I—” A groan cut off his words.

  As though she already knew his body, she tightened her grip and increased her pace even more. And just like that, it was over.

  Stars burst behind Max’s closed eyes, and he heard the distant sound of rock cracking beneath his hands. He clenched his lips against words that wanted to burst from him as violently as his orgasm—words that would be endearments. The pleasure kept coming until Max wondered if it would ever end. When his skin grew too sensitive, he covered the angel’s hand with one of his own, stilling her movements but keeping her hand upon him at the same time. He gulped mouthfuls of air as he tried to regain his senses, and in a moment of weakness, his other hand found the back of the angel’s head. With a moan, he drew her into his body, tucking her head beneath his chin. A fine tremor wracked his body.

  Thoughts bombarded him: She was magnificent. He was never going to be the same.

  As soon as he caught his breath, he was going to lay her down on the cot to their right and cover her with his body. He was going to touch her so right until she was breathless and couldn’t say his name until it burst from her in a scream as she came apart in his arms.

  His thoughts broke off as she nuzzled into his neck. Clarity began to return as she opened her mouth and licked the hollow of his throat, her tongue so hot in the cool cell that Max jumped. And then she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him close.

  Just before he returned her embrace, he remembered himself. He was imprisoned somewhere in Afghanistan. His best friend in the world died every week. His other friend relied on Max to keep him safe. He’d approached the angel to avoid Oliver’s fate and no other reason. And he was a hair’s-breadth away from losing control to the very creature who’d threatened to kill him.

  With a harsh curse, Max wrenched his hand from the back of the angel’s head and tried to step back. When her arms tightened, Max gripped the angel by her biceps and pulled out of her embrace.

  As soon as he was free, he took two giant steps back and dropped her arms as though they scalded him. He felt himself scowl as he took her in. Her hair was disheveled
from his fingers, and her lips were glistening wet from when she’d licked his neck. His orgasm marked the front of her robe.

  She looked so confused by his sudden abandonment that, for a moment, he almost couldn’t resist wrapping her in his arms again and reassuring her. He even took a step toward her to do just that before he forced iron into his spine and stood his ground.

  She threatened to kill you. Would have turned you into a vegetable if you’d let her. With a sick feeling in his gut, he wiped all emotion from his face. Shaking his hair into his eyes and staring at a location somewhere over her shoulder, he sneered. “Was that part of your orders, angel?”

  As soon as the words left his lips, he felt like the dick he was. In his peripheral vision, he saw the angel jolt as though she’d been struck, and Max curled his fists at his sides. She placed a trembling hand over her stomach, and Max glanced at her face through his hair. He immediately regretted it. Her eyes were wide and glassy. She took a step back, and then another one, until her back met the wall where she’d hand-fucked him moments before. Her lush bottom lip trembled, and Max felt as though he would vomit.

  Then, her chin rose into the air, and she fixed him with a look of utter sorrow. In the next moment, she vanished.

  Max felt his eyes widen as he stumbled forward, his hand outstretched toward the space the angel had just occupied. He stopped and forced his arm back to his side.

  A sound behind him brought him up short, and Max turned around only to find the twisted face of Luke where he still sat on Oliver’s cot. Max had never seen Luke look at someone the way he was looking at Max right now. Rage contorted features that were usually so quick to offer a smile.

  “What the hell, man?” Luke’s words quavered with fury.

  Max closed his eyes as he realized what he’d just done in front of an audience. That Luke had deigned to swear at him was telling enough in and of itself. Max had never heard him use a word harsher than gosh, and they were soldiers.

  “I know,” Max whispered, shocking himself even more. He apologized to no one. “I know,” he said again, staring at his toes.

  Max heard the sound of Oliver’s cot squeaking and then the rustle of fabric as Luke approached him. With a sigh, Max raised his head and didn’t defend himself as Luke’s fist snapped toward Max’s jaw.

  It was less than what he deserved.

  Chapter Five

  Anahita covered her mouth with her fist, biting into the flesh of her knuckles to keep from moaning aloud. From just outside her Temptation’s cell, she watched through the bars as Luke punched Max. She had been able to gather herself enough to sink through the walls in the moments following Max’s cold dismissal of their intimate act.

  As Max hung his head and covered his face, Anahita clenched her knees together, hoping to assuage the foreign ache between her thighs that plagued her to the point of tears. The skin of her own knuckles tasted bitter in comparison to the heady honey that had been Max’s neck as she’d dabbed her tongue in the hollow—an instinctual action she longed to repeat again and again.

  Her head ached. All of the reasons she should not have touched her Temptation—those internal warnings she could not focus on in the heat of the moment—were now pounding through her skull. A few moments more, even one kind word, and—Anahita could not fool herself—she would have Fallen. Just like that: centuries of faithful work erased with the passionate swipe of a hand.

  There were only two ways an angel could Fall: taking of the Tree of Eternal Life, and succumbing to one’s Temptation, which could happen in more than one way. Temptations were not always human—Lucifer’s Temptation had been pride—but they usually took the form of a human. If angels created life with their Temptations, they Fell at the moment of conception. Nephilim—the offspring of a human and angel—were dangerously powerful and not to be created. One of the other ways angels could succumb to their Temptations was making a conscious decision to Fall for them in order to be with them for the rest of their lives. It was the only way an angel could be with their Temptation for anything more than a short length of time: the average lifespan of a human. By Falling, the angel joined life spans with the Temptation’s; the angel lived for a shorter amount of time than she would have, but the Temptation existed much longer, which was why some of the earlier humans had lived for hundreds of years.

  But Falling came with too many risks for many angels to even consider the benefits of lifelong love. For one, when an angel Fell, they lost some, or even all, of the gifts given to them by the Most High. Jayden had lost his ability to turn invisible when he Fell for his Temptation, Grace, and he had been lucky that invisibility was all he’d lost. For another, Falling turned an angel mortal. Oh, angels would still live in perfect health until something external—like an attack—killed them, or until their Temptation succumbed to mortality. But once word got out that an angel had Fallen, they seemed to have a target upon their backs. Angels were among the most hated beings in the universe, and their enemies pursued them in their weakened Fallen state mercilessly. Not many angels would consider the risk to the human they loved worth the cost, since their lifespans were linked and the human died with the angel. Anahita knew it must already weigh on Jayden’s mind with his own human. Yes, the Fallen could potentially live millennia with their Temptations, but Anahita knew of no Fallen who had managed to do so.

  If Anahita were Fallen, she knew she would not last long. She was a Warrior, yes, and a trained one, but she had no actual war experience. Minutes ago, she’d been willing to give it all up for the man who had looked at her with disgust and spoken cruelly to her while his passion had yet to dry and was being absorbed into the fabric of her robe.

  Anahita closed her eyes against the view of her Temptation. Even looking upon the body that had been pressed to hers brought on fresh self-loathing.

  And still, Anahita could not leave him. She’d tried. That was why she was pressed against this wall outside the bars. She’d laid eyes upon her Temptation; she’d touched her Temptation. She was as much a prisoner of his presence as he was a prisoner of this cell.

  Anahita winced at a faint pressure in her temples. The angels rarely felt pain, so it caught her attention. And—Anahita frowned—this pressure felt just like the pressure she always felt when her brother, Jayden, read her mind. Jayden’s gift never hurt the humans when he used it, but the angels were sensitive to each other’s powers. Jayden would have to be here—within a certain distance of her—to read her mind.

  With a sudden rush of something that felt akin to shame, Anahita hoped that Jayden had not witnessed her first intimate act and the bruising rejection that had followed on its heels. Anahita covered her eyes with one hand and took in a shuddering breath. She would not be able to stand it if Jayden had seen.

  She heard a telltale ruffling of feathers, and with a silent sigh of resignation, Anahita raised her head. Jayden, indeed, was here.

  He walked over and stood next to her, leaning against the wall. How he’d gotten here, Anahita did not know. He would have had to walk through the compound in full sight to get here.

  She felt the gentle pressure on her temples that meant Jayden was again reading her mind, and then he snarled. “I will kill him,” he whispered. “Your emotional pain is breath-stealing.”

  Excellent. So, Jayden hadn’t witnessed her shame firsthand, but he now knew of it nonetheless because she could not control her thoughts. Again, mental images of how Max had looked at her stole through her mind, and the bones of Jayden’s fist cracked as he repeated, “I will kill him.”

  Anahita couldn’t prevent the mental plea that shot through her entire being: No! She could feel the tension radiating from Jayden, and she knew she didn’t have much time to convince him of anything before he acted on her behalf and slaughtered Max before her eyes. She grasped at the first viable excuse she could think of. Killing him is my mission. Brother, you know how much I have to prove. It must be me. When Jayden relaxed, Anahita sighed. She gathered her thoughts. Why
are you here?

  She could feel Jayden’s hesitation. Finally, he whispered, “We are here to rescue these men. To take them home.”

  Anahita frowned. We?

  “The American soldiers I was tasked with killing.” Jayden’s feathers ruffled again. “They want their friends back.”

  Anahita squeezed her fists. Earlier this year, Jayden had allowed his Compulsion to set in his mission to kill the immortals in America who had tasted of the Tree of Eternal Life. Instead of killing them, Jayden had embraced them as his pseudo family after encountering his Temptation in their midst.

  It was the reason Anahita had been given the mission of killing the immortals in the cell before her now: Jayden had failed, Falling rather than killing those he loved. And of course Jayden’s immortals would want these men back. They had been separated almost nine years ago and had thought each other dead. If one group knew of the other’s existence, their desire to reunite would be overwhelming. Humans formed lasting ties that defied Anahita’s comprehension.

  Anahita glanced at Jayden with this fresh reminder of her purpose. Did he have his sword here with him, hidden beneath one of his wings?

  Probably. He always had the sword with him. Could she be fortunate enough to have both her targets and the weapon needed to dispatch them in the same location?

  An idea sprouted like a sunflower in summer, and Anahita calmed her adrenaline before Jayden could detect it. Jayden, I’ll help you … rescue the humans.

  She could tell that he’d felt her hesitation on the word rescue, but she could also feel interest pouring off of him as well. Jayden feeling emotion. Anahita almost couldn’t believe it. He had always been so stalwart, and now even she, weak as her perceptions were, could sense his emotions.

  “I’m listening,” he whispered.