“Mikayla you do not need to be afraid of me.” His once rough demanding voice now held a soft, dreamy quality. He stared intently at her before reaching out his hand. She looked to it then back up to his concerned face. It wasn’t until she finally decided to take his hand that she noticed how bad she was shaking. She couldn’t think of what to say, it’s not every day you see someone grow wings from their back.
He slowly wrapped her up into his arms holding her close, his chest was like coming home. Warm, soft and welcoming. Was it because he was an angel? His actions didn’t seem angel like. Now aware of how frantic her heart rate was, she sucked in a calming breath and closed her eyes trying to calm down.
“You’re in a little bit of shock. You’re okay.” His hands worked out the chill she didn’t know she felt, rubbing her back up and down in a calming manner. After gathering herself, she stepped back wrapping her arms around her body taking in the sight of his wings. They were huge. They looked about the same size of Anock’s. Both were intimidating and strange to see in person. She took another healthy step back looking into his vibrant green eyes, they were so bright. There also seemed to be a slight golden glow around him that wasn’t there before.
She opened her mouth not sure where to begin, while he rolled his shoulders back bringing his wings in slightly.
She just made out with an angel.
She just almost begged an angel to have sex with her.
Embarrassment was an understatement. Weren’t angels supposed to ward against sinful actions? Why was he coming on to her if he was supposed to be all saintly and such?
“How are you an angel?”
“Just like Blake is a demon. Did he not tell you about our birth? About yours?”
Mikayla shook her head. “He told me about twins that were born from Lilith and Samuel, but we hadn’t got around to anything about me and I guess I hadn’t picked up the part that you were brothers. Let alone the fact that you guys are the twins from the story, I assume.”
She paused pushing her hair out of her face from the wind that had suddenly picked up. “How do I fit into all of this?”
“It’s a game Mikayla. All of this.” He waved his arm around him and she wasn’t sure if he was talking hypothetical or the dream they were standing in. “We just have to play our part to survive and unfortunately that means you’re involved too.”
“Do I have angel blood? Is that why I’m even involved in the first place?”
He stepped forward lightly cupping her face. “I’m not sure it’s time to reveal what you are yet. There could be a reason Blake hasn’t said. Things have to go in order for it to come out the way we want.”
She reached up grabbing his hand that held her face, loving the warmth and comfort he gave with just a simple touch. “James just tell me. Please I hav-“
Before she could finish her statement, a boom pierced the sky.
Covering her ears, she turned looking around right as a violent wind rushed all around them whipping the sand so hard it stung at her uncovered skin. James pulled her towards him to try and wrap her into his arms as his wings started to close around them in protection, but it wasn’t fast enough for the blast of heat that rushed towards them making Mikayla stumble back into James hard, with his chest and his wings flying back.
Feeling the blast of heat and wind die down she looked up into James face seeing his hard, dangerous glare staring ahead from where the blast originated from. Mikayla turned to where he looked in time to see a fire rip across the sand following the shoreline with a figure standing dead center.
He stepped forward giving her a better look at what was coming for them. Although he looked different, way different, somehow Mikayla knew it was Blake. He looked every inch of the incubus demon he said he was. She sucked in a scared breath putting her hands over her mouth. She’d never seen his demon form and he was the most terrifying yet intriguing thing she’d ever seen.
How can twin brothers be so different?
Blake stood among the fire unaffected. His skin had been transformed into a black looking leather with cracks showcasing a red glow that looked like lava beneath his skin. He’d grown claws, fangs and, just like his brother he had wings, only his were leather looking with deadly spikes on the ends. As if he transitioned while wearing his tux, the only thing on his body was the remnants of his dress pants that barely covered him and hung in tethers around his thick thighs. He looked to be 7 feet tall and seemed to tower over them the closer he got.
“This wasn’t part of the deal James.” Blake’s voice sounded rough and inhuman.
James grabbing her shoulders pulled her beside him, putting his arm in front of her while keeping his wing guarding her back. “There was nothing in our deal about me visiting her dreams.”
Blake’s terrifying form stepped closer. “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN THAT VISITING HER COULD MESS UP THE END RESULT!” He growled, raising his wings high in the sky. Mikayla trembled grabbing onto James arm. “Wake her! Now! And do not ever visit her again. Or our deal is done.” He stepped forward even closer to them and she took note of the blackened smoking sand he left under his footprints.
James looked back at her before attempting to move away.
She held on, “James no! Take me with you!” She wasn’t one for begging, but the hell with humility she didn’t want to go with Blake like this. She couldn’t believe she had been so close to a monster no more than a few hours ago. She couldn’t believe she had found him attractive. She had been turned on by him!
It brought home the fact that she really was trapped in Purgatory, and he really was a demon. That this was all real.
“He won’t hurt you.” James pried her hands off his arms before stepping back as she started to hyperventilate looking between the two men that held her fate in their hands. How could he be so calm?
James gave a sad smile before backing away from her as Blake stepped forward. She couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real life. An angel and demon stood before her, and yet the angel was giving her away to the demons in Hell like she was nothing. Before she even realized it, she was crying, which only made her mad.
“James no! I won’t go with him! I won’t go back there!” She started to back away. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was sleeping back in the mansion and that this was only a dream, but if James was here why couldn’t he save her? Why couldn’t she go with him?
Blake’s skin started to go back to normal as he transitioned back into his human form. He looked to James ignoring her. “Wake her or I’ll bring her back the hard way.”
James shook his head. “I don’t see how the hell this interferes with anything. She is mi-“
“ENOUGH!” Blake roared at the sky before throwing down a black metal cube that threw out a wall of light as soon as it hit the sand.
It was so bright she had to bring up her hands to shield her eyes. She tried to continue to stumble away, but the light acted as a giant vacuum, and she was sucked into it the light instead. She tried to look around for James or Blake but the light had engulfed her.
A scream ripped from her as the feeling of weightlessness hit her and she was falling through an empty void full of light. She closed her eyes to block out the intensity, it wasn’t until the deafening roar died down that she opened her eyes back up to realize she was right back where she fell asleep…in her purgatory bedroom.
Throwing back the covers she jumped up swallowing her next scream, her heart beating out of her chest. This wasn’t her life, this couldn’t be. Maybe she got hurt and was in a coma somewhere? Maybe this was one big dream and she would wake up?
Hot angels and demons or not.
Dream or no dream.
She had to escape.
Flinging her bedroom door open, she slammed into a wall of muscles.
“Get back to bed.” Blake growled in his still demonic voice.
“NO!” She yelled automatically not caring who or what was in front of her. She looked up challeng
ing his bright red eyes. He was now back to full human form and wore the fighting uniform she saw him in when they first met.
He growled stepping forward, his jaw ticking in anger. She ignored his anger though. She’d had enough of this. They weren’t going to kill her, or they would have already done it. So, what’s the worst they could do? Making up her mind to fight for her freedom, she stepped forward shoving him hard before trying to rush down the hallway. He was faster though and grabbed her arm pulling her back before picking her up and throwing her in a fireman’s carry, walking back into the room. He squeezed hard at her thighs as he walked forward.
“LET GO YOU MONSTER!” She kicked out and screamed hitting his back like a toddler throwing a fit. As much as she wishes it did, it didn’t seem to affect him, and he kept walking increasing his grip on her thighs. His only response was to growl in frustration.
“STOP IT! LET ME GO!”
Just as she was about to bite his shoulder, he threw her back on her bed, standing at the edge. She scooted back away from him as fast as she could before wrapping her arms around her legs for comfort.
“There is no point in fighting this. Just quit. Get some sleep. Tomorrow you will be meeting the prince, officially.” He looked like he was about to say more but closed his mouth before shaking his head like he changed his mind and looked away. “Goodnight.”
At some point while he talked his eyes turned to a brown and she wondered what that meant. He turned leaving her like that with a slam of her bedroom door as silent tears trailed down her face dripping onto her arm. She tried to sniffle them back up, but it was no use. She was about to be full on ugly crying, snot and all.
She was stuck in purgatory with a demon bodyguard and would be soon marrying a prince of Hell. All she’d gathered so far is that one, they thought she had angel blood. Two, her make out buddy who was an actual angel, and his only advice to her was this was a game. None of this was helping her get any closer to finding home. James’ advice was the most confusing of all. How was this a game?
Calming down enough to crawl under the covers, she curled up on her side forming a plan. If she was going to escape, she needed to get more information. She needed to go along with this crazy fantasy world and hope she didn’t get sucked in. Maybe that was the game James was referring to?
Tomorrow she would play the good little captive and bide her time. It was clear James wasn’t going to save her, so she would have to save herself.
They wanted to play…well, game on.
6
Confused
“NO!” Ben shouted. He knew she was just doing her job, but he wasn’t leaving without answers.
The lady clearly frustrated, picked up her phone from behind the desk and began punching in a set of numbers. “Sheriff Quincy, I need your assistance up front as soon as you can get here. Yes. No, it’s the Renifum couple again. Yes. Yes, I did. Okay.” She set the phone on the cradle and stared up at them in frustration. “If you wanted to talk to someone, ya’ll got your wish. Now just sit down over there, Sheriff Quincy will be out in a second.”
He really didn’t mean to get his wife Anita upset again by yelling, but he couldn’t help it. Their daughter had gone missing in the middle of the night, and she would have never left in the middle of the night without telling them. When they saw her cell phone on her nightstand with her wallet and purse, they knew something was wrong. They called Ander and he explained he got her home without a problem and her car setting in the driveway proved so. After waiting the long twenty-four hours to fill out the missing person’s report, they did and went to every local news station they could. They were on day three now of her missing and weren’t any closer to getting answers. It was all he could do not to strangle someone. An officer had walked through the house and her room, but since there was no sign of struggle and they hadn’t a lot of information to go off of, her case was on the back burner so to speak.
Ander, their daughter’s best friend and active duty marine, had been out searching ever since they’d called him, three days ago. He was the only one really working at finding her. He showed up at their house around 10:30 tonight, so Anita could fix him supper and get word on anything he had found, but it was no use. It was like she’d vanished into thin air. It was Anders idea to come here to talk to Quincy, apparently Anders dad and this Quincy guy are pretty close friends. Ander explained to him he was hoping that’d be enough to get more help on the case. Ander paced back and forth in front of them as they waited, glancing every once in a while at the back door which Ben assumed the Sheriff would walk through.
A loud buzzing sound rang through the air, causing everyone but the receptionist to jump as the back door opened, and the Sheriff walked through. “Okay.” He said clearing his throat, as the door slammed shut behind him. “Ander, I believe you were needing to have an urgent word with me. This is about the Renifum case I assume.”
The sheriff looked tired and annoyed as he spoke, making it harder not to stand up and cause a scene. It took them twenty minutes of pushing to even get him out here but yet he was the one that looked exhausted and irritated, it made Ben’s blood boil. The sheriff looked like he stepped out of an old western. His Levi jeans and cowboy boots screamed county, but the dip in his mouth made Ben believe he wasn’t taking his job seriously.
Ben watched as Ander walked up and held out his hand to the sheriff, who took it giving him a quick handshake. “Yes sir. I’m sorry for us arriving here so late, but I was wondering if there was a place the four of us might sit down to discuss the case.”
The sheriff looked wearingly towards the receptionist, who looked down at her desk then back to the sheriff. It was clear he didn’t want to talk to them. Why, Ben had no idea.
“All the interrogation rooms are open sir.”
“Put us in two.” The sheriff said as he turned heading for the back door.
Ben helped Anita up, walking quickly to catch up to the sheriff and Ander who held open the door for them. These late nights were not good for Anita, the stress wasn’t either. She was in the middle of her first round of chemo treatments, for stage three colon cancer and her treatments were taking a toll on her body. No matter how hard he fought to keep her in bed though, she refused.
As they walked into the interrogation room, Ander came over with an extra chair helping Anita to sit. Ben wanted nothing more for Mikayla to end up with Ander one day. They’d known Ander ever since he was a little boy and loved him as one of their own. He’d grown into the finest young gentlemen Ben had seen in all his years. He was only hoping and praying that Ander would still be around when they found Mikayla so Ben could let her know how he and Anita felt about their hopes for the two of them.
The sheriff sitting on the opposite end of the table, flopped down a brown folder flipping it open in the middle of the table for everyone to see. Inside it contained two sheets of paper, the original copy of their missing person’s report on Mikayla, and the deputy’s report of the walk through and interviews.
“Now, I don’t know what else we can do for you guys. You both were questioned by our detective, we put out for a missing person, we can’t track her cell phone since it was left behind, and there was no sign of a struggle. I mean folks my hands are tied. We have a lot of other active cases right now and I have every one of my officers doing double time just to keep up with them.”
Ander cleared his throat interrupting. “With all due respect sir, I just came to ask you, if I or we, were to go out and search for her on our own and it was to lead us to a different city, county, or state. Could we request help along the way with our search?”
“I already put a missing person report out there. I guess you could contact TV stations and newspapers, but before you get all gung-hoe”, the sheriff paused spitting his nasty saliva in a bottle he grabbed from the floor.
Ben held back the nerve to smack him upside the head and tell him to watch his manners in front of his wife.
“She is twenty-one, she is a
legal adult. Have you folks ever thought she might have just left on her own and didn’t want to be found? Not only that but she’s only been gone for three days, who’s not to say you don’t take off looking for her and she shows back up after a drunk weekend in Cancun.”
Ben knew that wasn’t the case. Their daughter wasn’t like that. “Now you just hold on a minu-“
The sheriff interrupted him, holding out his hands for him to calm down. “Hey now, I’m not trying to get anyone upset, I’m just trying to point out some things you guys could have missed. Keep us up to date, day to day, and we’ll add it to your file. Call relatives, friends, acquaintances, everybody who’s ever known her and after a week if you still come up short, we’ll talk about pulling out some different stops. My advice to everyone in the room for now is to give it at least a week and get some rest. I know it’s hard to hear, but we are looking and doing the best we can. You guys would be better off going home and getting a good nights’ sleep so you’re geared up and ready to start anew tomorrow.”
“I heard some of your investigations on trafficking cases had led to New Mexico, do you think she could have fallen into that group?” Ander asked.
“How did you hear that?” The Sherriff looked more angry than shocked. This was news to Ben and Anita as well, that Ander had been thinking this could be a possibility. It didn’t shock him since Ander had a lot of friends in law enforcement.
The sheriff ran his hand down his face. “To be honest, I have no idea, but I still wouldn’t advise going out to search. Especially not with the thought you might stumble upon something dangerous.”
Ben looked over to Anita who had started to shake and looked like she could pass out. This stress was too much for her. Looking at Ander and nodding, Ander nodded back. It was time to go.
Ander stood up, gripping the sheriff’s hand. “Thank you, Sheriff Quincy, for your time and meeting us so late. We’ll definitely be in touch. Call any of us at any time if something comes up.”
The Beloved Fire Page 8