by Emma Scott
This is real.
A sudden, fierce pride rose in me that was taking all of him, even if it felt I would burst at the seams. Ready to explode into stardust with the ecstasy that was building where we were joined and a thousand other places where I felt him.
Finally, just as my sanity felt as if it were stretched to the breaking point, as if I couldn’t contain it one more second, the pleasure released, flooding me. Consuming me like a wildfire run rampant. My nails dug into his perfect flesh, raking over the bunched muscles between his wings. I clung to him as an orgasm unlike anything I thought possible ripped through me. The pleasure went beyond physical sensation. I was given everything I’d longed to feel for years. Lifetimes. I became the heroine in every romance novel I’d ever read. Passages that thrilled me, or brought tears to my eyes, or made my heart pound or my stomach flutter. Every first heated glance. Every first kiss. Every first touch. Every longing to be protected, safe…owned. Every need to be desired, cherished, and wanted with fierce animal lust…I felt it all, all at once.
At the same time, Casziel became every tough hero whose walls are crashed in by love. Every stoic, stubborn man brought to his knees by his woman. His rough sounds of want and lust were a chorus of male need, all coalescing in me. I was a trembling puddle of sheer sensation, surrendering to everything he was doing to me and giving to me and yet powerful too. More powerful than I’d ever been.
I bit into the slope of muscle between his neck and shoulder as I rocked on his cock, rolling and grinding, drawing the ecstasy out until I was wrung out, sopping wet and drained.
Then he released me and lay me on my back. Urgently, he withdrew from me, and the impossible fullness fled with him. I let my eyelids blink, needing to witness him in this moment, just once.
Casziel was kneeling between my splayed legs, black wings outstretched to their fullest length and breadth—a kind of awful, dark majesty. His pale, muscled body was tensed, his head thrown back with an expression of agonized ecstasy. With one hand, he gripped his immense cock, stroking himself to the finish.
The sight was so impossibly erotic. So wrong and dirty and impure. I lay beneath him like a vessel waiting to receive. My fingers went to the throbbing wetness between my legs, stoking the aching need while he made a sound deep in his chest. He came on my stomach and breasts, his release like hot candle wax. I moaned and quickly squeezed my eyes shut before he caught me.
Too late.
“You peeked,” he said, a mischievous edge to his tone. “And why are you touching what’s mine? That beautiful cunt…it belongs to me tonight.”
His dirty, greedy words lit new fires in me. I stroked myself brazenly. “Is that so?” I managed, still catching my breath. Somehow, still wanting more. “Then take it.”
His eyes flared, black and ferocious. I shut my eyes tight and gasped as he moved my hand away and bent his huge, powerful body to the V of my legs. My tentative cry became a scream as he voraciously drew another orgasm from me with his tongue. He soothed the raw, throbbing ache his cock had left and drove me to another crescendo, until I was arched off the bed, hands grasping at the sheets.
When the last wave of ecstasy had shuddered through me, I fell back, limp and utterly drained. Now I couldn’t keep my eyes open if I wanted to. Casziel’s weight settled beside me on the bed, and he hauled me to him. His arms went around me, my head pillowed on his warm skin.
“Sleep, Li’ili. My fierce woman.”
I was sinking into him, my body wrung out and perfectly heavy. Beneath that, the pain of losing him was like a fresh, ragged wound opening wider and deeper with every passing second.
“I can’t…” I murmured. “I won’t…”
“Ssh,” he whispered into my hair. “Sleep, my beloved. We’ll have the dawn.”
But I took my vow down with me. I had Casziel back and I wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.
Twenty-Two
I woke to watery, gray light streaming in from the window. My body felt as if I were anchored to the bed, every part of me utterly drained but satiated.
Cas lay on his back, his amber eyes staring at the ceiling. His hair was rumpled and messy. Human. I didn’t move but just watched him, soaked up his presence because now that I had him back, it was all ending. The clock read a little after ten a.m.
Seven hours. Seven hours and he’s gone.
He’d told me that he’d go back to Ashtaroth’s servitude and there would be no returning to This Side. But there was more he wasn’t telling me. Something worse. A finality that scared me to my bones.
The daylight was like an insult, throwing our limited time together in my face. I remembered Romeo and Juliet, where the morning’s arrival means Romeo has to flee Verona for killing Tybalt. Juliet holds him tight, unwilling to let him go, and pretends the day hasn’t come. It was a playful moment, but Romeo’s response sent a chill over my skin.
Let me be taken. Let me be put to death.
Cas turned his head on the pillow, misreading my expression. “Last night…it was too much. I suspected it would be. Forgive me. I was desperate to have you and—”
“No, last night was perfect,” I said, moving into the crook of his arm, his bare skin warm under my cheek. “I don’t want you to go.”
He pulled me close and pressed his lips to my hair.
“Can you really not come back? Or maybe die and have a new lifetime as a human? Maybe we can find each other next time…”
“I wish that were so.”
“I can’t believe there is no forgiveness for you,” I said angrily, tears pricking my eyes. “I refuse to believe it.”
Cas said nothing but held me tighter. I ran my fingers over his skin, tracing the lines of his scars to the killing stroke over his heart.
“Tell me more about us,” I said. “At the Irish pub—which feels like a million years ago—you told me that our marriage was arranged.”
“It was,” he said. “Marriage in Sumer was more of a business transaction between fathers than anything else. But you and I were different. Our fathers were friends, and our families were close. From the moment we met, there was love.”
“I wish I could remember.”
“I was eighteen. You were fourteen and—”
“Fourteen?”
Like Juliet…
Cas’s chuckle rumbled under my cheek. “It was a different era. I’d already risen in the ranks of King Rim-Sin’s army when our fathers arranged our engagement. Before we could be married, Hammurabi attacked, and I was called away to war for four years.”
“And then you came back,” I said, snuggling tighter to him. “I remember that. But I want the rest of our story.”
“I can give it to you, Lucy.”
I craned to look at him. “Even that last night?”
“That nightmare is best left in the dark.”
“I want it, Casziel. I’m not afraid.”
“Of course, you aren’t,” he said. “You’re my fierce woman. My Li’ili…”
He kissed me, and while there was no icy heat or otherworldly aura behind it, it held its own power. The simple power of a man kissing the woman he loved. My tears spilled from under my closed lids as his mouth gently captured mine, tasting and touching. So familiar. The memory of us was a thousand years old and yet alive in that moment. But unfinished. I wanted the rest of us—our brief love that burned so bright and hot but was stamped out just as quickly.
Like Romeo and Juliet.
Now that my thoughts had latched on to the comparison, I couldn’t stop, and the dread in my heart grew heavier with every passing second. Cas kissed me, beautifully deep and slow, with love and goodbye.
Thus with a kiss I die…
I pulled away, the sobs wracking me. He gathered me to him.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he breathed into my hair. “If there was something else to do, I would do it. But I’ve made my fate. I ruined myself when you died and gave myself to darkness. The sins I’ve committed are not w
ashed away by your sweet tears.”
“I’m not giving up,” I said, wiping my eyes. “And we have time yet. Tell me more about us. Our wedding. Was it beautiful?”
His gaze was steady and soft. Sad. “It was perfect.”
“Show me the rest of our story.”
“I will. But not yet.”
He gave me a final kiss and then rose from the bed. My gaze trailed him, taking in his naked body that was perfect, scars and all. Except for that terrible brand burned into his back. It looked better, but the lines were stark and black on his olive skin. He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts from his pile of clothing at the foot of my bed and padded into the bathroom.
I heard the bathwater running, and the scent of lavender bubbles wafted on the air. He reemerged and wordlessly scooped me naked out of the bed, holding me under my knees and around my back.
“Are you going to join me?” I asked as he deposited me into the water that was just how I liked it—a few degrees below scalding.
“No,” he said. “This is for you. For last night.”
“If you insist,” I said with a groan. I lay back, luxuriating in the perfect water. My body was pleasantly sore and aching, feeling as if it had been turned inside out with the intensity of…
Fucking a demon?
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, a crazed laugh trying to burst out. I’d really done that. Like performing a cliff dive when you’re afraid of heights. Thrilling, death-defying, pushing oneself to the very limits… And you know you’ll never do it again.
Cas took a washcloth and ran it over my face, my neck, under my hair and down my back. Then over my breasts and then lower. Even as wrung out as I was, I couldn’t keep from arching into his touch. But he moved on, running the cloth down the length of my arm, ending with my fingers that he pressed to his mouth. He tossed aside the washcloth and folded his arms on the edge of the tub. I did the same so that our elbows were stacked one on top of the other.
“What happens next?” I asked as steam curled around us.
“I have until five tonight.”
I nodded and realized the only way to survive this was to pretend Cas was going away on a long trip and I wouldn’t see him for a while. Not never again.
Because it’s not never again. It can’t be.
“Is there anything else you want to do?”
He shook his head, his chin pivoting on his wrist. “I want to do whatever you want to do. Or nothing. Just be with you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You were with me in Japan and Russia, weren’t you? In the other lifetimes?”
He nodded. “Always from afar, wanting to make sure you were safe.”
“My guardian angel, a demon.”
He arched a brow. “I believe the term you hated was bodyguard.”
I laughed. “You probably could’ve been a bodyguard-with-benefits in any of those lifetimes. But you weren’t.”
“No. It would’ve been wrong, to be with you like that.” He held up a hand when I gave him a smart look. “Yes, I have perpetrated deception after deception upon you, but that would’ve been unforgiveable. To use you when I had our history and you didn’t.”
“Or maybe it would’ve given me dreams. The same sense of us knowing each other that I’ve had this entire time.”
“Perhaps. I couldn’t risk it. Back then my appetite for blood and death was sharp. It’s since dulled and now I’m just weary.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what it meant to return to that existence under Ashtaroth, but Cas shook his head and put a finger to my lips, then leaned over and kissed me. The kiss turned deeper, more dire. I had thought my body would never again be ready, but I ached for him in every way.
I stood up, the bathwater running over my body in rivulets. Cas’s gaze drank me in, and I never felt more beautiful or at home in my own skin. I didn’t need Casziel to complete me; his love showed me that I was already whole.
The water drained out. He wrapped a soft towel around me and lifted me onto the bathmat. He took his time, running the cloth over my body leaving my skin warm and dry.
Then he took me to bed.
The hours melted away—too rapidly—as the storm grew fierce outside, the rain battering the windows. Inside raged our own personal storm of anguish and love, ecstasy and despair, as each touch, each kiss, each thrust of his perfect body inside me took us closer to goodbye.
Finally, we lay in the quiet of my place, letting the storm howl for us. My head pillowed on his shoulder, my arm draped across his chest, and him holding me tightly. It was after one in the afternoon, and I was drifting toward sleep.
“Cas? I need to ask you a question.”
“Anything.”
“Where is my mother?”
I braced myself for a hard answer, but he said softly, “She’s with you. She’s always with you.”
“But not like my dad.”
I felt him nod. “How to best describe it… Each human has his or her own family of loved ones, though they’re not always related by blood.”
“Like a team?”
“Yes, a team. And they’re with you through every lifetime, though the positions change, each member taking lesser or greater roles.”
“They sit on the bench or they’re your starting player.”
He nodded. “In many lifetimes, you and your mother were very close. In others, one of you stepped back. But never away. Never away.”
“They’re just in the next room,” I murmured and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Thank you, Cas.”
I couldn’t afford to lose a minute of our dwindling time together, but I was growing sleepier. When his time was up, I intended to do…something. I didn’t know what, but I wasn’t just going to let him walk out the door and into Ashtaroth’s waiting arms.
Casziel kissed my forehead, each cheek, one eyelid then the other. I felt myself drift down. I fought it, but the current was too strong.
“I want to sleep for just a little bit. Just a little. But I want the rest of us. Will you show me?”
“I will.”
“All of it. Our last night, too. Don’t protect me from it, Cas. I’m not afraid.”
“As you wish,” he said softly, and I felt his lips on mine in a last gentle kiss. “I will give you us. Li’ili, my beloved.”
I floated down to sleep and journeyed backward at the same time. Thousands of years to the mud-brick house that is filled with guests come to celebrate. It’s dusk. The lamps are lit and she
wears her thick black hair piled on her head, and a dress decorated in gold and blue. Her eyes are lined in kohl and more gold and lapis lazuli glint from a circlet on her brow. The groom steps forward. He is wearing a kilt of leather, his jerkin decorated with gold coins. He lays a heavy necklace around his bride’s neck. When he reaches around to fasten it, their eyes lock; they see no one but each other.
He places a veil on his bride’s head and pours a few drops of scented oils over it. Behind the veil, her eyes glitter with tears.
“This is my wife,” he announces to those assembled.
A great cheer goes up in the front room of the house. Her father—the high priest of Utu—smiles and nods knowingly. Men make lewd jokes. Women nudge the bride and whisper the hope that her new husband’s axe has sufficient weight and heft to it, now that she’s allowed to handle it.
Carried on this tide of lascivious merrymaking, the bride and groom lock hands and hurry upstairs to the bedchamber. A wedding bed of fresh rushes under soft sheepskin awaits. Laughing but with urgency fueling them, they strip each other naked and kneel on the bed, facing each other.
His fierce expression of want softens as he takes her face in both hands. His eyes roam, taking in every detail of her body. Under his armor, he’s as magnificent as she suspected, proudly bearing the scars of battle. She cranes for his kiss, lips parted, breath hot. But he waits, draws out the moment. One by one, he removes the delicate hair clips of lapis and carnelian. Long ribbons of
thick black hair pour down her bare back.
Her lips reach for his, restrained by his strong hand.
“Take me, my love. My husband. I’m yours,” she whimpers. Begs. “Spill your seed inside me and I will give you sons. Fine, healthy sons. Strong, like their father.”
He grips her neck, moved by emotion and barely constrained desire. “How have I earned the gods favor, to be blessed with a woman like you?”
She shakes her head. “We cannot know the gods’ will. Just love me, Casziel. Love me as I love you…”
“I will never stop.”
She moves onto his lap, and he kisses her and thrusts deep, breaking her boundary with rough need. A cry rises to her lips, but he drinks it down and thrusts again. Taking her completely. Conquering her. She surrenders and is victorious at the same time. Her hands clutch his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, and she rides him fearlessly. The fire between them burns hot in every heated gaze, in every scorching kiss. Bodies move, bronzed skin sweat slicked in the torchlight. Her hair clings to her back; his hands are tangled in it as she comes down onto him. As he drives up into her.
Their love is raw and rough but deep, sinking into the marrow of their bones now that they can finally share their bodies. His devotion to her is complete. Her desire is for him and no one else. They are perfect in their love—Casziel and his wife. They move and breathe and touch as one. One soul in two bodies.
Their movements become more frenetic, more urgent as they drive each other toward bliss. He is darkly beautiful in his lust and tenderness. His animal need and his reverence. He fucks her as he loves her. And she
She is me.
The thought—the truth—nearly jars me from the dream or vision, but I fight to stay so that it can flood me completely. Centuries of dammed up love finally breaking free. Somewhere I hear my gasp, as my love for Casziel is all I know or feel. It ceases to hover at the edges of my awareness or reverberate down the long corridors of time like a mournful echo. It’s real and restored to me in all its potent ferocity.