Azrael's Light [Demon Runners of Unearth] (Siren Publishing Classic) (17 page)

“Why did you let me think it was an accident?” He’d not only grieved over the loss of his friend but doubted his own abilities as a Runner and a mentor. Knowing they’d let him think it’d been his fault made his blood boil. He may have been serving time but he’d truly believed they had more respect for him than that.

“Believe what you will, but if you’d known he’d done so intentionally, it would have changed the outcome of the future. Right now there are greater things in the works than your feelings or even our own destinies.” Did they really believe that? The sisters never appeared concerned over anything except their own agenda. If they were truly worried he couldn’t begin to guess what was going on behind the scenes.

“One last thing. My free time. What little of it there is, it’s mine to do with as I wish. Correct?” He put enough steel into his voice to reinforce that it wasn’t truly a question. That time was precious to him and he wouldn’t budge on this.

“Azrael.” All three heads turned to look at him with dark, knowing eyes. Atropos spoke with gravity. “Yes, your time is your own. We value your service and know you hold no blame in what happened with Andras. We will find you new trainees and in no time you will have a unit of Runners to command. Under your tutelage they will no doubt serve with the diligence and dedication we have come to appreciate from you. You’ve earned it and we would trust no other in a command position.”

He fought to keep his stony expression in place when in reality he was surprised his jaw hadn’t hit the floor. In the three thousand years he’d worked for them, they’d never given him the slightest hint they were satisfied with him as their only Runner.

“We will be adding one more task to your list of responsibilities.” Little Clotho, the spinner, added in a somber voice, “The seven babes Belial touched will need protection and guidance. They must be protected at all costs.”

“Will we find them all?” He looked to Lachesis, the drawer of lots. As the one who measured the threads of life and wrote the books of design, she would know best.

“It pains me that I have no control over their destinies. They will have to forge their own path and it will be a treacherous one. I pray that we find them all. They will be our only hope.”

How could seven unborn babes control so much?

“You have time of your own left. Go back to your vacation before it’s gone. And never doubt that we value you or your service.”

When the Fates commanded one to take a vacation, it wasn’t an order to be questioned. He closed his eyes and made the jump to his boat. The sun called his name.

He stripped down to nothing but his pants and dropped down to his lounge chair to soak up as much of the heat as possible. He closed his eyes.

A pair of emerald eyes stared right back at him, filled with more warmth and compassion than the ball of flame in the sky could ever hope to give him. He’d be lost without her. And she may very well end up in danger because of her heart and dedication. She’d need his protection and he needed her in his life.

He hoped it was enough.

Diane fought the urge to fall face-first into her cold bed. The previous two days had flown by in a whirlwind. Searching for Belial’s other victims, who were nowhere to be found, had taken more time than she’d expected. Marie, a sister of one of the waitresses, had suffered a similar assault. While she’d thought she’d had a possible lead, it hadn’t panned out. The woman seemed to have vanished into thin air. She couldn’t say she was surprised after what happened, but she was near sick with worry. The twisting in her belly ensured she wasn’t capable of giving up.

Alice had taken over management of the club and made sure it ran like a well-oiled machine. Hellfire would always be hers, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take advantage of the excellent help already at her disposal. Thanks to the pay increase she’d been given, her new manager had been able to quit her second job as a hotel maid. Knowing Alice would have few more hours for her son and sleep made the decision easy.

Brick continued to escort Alice home each night. Some nights the two were back to their easy work relationship. Others, she could almost see the tension and unanswered spark of attraction arcing between the two of them.

Neither one was talking about it, despite her gentle prodding.

She regretted that she couldn’t explain everything to them. Maybe it would ease their troubles and maybe it wouldn’t, but she hated that she was lying to them by omission. But what could she say?
Oh, by the way. You know that serial killer everyone was afraid of? He’s gone now. I saw the devil himself snap his neck so everyone is safe. It’s all good now
.

Sure, that would work.

Soon she’d need to have her powers rebound. It was a necessary evil, but that wouldn’t make it any less painful. They were a vital part of her, and the emptiness their absence had caused would return. And without them, there would be one less tool to use in her quest.

Azrael’s world wasn’t the only one that had been turned upside down.

Against her will, she’d probably spent more time than was healthy worrying about his absence. She told herself time and again to forget about him and the closeness they’d shared. It had been a lovely change of pace in her quiet life, but it was time to make the return trip from fantasy and rejoin the real world.

The lecture hadn’t worked.

No matter how hard she’d tried to cut him from her thoughts, he refused to leave. Her heart refused to listen, and she knew that time wouldn’t change her feelings. Without him in her life, she might as well be back in Unearth. Yes, thankfully she had her bar and its family, but without them and Azrael, she had nothing. It hadn’t been that she’d lived in the wrong place but that she’d been missing the wrong type of connections from her life.

She’d found them both on Earth.

Lauren, she had finally discovered, was the name of the victim she was trying her best to heal. It was a constant struggle. Physically she’d begun to show definite signs of improvement, but her mental health was a completely separate battle. The mental traumas Lauren had suffered led to nightmares and a strong reluctance to rejoin the world of the living.

The only weapon she’d found in the battle to keep Lauren from regressing into a catatonic state was her pregnancy. The thought of having a daughter to care for gave her a motivation to live that she might not have otherwise found.

She’d had no choice but to be brutally honest about the demon who’d raped Lauren, her own powers, and the prophesized path that lay before her unborn daughter. Instead of disbelief or horror, it seemed to reassure Lauren that what happened had been real. She’d been through hell and survived. And she was sane.

With thoughts spinning in a dozen different directions and a determination to find the others and the way to help them, she finally lay down and slipped into a long-overdue sleep.

She stepped into the steaming shower hoping to clear the sleepy haze from her aching head. Fatigue and worry threatened to drown her, and she feared if she didn’t find a solution soon, she’d drop all the balls she juggled.

She wet her hair and then turned to face the hot spray. She arched her neck and let the water’s heat soothe her. She could have easily used her powers to instantly cleanse herself, but the ritual soothed her tired body and helped ease her stress. She might as well get used to living without the benefits of her powers. Before too long she’d be near human again.

She reached for her favorite bottle of body wash, but her hand met empty air. Her eyes opened in confusion as she looked to see where it had gone.

“Let me.” Azrael’s soap-slickened hand slid up her belly as he pressed his hard body against her back. “The first night I met you, I fantasized about this. When I imagined the sight of your beautiful hands slicking the soap over this gorgeous body of yours, it gave me one of the fiercest hard-ons of my life. This reality is so much better than the dream.” He turned her to face him. There she saw desire, affection, and maybe even a touch of worry.

When she opened her mouth to ask him where he’d been, he swallowed her words like a starving man. His mouth settled over hers as if he planned to move in and stay there forever. “Later.” It was barely more than a muttered curse as his hands cupped her face. He held her tenderly for the briefest of moments and then he dove back into the kiss. He suckled her lips, licked into her mouth, and filled her with his dark flavor. He pressed her body against the shower wall until she was surrounded by nothing but his hard body and wicked scent. The combination was lethal to her self control. She couldn’t have found the will to fight him if her very life depended on it. Muscles slickened with water bunched and rippled as if his body had a mind of its own and he fought to remain in command.

She threaded her hands into his hair and dove into his kiss with total abandon. Gods, how she loved his hair. Legends said that on his first trip to deliver a soul to the heavens, the angels cried with envy. She believed it. He’d proved to her there was so much more than even the legends knew.

The press of his hard body filled her with heat, reminding her why she’d felt so empty and cold in his absence. Healed, energized, she and her body came alive for him.

Why was he here now? Drowning in a tide of rich sensation, she couldn’t bring herself to demand the answers to questions she needed to ask. At this very moment, all she needed to know was that he was here in her arms. She needed his touch, and judging by the way his strong hands trembled as he swept them down her shoulders, he needed hers just as badly. But why had he left if she was so important to him?

His palms cupped her breasts as he worshipped them with his wicked touch. Her nipples hardened into aching points and arousal flooded her, making her desperate for his every touch.

He picked her up, set her high on his waist, and suckled at her breast. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist, and she felt the press of his heated skin against her core. A desperate, hungry ache set in, tormenting her.

As he fed on her breasts, sending torrents of sensation straight to her pussy, she felt the insistent press of his cock, seeking between her legs. She ran her hands over the sculpted muscles of his chest, ran her fingers over the dark circles of his nipples, savoring the differences in their bodies, his hard and defined, hers soft and giving.

“Azrael, please, I can’t wait.”

“Yes, you can. You will.” The man had the willpower of a saint and the wicked, sexy moves of an incubus. Where had the Fates found him?

One strong arm wrapped around her back, and his fingers began teasing her clit from behind. The wicked torment made her wild with need. She writhed, trying to entice him closer, but he only continued to grace her clit with light, gentle touches, enflaming the swollen bud further. It was a desperate knot of quivering nerves. Even the lightest of his touches weakened the last minute remnants of her will and drove her one step closer to madness.

His mouth moved to the other breast, sucking at the pleading, straining nipple as he blanketed her body with his. Ripples of pleasure began at her breast, raced to her pussy, and intensified the deeper they spread.

A devious finger slipped into the heat of her core and pressed up against her most sensitive spot. She bucked in his arms as lightning shot through her, spiking her need into a feverish frenzy. Her hands clawed his back urging him on. She leaned down, found his ear, and nipped at the soft flesh. Azrael groaned in response and bit down on her aching nipple, but he continued on, teasing and tempting without delivering the one thing she needed desperately.

His muscled arms trembled, his breath came in shorter lengths. He was as close to the edge as she was. And she knew just how to get what she wanted. She broke his hold on her, and with a saucy smile on her face, she pushed him back away against the opposite wall of the shower. Breaking the contact with his body might have been one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

She turned her bare back to him and stood with her legs slightly apart. She arched and leaned forward, giving him a view of what waited for him. A low growl rumbled deep in his throat as a pair of greedy hands grasped her hips and tilted her further.

The taunt was like waving a red cape at an enraged bull. His hands braced hers against the tiles of the wall and then moved to her hips, positioning her exactly where he wanted. She looked over her shoulder to see him take his cock in hand and step forward. With the other hand, he spread the lips of her sex and circled her weeping pussy with the tip of his cock.

He slowly pushed into her, tormenting the sensitive flesh with his patience. Just when she thought he was almost there, he drew back and the ridged head dragged against her swollen flesh. His finger pressed against her clit as his cock entered her, filling her with ecstasy. On the second slow penetration, he filled her to the end and then began to pump with long hard strokes.

Each movement sent waves of exquisite sensation rushing through her.

His pace increased as he rocked against her hips, filling her with each thrust. Delicious friction owned her with every breath she took. Again and again he pushed her closer to the edge where, with a great rush of sensation, she exploded from the inside out. Every muscle in her body quaked with pleasure as his began to do the same within hers.