Hellsbane Hereafter (10 page)

I swallowed the thick knot at the back of my throat, blinking against the stinging tears in my eyes. “Meeting me made it easier for you to give in. If it weren’t for me, if I didn’t love you, you would’ve resisted longer.”

Eli looked away, scrubbed a hand down his face, thinking. “Maybe.” He turned back to me. “But eventually I—”

“You don’t know that.” I stepped back, shifting quickly to steady myself on the soft, loose sand. “Just like before you’d take it one day at a time. You could’ve lasted. You could’ve gone on forever never having to lose your brothers.”

“I don’t think so.” He pulled me close again, wrapping his arms around me, hugging me to his powerful body. “I don’t regret my choice, Emma Jane. I am content. I’m happy.”

My cheek rested against his chest, my tears staining his shirt. I wanted to believe him—I
needed
to. But I knew him too well. I knew in my arms was not where he belonged. But I closed my eyes, allowed his words to become truth in my mind, and grabbed hold of that truth with all that I was.

His hand cupped the back of my head, and he pulled me into him, lifting my face up to his. With no more warning than that, he leaned down and took my mouth with his, filling my lungs with his breath, pouring his power into me.

My knees weakened, and I braced against him, heat pulsing through my body, humming beneath my skin. He scooped me into his arms only long enough to turn and lay me gently on the huge lounger. It was made for two, though Eli was several inches taller than it was long. Still, he nestled in beside me. Propped on one elbow, he leaned over me, pressing kiss after kiss to my cheek, my ear, my neck. Each time he inhaled, as though smelling the sweetest flower, the most delicious dessert, taking my scent into him. And each touch of his lips sent a jolt of pleasure zinging through my senses, turning things low inside me hot and slick.

My back arched as he brushed his hand down my chest, lightly touching the center of my breasts as he found the bottom button of my blouse. Deft fingers unfastened one pearl button after the next, spreading the edges as he worked upward, caressing my exposed flesh again and again as if it were the first time. With the last button at the center of my chest, he spread my blouse wide, exposing my lace bra, my breasts full and sensitive beneath.

He leaned over me, his gaze fixed on my lips as his hand slid to one side, caressing the swell of my breast, cupping me in his palm. My breath caught, but his mouth was already on mine, kissing me, tasting me. I breathed him in, his sweet flavor dancing over my tongue, along with the exhilarating charge of his power. My body awakened, need knotting in my stomach and aching between my thighs.

As if sensing my surge of desire, he nestled his body closer to mine, his hand sliding down my side, smoothing over my hip to the hem of my skirt. My brain struggled to keep up, his mouth suckling kisses from mine, his fingers tugging the fabric up my thighs. The warm press of his power stroked through me, like gentle fingers touching me where no fingers were meant to touch. He traced over my bare flesh, encouraging my legs wider, edging closer to the apex of my need.

Muscles tensed, wanting his hand to move higher, to touch me, enter me. My body arched into his touch, moving on instinct.

But like a warning bell in my mind, my conversation with Michael replayed through my head. “Can Eli go back to Heaven?” I’d asked.

“That depends,” he’d answered, “on whether Elizal continues to sin.”

The memory was almost painful, knowing I had to stop him. I grabbed his wrist, just as his fingers stroked under the lace of my underwear. “Stop.”

My voice was nearly lost in his kiss. He whispered back, “It’s okay. We’re alone on the island.”

He pushed beneath my skirt again, his long fingers brushing the sensitive entrance of my body. I gasped, wanting so much to let him do what he wanted. I couldn’t.

“Eli, no.” I tightened my hold on his wrist, pushing his hand away.

He pulled back, rising up to see my face. “What’s wrong?”

I squirmed away from the warm embrace of his body, putting space between us on the lounge. “Nothing. I just…I just wanna take a swim first.”

“Now?” He blinked at me, watching me scoot to the edge of the chair and push to my feet.

“Yeah. Why not?” I toed off my heels and finished shrugging out of my blouse. I was already jogging toward the water as I unfastened my skirt and slipped it off, then shimmied out of my underwear, leaving it all in a rumpled pile.

The water was warm, and I guessed by the clarity it was probably the Mediterranean. It was Eli’s favorite ocean. We’d swum in it before.

I jogged as far as I could, until it got deep enough that I nearly tripped. Instead of falling, I dove. The dwindling daylight only penetrated a few feet below the surface. When I came up for air, I turned and looked back at the shore. Eli stood at the water’s edge, hands in his pockets, water drenching his slacks to his knees.

“Do you find me…repugnant?
” Without moving his lips, his voice slipped through my mind like a gentle breeze. I’d learned to block my thoughts from Eli, but I could never bring myself to shut him out completely. He couldn’t know what I was thinking unless I lowered my shields, like unclenching a fist in my mind. But there was nothing stopping him from projecting his thoughts into my head.

The question came as such a shock I forgot to tread water for a second. “No,” I said, then realized I was far enough out he might not hear me. I pushed my thoughts into his mind, like cracking open a window just enough to be heard.
“Why would you ask such a thing?”

He took another step deeper into the lapping waves.
“It’s all right, Emma Jane. It’s normal. You’re illorum, and I…I’m Fallen. There was a chance your feelings for me would change after my fall.”

“Eli, no.”
My heart stuttered, my chest so tight it hurt. I could almost see him swallow, gulping down emotions.

He squinted at me, licking his lips. The sun had sunk lower, barely more than a red glow on the horizon.

After a moment, he took another step, his hands dropping from his pockets to hang loose at his sides.
“I know how my fall has cost you, Emma Jane. If I had thought it through… I never meant for you to lose so much. It was my decision, my price to pay. You would be right to despise me. You mustn’t feel obligated to—”

“Stop. Please.”
I couldn’t bear it. I was trying to save him, and I was cutting my heart out to do it. I’d been willing. I would’ve done anything, paid any price, but after everything he’d lost, I couldn’t allow him to think for even a second that I’d turned my back on him, too.
“I love you, Eli. Do you hear me? I find you beautiful. Amazing. I find you intoxicating. I will never stop loving you. No matter what.”

My heart gave a hard thud, and with the next beat, Eli was in front of me—naked, chest deep, treading water.

He pulled me into his arms, transporting us closer to shore, though the water still lapped at our chests. “Say it again. Please.”

I couldn’t touch ocean floor, but Eli could and looped my arms around his neck and let his strong legs support us both. His hard sex pressed between us, sending a quick thrill through my veins. “I love you—”

With a hard kiss, he stole the last word from my lips, his hands smoothing down my back, cupping my naked bottom in his big palms. And just like that, the desire and need that I’d managed to squelch on shore flamed through me again.

My breath trembled out of me, his kisses trailing over my cheek, his teeth nibbling my ear, his mouth suckling my lobe. I lifted my legs on reflex, clenching my thighs around his narrow waist.

I’d wanted to save him, to give him back what he’d lost, but refusing Eli was harder than I’d ever imagined. I couldn’t bear to hear the doubt in his voice again. It wasn’t worth it. At least that’s what I told myself. Maybe it was just what I wanted to believe, but for now…that was enough.

“Take me to bed,” I said.

He did.

Chapter Eight

Someone somewhere banged a gong. The sound echoed off the high mountaintops, reverberating through the air, traveling along the Earth’s surface until it found me sleeping on the deserted island in the arms of a fallen angel.

My eyes snapped open, unable to ignore the dreamlike memory of that sound.
Michael.
I knew it was him, though I didn’t know how I knew.

I glanced over my shoulder at Eli asleep on his side, his arm draped over my middle, his chest rising and falling with deep, sleepy breaths. With any luck, I’d sneak out to meet Michael and be back before Eli knew I was gone. Did the archangel seraphim only call me when Eli was sleeping on purpose, or was it just a coincidence? Even if my mental shield wasn’t strong enough to keep out Michael, I was pretty sure he wasn’t listening in. I mean, I was chummy with demons now and sleeping with a Fallen. My mind was too stained for him to stomach.

Scooting from under Eli’s arm was an exercise in contortionism, but I managed to use the sheet to lower his arm to the bed without waking him.
Score.

My clothes were still on the beach in a rumpled heap. Thank God my bra and underwear were on the top of the pile. They were damp but mercifully free of sand. I pulled the undergarments on, damp or not. No way would I go commando to a meeting with an archangel.
I have standards.
And with a simple thought, a stretch of my will, I used my power to transport me to the beach. My butter-yellow skirt and airy, ivory blouse were exactly where I’d left them: in a wrinkled, sandy pile next to the round lounge chair.
Perfect.

I dressed in under three minutes, and after raking my fingers through my hair a few times, my bedhead became more of a nap-head. It would have to do. I turned in circles until I found my phone peeking out from under the lounge chair. It must’ve fallen out of my skirt pocket.

I checked my messages. Still nothing from Mihir.
Crap.
I thumbed it off, shoving it into my pocket as my thoughts turned to the archangel who’d summoned me. In my mind’s eye, I saw Michael sitting on a bench in the dim glow of a street lamp. A wall of storefronts stretched in the near distance behind him, their big, colorful signs now a dull wash in the darkness, the neon tubes outlining letters now black.

I closed my eyes, called up my power, and took a step in his direction. My next step took me across a wooden boardwalk that ran left and right as far as I could see. I threw a quick glance behind me, noting the Bar & Grill sign I’d glimpsed in my mind’s eye and the storefronts on either side all closed in the early morning hour. I turned to the archangel sitting with his back to me at the edge of the boardwalk where wood met sand.

He hadn’t turned around, though I suspected he’d known the moment I’d arrived. Even from eight feet back, I could feel the cold prickle of his power smoking around me, pressing over my skin, feeling me like a living thing. I shook it off, though it didn’t really work.

Michael gazed out at the darkness before him to the sandy beach and the ocean beyond. A streetlamp beside the bench cast a round oasis of light over the young-looking angel, and every few minutes he’d throw up a hand, tossing bread crumbs into the air.

Before they could fall to Earth, a flash of white feathers dove in, snatching the morsels midair, then shot off, disappearing into the darkness again. I looked higher, just above the arch of light to the flock of seagulls struggling in a slow breeze to hover near enough to grab the next offering from the angel.

Did they know what he was? Did they sense his power, his purity? I doubted they cared. “Aren’t seagulls normally sleeping at this time of night?”

“Yes. Would you like to feed them?” Michael asked without looking back at me. “It’s quite relaxing.”

It’s good to be a phenomenally powerful angel with sway over creatures great and small. I guess I should’ve been happy he didn’t enjoy feeding sharks. I crossed the distance between us, stepping around the far end of the bench. I waited until he offered me a seat next to him but kept a comfortable space between us. “You gonged?”

His dark blue eyes shifted to me, brows tight for a moment before he realized what I meant. “Oh. Yes.” He smiled at the thought, the touch of his power finally receding. “Effective.”

“Clearly. Here I am, functioning on about three hours of sleep. What did you want?”

Michael gathered the end of the plastic bread bag on his lap, twisting it closed before tucking it away beside him. He shifted, angling his body toward me, his legs crossed at the knee. “Tell me what you learned from meeting the boy, Jukar’s son.”

“Thought you didn’t care about him.” Suspicion tightened across my shoulders. I still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t clued Dan’s magister in about my half brother.

“I understand he isn’t the only nephilim in the abode.” He didn’t address my accusation. “Twelve nephilim—”

“Thirteen,” I corrected. “One moved out.”

Michael’s dark brows went up. “He was nephilim as well?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but I know they can sense there’s something different about each other, and they’re using that feeling to find a new housemate. It stands to reason they used it to find each other in the first place, including the kid who moved out.”

“You’re assuming the children gathered together on their own?” he asked.

“Yeah.”
No.
I suspected someone was behind the nephilim frat house, but I wasn’t sure why. Until I knew for sure, I wasn’t about to offer a possible trump card without understanding what it was worth. “They don’t realize what they are or why they get that sinking feeling when they’re near other nephilim. I think it’s more of a game to them.”

“I’m told the one, Jukar’s son, is being visited by Fallen,” he said. “Surely he suspects he isn’t…normal.”

“Who told you that?” I tested his honesty. Did the flow of information go both ways, or was I the one being tested?

He looked at me, and like a camera flash, his eyes sparked a brilliant white then blinked back to midnight blue. He smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about the expression. “You’re not a stupid woman, Emma. Don’t behave like one. What does Jukar’s bastard know?”

Not only was it kind of insulting, but it didn’t answer my question. I huffed, frustration tightening my jaw. “How should I know? Why don’t you ask Dan’s magister? He seems to know as much as I do.”

Michael leaned back, emotion draining from his expression. “I could simply kill him if you prefer, making my questions moot.”

“No.”
Wow. That escalated quickly.
My gut told me he wasn’t being melodramatic. “Okay. I really don’t know for sure. I got the feeling he believes he’s destined for something big, but he doesn’t know what, and he doesn’t know why. The other guys seem to agree with him.”

“Perhaps they’re not wrong,” Michael said.

“Or maybe the Fallen just like hanging around a nephilim who knows what they are and doesn’t want to chop off their heads.” Although unsure why I downplayed things, I knew I didn’t want Heaven’s fury raining down on the kid for no good reason.

He sighed and swiveled back to gaze out at the dark ocean. “What has Jukar told you?”

I shrugged again. “Just to protect him.”

“From?”

“He didn’t say exactly—from seraphim, illorum, whatever.”

Michael pulled out his bread bag again, untwisting the end and digging out a single crumb. “Protect him from being persuaded to join my ranks?”

I remembered Eli drawing his sword on Crissy when she’d offered her illorum sword to Abram. Had Dan told his magister about the near battle, and had his magister told Michael? “No. I mean, he didn’t specify.”

He tossed the morsel of bread in the air. Just as it reached its apex, a seagull swooped in and snatched it away. “Elizal was also given this same charge?”

“No. Not exactly.” I didn’t know what the right answer was, what would keep Eli from looking like he’d totally gone over to the dark side. “I mean, we’re still a team. He knows Jukar told me to protect the kid and worries what Jukar would do if I fail.”

“Mmm.” The archangel dug for another crumb and tossed it in the air. It sailed up into the darkness and never came down.

“Y’know, if you’d just take Eli back, he wouldn’t be in a position where he’d have to worry about keeping Jukar happy.” It irritated me to no end the way he sat there judging Eli when Michael and the others had turned their backs on him.

“Elizal shows no desire for redemption.”

“He doesn’t even know it’s a possibility,” I said.

“One fact has nothing to do with the other.” He tossed another bread crumb that vanished in the night. “If forgiveness was really what he wanted, he’d want it whether he knew it was possible or not.”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

The archangel’s gaze snapped to me.

I swallowed hard, wishing I’d been a little more tactful. “I mean, it hurts to want something so badly and know you’ll never have it. After a while, you make yourself stop. You make yourself think of something else, want something else, just so you won’t ache for what you can never have.”

He seemed to think about that for a second, sniffed as though conceding the point, then tossed another bread crumb in the air. “Our arrangement still stands. Bring me something of value, and Elizal will be welcomed home.”

My brain shifted through the information I had on Jukar, his sketchy plans for the war, the future. I didn’t know squat. You’d think my dad was keeping me in the dark on purpose. Was he? Was it possible Jukar knew I was spying for the other side and purposely kept me out of the loop?

No.
It didn’t make sense. If he didn’t trust me, why would he have made me Abram’s protector? The truth was there wasn’t much to spy on. Other than increasing his gibborim army, Jukar didn’t seem to have a master plan to win the war.

The only thing I had left of any interest to offer had nothing to do with Jukar. Or did it? “The kid has a ring. The Ring of Solomon.”

Michael looked at me. “How do you know?”

“I saw it.”

“No. How did you know it was the Ring of Solomon?” he asked.

“I’ve seen it before. A friend told me it’s kind of like a supernatural dinner bell. Whoever wears it can use it to call up some pretty nasty baddies to do their bidding. The downside is that whatever they call up can slip through and take over the person’s body…and, y’know, eat their soul.”

“It’s more of a leash than a dinner bell.” He turned his gaze up to the seagulls still jockeying for position in the darkness. “It can be used to rein in many things, but it is never so effective as when it’s used to control the thing for which it was made.”

“What was it made to control?” The question stuck in my throat.

“Angels,” he said simply.

“Domina?” A male voice cut the silence behind us, and I twisted around to see Rumyal, Eli’s new best buddy, staring at me in pained confusion.
Busted. Crap.

“Rumyal, what are you doing here?” I stood and came around the end of the bench as quickly as I could. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize the angel I’d been sitting with.

The Fallen blinked at me, butterscotch brows knitting above his blue eyes, his smile dimming. “I wondered the same thing about you. Are you the one who texted me? I didn’t recognize the number. Why are you sitting with the Right Hand?”

I glanced back at Michael just as he tossed a bread crumb into the air. His head turned a fraction of an inch, and I caught a smirk flashing across his mouth. Had he called Rumyal? Why? And why had Rumyal called Michael the Right Hand? “The Right Hand of God,” I said out loud as my brain unscrambled the meaning.

“Yes.” Rumyal drew his sword. “What’s going on? Does Elizal know you’re here? Does the archangel?” His smile flattened, the implications quickly mounting.

“Rumyal, wait a minute. I can explain—”

“Yes, Emma Jane, explain to the pitiful creature why you’re secretly meeting with the leader of the opposition.” Michael dug another bread crumb from the bag.

“Thanks. You’re not helping.” I turned back to Rumyal. “Listen, it’s not what it looks like.”

I inhaled, mouth open, ready to offer some plausible explanation, but nothing came to mind. My mouth snapped shut. It was exactly what it looked like. I was meeting with the enemy of the Fallen to feed him information that would help turn the war against them. I was doing it for Eli. I hadn’t even felt guilty about it until that very moment.

The decision had been easy. I didn’t think about anyone else, the thousands of fallen angels who believed I was on their side, who trusted me, who’d grown to like me. I hadn’t even considered them. Worse, I hadn’t considered for a second that while I played 007, I’d grow to care about some of the very people I’d betray. Rumyal. Danjal. And several others back at the office.

“Domina?” Rumyal asked, crestfallen.

The pain in his eyes sliced through me like hot glass, shredding my insides. “You don’t understand. Michael’s going to help Eli get his grace back. I’ll explain more, but not right now. You have to leave, Rumyal. Please. Go home. I’ll meet you there.”

Rumyal looked so innocent, so human, only a few years older than me, his golden hair neatly trimmed, his broad shoulders and muscled body showcased in his dark blue business suit. Except for the gleam off his sword, he looked every bit as human as I did. And I’d cut him to the core, my betrayal darkening his brilliant blue eyes, etching deep creases across his brow.

“They’ll forgive Elizal? The Right Hand has told you this? Promised?” he asked as if even he could understand how the payoff might be worth the price.

“Yes.”

“No,” Michael said, and I turned to stare at the back of his head. “She’s received no guarantees, only the possibility. She betrays you and your wicked kin on the
chance
that she might glean something of value to trade for her lover’s grace.
This
, on the condition that Elizal repents of his own volition and sins no more. Tell her, Fallen, what is the likelihood that once an angel indulges in the pleasures of the flesh he will refuse such bliss again?”