The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (60 page)

Right now, she felt the Silverback’s shock and demise as if it were her own; Abaddon’s teeth sinking into her own neck…

She moaned and turned her head further into Lucifer’s chest.

Fingers circled over the material of her dress, low down across her abdomen. “He’s hungry, Morgana, but know this: he
chose
to feed in this way. He long ago mastered the craving for blood. He doesn’t need it – he
wants
it.”

“And if I offered
you
my vein right now, would you turn away from it?”

His eyes glinted with dark desire as his canines emerged at her words alone.

Morgana fought back her queasiness, the draining life force of the primate still calling to her, and let out a bitter laugh. “No, I didn’t think so. Know
this
, Lucifer: I will never offer you my blood and you will never take from me or any fay. That was the oath you made, all that time ago, when you chose to fall into my arms like the inquisitive babe you were.” She knew it frustrated him. Of all the beings in the world to drink from, fairies were off-limits to him and the only blood he would never know, and it angered him because the fay were older than him – ancient. That meant they had knowledge and power he had yet to tap into. She was pretty certain it was the reason they were still in alliance as opposed to enemies: she had something he wanted – he just didn’t know how to get it.

All angels since the beginning, whether fallen or not, had one thing in common: they never broke their oaths.

Lucifer retracted his teeth, but his body had unmistakeably hardened against hers. “I remember my promise, my Goddess … but do you remember yours?”

How could she forget? She had refused him the blood of the fay when he’d fallen – and his thirst for blood had certainly been unquenchable – but he had a thirst for something else that consumed him much more: the thirst for knowledge. That, she had not denied him, and he took it in every way he could, for knowledge was power as far as Lucifer was concerned, and in recent millennia, he had increasingly become drunk on it.

And it was the heady rush of its consumption, probably not helped by her teasing him with her blood, that had him pulling her down to ground now.

“We have not …
celebrated
… our unique partnership since the Bleeding three weeks ago.” He brushed the tip of her breast through her dress and she bit her lip.

By The Fates!

No they hadn’t, and she had refused him more than once, too uncertain of her physical reactions in this very physical dimension she was now merged with.

“Feels different, doesn’t it?” He squeezed the pebbled nipple that decorated her small mound. “Stronger, better, just …
more
…”

A rush of liquid heat soared through her veins and she bit her lip to muffle her moan. How
dare
he bring this out in her – make her feel such …
things
.

She grabbed his wrist. “Wait. Not here. Not in—”

His mouth crushed hers as his large body locked into her small frame, his tongue probing her lips, demanding entry and lapping up her protestation.

Not in front of Abaddon!
That had been her unfinished sentence and he damn well knew it.

“I shouldn’t worry what he’d think of you,” he mumbled as he traced his tongue across her cheek, to her ear. “It couldn’t be less.”

“You callous, degenerate—
Ahhhh
…”

His fingers between her legs lit a fuse, and fire spiralled along the trail of that liquid heat flooding her veins.

“By God, you feel good;
so fucking good
in this world. And you taste good, too.” He licked the crook of her neck, the point of his tooth scraping her skin, and she froze in fear.

Fear.

Never had she felt it before, not once. How, in the name of all things sacred, did humans
live
like this day after day?

With unnerving clarity she realised she was going to have to climb the mother of all mountains to conquer her unexpected vulnerabilities and win her rulership back. And she had to start now – with Lucifer.

Tightening her resolve, she reached up and wove her fingers through his black hair. She moaned deliberately in his ear and rocked herself against his hand, heightening her pleasure. She felt him tense in surprise and inside she laughed to herself, dryly. How many countless moments had she spent observing mortal women from afar – watching them use their sex in such ways; selling themselves piece by piece at a time …
now
she understood.
Now
she saw the raw need behind such actions; the climb for power.

With her mind, she conjured a shield between Abaddon and themselves. Let Lucifer enjoy thinking Abaddon might spy them – it wasn’t her game, but he needn’t know that.

Oh, yes, my insidious liege – I’ll be keeping secrets of my own.

Beneath them, the ground shook and rumbled, as it had been doing persistently all over the planet for the past three weeks. It brought steel to her belly; conviction to her bones. The Dragon was preparing for flight, and once it rose, the new era would truly begin. She had not come all this way to fall prey to her fragilities.

“Lucifer … know me.”

The fallen angel needed no other instruction. For him, those two words were the magic key that cut through all sense. The hunt for knowledge was destroying him, he just didn’t know it yet –
so much irony in the new world.
 

“Know me,” she pleaded, again, and he groaned low and long as he bunched her dress up around her waist and entered her. He had always been a determined and driven lover, ordering his body the way he ordered his mind, both of them searching for whatever ‘truth’ was promised. Today was no different – he pounded her into the soft terrain; tall, dewy grass swaying above them. What
was
different, was that today, the grass smelt ten times stronger – delicious and sweet; the mud under it, earthy and dense. And the ache inside her where Lucifer struck, cavernous beyond all her understanding.

“You’re amazing,” he moaned, as his thrusts grew more urgent. “You feel so
real
. Come for me, Morgana, my Goddess … let me feel you come … for … mmm…”

His wings shot outwards, the golden underside shimmering above her and such a contrast to the deep red that coloured the tops of them.

She felt everything inside her tighten, as if she were the sea bringing its own tide in, and in, and in…

Release was coming; she knew it and both longed for it and dreaded it … but in the end, it was not Lucifer’s uncompromising bearing that unravelled her. It was the tremors reaching her from the core of the Earth. The awakening Dragon awoke
her
, and as the most powerful, three-dimensional orgasm of her immortal life stole over her body, she dug her fingernails into the soil beneath her and took strength from that fact. She came for the beast that promised her freedom.

The Dragon could rule over her.

Lucifer never would.

~*~

His gut felt eviscerated. Maybe his body was eating itself. Would that be better or worse than giving in to the bloodlust? He didn’t know, but he hadn’t succumbed to it yet, unlike every other angel that had fallen.

But he wasn’t an archangel for nothing. If he didn’t uphold some kind of morality, then who would?

Sounded noble, didn’t it? Still … his head pounded with the threat of his very first migraine ever. He suspected he would need to feed soon…

Pushing the disturbing thought away, he wandered further into the hillside cave in search of the only hope that anyone had left.

He found him a few metres away, sitting by the still pool. A small opening in the cave ceiling allowed the moon to shine silver on part of the water. It was so serene. Beautiful even. Almost worthy of Heaven itself.

Michael’s heart sagged with loss. “My Lord,” he said in greeting.

The man who used to be God, stared at him briefly with blank eyes, the low light doing nothing to dissipate the eeriness, and then he went back to surveying the water.

Michael cleared his throat. “My Lord, I brought you some food.” He tightened his hold on the boar’s hind legs and dragged the still warm carcass forward. “I took great care so that the blood would not spill too much – it’s as fresh as a dead animal can be.”

Silence.

Michael sighed. His whole being ached and his digestive tract screamed at him. How ironic that he was trying so hard to convince his Lord to feed on blood when he, himself, refused.

But he wasn’t sure how long they’d be here, or how much wildlife there was in the surrounding mountains. Better he go insane than the Creator. “My Lord—”

“Don’t.”

The archangel exhaled in relief. It was the first time he’d spoken since the Bleeding. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t call me that. I am no longer your Lord.”

Michael walked forwards, pulling the boar with him. “You will remain ‘my Lord’. There is no other.”

God stared at him, his expression unreadable. It was so strange to see him in human guise. All angels had taken on human form since they’d fallen, their wings – or fangs, if the bloodlust took over – the only way to tell them apart from the lesser beings, but he hadn’t expected God himself to look so … mortal. He had all but become corporeal, talking on shape and form as any other angel had. However, unlike angels, his physical form had not exactly completed itself: he existed in a suspended state, trapped in this world, mostly a ghost that Michael feared would grow weaker given time. He was able to will himself solid when necessary in order to touch and feel, but that was all.

Still, Michael hadn’t expected him to take on physical form at all, after all, he was not an angel – he was above them all.

He looked an awful lot like the last angel he’d created, with the same brown hair and grey eyes, although his facial features were smoother and less angular; more effeminate. It made sense, he supposed – the last angel had been formed using more of God’s essence than any of the angels that had come before … not that that fact had done any of them any good.

God looked away once more. “Where are we, Michael?”

Michael’s heart swelled with hope.
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks and he finally wants to know…
“The mountains west of Beijing. It’s safe. Not easy for any human to get to, and demons and angels will not look here as there is little in the way of food … or … anything, actually.” He dumped the boar by God’s left side and gestured at it. “Blood is a necessity for us now that we’ve fallen – temporarily at least.” He crouched down beside him on the large rock. “It will nurture your physical body and your brain. Your cells need this.” And, secretly, he hoped that the blood would encourage his form to grow stronger and solid.

He looked at the creature, and then at Michael once more. “Have you fed, Michael?”

He hesitated. Truth was, the thought of the taste of blood alone made him want to retch. And the thought of such a base act tainting his soul…

“Need it, do we, Michael?”

Michael’s fingers tightened their grip on the warm, coarse fur of the animal. He tampered down the panic that flared in his chest. No. No, he could not expect his Lord to damn himself, if he was not prepared to do the same.

With trembling hands he stroked the beast, and then cradled its head and turned it over. Its neck fell limply onto the other side. There – the blood would have pooled there.

Saliva filled his mouth at the promise of it, just as his mind and stomach churned in disgust. The debilitating hunger threatened to turn his insides out. Who was the one being eaten here? The hunger felt like a dark cavern about to swallow him whole. For no one else would he do this … but for Him…

He thought on it no longer – saving his Lord was worth the sacrifice. With a yearning whimper borne of need and defeat, he sank his fangs into the boar, careful to create a seal with his lips so no blood escaped. He could not take too much – God would need his strength.

He tugged and sucked deeply at the wound, because the blood was no longer flowing, so he had to do most of the work, but by the Heavens, this tasted
divine.
 

The potent liquid rushed straight to his head, and it took a while before he realised he was moaning with abandon at the ecstasy flooding his system. With concerted effort, he forced his mind back to his surroundings, ignored the heaviness that now clung to his being, weighing his heart down, and drew his canines in. Conscious of his appearance, he wiped away the drop of blood he could feel beginning to slide down the corner of his mouth, then looked up at God and held the boar’s neck out to him in offering.

God continued to stare at him in that perplexing, expressionless way he seemed to have mastered since the worlds merged. He had not been this way as an ethereal being – there had been warmth and thought and conviction. Now…

“My Lord?”

The Almighty rose to his feet, never taking his eyes off his most loyal of angels, perhaps only second to Abaddon – he had never gotten over losing Abaddon… “I’m not hungry, Michael.” And then he turned and made his way off the rock and into the recesses of the cave.

Michael trembled all over, three weeks worth of fight and failure finally leaving him bereft. A wretched sound echoed throughout the cave and he realised it was coming from him – from his own bloodied soul that lay kneeling and corrupted.

The light shimmered briefly on the water, before disappearing completely as the moon faded behind a cloud, plunging everything into darkness.

Chapter Two

Norolf stood at the edge of the River Thames, where it curved into the deepest ‘U’, and stared at the two tall buildings a short distance away known as Pan Towers.

They were in there somewhere, he was sure of it, although he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain because of the protective shield that coated the structures; magic strumming off the glass, concrete and metal exterior to anyone who knew how to see it – which would be quite a few people by now. Humans learnt fast when they had to.