The Celestial Rose BoxSet

by Annalee Adams

  “Do you want more Taylor?” Lucian whispered seductively in my ear.

  “Yes!” My voice almost raspy with heat.

  I could feel his hands unclasping the button on my jeans, sliding them off slowly while speeding out of his own. The blindfold remained as his every movement tickled throughout me. Delicate kisses caressed my stomach, my hands wandered over his chest, his abs, his buttocks.

  Off came the blindfold as I saw him before me, muscular, toned and quite adapt for what was about to come. He growled as he knelt up, pulling my body on to him, piercing through me as our bodies joined as one. Gripping my thighs, we moved faster then slower then faster again. Every part of me screamed devotion. Hot beads of sweat rippled down my breasts as our bodies took flight in an erythematic dance of passion.

  Over and over we groaned until we could sweat no more. Senses overwhelmed as the surge of ecstasy pulsated through our bodies. Lucian’s body stiffened, arching back as we came together, knowing each other inside and out.

  Falling beside me, he drew me in close for a long-lasting cuddle. A skin to skin perfect moment where he cradled my body with his own, stroking my hair gentle, caring.

  “Are you okay, Taylor?” he delicately asked,

  “I’m perfect right now, Lucian.”

  And with that, we snuggled in silence, our naked bodies entwined as the day turned to night and the stars began to fall.

  “Taylor,” Lucian softly spoke as he gently woke me up.

  It appeared I had fallen asleep for a little while but waking to Lucian's naked body beside my own was the perfect way to wake up.

  “You fell asleep. What did you mean by the stars are falling?”

  “Huh?”

  “You were saying it while you slept.”

  “Oh, I have no idea Lucian,” I said.

  He shrugged it off as we dressed, laughing away, snuggled together as he took flight bringing me safely back to Elvington.

  CHAPTER 12

  Yesterday was magical. Isn’t that what I should say? It’s true, though. Soppy, but true. At seventeen, I’d spent my most perfect moments in the arms of my lover. Happy endorphins were cruising through me as I smiled at what the day could bring.

  Lucian was waiting downstairs, ready to take Caleb and I to the academy.

  “Morning Taylor,” he smiled, offering me pancakes.

  He’d spent the morning helping my dad cook them. They got on quite well and Dad's pancakes had improved greatly.

  “These are really good!” I said.

  “Thanks, Taylor. Your boyfriend's a keeper,” Dad said as I sat blushing, much to Caleb’s amusement.

  Lucian smiled, ruffling Caleb’s hair.

  “Come on, we had better head out,” I said, kissing Dad goodbye.

  It was cold, chillingly translucent. I felt as though I saw the world for what it was, a façade. Nothing I knew before London was real. The monsters truly did hide in the shadows, and I was dating one.

  Kissing my boyfriend goodbye, I headed over to Maths. Pearce was already there to sit beside me. He was usually a whiz at calculus, but that day he appeared distant. I poked and prodded for information but that only annoyed him further. He even hid to avoid Jessie during lunchbreak. Something was clearly wrong.

  After class my world brightened up as Lucian appeared, jumping over the side stairs to interlock arms and kissing me passionately. Rowena giggled in delight. We were public now, hands clasped as we walked out, heads held high, and smiling from ear to ear. A few whistles followed us as Lucian turned and took a bow.

  “What’s wrong, Taylor?” Lucian inquired. “I can sense it on you.”

  “Sense what?”

  “Stress, its radiating from you.”

  “I’m fine, just concerned about Pearce.”

  “Why? What has he done?” he glared.

  “Done? No. nothing, why do you think he had done something?”

  “He’s new, remember? I told you he changed, it was what needed to happen for him to remain with us.”

  “Okay, well, he hasn’t done anything, he’s just really distant and avoided Jessie during lunch. There’s something wrong with him.”

  “Hmm,” he pondered, “he’s hungry and doesn’t trust himself around Jessie.”

  “Hungry? He didn’t have lunch, but this was before lunch.”

  “No, Taylor,” he laughed, “H.U.N.G.R.Y.” He slowly and firmly spelt out.

  “Oh, well what do you usually eat? Can’t you hunt a deer or something?”

  It was a question I hadn’t thought about yet. I had been too mesmerised in our field frolics by the lakeside. I must pay more attention.

  “Deer helps, but I believe he may want something more. Don’t worry about it, I’ll take him out later tonight.”

  “Hmm, that worries me, but I don’t want to know what you two will be doing in the dark!” I said as he laughed.

  The cold wind howled as Lucian drove me home.

  “The wind's getting up, be careful hunting tonight, please.” I said.

  He smirked, a familiar expression.

  “Of course, we’ll be fine.” He kissed me goodbye. He watched me in and off he went.

  Upstairs, the old oak tree outside my window swayed in the wind. Howling through the semi open window, the tree branches scratched and scraped across the glass pane. I turned to close the window and felt a presence behind me.

  “Lucian, you made me jump!” I laughed, turning around.

  It wasn’t Lucian.

  It looked human but stood covered in shadow as he growled under his breath.

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am,” it said as it took a step towards me.

  The body of a monster stepped out of the darkness. His stony exterior cracked and creased as he walked, urging closer ever still.

  “What do you want?”

  “You, Disciple, you.”

  “Who? I think you have the wrong house. I’m nobody, I’m not a Disciple.”

  “I smelt you from afar, tracked you here.”

  “The Femme Fatale?” I questioned, backing into the wall.

  “Yes,” it hissed.

  “I’m not a Femme Fatale, I just carry their scent.”

  “You lie!” it yelled, slapping the side of my face, knocking me over.

  Even with all the training, I didn’t see that coming. Within seconds it was on top of me, his hot smoky skin wrapped around me.

  “No more lies, your power will be mine!” he exclaimed, his tongue forked at the tip as he hissed, tracing it across my neckline.

  I cringed. He was burning hot as my skin heated up and beads of sweat trickled down my neck. Hands clammy, I kicked and pushed it away, but it was too strong, too big. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t budge. I considered screaming for my dad, but I knew full well it’d kill him in an instant. With Caleb asleep next door, I couldn’t do anything to alert them. I needed Lucian, any of them. I was no match for this thing. I didn’t have their strength and my energy fizzled when I tried to use it. I was nothing, no one, and at that moment I was demon bait.

  Gaining confidence, summoning strength, I had to do something.

  “GET OFF ME!” I demanded. It laughed, hard.

  “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE COMMANDING ME?” he boomed, “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

  “No, now get off me,” I said, calming my body down.

  It held me down with its rough sandpapery skin serrating my flesh. Holding my neck, it strangled me, gripping tighter and tighter. Anymore and it’d break. Anything else, and I’d snap, the fragile little human, broken like a porcelain doll. Its face began to ripple and contract. The creature before me started to shift, changing shape, spurting a language unbeknownst to me. I couldn’t take the pain of his skin any longer.

  “GET OFF ME!” I yelled, as the door hammered and pounded. “DAD! DAD!” I screamed, “HELP! HELP ME!”

  The creature laughed, beating my face with its sharpened claws. Warmth trickled down m
y face, I couldn’t see for the crimson colouring flushed over me.

  “TAYLOR!” my dad shouted, “CALEB, CALL THE POLICE! TAYLOR, MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR, I’LL BREAK IT DOWN!” He hammered his body weight against the door. It wobbled and splintered but didn’t open in time.

  Darkness lay above me, crushing my body into the floor. The weight, he’s too heavy. I can’t breathe! My neck threatened to break as I began to see specks of light flashing before my eyes. It seemed intrigued by fear. It used its sticky silvery tongue to lick the side of my face, and as it did I cried louder. It clasped its talons across my mouth, gripping it shut. No scream could escape my lips, no cries for help as I lay victim to the demon before me. I was alone, afraid, and trembling.

  It hadn’t come to kill me, not yet, anyway. It’d come to take my life force, just like the shadelings. But it didn’t look like a shadeling, it looked like the Devil incarnate. What was it and why did it think I was a ‘Disciple’?

  It took its time, enjoyed watching my expressions as it nicked at parts of me, tasting my blood, playing with me like a coiled snake taunting its prey. I remembered what Lawrence said. Since my encounter with the Femme Fatale, I had become more alluring, a drug to the supernatural and that day, I was the creature's drug of choice.

  It bit me ravenously, wanting to devour me, eat me alive. I screamed, yet no sound could escape. But I wouldn’t stop screaming, fighting, and trying to push it away. As I continued to fight for my life, it whipped out a tail from behind it. I hadn’t realised it had a tail before, but it was a long, pointed and bladed tail. Part of it that was so deadly it reminded me of a scorpion, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

  In amidst the chaos, I tried to harness any powers I had. Why wouldn’t they work! The hand of the beast punched my face as specks of black and white flashed before me and my brain threatened to go unconscious. I fought the pain back, I had to keep on fighting this thing. The body of the demonic creature crippled and shifted back to its own self. A creature with dark greyed skin, textured like sandpaper. Its crackled finish gave way to a hot inner core as it gleamed through the crevices, threatening to burn every part of me.

  The door pounded again and again, threatening to break, just not in time, too slow, too late. Its tongue slithered and hissed, I could feel its desire as it bit down, drinking my blood, chewing down on my flesh. No one's coming. No one can save me. I’m on my own. Every part of me burns and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  Then, for a moment, it let go. The putrid smell of burning flesh surrounded me as it pulled me up and threw me across the floor like a rag doll. It growled angrily as I lay burned, pained, and bloody. My once pale skin was scorched from its body in places no woman should ever be scorched.

  I began to shake uncontrollably. I needed to vanish again, disappear into another realm, be anywhere else than here. But nothing happened, nothing helped, and no matter how hard I closed my eyes, the creature was still there. I struggled further as it gripped my neck again, squeezing harder, abrading my skin with its infernal hands. I screamed internally as my blood fled from my body. Choking for breath, I passed out.

  The wind grew louder as I awoke painfully to my name being screamed in the distance. A Lycan joined in the fight, leaping on top of the demon, throwing it sideways to crash into the wall. The demonic creature roared in defence, pouncing, ripping through the room like a tornado taking down a city block.

  As the monsters roared and hissed in a deadly fight for existence, the door pounded, with my father still screaming to get in. So much anger, so much pain, too many monsters to understand. and no more air to breath. I collapsed into the arms of a Lycan, the monster that saved me. A familiar monster, but a monster nonetheless, and with that I knew I would die once again.

  I lay drifting into the land of death and dismay, and the monster before me wept. It cradled my body in its arms, protecting me as the screams of my family numbed my thoughts and my eyes shut, speaking their final goodbye.

  In another land, in another place, I could no longer feel pain. Instead, I felt the emotions within; the anger, the fear, the frustration. My body died in the arms of another, it shouldn’t have happened like this, I couldn’t have ended this way. What was the creature that rescued me and why did it weep the tears of a mortal as it lay cradling my broken body?

  As I died, I changed. I felt the anger rush through my body, the darkness consuming me. The evil took over, creeping through my skin like a parade of red ants making way to their queen. The heat screamed out beneath me, pulsating at my very being. My head began to pound as it wrapped its claws around me devouring my soul inside, disturbing my innocence as it twisted its way through my body one cell at a time.

  The beast within me brought out my inner desire to lunge forward and tear everything apart, every emotion screamed agony as it triumphantly took over. The bloodlust screeched as rage flowed through my veins.

  It is time, Taylor Lane, it is time to feel the truth within you. I opened my eyes.

  Light pounded through my vision, soaring into me like a fire extinguishing all oxygen. It blinded me, screamed at my eyes as the person whose arms I lay in placed something over my shattered complexion. Looking through the sunglasses, I found myself in the arms of Lucian.

  It appeared that I was lying on a bed. Beside me was a floor-to-ceiling length of windows that looked out over a calming lake. The sun had risen and given birth to the birds who tweeted their morning song through the eyes of winter's reign. The cool air relaxed through me as my hearing started to come back and I noticed Lucian talking to me, mouthing my name repeatedly.

  “Taylor, Taylor,” he spoke calmly, but with fear and regret shadowing his expression.

  Worry became his expression as I looked through him, past him, unable to speak but taking in the faces around me. Elisha stood behind, watching me in dismay. Had someone died? The look of pity that crept across her face started to worry me. Where was I? What was wrong with me? How did I get here? Strangely, though, Harland stood beside Lucian. There must have been something drastically wrong if Harland and Lucian were in the same room. Harland reached out and took my hand.

  “It’s not working, Lucian.”

  “I know. I’m trying” A metallic taste slipped past my lips, caressing the back of my throat.

  “I told you I can try. It’s better than death, you know that.”

  “She does not know, and it should be her choice, Harland.” Lucian said as his anger began to show.

  My body began to shake and shudder, pain shot through me as every muscle tensed up, locking into place. I growled out, howling through the pain as Lucian laid me on the bed backing off.

  Harland looked frightened.

  “What is she?”

  “How am I supposed to know? What the hell was it that took her?” he screamed at him.

  “Taylor?” Lucian and Harland said at the same time.

  Looking at them both, relief flooded their faces. I slowly sat up as every muscle ached and pained. In the glass beside me a leathery, burnt, and bloody looking female reflected. The skin rippled away as it shed, vanishing before my eyes, and leaving the pale burnt figure of my true human self-cast back. A little battered and broken, but a figure I recognised, and by the looks of it, one that everyone was happy to see. Lucian draped a sheet over my naked form and held me tight, weeping a little in delight of my astonishing recovery.

  “It was the Devil, Lucian,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “The Devil.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. The Devil died centuries ago. What did it look like?"

  “Fiery skin, textured like sandpaper, claws, a scorpion’s tail.”

  “It can’t be!”

  “Who, Lucian?” Harland asked.

  “Lilith’s henchman, Seine,” he paused. “If he’s risen, then it must mean Lilith’s coming back.”.

  I lay broken, watching the Darkwaters and Harland discuss Seine and what his re-entry onto this plane mea
nt. It didn’t sound good, whatever it was. But one question phased through my mind.

  “How am I still alive?” I asked.

  They stopped and looked at Harland as he stepped forward to explain.

  “Do you remember me, Taylor?”

  “The crying wolf. Yes, I do.”

  “Crying,” Nic laughed as Harland shot him an angry glance.

  “Harland found you, Taylor. It was nearly his time to hunt and he sensed the evil surrounding you. He’s different too, we all are, but we’re not like each other. You’re in his family home. He called us here because you were dying and needed my blood to heal. It's lucky it worked. You looked beyond saving. I am so sorry this happened to you.” Lucian smoothed my singed hair back.

  “It was actually Lucian that saved you,” Elisha said, “after the Lycan cried over your dead body.”

  “I died?”

  “Yep.”

  “I gave you my blood.” Lucian said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ll heal now. Take your time,” he said, as I began to feel for the edge of the bedframe.

  Looking in the mirror, I began to cry. My beauty had diminished, replaced by the scorched flesh of a monster in the reflection. How could they bare to look at me? How could I live like this?

  “It, it...” I started to cry, or more like sob, as every memory of the painful experience flooded back to me all at once.

  “I know, Taylor, I know.” Lucian said as he stroked my hair while I buried my head in his chest.

  “I’m going to fucking find it and rip it apart.” Harland screamed, punching his fist through the adjourning door.

  I continued to cry and shake, wanting to rip off my own skin and every ounce of me that had been touched by the demonic being. I screamed, pounding my fists at his chest. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. What was it that had begun to devour me? I was disgusted by it. My skin crawled as I shuddered, gripping at my arms as they itched. I scratched away the pain, the memory, the thoughts.

  “Taylor, no.”

  Lucian pulled back my hands wrapping himself around me, holding me tighter still, rocking me gently as I sobbed uncontrollably for a long time. He sat holding me, patiently waiting for me to calm down until I could cry no more. As my breath faltered and eased, Lucian continued to try and comfort me.