But it is, sorta. And even though what I’m feeling is absolutely not normal for me and all my baggage, it feels damn good.
“I am,” I answer truthfully.
Crysis doesn’t respond immediately, just continues staring into his frosted glass as if some deeper meaning exists amidst the layer of white foam. I’ve never seen him like this—pensive. Subdued. Granted, other than this meet-up, I’ve only been around him twice—the night we met (and he put a gun to my head), and a week after I went back to stay with the Se7en. I’d seen him in character, playing the role of a nice, normal guy. And I’d seen him as he really is—the cocky, temperamental half angel lieutenant in the Alliance of the Ordained.
It’s no wonder he holds a position of power within his organization. He’s their secret weapon—the best of both worlds. Brute strength, cunning, skill and superhuman powers, courtesy of his angel dad. There’s one thing that Lilith didn’t lie about: Nephilim and Cambion are highly coveted, and very rare. According to Crysis—which is his Nephilim name, while Christian is the name he was given at birth—a human has to be strong of will and body to sustain an angel or demon’s seed, and even then, it’s unlikely that both mother and baby survive. Pregnancies are much shorter because the baby grows at an incredibly rapid pace, making it so the mother cannot seek traditional western medicine. The Alliance is a safe haven for these women, providing health care and housing for the duration of their pregnancies. And since the survival rate for the mothers are slim, they also take in their orphaned children, raising them to be warriors for Christ.
Crysis has been with them since day one. You’d think someone who was literally born and raised in a church would be less of an asshole. Or maybe that’s all an act, too.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He turns and gives me his attention, his dazzling green eyes cool and clear. They look different today—more jade than moss. I wonder if that’s a Nephilim thing as well.
“Yes?” He lifts a questioning brow. How long was I staring at him?
“Um, yeah,” I recover. My voice too low for human ears, I ask, “The angel venom…is it yours?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t produce anything strong enough to be used as a weapon.”
“But you know who can. You know the angel who’s supplying it.” It’s a long shot, but could the same angel who provided the Alliance with their sacred venom be the same who supplied Lucifer?
“Not me personally, no. Believe it or not, I don’t know everything. I know…shocking.”
I roll my eyes, before pressing for more. “Do you think it could maybe be your… your dad?”
At that, Crysis frowns, looking away. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You wouldn’t know if he’s supplying them? Or you don’t know him?”
He turns back to me, his gaze hardened and dark. “Both.”
“You don’t know who fathered you?” I whisper.
He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “I know who he is. He just hasn’t deemed me important enough to acknowledge.” He barks out a sardonic laugh that ends in a snarl. “Puriel, the fire of God.” He takes a hefty swig of beer then snorts, “And deadbeat dad.”
“Damn,” is all I can manage to muster. Guess absentee fathers aren’t just reserved for humans.
“It doesn’t really matter, honestly,” he shrugs. “That’s how they see us—angels and demons. We’re small, insignificant, nothing more than ants in the dirt. They live for billions of years. What’s a human lifetime to them? They’re likely to blink and miss it altogether.”
I ignore the sting of his words, and what they imply for my situation, and urge, “But he has to know you’re alive. I was told that conception is deliberate. He chose to make you. He chose you.”
“Welp,” he says, bringing his glass to his lips. “Maybe he got a good look, and realized he chose wrong.”
I frown. He can’t mean that. But then again, I’ve got my own abandonment issues. Still, the way Phenex described the creation of offspring, it seemed like the act itself was a religious rite, a great privilege and sacrifice to both father and mother. Talking to Crysis, I’m not so sure.
“Ok, that’s it.”
Before Crysis can ask me what the hell I’m talking about, I hop off the stool and skip over to the jukebox stationed a few yards away.
“What are you doing?” he calls out as I’m bent over, eyeing the song selections.
“Getting you out of whatever funk you fell into this morning,” I answer, still facing the panel lit up with lights and buttons. “Any requests?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Got any Drake?”
I whip my head around and cut my eyes at him, causing him to bellow out a hearty laugh. That’s more like it.
“Very funny. You probably dance to Hotline Bling in the shower.”
Crysis hops off the stool and strides over to me, a playful smirk on his lips. “Now, now, Miss Harris. Have you been fantasizing about me in the shower?”
I purse my lips in distaste and resume flipping through the song choices. “You wish, buddy. You and fantasy don’t even belong in the same sentence.”
“Really? So you weren’t staring into my eyes earlier, wondering why they seemed lighter than before?”
“Ugh!” I huff out, pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead. “Seriously, the mind reading crap is not only annoying, but just shitty. I don’t pop into your head anytime I feel like it.”
He’s still chuckling when he replies, “Not my fault. Maybe you should work on strengthening your mental shields more instead of planning date nights.”
“Spying on me?” I give him a sidelong glance.
“Just doing my job.” He leans up against the jukebox, resting an elbow over its top. “You looked really nice last night, by the way.”
I flick my expectant gaze up at him and await the punch-line. But it never comes. No insult attached. No sarcastic dig. Crysis just paid me a compliment. And he’s not even rescinding it.
“Um…thanks?”
He gives me a subtle nod before I resume my search. Finally, I spy a halfway decent song and press the button.
“Wait a minute, this is on the radio,” Crysis remarks as the notes of “Don’t Let Me Down” plays. “I thought musical snob, Eden Harris, despised cookie cutter, commercial chart toppers.”
Shuffling backwards, I move towards the small space I assume is designated for dancing, simultaneously swaying to the addictive beat. “What? The Chainsmokers aren’t cookie cutter.”
He follows me over to the dancing area, stopping a few feet in front of me. “Keep telling yourself that, princess. And what the hell are you doing?”
“Dancing,” I reply, rolling my hips from side to side, my hands up in the air like I just don’t care.
“Who lied to you and said you could dance?”
“Huh? I can dance, you hater. Maybe you should remove the giant stick up your ass and prove me wrong, angel boy.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, causing his biceps to flex under the fabric of his t-shirt. I never realized how impressive his body really is. I’m not surprised, but…damn.
He watches the hypnotic sway of my hips with rapt amusement, the tease of a smile on his lips. Of course, I don’t expect him to accept the challenge, so when Crysis steps forward into my space—close enough that I can smell freshly fallen snow on his skin and the mix of beer and wintergreen on his breath—I pause.
“What? You wanted me to dance with you. Here I am.” His voice is low…husky…as he gazes down at me through thick, sandy blonde lashes. A lock of golden hair unravels itself from behind his ear and graces his square jaw.
Part of me is screaming for me to back up, and break whatever cruel magic has fallen over us, causing my breath to catch and my cheeks to heat. The other part of me is telling me not to back down, if only to show him that I’m not so easily distracted by the taste of temptation.
When I don’t move an inch, he places his hands on my hips. Hi
s stare is so intense, yet there’s something oddly timid in his touch. Like he’s asking for permission, or waiting for me to reject him. My silence gives nothing away.
Seconds slither by of us just standing there, sharing breath, although I’m not sure either of us is breathing until Crysis whispers, “Let me show you.”
My lips part and my mouth dries when I feel his hands mold over the curve of my hips, gaining confidence. I exhale, my eyelids drifting closed.
Then, the earth shifts on its axis.
Not figuratively either. With a deafening crack, the very ground beneath our feet rumbles violently, sending glasses and bottles shattering against the polished wood floor. The lone barkeep runs for cover, while Crysis shields me with his own body. My ears are ringing. Debris rains down on us from the strained, fractured ceiling. Once the thunderous roar dies, giving way to a symphony of sirens and car alarms, and the ground’s trembling ceases, I look around the dust-fogged room, wondering what the hell just happened.
Crysis’s eyes are filled with panic when he roughly grasps my shoulders, turning me to face him. “Get home. Now. Go straight there and don’t stop.”
“Crysis, what just—”
“Listen to me, Eden! You need to get in your car and race straight to the Se7en’s headquarters.” He races to the barstools just feet away, still draped with our coats, and snatches up my belongings, shoving them to my chest. “Go now!”
After practically pushing me out of the pub and onto the street crammed with post-explosion chaos, Crysis turns to me, the fire in his green eyes raging with violence. “I’ll call you. Just…just go now. While you can.” Then he races in the opposite direction, bleeding into the hysteric crowd, before taking a left to cross over to the next street.
The street Sister lives on.
We had agreed to meet at the pub, because it was close enough to my sister’s apartment that I could maintain the lie. I was smart enough to know that there was probably a tracking device on the car, if not on me. And if I were somehow spotted, being at a local watering hole wouldn’t be that far of a stretch.
And now…now my selfish alibi seems like karmic justice.
I start walking, away from where my car is parked. Weaving in and out of screaming, disoriented passersby, I take careful, unhurried steps, in no rush to find what I’m trying desperately to make myself believe.
It’s nothing. Sister is fine. It was probably a car accident or construction blunder. Everything is ok.
But even as I repeat the words to myself, I can’t find it in me to move any faster. Fear has taken me in her cold, boney clutches. Each step forward feels like I’m being sucked into cement quicksand. Still, morbid curiosity keeps pushing me through the panic-stricken hoard. Flashes of red and blue lights whiz by, their sirens a screeching warning: Turn around. Don’t look. There’s nothing to see. Everything’s ok.
But even as I cough and sputter as smoke smears my lungs with soot—even as ash floats down around us like dove gray snow—I fight against every impulse to walk away from the horrors that await me. And I turn the corner.
Those weren’t warnings the sirens were singing.
They were lies.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Still, I run through the smoke and debris, racing towards the fiery blaze that engulfs my sister’s building. Eyes burning, lungs wheezing, I fight through the crowd, navigating through the concrete obstacle course littered with charred chunks of wood and crumbled brick.
“Ma’am, we need you to stay back!” a policeman calls out, rushing to block my advance.
“My sister…” I croak, my throat raw. “My sister lives here.” I try to duck under his outstretched arms, but he catches me by the arm.
“Let us do our job. It’s not safe to enter.”
I fight to yank my arm out of his grasp and move to sidestep him. The moment I feel his hands wrap around my waist, I snap. My eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, I push my mind out as far as it will go, quicker than I’ve ever flung it out before. I penetrate skin and skull, and sink my vicious claws into his frontal lobe, rendering him completely helpless and under my control.
“Let go of me,” I grit, my voice as dark as my glare.
His hands drop to his sides.
“Let me through.”
The policeman immediately steps out of my path.
I simultaneously retract my hold as I hurriedly brush past him, but before I can clear him completely, an arm snakes around my waist and lifts me clear off the ground.
“Get off me!” I screech, as I’m heaved several feet away from the stunned officer.
“Easy, Eden, easy. It’s me. I’ve got you.” Legion crushes me to his chest and pulls farther from the wreckage, away from prying eyes. “Thank the Almighty. I thought you were…I thought I had lost you.”
“My sister…” Through the cloud of smoke and the sheer dread of what’s occurred, I can barely get the words out. “She’s…she’s… I don’t know where she is.”
“I know, baby. We’re on it. Was she upstairs when you left?”
Shit.
In my terrified haste to wade through the carnage, of course keeping my lies straight were no longer a priority.
I pull away from L and divert my eyes.
“I was just about to head back to the apartment.”
“Good,” he nods. “I need you to do that now for me. Until we find the source of the explosion, we’re on high alert.” He lifts his head, his eyes darting around the devastating ruin before her calls out, “Lil!”
Oh. Hell. No.
The slender blonde demon jogs over to us, stopping just a foot away. She takes one look at me, her bright blue eyes taking in my wild appearance. “You found her.” She even has the nerve to sound relieved.
“Yes. I need you to get her home safely. Jinn will go with you. Go now.”
“I’m not leaving,” I protest. “Not until we find her.”
“There’s nothing you can do here, Eden. It’s too dangerous. And it’s not like you can just waltz into a building that’s still on fire. I’ve got Cain and Phenex in there under the guise of firefighters. Toyol is on his way. We’ll find her, ok?”
I shake my head and start to turn back towards the concrete inferno. “I need to stay. I need to find her.”
“And we will,” he states in earnest, grasping my shoulders. “But for now, I need to know you’re out of harm’s way so I can focus on finding Mary. If I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, I could miss something. Can you do that for me? Please?”
I don’t want to, but I nod. I honestly don’t know where Sister is, and he’s right—if he’s preoccupied with my safety, he could easily overlook something that could lead to finding her. “Fine. But call me every half hour. I need to know what’s going on.”
“I will.” He presses his warm lips to my forehead before releasing me, then looks to Lilith. “Take her straight home. If I hear of one single—”
“I’ll protect her with my life, L. I swear,” she vows solemnly. “No harm will come to her.”
Legion takes one last look at me, and before I can reattach myself to his frame, he turns and jogs away, rejoining the rescue efforts.
Leaving me alone with the psycho, backstabbing bitch that set me up.
“Eden…” She reaches out to lead me away from the chaos, but I pull away.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” I spit, venom dropping from every word. “Nothing has changed. You’re still a two-faced bitch, and nothing you can do or say will make up for what you’ve done.”
I stomp off in the other direction, brushing past nosy bystanders and fear-stricken neighbors.
“Don’t you think I know that?” she snaps back. “I’m trying to make things right here. I know I messed up, but you have to believe me when I say I’m sorry.”
I keep trudging through the crowd, Lilith right on my heels. “Why are you even here anyway? Don�
��t you have some babies to murder? Or some husbands to steal?”
“That isn’t fair, Eden. I knew Lucifer wouldn’t have hurt you. The true threat was never him.”
I spin around so quickly that she nearly collides with my chest. “Are you fucking kidding me? I went to Hell, Lilith. Hell. He wants to make little devil babies with me that will rule the world. How is that not a threat?” I resume my trek through the mob without giving her the chance to explain.
“But he wouldn’t have hurt you. The alternative was much worse. Who do you think supplied him with the angel venom? It wasn’t supposed to be used to trap you. It was supposed to be used to kill us, then ultimately kill you. He betrayed someone—something—much more dangerous to save your life and take you to the one place they couldn’t find you.”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. Bullshit. “And you know this how?”
“Why do you think I agreed to help him? To keep my brothers and you safe.”
“Your brothers,” I snort. “Is it normal to want to fuck your brothers?”
I hear her heave out an exasperated breath behind me. “Look, I’ll admit—I’ve been in love with Legion for as long as I can remember. But nothing has ever come of it, and nothing ever will. He’s my leader, that’s all. And after what I did, we may never be the same. I would do anything to regain his trust and respect. Plus…I have nowhere else to go.”
I don’t want to believe her. I want to continue hating her, and credit her vehement remorse to getting caught and rejected by L. But what she’s saying…about Lucifer…it makes sense. He didn’t hurt me. Even now, after I’ve escaped, he hasn’t sent anyone after us. If anything, it seems as if he’s laying low. It could mean he’s planning something even more devious. Or it could mean he’s in deep shit with the one he betrayed. Which would explain why he didn’t fight to keep me; he had second thoughts, and wanted to save his own skin.
End of Eden (Se7en Sinners Book 2) Page 21
