by Nina Croft
Devlin had told the whole town that they were married. She needed time to work out her story. Maybe she should just ignore the door. Go to bed. Christmas has been canceled due to...
The bell rang again, screeching through her head, splitting her skull down the middle.
She walked slowly along the hall, one hand against the wall for balance, putting off the moment she’d have to face whoever it was. The bell rang again as she opened the door.
Give it a rest.
A man and a woman stood on the doorstep. His finger was out to press the bell. Again. Not who she’d been expecting, and she took an instinctive step back, not least because he was the biggest, scariest-looking guy she had ever seen.
“Is Devlin here?” the man asked.
“No,” she snapped. “Why should he be here?”
The man raised an eyebrow. If she thought Devlin had changed, this man was almost beyond recognition. Unfortunately, though, she did recognize him. He’d been an archangel in her first life, and their leader. Back then, he’d had golden wings and the face of an angel.
Now she looked into that face, and her breath caught in her throat. Maybe she should say a prayer, but she wasn’t sure that God was listening to her prayers anymore. If he had ever been. Maybe she’d always been forsaken. Dressed in black, he was tall, his skin pale, his eyes a strange almost-yellow and heavy-lidded, his nose big, and his cheekbones sharp with hollows beneath. A vicious scar ran down the side of one cheek from his thick, dark brow to the corner of his lip.
“Because this was where he was heading last night.”
“And couldn’t you have phoned him, or perhaps sent him a celestial message over the celestial airwaves?”
A snicker came from the woman standing slightly behind him. She stepped forward and waggled her fingers. “Hi, Zaria.”
Imogen recognized her as well. Soraya. Torr’s wife. Devlin had said she was now called Bella. More than a foot shorter than her husband, she had spiky red hair and blue eyes, the tip of her nose pink from the cold. She was dressed in jeans and a duffel coat, a red scarf around her neck, with a pattern of Father Christmases. Very festive. Imogen scowled. She’d never been friends with Soraya. The other woman had been such a goody-goody back in that first life. Though she didn’t look so “good” anymore.
“Actually,” Bella said, “we wanted to meet you. Well, I wanted to meet you. And I persuaded Torr”—she patted her husband’s shoulder—“that it was a good idea. To see how you are. How you’re coping.” She looked Imogen up and down. “How are you coping?”
“I’m coping very well, thank you. Now if you’ve seen enough, I need to—” She put a hand to her head as a stab of pain poked her in the brain.
Bella looked at her with narrowed eyes, then grinned. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Have not.”
Bella snorted. “Not very vicarly.”
She glared.
“I couldn’t believe it when Torr told me that little bit of information. You’re a vicar. Wait until Rachel and Phoebe hear that one.”
Yeah, they could all have a good laugh. They’d never believed she was good enough for Devlin.
When she didn’t answer, Bella stepped closer. “The first night I met Torr again, I drank a whole bottle of champagne. So don’t feel too bad.” She grinned. “Why don’t you invite us in, and we’ll have a coffee and some aspirin, and you can tell us all about yourself?”
Imogen wanted to go back to bed, but she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. Then her eyes were drawn from the couple in front of her to the gate at the end of the drive, and the man coming through it. She hated him, really she did, but at the sight of his tall figure, her heart fluttered in her chest like a trapped bird. She stood glued in place as he came toward them. He stopped right in front of her and stared down into her eyes. She almost swayed toward him, the pull was so strong.
“If only we had some mistletoe right now,” Bella murmured.
The words broke the spell between them, and Imogen stepped back and gave herself a little shake.
“Where have you been?” Bella asked him. That was something else Imogen remembered; she’d always been nosy. Into everyone’s business.
“I slept in the church.”
“It’s locked,” Imogen said. She hated locking the church, but it was policy these days.
“I unlocked it.”
She decided not to ask him how.
He turned to Torr. “I thought you had a plane to catch. Weren’t you heading to Iceland?”
“We changed our plans.”
“Because of me?”
“Of course. Did you think that we wouldn’t be here for you?”
Devlin ran a hand through his short hair, then rubbed at the frown between his brows. “I didn’t think.”
“Besides,” Torr said. “I have a message. Lilith wants a meeting.”
“Do I have to?” He sounded a bit like a whiny kid.
“I think you should. See what she knows. What she wants.”
“We know what she wants.”
Imogen didn’t. “Who’s Lilith?” she asked. They all turned to look at her, but nobody answered. “Is it a secret?”
“She’s just someone we used to work for,” Torr said. “A long time ago. But she’d like us to...return to her employment. It’s not something we’re ready to do, but we owe her, so we like to be...cooperative.”
“What do you owe her?” And why did she have a feeling that there was a whole lot of stuff they weren’t saying?
“Nothing interesting. Just business.”
Hah. She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, but at that moment, the gate opened again, and she groaned instead.
“Oh God,” she muttered.
Bella grinned. “Should vicars say that? And to be honest, I wouldn’t rely on God for help. Who is it? Trouble? You always did have too many men after you.”
She scowled. “He’s the head of the parish council.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“But I bet he’d like to be.”
Imogen ignored the comment. It was true, after all. She tried to get her expression all serene and vicarly.
John strode up the drive, smart in a dark suit and tie, a camel coat over the top. He looked every inch the successful businessman. A total opposite to the two men standing on her porch. He came to a halt in front of the little group. For a moment, no one said anything. Imogen felt a little as though she’d been struck dumb, lips glued together, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. She wasn’t ready for this.
Then Bella stepped forward and held out her hand. “Hello.” He took it, albeit somewhat reluctantly. “I’m Bella, I’m an old friend of the vicar. And this is my husband, Torrin Stormlord, and his business associate, Devlin Royce.”
“We’ve met,” John said, his hand dropping to his side. He made no attempt to shake hands with the two men. He turned his attention to Imogen, his gaze wandering down over her. No doubt, he was quite aware she was still in last night’s dress. “You weren’t at the meeting. After last night”—he cast a glance to Devlin—“I was worried something might have happened to you.”
Devlin scowled. “You thought I might have murdered her in her bed?” Then he looked at her and gave a slow, wicked smile. “There are things I’d rather do to Imogen in her bed than murder her.”
She had an idea the words were more for John than for her. He was staking a claim, and he didn’t have one. And she had to live here after this was over. “Devlin. Stop it.”
It occurred to her then that she was still in denial. That this would never be over. She didn’t know what was going to happen but discovering her past had changed her future forever.
“Yes, ma’am.” A look of frustration crossed his face. “I have to go. I have a meeting...” He trailed off, running a hand over his hair.
“With Lilith,” Imogen finished for him. She didn’t want to be curious, but she really wanted to know e
verything about Lilith. Who she was, what she looked like, why Imogen’s husband went running when she called.
“I’ll see you back at the office,” Torr said to him.
She watched as he walked away, battling with the unexpected need to call him back. To run after him. She did neither.
As he vanished from sight, she sighed. One down, three to go. She looked at Torr, huge and intimidating—though strangely he didn’t scare her—to his wife, with her expectant smile, to John, tense, a frown between his sandy brows.
To stay or to go?
She decided John would be the easier to handle. She gave Bella an insincere smile. “I’m afraid we’ll have to take a rain check on that catching up. I have a parish meeting to attend.”
Bella shook her head. “Totally surreal.”
CHAPTER 7
Once he was away from town, Devlin slowed his bike and pulled over to the side of the road. Getting off, he stood for a moment, before moving into the cover of the trees lining the road. Once away from the view of prying eyes, he opened a portal. Then he stepped through into seeming nothingness, and he was falling. After a few seconds his wings emerged, and his ears filled with the whoosh of air as they spread and slowed his downward movement. He’d always loved to fly.
He landed lightly, deep in the Abyss. Beside him, a dark, wide river flowed sluggishly, and he took a deep breath, filling his lungs with cool, clean air. As always, the light was low. The Abyss existed in a perpetual state of twilight, neither night nor day, light or dark. Rather, it was as though some dying sun had just sunk below the mountains. A sun that never rose. Beneath his boots, the sand was black but glittered with specks of jeweled colors.
And there she was.
Lilith stood on the bank of the river in a long red dress trimmed with white fur—aw, she was trying to be festive—that skimmed the sand. She was beautiful. And she made his skin crawl. Long, red-gold hair hung down to her waist. She was tall for a woman, her breasts full, perfect above the deep indentation of her waist, and her legs long. The creamy skin of her face was marked with runes of power, which rippled and glowed in the half-light.
Lilith had not taken Torr’s defection well, had always believed the Destroyer would come back to her. In her own way she’d loved him. That Torr was lost to her forever had stirred her determination to ensure the rest of his brothers failed—Devlin did not expect a sympathetic hearing. Except right now, a smile curved up her sensuous lips. Far more worrying than any frown. She appeared happy, which was sort of scary and probably didn’t bode well.
She studied him for a moment. “Poor Devlin. You don’t seem happy. Is your love life not going well?”
“It’s going fine,” he snarled.
“A vicar?” she murmured. “How positively...amusing.”
Devlin failed to reply—what could he say—that he found it far from funny. Though there was a strange sort of logic to it. From talking with Bella, he’d learned a lot of what they had gone through. The feelings that there was more to their lives than they could comprehend. The dreams. One of the coping mechanisms would be to turn to some sort of spiritual answer.
At least she wasn’t a nun.
“It will be interesting to see if her God will protect her.” Lilith pursed her lips. “Somehow I doubt it.”
Protect her from what? He gritted his teeth. “You can’t touch her. You go near her and the Covenant will be voided.”
“Do you really think I would need to go near her myself? You don’t think I have an army who would be willing to take care of one little problem just to make me happy?”
He knew it. And the thought made his stomach churn. “If she’s killed, then she’ll just be reborn.”
“Which won’t be much use to you. She’ll still be a child by the time the Covenant ends.” She shrugged. “But it doesn’t need to come to that,” she murmured, taking a step closer so if he breathed in he would smell the scent of her, musky and sweet. He tried not to. She stroked her fingertips down the length of his arm and a purr rumbled in her throat. This wasn’t good.
“You know you were always my favorite?”
He snorted. No, he hadn’t known it, and he didn’t believe it. What did she want? “I wasn’t the one in your bed.”
“But you could be.” He hoped he kept his face blank, because if she could read his reaction to that idea, then he doubted she would feel like helping his cause.
“I’m married,” was all he said.
“Not for much longer.”
Jesus, she was such a bitch. “What do you want?” He needed to find if there was any way through this. A plan that would see both him and Imogen alive when the five days of the Covenant were over. And right now, he could see no way. If he made any compromise with Lilith, then Gabriel would retaliate, and vice-versa. Perhaps he should take himself out of the equation. Find a way that Imogen could live.
Finn had made a deal with Gabriel to enable Rachel to survive. Though in the end, the price had been too high, and she’d refused.
“I want what was promised to me,” Lilith snarled. “Your allegiance. You, and your brothers, on your knees before me. Or standing by my side. You could be my slaves or my partners. The choice is yours.” He didn’t answer. What was there to say? He would never willingly go back to Lilith. Never do her bidding. He’d tried so hard in the last thousand years to redeem himself for the bad deeds he’d done in those early years. But he doubted there was any way back.
The truth was—he didn’t deserve a happy ending.
But Imogen did. He should concentrate on that.
“Come.” She led away from the river, along a winding track through woods with silver-trunked trees. They were heading upward, and he knew where they were going. Finally, she halted on the edge of a cliff. Down below, a vast army was gathered.
Thousands and thousands of soldiers. He was guessing lesser demons, though he couldn’t be sure from this distance. He hated to think what chaos they could cause on Earth.
“I will be ruler of the Earth and all its people,” Lilith said from beside him. “Your cooperation would make things go a lot smoother, but I will do this with, or without, your help.”
Demons from the Abyss only had limited access to Earth. They could visit in three ways. Mostly, they did so by possessing a human body, taking on the human’s appearance. There were always men or women open to the sweet persuasions of a demon. Humans who thought they could benefit from the possession, only realizing too late that their souls were damned for eternity. But there were limitations to such possessions; the host’s mind and body started deteriorating almost immediately.
The second method was an astral projection. They had great strength for a limited period of time, but the projection took an enormous amount of power, which could not be maintained for long and could only be done by a higher demon. However, they did have the advantage that if they were killed on earth, their physical form re-manifested itself in the Abyss.
The final option was by opening a portal between the Abyss and Earth. But that was beyond the powers of most demons. Devlin and the other Stormlords were not creatures of the Abyss, and as such, they had the ability to open the portals and move freely between the realms. That was one of the reasons they’d been so valuable to Lilith, and he presumed that’s what she wanted of them now. To open the portals that would allow a demon army to rampage across Earth. They could also open a portal to Heaven, but they wouldn’t be welcomed there. Once, they had all called it home, but none of them had entered Heaven in over two thousand years.
He looked again at the swarming mass of demons below him. Could she win? He’d do everything in his power to stop her. And he knew then that he could never reach a compromise with her. Could never make a deal with her, even for Imogen’s life. And that Imogen wouldn’t want it even if he could.
“I could even arrange for you to be with your woman if that would convince you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
“Gabriel would never all
ow it.”
She shrugged. “There are ways to tie a soul to the Abyss.”
Yeah, right, he was sure his wife, the vicar, would want her soul tied to the Abyss. He’d bet she’d just jump at the chance. That was bound to make her fall in love with him all over again. He could just imagine that conversation.
“Anyway,” she said. “I wanted to give you a chance to do the sensible thing. War is coming. You’ve found your woman, but you’ll lose her again very soon. Come freely and take your rightful place in the world.”
He needed to buy himself some time, time to find a way through this. “Let me think about it.”
Lilith gritted her teeth. “You’ve had a thousand years to think about it.”
“Then another day will make no difference.”
“One day. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow at this time, then there will be consequences. I’ll release some of my pets. Tell your woman to start praying.”
“If she comes to any harm, I’ll—”
She smiled, and he had to ball his fists at his side to stop him lunging for her. “She’s a dead woman walking, so someone might as well get a little fun out of her first.” She stared him in the face. “Your choice.”
He watched the sway of her hips as she walked away.
He was so fucked.
CHAPTER 8
“I think we should go and attack first,” Devlin said.
“What? All seven of us?” Torr replied. “Against an army of thousands?”
“Yeah, but mostly lesser demons. I think. And we have others. Finn’s wolves. A lot of our people are ex-military. We could get a good number.”
“We can’t send humans against demons.”
