Saving Her
Soul Searchers - Book 2
BE Brouillard
Copyright © 2020 BE Brouillard
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Beetiful Book Covers
Developmental Editor: Brigitte Billings
Copy Editor: Kate Kennedy
To the ‘broken’ girls and to the ‘bad’ boys…
Always remember that you are infinitely worthy of love.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Purgatory
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Only Her…
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Books In This Series
Purgatory
On the far side of the world, exists a celestial island which appeared when Satan’s fall from Heaven created Hell. This island is home to the Mountain of Purgatory – a towering structure of multiple layers, each corresponding to one of the seven deadly sins – Wrath, Envy, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony and Greed. Here reside the souls of those men and women whose crimes on Earth should have damned them to an eternity of hellfire, had they not shown some shred of remorse – a glimmer of hope that they could be saved.
Recognized by humankind only in their dreams, they have gone by many names – incubus, succubus, phantasm, hobgoblin…demon lover. Through history, they’ve been acknowledged with fear for their ability to seduce even the most pious spirits, to drive them into frenzies of desire. But there is more to their story. More to know about these restless souls. Some have existed in this realm for thousands of years, slowly learning what is necessary for repentance; others find their answers more quickly, but each has a unique journey to reach the final goal: the ability to give and receive pure love.
◆◆◆
Chapter 1
The shot rang out a split second before he felt the shattering impact of the bullet as it smashed into his skull. Another explosion and heat blossomed in his chest. His lips moved soundlessly. Somewhere, deep in what was left of his consciousness, he knew there was little left of his head, yet he was certain he could feel the bullet ricochet around his skull.
You’re dead, dude.
‘Fuck off,’ his mind responded.
Dead…
And then a growing sense of horror as the reality of it sank in. The lights went out. He was gone.
All these decades later, it still seemed surreal.
He was dead.
Dead, and in Hell…or rather, Purgatory. Kinda like Hell’s waiting room.
Axel’s mind reeled back the filmstrip of that night, feeling each emotion, each physical sensation as clearly as the moment it had all happened. Stumbling into that dark alley… They’d known it was a bullshit idea. Streetlights guttering out, footsteps scraping across asphalt.
What the hell was he even doing there with those losers?
Drugs had never been his thing. He’d hooked up with these assholes for the bikes. The chicks. Now it was all fucked up. And he was in a dark alley surrounded by the scuffling of feet and hoarsely whispered exchanges that made every nerve-ending sizzle into high-alert
Then he heard it. The unmistakable metallic scrape of a revolver being drawn and cocked. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck had prickled.
“What the fuck, man?” Wolfman had cursed.
Next, the hail of bullets.
The men had scattered like skittles. Wolfie dropped, then Bazz was down. Axel ducked, held up his arms in a futile gesture of self-protection. How the fuck was he going to ward off bullets with his bare hands?
When he thought about it now, it made him laugh. Although generally, that was after he’d jolted his consciousness back to the present, biting back bile. Or the memory of bile. No vomiting for the undead, he reminded himself mirthlessly.
‘Yip, we’ll laugh about this later,’ he thought to himself.
One bullet in his brain, another in his chest. Both had shattered bone and turned vital organs into pulp. The autopsy had revealed more entry and exit points, but it didn’t matter. Those first two were enough to finish him.
Talk about overkill.
Another mirthless chuckle.
“What did you expect, fool? A medal? You walked into a drug deal with nothing but your idiot gangster attitude and a leather jacket with a badass nickname stuck to the back of it.” The voice that intruded was female. Mocking. Words crisply enunciated. Like she had a stick up her ass.
‘Aw, fuck. Lilith,’ he thought.
He hated that bitch.
“I heard that,” she answered, reminding him that nothing about his world was private anymore. He existed on her whim, and she was an evil succubus who delighted in tormenting him. She continued now. “If you’d known that was your last day, would you have spent it differently?” Her tone remained mocking.
He couldn’t answer her, his brain rewinding the events before those last fateful moments. What had he done? Not much, if he was honest with himself. Lay around the clubhouse smoking weed, most likely. Maybe got a bit on the side with that sweet blonde they’d picked up that weekend.
“Did you call your family? Old friends? Did you tell someone you loved them?” she continued.
He shrugged, made a ‘pshaw’ sound.
“Fuck that shit, man, the Axe never loved nobody,” he scoffed. His bloodied ‘cut’ – the leather half-jacket he’d worn when he rode – had carried the nickname he’d borne with pride. ‘Axeman’. He’d been seriously stoked when the name had stuck – remembered taking his patch to the chicks at the little seamstress shop down the road from his digs. They’d eyed him out when he asked them to stitch it to his cut. He could sense it in them. Chicks loved him even if he didn’t love them back.
Well, he did, in a way. Loved the hell out of them. Loved fucking them. Loved wielding his ‘axe’ with practiced ease. The guys in the club thought he was a legend. Heard the pleasure screams of his women and had taken him into their fold like a prized cock in a fighting ring.
His prized cock.
He chuckled again.
“Nah, never loved nobody,” he repeated.
“Aside from yourself, darling.” Her tone was so dry he almost felt a thirst rise. He shrugged. Badass attitude didn’t hold much sway here; she had him by the balls, spiritually speaking. Right now, he could literally feel the waves of annoyance shimmering from her, like heatwaves off desert sand. As suddenly as her presence had emerged, it disappeared, leaving a strange vacuum in the air around him. He shook his head.
“Fucking chicks,” he muttered, building a shield of nonchalance to hide his simmering disquiet.
◆◆◆
“God, he’s such a dick! Wish you could change your mind now?” Jezebel asked, quirking a dark brow.
“Mmph!” Lilith snorted. “He’ll come ‘round.” Despite her appearance of confidence, she wasn’t feeling entirely sure.
“Just because he’s pretty, doesn’t mean he has the ability to be good,” Jezebel added.
“He’s not pretty,” Lilith snapped, flickin
g a curl over her shoulder.
Jezebel inclined her head in assent. ‘Pretty’ hardly described the man. He was fucking breathtaking. Cover model good looks had been given a bad-boy edge by a perpetual smudge of dark stubble that defined a jawline that hinted at his arrogance. The look was softened by tousled caramel curls that picked up golden streaks from the sun, and eyes that were as close to turquoise as a human’s could be.
“No, not pretty. But those eyes…” She sighed, uncharacteristically girlish.
The kid’s eyes were too pretty by half, hiding depths of self-absorption that should have been emblazoned on his face more clearly – as a warning to those who met him. The bad-boy image was enhanced by a generous smattering of dark ink – tattoos that defined a body that he’d taken pride in honing to perfection. Of course, Mother Nature had a hand in the whole mix – he’d been naturally lean and athletic to start with. Legs that stretched for miles had happily held toned muscle without much effort; the taut lines of his belly had developed definition with only the slightest effort, and his shoulders and biceps would thicken and rope if he’d merely looked at a dumbbell. But he’d done more than that, probably because he’d taken such pleasure in watching his body in motion as he’d stood before the sweat-blurred mirrors in the steamy gyms where he’d trained.
Women had fallen at his feet.
“I hate men like him,” Jezebel muttered.
“No, you don’t,” Lilith shot back.
Jezebel sighed. “You’re right. I love them. But unlike you, I don’t believe I can fix them.”
Lilith shook her head. “He has…potential. Just wait.”
“Yeah, let’s wait…if Satan’s Threshers don’t get him, at the very least those pretty eyes are gonna scare the hell out of his next potential conquest,” Jezebel grinned wickedly.
Chapter 2
Axel’s eyes glowed red.
“Fuck it,” he muttered as he felt the heat shimmering within. It happened every time he got turned on, which was often, considering he’d spent the last fifty years as a sex demon. Living off the pleasure energy of the women whose erotic dreams he’d fueled. Irresistibly drawn to those souls when they’d unconsciously called him into their fantasies. And yet here he sat, staring at this bookish little thing sitting at her desk.
‘Not bookish,’ he admitted. He’d watched her all day, from his silent place in the darkest corner of her mind.
Utterly fascinating.
At any other point in his existence, it would have been laughable. She was doing nothing that could have held his attention – no stretch of his imagination could have pictured this moment. Yet he had watched her go about her menial tasks, transfixed. The way her fingertips hovered and touched the keyboard of her laptop. The tiny ticking sounds of her nails on the keys. The flex of her calf muscles as she’d swiveled her chair from her desk. The way her sleek, dark ponytail had swayed and brushed between her shoulder blades when she’d turned her attention from one task to another. He’d determined that she worked in an administration position at a small school, a convent from the looks of it, which should have troubled him, considering he was a demon, but he’d learned early in his existence that these things were of little consequence to him.
Her small office held a wide, oak desk that was piled with stacks of paperwork, building plans, ledgers. In the neighboring office, a rotund, elderly man worked over similar paperwork, the pair often conferring over various accounts. It seemed there were plans to extend the school facilities, and he could tell that it was a project that she was passionate about. He liked that.
‘She’s so delicate,’ he thought, wanting to reach out and trace his fingertip down the curve of her cheek. Skin so smooth, flawless, like porcelain. No mascara coated the lashes that framed eyes that had stopped him in his tracks the moment he’d become aware of her. Ice-blue, encircled by a darker rim.
It had been her eyes that had reached out to his consciousness all those hours ago, before she woke. Her dream had been fitful, yearning, aching. An irresistible siren-song to a creature like him, a night-feeder of pleasure dreams. He hadn’t gone to her thoughts immediately, but had contented himself with circling her sleeping form soundlessly, watching her shift beneath the covers. She hadn’t been alone. A man slept at her side, flat on his back, one arm thrown over his head, an occasional snort rupturing the silence of the room.
Axel picked up the scent of alcohol.
‘Rum,’ he’d chuckled to himself. ‘Love that shit.’ His mind trawled back to days of hard drinking and harder partying. All done now. He yanked himself back to the room, the sleeping woman, the way she’d whimpered and curled into herself.
‘What’s the deal here,’ he wondered to himself. ‘If she’s horny, why doesn’t she just fuck him?’
Why had she reached out to…something else? Something like him. That was probably the more relevant question. The space between the two figures could have been an endless, icy chasm – neither showed any signs of connecting with the other. She turned and whimpered, a tear squeezing between her lashes and her lips moving silently. Pleading.
‘Motherfucker!’ He sucked in a breath. The call he’d felt from her wasn’t lust…she was reaching for comfort. And she wasn’t getting it from the asshole next to her. Beneath the sweet stench of liquor, Axel picked up another odor. Stale sex. Clearly, he’d not been having it with the woman in his bed.
Inexplicably Axel felt rage rise. Inexplicable because he’d been no angel in his lifetime. It was how he’d ended up in his current state. Incubus. Demon lover. Doomed to spend eternity atoning for the many sins of his mortal lifetime. And many of those sins had involved breaking hearts. One woman, two…hell, he’d had three or four on the line at a time, sometimes even in his bed all at once. Somehow the memory didn’t hold any appeal anymore.
‘Lilith would be thrilled,’ he mused. A Council member, she had taken a special interest in him since his arrival in Purgatory, and he couldn’t spit without her knowing it. ‘She’s gonna pee her pants when she sees me going soft out here.’ He paused, wondering if he should slip into her mind anyway. Distract her with some of his unique ‘talents’. ‘A nice wet dream might do the trick,’ he considered, then reeled away from the notion. ‘Fuck no, dude! What are you thinking? That would totally freak her out!’
Who would want to wake up from a night of misery and realize they’d dreamed of sex afterward? Yet somehow, he couldn’t force himself to leave her. In spite of the call of tempting, oh-so-dirty thoughts prodding at him from dozens of sleeping minds around the globe, he knew he needed to stay right here with her. He lingered close. Letting his mind slide around her subconscious occasionally, feeling her soul expand and contract like a heartbeat, somehow growing to know her a little.
◆◆◆
That had been hours ago. He’d stayed as she’d woken, slid soundlessly from the still-sleeping slob who’d grunted and scratched his ass while she’d tiptoed around the apartment getting ready for work. Axel bit back his disgust.
‘Why do women do that to themselves,’ he’d wondered. Then stopped his train of thought, feeling like a hypocrite. He’d never treated his women with respect when he’d been alive. He couldn’t really condemn the dick for doing the same thing.
It was one of the unresolved conflicts of his existence – that he broke the hearts of so many when secretly, he loved women. His mother had adored him; spoiled him rotten, if he was honest with himself. That was before she’d descended into a vortex of alcohol and misery over his asshole father. Her misery had left him virtually parentless. When Pops fucked off, Ma had pretty much drowned in a bottle, showering him with bursts of love between binges. Unless she was seeking it out in the arms of some new loser.
By the time he was in his teens, the gang was the best family he had; reckless, lawless kids causing shit, stealing shit, using shit. Then the bikes came. Throbbing engines, irresistible rumbling…so much power beneath that steel. Something he could rely on, understand. He’d lo
ved tinkering with them. Found the simplicity of nuts and bolts strangely satisfying. It made sense in a way that humans didn’t. Human hearts, that is. Human bodies were another story. He’d tinkered with those for hours. Honing his own body with exercise. Exploring the writhing bodies of the countless women who seemed so willing to do anything he asked.
He snapped out of his reverie. The sound of her voice as she answered the phone drew him back, reminding him of where he was. Unable to leave her. Hovering as she worked, got on with her day as if the pain of the previous night had never happened. He sensed that her subdued behavior was so normal that nobody considered that she might be secretly hiding any unhappiness.
“You’ve reached the Accounts Department, Desirée Wright speaking. How may I help you?” She’d picked up the phone trilling on the desk, began a brief conversation about something work-related.
‘Desirée …’ Her name was perfect. He swirled the word around his mouth like bourbon, imagining the taste on his tongue…her taste on his tongue. It caused strange sensations in the pit of his belly, pulling at the root of his cock.
“Desirée Wright,” he said, and smiled.
She glanced up, looked startled. A small furrow formed between the dark arches of her eyebrows.
“Sure, I’ll get back to you first thing with those figures,” she was saying to the person on the other end of the line, setting the phone back down as the call ended. Her brow furrowed deeper as she looked around the room. For some reason, he held his breath. He’d been through this before. She couldn’t see him outside of her dreams.
Unless he wanted her to.
That little pearl had been a surprise to him. After decades in Purgatory, he’d only discovered this ability after one of the others had stumbled across it. Poor bugger had spent millennia seeking redemption, then learned that when the circumstances were right, he could make himself real. Well, as real as any of them could be. Anaxandrinas…great Spartan king…had spent thousands of years pursuing absolution, only to find it in the arms of the first woman he’d allowed to see him.
Saving Her Page 1
