Operation Middle of the Garden 03 - Of Consuming Fire

by Micah Persell

  The angel frowned. “I sincerely believe you would not want to know details.” The statement was delivered without any inflection. Without any emotion. But the words were so grave a chill skittered up Grace’s spine.

  Dahlia attempted a laugh, but it came out forced. “I’ve gone through labor before, angel. I know it’s no picnic.”

  The angel shook his head. “Not like this, you have not.”

  Dahlia took a step back. Her eyes grew wide, and she nodded once. Then her knees failed her. Jericho caught her just before she hit the floor. “Shit! Sweetheart?” When Dahlia gave no response, he hauled her up into his arms and cradled her against his chest. With a venomous glare at the angel, he stalked forward. “What the hell is wrong with you, angel!” Then, just as quickly, his face fell into utter hopelessness. “Will she … she won’t … die, will she?”

  They all waited impatiently for the angel to answer, and his facial expression did not put Grace at ease. “She has eaten of the Tree of Eternal Life. In the end, the birth of her child will not be what ends her.”

  Which, Grace noticed, was not a no. And, once again, Grace was reminded of this angel’s endgame: their deaths.

  Jericho’s eyes turned bleak, and he kissed his unconscious wife on the forehead. Grace moved aside as Jericho carried Dahlia out while mumbling nonsense into her hair. His deep voice cut off abruptly as he closed them into their room. Grace looked back to Abilene, who had a hand covering her mouth, a look of horror painting her features. Eli was whispering in her ear, obviously trying to calm her, but the heart monitor was still beeping extraordinarily fast.

  Grace glared at the angel. “Well done, you complete ass,” she hissed. Profanity was usually beneath her — she had so many more refined ways of using words to cut someone to the quick — but nothing seemed to embody this situation better.

  The angel’s eyes flared as though he was surprised at Grace’s rancor, and then he looked at the frantic couple across the room and heaved a resigned sigh.

  With slow steps, the angel made his way toward Abilene. “Human, you must calm. You are not in danger, and your anxiousness is bad for the child.”

  Abilene’s eyes snapped in his direction, a very clear expression of you’ve gotta be kidding me on her face. “Are you completely deranged?” she asked him in a loud voice. “Who says that to a pregnant woman? Who?”

  “Baby, please — ” Eli tried to pull her close to him, to wrap his arms around her.

  “No! This is bullshit! He’s holding us hostage. I’m about to give birth in captivity. And he goes around saying something doom and gloom every five seconds. I’ve had it!” Abilene’s face turned red.

  An alarm started blaring from one of the monitors.

  • • •

  Initially, he had come over here only to lesson some of his Temptation’s anger; however, Jayden felt a genuine and rare flare of concern as a monitor for the baby’s heartbeat began to blare in warning. The mother’s anxiety was affecting the health of the innocent. The small woman reached beneath the blankets again, and a second later shrieked, “I’m crowning!”

  The blue-eyed one swayed on his feet. “Oh, God, the baby’s coming.” He turned toward Jayden’s Temptation with wide eyes. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t know anything about this!”

  And then, against all reason or anything Jayden ever would have expected, his Temptation turned her eyes upon him. The silent plea in their depths shot straight through Jayden’s spine. Jayden clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. This went against his instinct. His orders were to end these people, not to help them.

  But the innocent was in danger. And the innocent was the priority.

  “There is very little you have to do,” Jayden said to the man quietly. “Her body does the work. You only need to catch your daughter.” He walked forward slowly, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. “Little human,” he said as kindly as possible to the small, frightened woman in the bed.

  Her wide, terror-filled eyes turned on him. The alarm continued to sound.

  “I know you are frightened, but you must calm. Remember yourself.”

  With his eyes, Jayden urged the blue-eyed one to take her hand, and once he did, Jayden felt the delicate one mentally take the reins of her panic and try to pull them back. “Yes, good,” he coached her softly.

  After a few moments, the alarm faltered and then fell silent. Jayden allowed himself to relax. He placed his hand on the blue-eyed one’s shoulder and urged him to the end of the bed. “Tell him what to do,” Jayden told the delicate one. “He is strong for his family. He will take care of you.”

  Without another word, Jayden turned from the bed, strode past his Temptation where she gaped at him with a wide-open mouth, and took up residence leaning against the wall right outside the room.

  Less than a minute later, the indignant cry of a newborn babe filled the air. Though he told himself not to look — that life was none of his concern — Jayden could not stop himself from peeking into the room.

  The blue-eyed one held an infant so tiny it barely filled his palms. The baby was warm and wiggly and perfectly formed. She had a head full of ebony ringlets, and she gazed upon her father with wide, blue eyes. Jayden’s heart swelled as the infant’s innocence flooded his body like a warm, consuming fire.

  This was every angel’s favorite part of humanity — the perfect, innocent beginning. He felt his cheeks burn and realized he was smiling. This new life — she was beautiful. The infant scowled at Jayden over her father’s shoulder and her tiny, perfect face twisted as she screamed with all the power her small lungs could give her. The infant’s feelings poured out of her: she wanted — no, needed — the woman in the bed. Loved her mother.

  The feelings were so pure, so perfect, not even the blue-eyed one was confused about what she needed. He walked quickly to his mate’s bedside and placed the baby on her mother’s chest. The delicate one gasped and cuddled her child close to her breast. The defilers’ intense, unconditional love for the baby permeated the room, strong and unforgiving, and Jayden was momentarily humbled by the selflessness of the humans’ feelings.

  The blue-eyed one climbed into bed with his family and wrapped his arms around the woman and child. “Oh, God, she’s so beautiful,” he said reverently, brushing a palm over the baby’s head and pressing a kiss to his mate’s cheek. “A girl,” he whispered. “I was secretly hoping for a girl.”

  “So,” the delicate one said, “Genesis it is.”

  The blue-eyed one nodded and pulled his family close.

  Jayden watched all of this without a word. All he could think of was that he was going to soon take this child’s — Genesis’s — parents from her. Introduce pain into Genesis’s young life. Return beautiful, guiltless love with pain.

  It did not settle well within his heart.

  He felt warmth at his side and turned his head. His Temptation stood beside him. “Thank you,” she whispered, gifting him with the smallest and shyest of smiles.

  Jayden felt it down to the tips of his toes. He tore his eyes from her and looked again at Genesis. The first life he had ever started rather than ended. And then a thought so shocking it had him stumbling backward flashed through his mind: Do I have to kill them?

  The Compulsion rioted within him, and Jayden used all of his strength to push it back down again.

  Weariness weighed Jayden down. Of course he had to. In the end, it mattered not whether he wanted to. It would happen. Doubting himself now would only bring on the Compulsion quickly.

  He forced his eyes from the beautiful family and walked away.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, Jayden was in his usual place by the cave-in, but a very unusual aura of worry crowded his thoughts.

  He could not shake a concern that the humans were going to run out of food.

  Jayden had not once checked the supplies since packing the defilers into this wing of the facility — he hadn’t cared if th
ey lived longer or died sooner. But now, with an infant in their numbers, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to have such a cavalier attitude toward the humans’ survival. After all, the infant they named Genesis was also human, and she did not deserve to suffer.

  The worry continued to dig into Jayden’s thoughts. With an exasperated sigh, Jayden pushed off of the rubble and stalked down the hallway toward the supply closet to check on the number of MREs. Hopefully no one would see him in this expression of caring, however little it might be.

  Jayden wrenched open the supply closet, quickly scanned the contents, and frowned. No, they did not have nearly enough supplies for five grown adults and a growing child for seven months.

  Jayden was running figures in his head when another steady stream of worry filtered through Jayden’s mind. For a moment, he was completely confused. Was he truly worrying about yet another problem? Heaven above, he was going completely soft!

  It took him only a moment more to realize the second stream of thoughts was not his. They were his Temptation’s. They felt so important to him, so close to what he should be paying heed to, that he had mistaken them for his own thoughts.

  He raised a hand and massaged his furrowed brow. With a steeling breath, he relaxed his mental guard and allowed his Temptation’s thoughts to flood him fully.

  The sheer volume of her anxiety almost bowled him over. He had to take a stumbling step back. Her complete lack of options for distraction was driving her toward the edge of what she could handle mentally. Always before, she had her work to distract her. God, the pain hurt so badly. She needed to be busy. Pain. Now she had nothing. Was trapped in a hallway with two happy couples and her worst nightmare. Why was this happening to her? She had nothing. No laptop. No research. PAIN. No projects. Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING!

  Jayden jerked himself out of her thoughts with a gasp. A longing reared its head within him. The desire to ease her hurt — to fix her problem — was so overwhelming, Jayden could not ignore it.

  Without thought, he began to rationalize taking action. He had just been pondering how it did not seem just to imprison them without creature comforts. Granted, food was not so much a comfort as a necessity, but —

  Jayden stared down the hallway at the pile of rubble blocking the exit. It would take seconds — perhaps a minute — to return to the main room and retrieve some of his Temptation’s items.

  He allowed his senses to probe the other defiler’s rooms. They were occupied the same way they were always occupied when the doors were closed. This time, however, the realization that they were all making love left him with a heavy feeling of want rather than disgust.

  Jayden forcefully shoved that line of thought from his mind, and in its wake laid a decision. Was he really going to do this? Seek to make her stay with him more comfortable?

  He took three steps toward the exit before he realized there had never really been a decision to make at all.

  • • •

  The breathing exercises weren’t working! Grace could hear her breaths echoing throughout the sparse room, and at the rate that she was pacing back and forth, it wasn’t only from hyperventilation. She was going to start wearing a literal path in the floor if she didn’t get a hold of herself.

  Another bolt of pain shot up her spine, and Grace gritted her teeth and walked faster. It didn’t work. She was unable to prevent a whimper, no matter how fast she paced. The pain was so much worse today. It was the third day since she had Impulse-paired. She’d made it longer without release than any of the other two couples made it during the first few days of their relationships — and that thought, which had been her first upon waking today, no longer gave her any comfort.

  Grace groaned as the pain continued and rubbed fingers over her temples, trying to hold back the raging migraine perched in the wings. “I need to work!” she shouted to the empty room.

  Immediate chagrin rushed in. Had she seriously just screamed in an empty room like a toddler?

  The thoughts of her laptop and research just feet away, but as inaccessible as though they were miles away were torturing her.

  She had just spun on her heel to make another pass in front of the door for perhaps the ten thousandth time when a sharp knock sounded.

  She jerked it open and was met with a rather timid-looking angel. Before she could stop herself, she looked at his wings where they peeked over his broad shoulders.

  Why? Why did he get to disappear?

  She could feel the ferocity of her scowl as she dragged her eyes from his wings to his face and was marginally pleased when the angel leaned away from her slightly. Oh, she was itching for a fight, and he was the perfect culprit. “What?” she growled, hands on hips.

  His eyes flicked away from hers and danced around without landing on anything. In someone else, Grace would call the behavior nervousness.

  “I thought … perhaps … ” The angel’s chest rose and fell with a quick huff, and he stared at the ceiling momentarily, dismay and annoyance flaring across his face. He met her eyes again and drew his hands from behind his back. “Here,” he said unceremoniously, thrusting a battered brown bag at her.

  Grace stared at it for several seconds before she recognized it as her beat-up leather satchel. She could see the corner of her laptop peeking through the edge of the flap. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Well … yes. I, uh, thought you might need. Well — ” He broke off and looked at the floor again. He wiggled the satchel where it still hovered between them.

  Grace snatched it from his fingers, careful not to touch him, and pulled it to her chest. She could see notes peeking from the back pocket — notes that had been on her desk. He’d seen them and made sure to put them in the bag for her.

  The gesture made her irrationally angry. “You think this what, makes us okay now or something?” she spat at him.

  His head shot up and his eyes widened. “No, I — ”

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “God, you’re all the same!” And even though she hated him in that second, she couldn’t prevent herself from looking at his body. His robe had mended itself from the gunshot wound he received days ago, and the blood had vanished from its fabric. It lay on his body like the finest silk. His wide chest filled it out beautifully, and she discovered herself licking her lip. She forced herself to sneer at a splash of blood that marred the flawless patch of skin at the base of his neck where his robe did not reach. If she didn’t go on the offense, and soon, she would throw herself at him. That patch of skin would be her undoing. The Impulse pain flared hotly, and she turned the groan of pain into a stinging retort. “Don’t you ever bathe?” she threw into his face. She scowled at him and spun around.

  With that, she slammed the door in his face.

  And immediately felt like shit. She looked down at the bag she still clutched to her chest and noticed that he’d even tucked her favorite pen in with the notes. The pain flared again along with the realization that she’d been a class-A bitch.

  Did he deserve it? Oh, yeah. But “winning him over,” the group’s current brilliant plan for escape, might have just been shot to hell. With a weary sigh, she gently set her satchel down on the bed and walked to the door, not quite sure she was really getting ready to apologize to the psycho who was holding her captive.

  When she opened the door this time, it was with dread. But the hallway was empty. Grace looked right and left and didn’t see him. The door of the room next to hers was standing open, however, and she figured he’d gone in there to pout. Or whatever it was angels did when chubby redheads ripped them a new one. Her feet dragged as she forced herself to walk into the adjacent room, an apology ready to trip off of her tongue as soon as she saw him so she could get this over with.

  She spun into the room. “Angel, I’m s — ” She stumbled to a stop.

  The angel’s hand paused where it was dribbling water from the running sink over his bare pectoral. Over his bare everything. The angel’s robe lay in a puddle on the floor at hi
s feet. He was standing by the hand-washing sink in the corner and giving himself a whore’s bath, except looking at him made Grace want to be the whore.

  Everywhere her eyes caressed was covered with beautiful, burnt-sugar skin. His muscles flickered beneath her stare. His chest glistened where he had been trickling water over the long-gone wound. Her eyes followed a droplet as it ran between his pecs and picked up speed as it bounded down the center division of his abs. The droplet was halted by his belly button, but Grace’s eyes didn’t stop. She heard herself make a noise of complete and utter want as she allowed herself to look at the evidence that this angel was very much a male.

  No sooner had she looked and realized that she was looking at the most beautiful thing she had ever seen than the pain from the Impulse crashed through her. It was so intense, it made her sag against the doorframe and bite her lip hard enough to draw blood. With a moan, she tore around the corner and fled to her room.

  Pain, worse than any she’d felt thus far, shot through her body, throwing her onto her bed. Her body arched. Her head thrashed on the pillow. Her toes curled.

  Oh, she needed.

  Images of the angel flew behind her closed eyes. The way he moved. The way he looked at her.

  On its own, her hand began to move. Her fingers dug under the waistband of her scrubs. Quickly slipped between her panties and her skin. Her fingers were so warm; they seemed to burn where they touched.

  A moan wrenched from Grace’s lips, and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from happening again.

  She started breathing quickly. Her mind replaced her own hand with the big, blunt fingers of the angel. It was no longer she who touched herself. It was him.

  Grace felt a rush of warmth between her thighs. Her knees fell open in response. Her fingers tunneled further, sifting through the curls at the apex of her thighs. As soon as her fingertips encountered the moisture thoughts of the angel had wrung from her body, Grace groaned.

  Oh, God, she was aroused.