Tess cringed, trying to pull away, but Chad’s grip on her neck grew stronger. He yanked her body into his, jerking her feet from the floor. Black splotches burst before her eyes and she clawed at his fingers, her nails gouging bloodless lines into spongy, cold meat.
He wormed his hand up over her jaw, fingers pushing at her lips as what felt like an enormous pulsating rod ground against her hip. “See what you do to me, blossom?” he panted in her ear, clawing at her bra, seeking her flesh. “Feel how hard I am. Feel what I’m going to shove into your cunt and fuck you with for the rest of your—”
“Hey, dickhead.”
The shout was clear. Strong.
Chad spun toward the voice with a snarl, flawless skin decaying in a heartbeat. “You,” he roared, crushing Tess to his chest like a shield in a brutal clinch. “The Watcher.”
Jared Pierce stood in the wavering lounge room, arms crossed, a cold grin on his face. “Oh, I’m done with watching, fuck knuckle.”
A sudden blaze of gold light flooded the room and Chad squealed, flinging decomposing arms up to his face.
Tess dropped to the floor, staggering away from the squealing, thrashing wraith. Black, oily smoke rose from his dead flesh wherever the light touched him—which was everywhere. A sickening stench filled the air, thick and over-ripe.
“Run, Tess. Get away.”
Jared’s shout rose above Chad’s keening wails, and Tess spun around, staring at the man she’d met on Hill Street that day, struck dumb.
He stood in the center of the light—no, he seemed to be the light. It poured out of him in blinding flares of vibrant energy, as if he were a mighty sun erupting.
“Jared?”
He flicked his gaze to her and Tess gasped at their iridescent intensity. They were boiling pools of brilliant blue—so sharp it was painful to look at them. “Run, Tess,” he ordered, another wave of lustrous light surging from him. “Now. I can’t hold—”
A squealing hiss cut him short. Decaying flesh spitting and blistering under the light’s assault, Chad reared back, mouth a gaping maw, arms thrown wide. Another piercing wail tore the air and, eyes igniting into flames of ink, he turned into a murky black smudge and shot forward. Straight at Jared.
It smashed into his chest, a loud, wet pop filling the room as it did so. The blazing, golden light radiating from him flared to a hideous puce, casting everything in the room in an angry red glare. Jared reeled backward, arms flailing, face contorting in agony. The black wraith—Chad. Oh, my God, it’s Chad—pummelled into him, lashing at his face, his chest with inky, shapeless arms. Ice particles formed on the air, freezing the very edges of the black smudge’s limbs, turning them into lethal razors. Slicing into Jared’s weakening light.
A scream of fury tore from Jared’s throat. He struck out, a fresh wall of brilliant yellow blasting from him. The wraith writhed, contorting into a thrashing arc, and Jared surged forward, glowing brighter, stronger.
Tess stared, frozen, incapable of comprehending what she saw. It was as though Jared fought with a light-devouring shadow. The two twisted and mauled each other, light and blackness. Sinking his hands into the shadow, eyes burning with blue fire, Jared flung it across the room, smashing it against the wall. A sudden vision of decaying wood, rotten pulp, and rust-weeping iron erupted on the point of contact, bringing with it a thick, cloying stench of death, as if the collision of plasterboard and phantasm rent reality. It rippled outward. Turning Tess’s living room wall into a sickening, moving mural that made her want to scream.
“Tess,” Jared roared, snapping his head around to fix Tess with a wild, furious stare, the squealing wraith writhing in his grip. “Get out of here now!”
Tess jumped.
“Tess, go.”
Jared’s angry stare burned into her. Her skin prickled with heat, her heartbeat tripled. Was he insane? How could she leave him? How could he expect her to leave him? She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms and shook her head. “No.”
“Don’t argue with me, Tess. Go now.”
The wraith—Chad—contorted. Two light-devouring shapes spiked out from its mass, long and thick, and slapped around Jared’s forearms. They whipped upward, curling around his biceps, his shoulders. A mouth formed in the blackness, a gaping maw, and a deafening squeal sliced the frozen air.
Tess smacked her hands to her ears, watching in horror as Jared staggered backward.
The shadow reared up, flaring out. It shot toward Jared, tearing existence in its wake.
“No!” Radiance poured from Jared, flooding the room. Everywhere it fell, everything it touched, restored to normalcy. Yet the wraith fought back, slashing at Jared with shapeless arms, their violent swathe slicing into his luminescence.
And with each blow, Jared shuddered. With each strike, the golden light faltered.
Until, a rising cloud of squirming, swirling blackness loomed over him.
Like a broiling oil slick the wraith covered him, terrible unformed shapes reaching for his throat. A hollow laugh bounced around the room, smug, arrogant, and triumphant, as stretching tentacles of blackness slapped over Jared’s face, seeking his mouth.
Tess lurched forward, heart hammering, sick fear twisting her gut. Christ, no. She had to do something. She had to get Chad off—
“Run, Tess,” Jared’s roar ruptured the air. Golden light flared again, punching holes through the smothering black specter. But it wasn’t enough. As Tess watched, the smudge that was Chad spread out, wrapping around Jared’s lucent body. Devouring him.
Cold terror seized Tess. “Jared.”
Another laugh boomed around the room, louder. Stronger. The shroud encompassing Jared rippled, a pulse of dead black light, and suddenly Chad stood there again. Completely solid. Hands buried up to the wrists in Jared’s throat. “So much for the Almighty’s Watcher.” He turned his head and looked at Tess over his bunching shoulder, giving her a slow smile. “Pathetic, isn’t he.”
“Tess.” The choked gasp fell from Jared’s lips and Tess whimpered at how deathly pale they were. The golden light, now a tainted cat-vomit yellow, wavered, leaving the room a gray, morbid hull. Trembling hands reached up and curled around Chad’s flexed forearms, weakly attempting to yank them away. The sound of singeing flesh stung Tess’s ears and she watched, unable to move, as rancid smoke rose from the point of contact. Jared bucked against Chad’s grotesque hold, growing paler and paler, less and less substantial with each waning struggle.
“Oh God…” Her heart squeezed in pain, fear chilling her blood. She took a stumbling step forward, stare locked on the almost vaporous Jared. She had to save him. Somehow she had to save him.
Demented fire in his ice-blue eyes, Chad gave her a wide, toothy smirk. “I told you already, blossom, we’re meant to be together. This piece of filth can’t stop that. Nothing can stop that. Nothing can stop me from having you.” He swung his head back to the almost vaporous Jared, fists clearly visible beneath Jared’s translucent skin. Jerking him up by the throat, he stared into Jared’s face, a supremely smug chuckle rumbling in his chest. “And I am going to have her any and every way I want.”
A very small, very angry grin pulled at one side of Jared’s mouth. “Think again, fucker.” And before Chad or Tess could blink, Jared exploded into a ball of blazing, furious light.
Chad’s body flung backward—a squealing projectile of putrid flesh. Tess screamed, dropping to the floor as he slashed through the air above her. Another wild wave of brilliant red light radiated through the room, like a fireball of concentrated rage. Chad smashed against the far wall, wave after wave of refulgent light pummelling him, nailing him to the plasterboard. Tess cringed, gaping up at the terrifying sight. Wall after wall of powerful light smashed into his body, drowning him in incandescent blindness. With each luminous blow his rotting flesh grew more pungent, with each radiant strike his thrashing form less substantial. Less real.
“Tell me who’s pathetic now, huh?” Jared’s voice cut th
rough Chad’s wail, low and thick with contempt. A blistering wave of blood-red light flooded the room. For a split second it surged over Tess, a sickening sense of being pushed out of reality assaulted her mind, as though her essence was being forced through an unthinkable grate. Her vision blurred, the room became…
—emptiness, oh, sweet fucking God, where the fuck—
…dark, and then she was lying on her kitchen floor, tears streaming down her face and gasping for breath.
“Tess?”
She jerked away from the voice, terror stripping her lungs of air. Fuck, where had she been? Nothingness. An empty nothingness.
“Tess.” A warm hand gently closed over her shoulder, soft and strong. “It’s okay, Tess. Chad’s gone. I’ve pushed him into the Void.” Another hand smoothed up her arm and she jolted up, staring into eyes the color of a stormy ocean. Jared. “You’re safe.”
He crouched down, a small lopsided grin playing with his lips as he cupped the sides of her face with palms that felt like more real than her own. “Told you I would protect you.”
She stared at him, incapable, for the first time in her life, of speech.
With infinite care, he brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping at the hot tears wetting her face. “It’s over, Tess.” His grin stretched wider and he nodded his head, an air of calm completion settling over him. “It’s over.” For just a second Tess thought she saw a dark flash of regret flare in up in his eyes, and then his lips were on hers and she couldn’t think anymore.
He lifted her from the floor, holding her body to his in an embrace so tender her knees threatened to give out. Lips moved over her face, tasting her tears, taking them away.
A shudder rocked through Tess, hot and cold at once, and a squirming beat of heat erupted between her thighs. She gasped and pulled away from Jared a little, gazing into his face. Her body might know exactly what it wanted, but her head still needed answers. She needed answers. “Who are you, Jared?” she whispered, searching his eyes for the truth. “What are you?”
Jared let out a soft breath. “I am a Watcher. A condemned soul given the task of guarding those of light and life from malevolent forces. Your light, Tess, your life is strong and pure.” He touched his fingertips to her cheek. “So pure and beautiful. I am not surprised darkness craved your light and beauty. I have been watching you, guarding over you since you came here. Sent by Him to protect your soul, your heart. To keep you safe and in doing so, keep the balance of reality the way it is meant to be.”
Tess frowned. “I don’t…I still don’t understand. Am I dead? Are you?”
His answering chuckle was warm. And sad. “You are very much alive, Tess. And now safe from one who is not.”
Her heart thumped hard into her throat. Why did she feel like he was avoiding something? “Who are you, Jared? Really?”
Jared threaded his hands into her hair, pressing his hips to hers as he drew her head closer. “I died thirty-three years ago, Tess, and I’ve been awaiting Judgement on my condemned soul since, and was given a duty to perform. One last chance at Redemption and Ascension—to watch over you. I’m the man who gave his soul to protect you, Tess Darcy.” He placed a gentle kiss on her parted lips before meeting her eyes again. “And I would do so a thousand times again.”
“Aww,” a snide voice drawled. “Ain’t that cute?”
Tess’s scar burst into agonizing heat just as Chad Fisher—as rotted and putrid as ever—materialized behind Jared and plunged his arms straight into his back. “Shame you gave it up for nothing, Watcher.”
A shriek of absolute agony tore from his Jared’s throat and his head flung back, body snapping into a hideous arch.
“Jared, no,” Tess screamed, grabbing at his shoulders.
With a malevolent smirk, Chad yanked his arms free of Jared’s torso, hooked fingers gripping an incandescent orb of pure white light, so beautiful Tess’s heart froze.
And then, with a sly wink at Tess, he crushed his fist around it. Obliterating it completely.
Jared’s gaze dropped to Tess, hollow, clouded and suddenly sunken. “I’m sorry, Tess,” he whispered, voice sounding far, far away. “I’m…”
“Dead,” Chad snarled, seconds before Jared’s body turned into an ashen statue and shattered into a million specks of dust. “Again.”
Chapter 7
Chad closed the distance between them before Tess could move, stepping over the gray pile of ash scattered on the floor with one fluid stride. Cruel fingers dug into the soft flesh under her biceps and he yanked her against his chest. “As I’ve said before, blossom…” Ice-fire roared in his eyes as he stared hard into her face, the ragged flaps of decaying flesh hanging from his cheeks making little slap-slap sounds as he spoke. “Mine. Always all mine.”
Tess opened her mouth to scream.
And Chad plunged his tongue past her lips.
The cloying taste of over-ripe meat assaulted her senses as his thick tongue wormed deeper into her mouth, lashing at her teeth and tongue. She bucked, her mind gibbering, but Chad held her firm, bony fingertips stabbing into her flesh and muscle like daggers.
He ground his cock against her body, the organ pulsing between their hips like an angry snake, full of poison and death. A wail rose up in Tess’s throat and Chad swallowed it, greedy mouth sucking at hers with savage force. She lashed out, her fists striking at shoulders that seemed to be made from moldy sponge. And yet the muscles there were harder than steel, stronger than they’d ever been when Chad lived.
Much stronger, Tessa…
Chad’s voice sank into her head, a boast of his power over her. A promise of what was to come.
Teeth that felt coated in sludge bit into her bottom lip and hot, coppery blood pooled in her mouth, slipping down the back of her throat.
She bucked in Chad’s brutal hold again, desperate to break free. If she didn’t, she knew her mind would snap. She had to get away.
Chad’s mouth tore from hers, and he gazed down at her, bright red blood smeared across his lips. “You’re right, Tessa.” Those glistening lips stretched into a wide smile, revealing moss-covered teeth, and he punched his still-growing cock against her crotch. “Let’s get away. Let’s go…” the temperature in the room plummeted, the air shimmered, and suddenly they were standing beside a bed in an old, iron shack, candles flickering everywhere, “…home.”
Tess’s blood ran cold as steely, unseen hands grabbed her thighs and arms, hauled her from the floor, and threw her onto the bed.
Four heavy chains lashed out, curling around her legs and arms, pinning her spread-eagle to the red sheeted mattress. As one, four wide shackles locked around her wrists and ankles and then, with a speed so quick Tess barely had time to scream, the chains snapped tight.
“Always mine,” Chad drawled, appearing at the side of the bed, absolutely flawless skin aglow with perfect health. “The way it is meant to be.” He extended a finger and ran it up the length of her torso, her shorts and shirt evaporating under its faint pressure, leaving her stretched out naked for his hungry, burning inspection. “The way you’ve wanted it to be all this time.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, hot and shameful. She blinked them away, staring up at her dead ex. She knew what was to come next. The turgid, pulsating length of his cock told her exactly, even if she hadn’t seen the obsessed look in his eyes. Knew what was to come. Knew she had no way to stop it. How did she stop a ghost doing whatever it wanted?
A tear slipped from her eye, scouring a line down her cheek like acid and she choked back a sob.
How do you survive when it does?
“Don’t cry, blossom,” Chad murmured, smoothing his hands down her ribcage. He gazed at her, lips parting in a smile she knew he thought placating. He trailed his left hand along her jaw, down her neck to her collarbone. “You know, it always destroyed me when you cried.”
“No!” Tess cried, thrashing underneath his hand. “Leave me alone! Get your fucking hands off me!” Chad made his wa
y to her head, finger tracing a line around her exposed left nipple as he stared down into her face. “Our souls have been connected from the moment we first met, Tessa.” He flattened his hand to palm her breast, squeezing its heavy swell in slow pulses. “It’s why you conjured me in your dreams. You craved me in the very way I craved you before I died. As I do now. Completely. Nothing else exists but the need to feel your flesh on mine, my flesh on yours. Your sleeping mind knew that, even when you denied me.” He dragged his fingertips up to the peak of her nipple and pinched, chuckling when Tess gasped in pain. “That craving, your craving, called me and I came.” He flicked at her nipple, a gleam of immense satisfaction shining in his eyes as she gasped again. “And then you came. Again and again and again.”
Shame flooded through Tess. Sick, repugnant shame.
Oh, Christ, he was right. He was evil incarnate, but he was right. Her body had never stopped needing sexual satisfaction, even when she’d fled from New York. It had craved release. She had craved release. She could accept her sexuality only in her dreams and in her dreams she’d created a lover. A lover whose passion for her had been so paramount, so consuming and powerful, she’d felt like he existed solely for her needs. Solely for her.
Chad’s teeth flashed as he smiled. “That’s me.” He dropped into a crouch beside the bed, leaning forward until his hot breath fanned her cheek. “Solely for you.” His tongue traced the outer rim of her ear. “Solely for me.”
The hand on her breast closed down painfully, solid fingers slipping into her flesh with sickening pressure. “Denying it won’t stop me, Tessa.” He suddenly straddled her, hand dragging down her quivering stomach, between his spread legs until his palm rested on the exposed mound of her mons, his middle finger parting the folds of her sex to grind against her hooded clit.
“I remember doing this to you when I was alive,” he drawled. “In your bedroom. I remember thinking then I never wanted it to end.” He plunged his finger into her flesh, a stretching, squirming icicle that seemed to delve all the way to her womb. “And here we are now. Where time doesn’t exist and no living soul will ever find us.” His hips slid back, his stiff cock sliding over her mound until its bulbous head replaced his hand at her pussy’s lips. “Ever.”
Shadow Whispers Page 11
