Another one spoke then, one I didn’t recognize. “She’s been wailing in pain and saying they were all talking at once.”
“The angels?” I asked, pulling Mary Elizabeth’s head to my chest. She calmed instantly, but stayed fetal, rocking against me.
“Yes,” the mother superior said. “According to Sister Mary Elizabeth, something has them all upset.”
“What?” Cookie asked, her green face shocked. “What could upset the angels like this?”
Before any of them could answer, Mary Elizabeth stilled. She unfolded herself and stood. I helped her, and Reyes helped me help her, as my ankle was still tender. I took her by the shoulders and tried to bring her terrified gaze to mine.
When she finally focused, her expression changed from terrified to shocked to sorrowful. She cupped my cheek in her hand, then looked down.
“Charley,” she said at last, her voice soft, full of fear, “what have you done?”
“What?” I glanced at the other nuns, but they seemed as confused as I was. “What did I do?”
She sank to her knees and put both hands on my abdomen before refocusing on me. She took one hand away to cover her mouth as she looked from me to Reyes and then back again. “What have you done?” she repeated, her words muffled.
And then I understood. I touched my abdomen and knew. In an instant, like a flash of lightning, I knew. I felt it. A tiny spark at first. A warmth. A glow in my nether regions that welled up and filled me with such unexplainable joy. Such unimaginable ardor. Such unconditional devotion.
Reyes was the first to catch on. He stepped forward, his expression just as shocked as Mary Elizabeth’s, and put his hand on my abdomen, covering both the sister’s hand and mine at once. I felt a pulse, a wave, like a greeting from a new life, as his body connected with mine.
I looked up at Garrett. He knew, too. “The daughter,” he said, his voice full of awe. He knew. The prophecies about the daughter of light were about me. But the ones about the daughter, just the daughter—well, those had been about … I looked back down at my abdomen. Cradled it as though holding her already. Reyes was emitting a combination of happiness and bewilderment.
Then I felt another presence. Another … admirer of the moment. We weren’t alone. Reyes tensed, feeling the presence, too. Outside in the alley, I felt the Dealer, could practically see him smile into the darkness as we all began to understand. But he already knew. He’d always known.
What had I done indeed?
Excerpt: Reyes’s POV
I stripped off my clothes and crawled into bed, trying not to let this latest development in all things Charley Davidson bother me. It didn’t help. It bothered me, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could do about it. She would never listen. I had to realize that. And, admittedly, her stubbornness was part of her charm. Unfortunately, that charm was going to get her killed someday. I would do everything in my power not to let that happen, but when she disregarded my advice at every turn, she made that goal more and more difficult to achieve.
And she paid the price. Holy shit, did she pay the price. With all that she’d been through, one would think she’d at least try to avoid life-threatening situations. I heard her screams at night. I felt the fear that rushed through her when her dreams turned dark. It penetrated the wall between us like razor-sharp shadows that cut to the bone.
My ire rose once again with the thought. I swallowed it back, held it at bay. Dutch seemed to care more about others than about herself—and to an incomprehensible degree. It went against everything I knew about grim reapers. They didn’t care about humans. They did their jobs and went about their days.
Dutch was different, unique, and I couldn’t help the pride that swelled inside me with that knowledge. If she had any idea what she was capable of, I’d probably be in a lot of trouble. Grim reapers were not to be trifled with. She’d figure that out one day.
I felt her crawl onto her mattress. Our beds practically butted against each other, and the wall between us was growing tiresome. I’d have to do something about that soon. Still, feeling her so close, even with a wall between us, was like a salve. She calmed the seas that forever roiled inside me. Illuminated the darkness I dwelled in. I could not get enough of her. I could never get enough of her. Even growing up, I dreamed about her constantly. Had I known she was not just a figment of my imagination, I would have sought her out in the flesh way sooner than I did. Instead, I visited her in my dreams. Her energy, her vividness and blindingly bright soul, drew me to her every time I closed my eyes. For the most part, I kept my distance. I would make myself known only if she was in any kind of danger, which seemed to happen a lot.
But there were times growing up, in my loneliest, darkest hours, when the pain of my upbringing became unbearable, and I would search her out. She was the only reason I was still alive. Without her there to light my way, I would have been lost decades ago. I would have taken my own life, certainly, and quite possibly the lives of several others along the way. That was the simple truth of it.
I felt her then. I felt her cross the barrier between us, probing, searching. I tensed, wondering what she was up to. She had been hurt a couple of weeks ago, and I’d vowed to give her space and time to heal. Maybe she was better. Going by what I was feeling radiating off her now, she was a lot better.
The sensation of her grew stronger. She was reaching out with her mind, playing a game at which I was a master. I couldn’t help but be amused and send out my own essence in response. I left my physical body and slipped through the wall as though it weren’t there.
She was holding her palm against it, trying to reach out to me, to touch me as I was now touching her. I didn’t materialize. Instead, I started at her wrist and worked my way down, sliding my fingertips along her arm, across her cheek, down her neck, until I lay atop her. She sucked in a breath, her chest rising softly with the action, stirring me to my core. I cupped a breast in my hand, its fullness soft and tantalizing. She moaned underneath me, writhed with pleasure as the friction caused me to harden against her. She was honest to God the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot.
But she stopped. She opened her eyes, their gold depths glittering like water in the moonlight, and concentrated, fighting me mentally, struggling to reverse our positions. I was always the one to leave my physical body and come to her. I gained just as much pleasure from being with her incorporeally as corporeally. But the thought of her doing the same to me caused a jolt of pleasure at the base of my cock. Blood rushed to that general area lightning quick the moment I felt her brush over me.
She sent out her essence, letting the heat from her mental energy explore my body. No one had ever touched me that way. Her essence was warm and smooth like silk. She tested every inch of me, running her fingers over my abdomen, then—almost timidly—around my cock. I gritted my teeth, curled my hands into the sheets as I felt her mouth slide over me, encircling my erection. Her lips glided down, her teeth grazing over the sensitive skin there. But she wanted more. I could feel it. I could allow her to get only so close. To go only so deep. Anything more, and she could see things I didn’t want her to see.
So, I stopped her. I raised a barrier to limit her explorations to those places visible to the naked eye. Then again, it was Dutch I was dealing with, the most powerful of her kind to be born in a millennium. She sharpened her touch, raked her fingernails over my skin, let them bite into my flesh. I bit back a curse.
“Dutch,” I said aloud in warning, but there was no fighting her. She was too powerful, and she broke through my barrier in one quick strike.
Heat penetrated muscle and bone and burst inside me. A feeling I’d never felt before spread through every inch. It was hot, like lava, and burned from the inside out, coursing through my veins, rushing along my nerve endings. She pushed my legs apart and pressed into me, and the pleasure that rocketed through me almost brought me off the bed.
Our energies collided, the friction grinding, causing my
hunger to grow stronger with every beat of her pulse. As she caressed me, I caressed her. I felt her energy engulf my cock in long, powerful strokes until I pushed her down and did the same to her. I felt her climax swell like a sea inside her, churning and swirling. I kissed her and sucked her and pushed into her so hard and fast, she burst into a cascade of shimmering lights. The moment she came, I exploded as well. Only I wasn’t really inside her. I wasn’t really on top of her, and I came on my stomach, my jaw clenched, my muscles convulsing with each spasm of pleasure.
When the orgasm died down, I threw an arm over my face and listened to the sound of my own labored breathing. That was one of the most incredible things that had ever happened to me.
I reached out to her again, the enigma that was known across the universe as the daughter of light. “Come sleep with me,” I said.
She didn’t answer, but I could hear her soft sighs as she panted into her pillow. So, I rolled out of bed to clean myself. I could feel her surveying me. I smiled. She kept watch until I crawled back into bed. With exhaustion quickly overtaking me, I repeated, “Come sleep with me.”
I wasn’t sure if she responded or not. Apparently, I fell asleep like I generally fucked—hard and fast—because I didn’t remember anything else until I awoke to an overwhelming feeling of panic coming from Charley’s apartment.
Also by Darynda Jones
Death and the Girl He Loves
Fifth Grave Past the Light
Death, Doom, and Detention
Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet
Death and the Girl Next Door
Third Grave Dead Ahead
Second Grave on the Left
First Grave on the Right
Sixth Grave on the Edge
Seventh Grave and No Body
Eighth Grave After Dark (coming May 2015)
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Darynda Jones won a Golden Heart and a RITA for her manuscript First Grave on the Right. A born storyteller, she grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. Visit Darynda at www.daryndajones.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SIXTH GRAVE ON THE EDGE. Copyright © 2014 by Darynda Jones. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photograph of sunglasses by Herman Estevez
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Jones, Darynda.
Sixth grave on the edge / Darynda Jones. — First edition.
pages; cm
ISBN 978-1-250-04563-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4526-8 (e-book)
1. Davidson, Charley (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: 6th grave on the edge.
PS3610.O6236S58 2014
813'.6—dc23
2014008043
e-ISBN 9781466845268
First Edition: May 2014
Sixth Grave on the Edge Page 31
