Edge of Heaven

by Rhiannon Leith

  “No way,” Sammael hissed, his eyes narrowing. “Witch trials? Witch trials in this day and age?”

  As if she heard him, Lily’s voice started up again, and though Micah tried to soothe her, tried to make it stop, the words kept coming.

  “He pricked her with needles, he pricked her with knives. Then he tied her up and took her to the water. Said if she’d renounced the water of life, then the water would renounce her and she’d live, and he’d know. Know what she was. Know her for a witch.”

  “Lily, enough now,” Micah pleaded, rocking her back and forth, his eyes locked with Sammael’s. “Please, my bright one, let go of her now. Show her the light and let her go to peace.”

  Lily jerked in his arms once more, locked her frantic eyes with Sam’s and snarled, “I know you. I know what you are!”

  Micah caught her face in his insubstantial hands, turned her towards him and kissed her. Light blossomed beneath her skin, and every pore glowed. She slumped beneath him, exhausted, bleeding, but peaceful at last.

  Micah gathered her against him, holding her close.

  Sammael was staring at him, waiting for an answer, an explanation. “The spirit of the dead girl?”

  “Yes, or what remained of her consciousness after days of torture and cruelty. Tell me, when the witch trials were in full flight, how many turned to your Master during their ordeal? How many swore fealty just to get out of it?”

  Micah already knew the answer. Sammael shrugged. “Thousands. But here, now?”

  “The one who sent the flowers, I’d wager.”

  “You’re not allowed to wager,” Sammael said distractedly, kneeling down opposite him, staring at Lily. “It leads to sin.”

  Micah stroked the side of Lily’s face. “So do many things, Sammael.”

  Micah held her while Sammael doctored her wounded feet and removed the glass. Micah poured healing energy through her so that the lacerations closed. He even removed the potential scars. She was, as she always was to him, flawless.

  “Leave us,” Micah told Sammael. “Let me see to her now.”

  To his eternal amazement, Sammael obeyed.

  It shouldn’t have affected him, but it did. Sammael stumbled back into his own apartment. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it. But his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore and he sank to the floor, his whole body trembling.

  “That’s an odd place to find yourself, Sammael,” said Asmodeus. The demon was sitting on the sofa facing the door, a sly grin on his broad face. “Problems?”

  Sam jerked himself upright, glaring at him with venom. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Asmodeus hummed to himself, shaking his head slowly. “Doesn’t look that way, now, does it?” He rose to his feet, towering over Sam, his head almost scraping the ceiling. “You had her, Sammael. You were in her bed, screwing her royally, I might add, and then, what? You just hand her back to the angel?”

  Sam bristled. “What else was I to do? I couldn’t help her. And she’s no good to us in that state.”

  “Was that your opinion or the angel’s?” Asmodeus snapped his fingers and a coil of shadows appeared between them. From it fell a thin, fragile body which slammed down fully formed onto the carpet. A female, naked, shivering, with a mane of golden hair spilling around her. She lifted her pale face, her violet eyes looming huge with fear as she saw not one demon but two.

  “Please, no,” Lara whimpered, curling in on herself. “Please, please not again.”

  Sammael tried not to let distaste show on his face. “What?” It was barely a question.

  “The Master thought you could use a reminder of what happens to those of us who don’t please him. And of what you’re meant to be doing. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What are you going to do, show me how to fuck her? I know, already.”

  “It’s not about fucking, Sammael,” Asmodeus admonished him. “It’s about lust. It’s about what someone will do when they are consumed with it.”

  He grabbed Lara’s shoulder, pressing his fingers into her bare and bruised flesh. Pain flashed momentarily over her features and then the transformation swept over her. Her eyes widened and then turned glassy. Her full lips parted and her tongue darted out across them, leaving a glistening trail behind it. She breathed in deeply, her chest heaving up, and a flush of heat stained her skin.

  “Please, my Lord.” Before Sam knew what was happening, she dropped to her knees before him, her quick and clever hands working to open the zipper. In spite of himself, his cock stirred and as she slipped her cold hand inside to draw it out, he sucked in a breath.

  “Stop it, Lara. I don’t want this.”

  But his commands fell on deaf ears. She opened her mouth, swallowed his cock down and worked its length with tongue, lips and hands.

  “Fuck.” Sam couldn’t pull away from her. Lara moaned around the length of him, pressing her body against his legs, writhing beneath him as she gave him head.

  “Oh, she wants to,” Asmodeus laughed. “Even though Lara hates you, hates all of us, screams and cries and wakes in terror, she wants to fuck you. That’s how I won her, a vessel, a light, just like your target. That’s how I stole her away from her angel and became a King of Hell. I made her want to fuck.” He stepped closer, his shadow falling on the woman who groaned even louder, those sounds muffled and distorted by Sam’s cock.

  Sam could barely think. His mind kept throwing images of Lily doing the same thing, Lily’s mouth, Lily’s hands, Lily’s dexterous tongue curling around him, sliding over the glans.

  Asmodeus’s hand fell on Sammael’s shoulder. “And you want her too.”

  The lust was instant. It burned through his body, searing the blood in his veins to boiling point. A demon’s lust. A demon’s hunger. He grabbed Lara’s head, forcing himself deeper, hearing her choking and not giving a damn. His demonic self revelled in the abuse, breaking free of the constraints he had placed on it, tearing away the veneer of civilisation he wore. He withdrew from Lara’s mouth, his cock huge and ready for her, the head already beading with pre-come.

  “Turn around,” he commanded and Lara shivered, turning around to raise her pert ass towards him in readiness.

  “No,” said Asmodeus.

  An invisible force hurled Sam back against the wall. Chains snaked out of the ceiling, entangling his wrists in bands of iron. He was hauled up until his feet barely touched the ground and his arms strained in their sockets. He struggled, almost wrenching his muscles in his contortions, but to no avail. He couldn’t tear himself free.

  Lara bowed her head and sobbed, the lust dissipated now, her despair taking control again. Her eyes filled with shame and she hid her face from him.

  “That was too easy.” Asmodeus snorted a single laugh. “I expected a little more resistance. Your human prey must have quite an attraction. I can’t wait to meet her. Now listen to me, Sammael, and listen carefully.”

  Sam burst into frantic violence again, but Asmodeus remained just out of reach. He laughed as Sam fought, trying to regain some control of the boiling lust flooding his body.

  “This is just a warning. You’re going to spend a day and a night here contemplating your failure, locked away where no one can hear you. Don’t worry. The spell will wear off in the morning, but it’ll make you more the demon you are meant to be.”

  “It’ll drive me back to savagery,” Sam hissed. “It’ll turn me into some kind of monster.”

  He’d seen it happen to countless number of his kind. It had happened to him. Being denied the pleasures of the flesh for too long while under Asmodeus’s ministrations had driven him to do unspeakable things throughout the fifteenth century once they had released him. Whole countries still bore the scars.

  He had to get out of this. If he didn’t, there was no telling what he would inflict on Lily once he was free. He’d launch himself on her like some kind of animal, thinking only of sex and blood, thinking only of sating his body, driving himself into every orifice o
ver and over again. He jerked forward, using the agony running down his arms like steel wires to regain some semblance of self-control.

  “You know she has an angel,” he told Asmodeus. “I can get him too.”

  That got his attention. The demon king lifted his head and fixed him with a piercing glare. The lust abated slightly, though Sam could still feel it there, coiled around his cock, teasing his balls with its weight. At least his head had cleared. At least he could think halfway straight.

  “An angel?” Lara uncurled, looking up at him again with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “I had an angel once, one to watch over me and keep me safe. You can see how good he was at his job. I fell, but not him. No, he was away as soon as I reached the edge. You pride yourself too highly if you think you can snare such an adversary, Sammael. He’ll leave her. They’ll make him.”

  Asmodeus ruffled her hair affectionately. “Let him speak, Lara dear. Sometimes it’s good when they try to bargain.” She wilted beneath his touch.

  Sammael drew in a shaky breath. “She has an angel, but I can get him too. I can get both of them.”

  There was no reading Asmodeus’s expression.

  “Go on,” he rumbled.

  “That’s it. I can get them both. He loves her. She loves him. I can use that to make him fall. Think of it, Asmodeus. Think of what the Nameless will say.”

  The floor beneath them rumbled ominously. Asmodeus tilted his head to one side as if thinking hard, but Sam knew that was none too likely. No, Asmodeus was listening to other instructions. Thinking had never been his strong point.

  “Very well, our Master agrees. But there’s a time limit. A week, Sammael. And you must bring us both.”

  Lara’s violet eyes lit up, half insane. More than half. “An angel? We’ll get to play with an angel?”

  She surged to her feet, pressing against the whole length of Sam’s body. Her hands framed his face, stroking him, maddening him.

  Asmodeus grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground. “You don’t get to play with anything, bitch. Not without permission. And you’ll wait your turn like everyone else.” He waved his hand and Lara vanished in the same coil of smoke as she had arrived. The chains holding Sam evaporated and he landed heavily on the floor, the impact jarring his whole body.

  “Remember this, Sammael,” said Asmodeus. “And you had better not stumble again, or I really will give you something to remember.”

  Chapter Six

  Lily awoke to a blinding headache late in the afternoon. She lay in her own bed, and her stomach churned as she tried to sit up.

  “Hush now.” Micah’s voice came to her, booming around her head. When she winced, he dropped the tone and his voice became a ripple in her mind, a breeze. “Better?”

  “Better,” she agreed. “I thought you’d gone. I thought I’d lost you and then…then I couldn’t make it stop.” Tears stung the corners of her eyes and across the bridge of her nose.

  “I’ll never leave you. I’m sorry I made you think I had.”

  She felt his arms around her, and for a moment his cinnamon scent was laced with something else, something entirely more earthly.

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did.” Her throat tightened. “I don’t need Sam more than I need you. Just differently.”

  Was it her imagination or did he sigh? It sounded like regret. Or even heartbreak.

  “Micah? I can…sometimes, I can feel you. Your touch, I mean.”

  “Yes, Lily.” It felt as if phantom fingertips brushed against her forehead, as if trying to smooth her frown away. It was like the touch of a warm breeze.

  “Can you—can you do more?”

  The touch withdrew and Lily’s heart lurched. It was too much, a request too far. She had pushed him and done it again, scared him, hurt him, whatever it was she did that kept driving him away.

  She was about to say something, to apologise for asking when the unmistakable feeling of a pair of lips brushed against hers. The contact was feather light, the touch of butterfly wings, and her breath escaped in a gasp. She heard an answering sigh. Right in front of her, her own breath misted and danced with light and, for a moment, just a moment, she thought she saw a face.

  Handsome, golden, glowing with inner light, sensual lips, a cleft chin, and a strong jaw. It was only a glimpse. Then it was gone.

  “I only wish I could do more,” he said. The touch of his lips returned and lingered against hers for another long moment like static electricity. But moments couldn’t last.

  “Why? Why can’t you?”

  “I can only love you, Lily. That’s all I can do. Anything else is…it is forbidden.”

  The tears started to escape, no matter how hard she tried to hold them in. “That isn’t fair, Micah.”

  His invisible hands cradled her face, gently framing it, while his thumbs brushed away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, and suddenly it was all real, solid. She could picture him, holding her just like this, feel his touch so distinctly. He was real.

  The headache was gone. She had never felt so alive.

  Micah kissed her again, and this time she parted her lips for him. His surprised breath filled her mouth, sweet and light, a zephyr flowing down within her, washing away the shadows her vision had left. He still held the sides of her face and she got the impression that he was staring at her. She knew his eyes were blue, the colour of harebells, so pale and delicate and yet blazing with an inner light. She lifted her hand and touched skin, soft, smooth skin, lightly flecked with silken hair. She could taste him on her tongue, cinnamon again, cut with a hint of salt.

  Heat rose within her, unbidden and all-consuming. It welled at the base of her stomach, and her body turned to liquid honey beneath his touch. Dampness rose between her legs, melting her with need.

  “Micah,” she breathed and leaned forward. “Micah.”

  “This has to stop, Lily,” he told her, and his voice held eternal sorrow. “It can go nowhere. It would only hurt us both.”

  “It can’t. It won’t. Micah, I need you. You know I need you.”

  His voice sharpened, unlike his usual tones. “Like you needed Sam?”

  “Yes, like I need Sam.”

  His presence lurched back from her and she almost sobbed in frustration. But he didn’t leave. Not this time. Her body ached, her clitoris throbbing and her heart racing.

  “He’s dangerous, Lily.”

  “Yes. But he hasn’t hurt me.”

  “No. That seems to be my role in this. But Lily, he cannot be trusted. He cannot help himself or his nature. Don’t you see?”

  She shuddered and goose bumps rose all over her skin, a prickling down her spine that only served to send the arousal that plagued her even further out of control.

  “And what are you, Micah? My invisible friend? My poltergeist tormentor? What?”

  “Just your friend, your guardian and guide. I never meant to hurt you, my bright one. And I will not allow him to do so. And I will not allow you to doom yourself, no matter what it means for me. I love you, Lily. You know that, don’t you?”

  Her guardian? He was more, so much more, and suddenly, in a flash of inspiration she understood what he was, what they both were.

  “I know, Micah.” She wished it wasn’t true. Because knowing, she couldn’t leave it like that. She refused to let him leave it like that. She had to change his mind. To force him to admit that there could be more.

  And then to make him take that step.

  She knew only one person she could rely on to help her do that, only one person with powers equal to his.

  “You want me to what?” Sam stared at the woman standing outside the door of his apartment in the evening shadows as if he had never seen her before. Certainly it wasn’t something that Lily would ask, not the Lily he knew. But it looked like her, sounded like her, even smelled like her.

  Lily pursed her lips and said it again, as if she was talking to someone hard of hearing or, failing that, part
icularly stupid. “I want you to help me see Micah.”

  “Micah?”

  She nodded eagerly, a swift motion that made her breasts jiggle beneath the light fabric of her blouse. With the remnants of Asmodeus’s lust spell still running through his body, in spite of several hours and a couple of cold showers, his cock leaped to attention, instantly and painfully ready for her.

  He struggled to keep his voice even. “Micah, the voice in your head?”

  Her face fell to uncertainty. “But he’s not just a voice in my head, Sam. He’s something more. I almost saw him today.”

  Down the corridor, a door opened and their neighbour Mr. Hopkins stepped out, sending a glare of disapproval towards them both. Sam shifted to a more aggressive stance before Hopkins moved on, muttering to himself. Sam caught Lily’s arm and pulled her gently inside. The door clicked shut behind her and, in the unlit interior of his apartment, Lily shivered.

  Not so certain of herself now, it seemed. He let his hand drop away from her and left her standing there in the dark. After a moment she moved towards the light switch.

  “No,” Sam barked and she froze. Another shiver, not of unease this time. Something else. He could smell her arousal. A game, perhaps, but whose?

  “Sam? I can barely see you.”

  “It’s late to be knocking on someone’s door, Lily, especially to ask them to help you ‘see’ someone else. What brought this on? I thought Micah was your spirit guide?”

  “Yes,” she said, though she didn’t sound so certain. “But I think he’s something else too. Something more.”

  Sam leaned back against the wall, watching her carefully. His balls felt uncomfortably heavy and his cock twitched again. She looked so vulnerable, standing there in the dark, depending on him, asking for his help. A slow smile spread over his face as the sense of power set the demon part of him racing.

  Well, if this was a game, he could play too. And if it wasn’t he could easily make it into one.