by Crystal Ash
"I know you're angry at me," he began. His warm, velvety voice cut through the sharp evening air. "But I hope you understand why I couldn't tell you." A breath hitched in his chest. "I hate not being able to tell you things."
I let out a sigh, keeping my eyes trained on the giant balls of gas millions of light-years away. If I looked at him I would either fall into his arms or slap the shit out of him. It was safer to just not look at him and keep my distance.
"How much did you know?" I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Juno? My grandmother? The fact that my coven would turn on me on a dime?"
A long silence passed between us.
"Yes, I saw all of that."
"Do you know if Seth is going to help or hurt us?"
"That I don't know," he answered. "For some reason, I never see him."
I closed my eyes and gripped the armrests of my lawn chair.
"No. I don't understand, Raum," I said through gritted teeth. "I don't understand how you claim to love me, yet allowed these people to hurt me. You have this gift and you don't share the knowledge with me to prepare myself for the inevitable. But you know what hurts the worst?"
I finally stood from my chair and faced him. My hands shook while he stood like a statue, his hands hanging limply at his sides. All the humor in his lips and eyes were gone.
"You met my mother and never told me," I said, my voice finally shaking. "You met her. Saw her, even spoke to her. You have a memory of her that I'll never have and you chose to keep that from me."
He listened silently and swallowed when I finished talking. One hand reached out to me but I stepped away, crossing my arms over my chest. His hand dropped and he looked like the saddest puppy I'd ever seen.
"You're right about that," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I should have shared with you that I met her. You deserve that and so much more. There was no reason to keep that from you and I'm sorry." He licked his lips and a flash of determination returned to his eyes. "But it's because I love you that I didn't tell you the other things. It's because I love you that I just can't, baby."
I shook my head, disappointment and despair rising to the point of nearly choking me.
"We could have gotten here sooner. I could've lived without seeing Juno terrified and trying to fight you off. This whole thing could have gone differently if we just knew, Raum."
"You wouldn't have discovered you can manipulate other elements besides earth," Raum fired back. "And really, would you have believed me if I told you Juno would rat on you? Would you have believed me if I said your grandmother was responsible for your mother's death?"
"Yes!" I yelled in his face, my voice echoing off the trees as my frustration exploded. "Because I know that you never lie! You couldn't even do it in a fucking two truths and a lie game!"
"So you want me to be the one that hurts you, huh?" he shouted back. "You want me to be the bad guy? Instead of the people who actually want to do you wrong, you want to hear it coming from me? Well, I'm sorry Deja, but I can't! I love you too fucking much to break your heart on a daily basis."
The urge to kiss him, to feel him fuck my pain away was still just as great as the urge to slap him. I shook like a leaf while my fists clenched at my sides. He gazed at my lips, clenching his own fists like he wanted to touch me again but knew better than to try.
"It has to be this way," he said softly. "I can own up to my mistakes when I'm wrong, but I can't apologize for refusing to be the one that hurts you." He cautiously drew closer, the smell of him intoxicating. "All I can do is love you and be what you do need to the best of my ability."
His face tilted as if preparing to kiss me but I pulled away again.
"What I need from you right now is to leave me alone."
With that, I pushed past him to go back inside. He didn't follow me in.
In the kitchen I found Sal sitting on the counter, eating cookie dough ice cream straight from the tub. He paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth and held it out to me as I approached. With a smile, I accepted and opened my mouth for the sweet treat.
"So how much of that did you hear?" I asked, licking my lips after swallowing the spoonful.
"All of it," he answered before feeding himself a spoonful of ice cream. "Took me a few hundred years but I figured out how to shift only the inner ear of my lion. Comes in handy sometimes."
"Mm-hm." I accepted another mouthful of ice cream. "So what are your thoughts?"
"Mm-mm." He waved the spoon at me while shaking his head. "Not my circus, not my monkeys, beautiful. But," he playfully tapped the spoon against my lips. "I can't blame a guy who's in love with you for not wanting to be the constant bearer of bad news. I'd probably do the same if I had his ability." He dropped the spoon in the sink and replaced the lid on the ice cream. "And that's all I'll say about that."
"Fine," I said in mock disappointment, watching his lithe body hop off the counter and return the ice cream to the freezer. "I guess I'll need a distraction." I shamelessly groped his ass, pushing him against the refrigerator.
"Oh, you want to play like that, huh?" he laughed. In a flash, he whipped around and pressed his mouth to my neck. But instead of kissing me there, he blew a deafeningly loud raspberry.
I shrieked with laughter and tried to squirm away but he held me tight against him, sliding down my body and lifting my shirt to blow more raspberries on my belly.
"Sal, stop!" I was breathless with laughter, totally caught off-guard that he would be such a goofball.
He did stop abruptly, the smile completely gone from his face. His hands gripped either side of my waist as he stared directly at my belly button.
"Hey, I didn't say freeze, silly." I ran my fingers through his thick auburn hair.
"Sshh." He pressed one palm flat against my belly and seemed to be concentrating hard.
Did he seriously just shush me?
"Lion, what's up?" I asked.
He raised his eyes to mine, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Tell me I'm not imagining this." He pressed his other palm to mine, the first one still flat against my lower stomach.
I concentrated like he had and felt a faint pulsation through his hand against mine.
"Is that," my breath quickened. "A heartbeat?"
He nodded. "It's not yours. Or mine."
Both of our eyes dropped to his hand pressed against my stomach.
"Holy shit," I breathed, the realization hitting me like a brick wall.
Sal's handsome face broke into a joyous grin.
"You're pregnant, beautiful."
TO BE CONTINUED IN WITCH’S EXILE: BOOK 4 OF THE UNHOLY TRINITY SERIES.
COMING JULY 2018
KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PEAK OF WITCH’S EXILE!
WITCH’S EXILE
Unholy Trinity Book 4
Crystal Ash
PROLOGUE
JEZEBEL
I laid my head across my lover's thighs, spent and satiated. His fingers traveled through my hair and across my neck, sending goosebumps along my naked skin.
Ash let out a deep, contented sigh as I massaged the taut muscles in his legs, relishing in the little alone time we had left.
"Are the two of us really not enough for you?"
I looked up to his hooded, post-sex gaze and saw a tiny smirk. One of those rare occasions that he let his guard down to tease me.
"It's not that you and Sal aren't enough." I raised my head off his legs and slid up his torso to nestle against his side. "It's just that I'm a greedy bitch."
He huffed out a laugh and kissed me as he pulled me against his muscular chest. "We get a new version of you every human lifetime, so I don't think we're in any position to complain." His expression turned serious as he gently stroked my face. "But I know you better than anyone, my love. I can tell something is missing for you."
I wanted to protest, to tell him no, you're wrong. You're a fallen fucking angel and objectively the most beautiful being I've ever set eyes on.
And what's more, you're mine for eternity. I'll die and be reborn in a new body and you'll always be here and perfect, waiting for me.
But my fallen angel was also brilliant and he could see right through me.
"It's not about orgasms or feeling like you don't love me," I mumbled, trying to articulate my feelings. "Lucifer knows how happy you both make me. It just... feels like there's an itch that none of us can scratch. I don't know how else to explain it. You understand, don't you?"
"I think so, even though you do satisfy every need of mine." He kissed my nose. "Makes sense that a princess of Hell would require a trinity," he teased.
"Stop." I slapped his chest playfully. "I'm no princess." In the human world at that time, I was a queen so I was technically correct. However, I was also not a demon and fit nowhere in the true hierarchy of Hell.
"And I'm no angel," he growled.
In a flash of inhumanly fast movement, he pinned me down to the soft, feather mattress. His kiss came down hard and demanding, swallowing my moans as heat flooded my core again.
This man, this demon, made me dizzy with wanting him. He grew hard again between my legs and pressed against my sensitive flesh so deliciously. When his mouth tore from mine to nip at my neck and earlobe, the light tingles of pain mixed with pleasure pulsing at my core.
Any human woman would fall to her knees and thank the heavens every day for bringing a fallen angel into her bed. Divine beauty mixed with the cunning and ferocity of a demon fulfilled every woman's dream. And certainly, Ash fulfilled mine. But so did Sal. And I still couldn't shake the feeling that there was another missing piece.
Ash's mouth lit my skin on fire as he moved against me, turning my whole body into a pulsing bundle of nerves. I arched under his touch, savoring the weight and heat of his rippling muscles on top of me. He didn't just know how to please me, he loved me. I loved him so much I just had a man killed for an attempted attack on him. The human side of me told me he should be enough.
And while he ravaged my body in the way only a selfless, incredible lover could, there still remained an itch that he couldn't scratch.
Sal couldn't scratch it either, and the way he made love was worlds apart from Ash. Unlike my fallen angel, my bloodthirsty lion became a sweet, purring kitten in the bedroom.
No one would look at Sal, who spent most of his time covered in enemy blood and roaring on the battlefield, to exist in the same universe as the words sweet and gentle, but that's exactly what he was to me.
His battered body would come home to me, the animal bloodlust still in his green eyes. With the first touch from me, the look would change. The human side of him needed me. It ached for relief from the violence and carnage.
I ordered all the servants away and brought him directly to our private bathhouse. He'd sink into the water and I scrubbed away the blood and dust until the pale skin and hard ridges of his warrior's body came through. I felt like I was restoring a priceless, marble work of art.
Once he was clean I climbed into his lap and rode him until he felt truly human again. He inflicted so much pain on the battlefield, he didn't want to bring any of it to our love life, only pleasure. My warrior demon never stopped until I had my fill of pleasure and then some. He was so giving and selfless, he even expressed wanting to watch me with someone else.
But Ash would never take me in the same room as Sal, let alone at the same time. Maybe that was what I was missing, the two loves of my life in bed with me at once. The thought certainly sent a needy ache through me that had yet to be soothed.
A rustling at our pavilion door forced Ash to pull away from me and hurriedly cover us with animal fur blankets.
"Fucking Hell, Sal! Give us a minute to get decent," he muttered.
Sal only rolled his eyes as he invited himself to the bedchamber, a crude wooden box in one hand.
"Maybe one day, Ash, you won't be scared off by my dick being within a few feet of yours. It wants nothing to do with you, anyway." He leaned down over the bed and gave me a sensual kiss to prove his point. "Hello beautiful," he greeted me.
My chest filled with warmth as a smile spread across my lips. "Hello, lion. What did you bring me?" I looked curiously at his box.
His eyes flashed mischievously. "I brought you a gift." He gave the box a quick shake, eliciting the sound of desperate fluttering and a panicked, "Caw! Caw!" from within.
"Sal." I narrowed my eyes and spoke in a low warning tone. "Is this the equivalent of a house cat bringing me a half dead mouse as a gift?"
"No," he laughed. "I didn't hurt the thing, although he put up a hell of a fight. No, this bird is special." His eyes flashed with excitement again as I waited. "The northern people are calling this bird Odin. They worship it as a god."
"Really?" My eyebrows lifted with interest. I looked over at Ash, who had pulled on a pair of leather breeches and also looked curiously at the box. "What makes this one special?"
"It has very curious behaviors, almost human-like." Sal carefully unscrewed the top of the box and shoved his hand inside. He pulled out a large, handsome bird covered in inky black feathers. Its eyes blinked as its head tilted, appearing to study the three of us.
"What did it do?" I asked, reaching out to gently stroke the glossy feathers on its chest.
"It steals treasure but only from kings," he explained. "It drops nuts from high above to crack the shell and eat the inside. It also seems to react differently to different people. Right now is the calmest I've seen the birdbrain since we got back."
The bird indeed seemed calmer than when it was in the box. As I stroked its feathers, it even stretched its neck out toward me as if asking to be pet more.
"He likes me," I giggled. "Let's take him to Lucifer."
"I was hoping you'd say that," Sal grinned.
"Anchor us there, love?" I turned to Ash with a kiss and he returned it, surging his tongue into my mouth. I knew he couldn't help but show possessiveness of me in front of Sal, but we also needed physical contact to instantly move to our true home.
The depths of Hell.
We found Lucifer in his throne room with a beautiful naked woman in his lap. The curling ram horns sprouting from her head matched his. She nuzzled against him and the rubbing of their horns together seemed almost erotic. They looked like two mated animals, a bonded life pair. Driven by instinct but no less valid than human partnerships.
"Ashtaroth, Salmac," he greeted my two men as we approached and smiled a wide, fanged grin when he saw me. "And Lilith, my dear. I don't see you nearly as often as I would like."
"Likewise, Lord." I lowered my head respectfully. "But you know how the earth is always calling to me."
"Of course. It's the substance you were made from after all," he said gently. "What can I do for you three?"
Sal stepped forward, the bird still enclosed between his hands.
"Ah, a raven," Lucifer smiled. "Clever creatures, aren't they?"
"Sal says it displays almost human-like intelligence." I reached out to stroke its feathers once again. "I'd love to see what it can do as one of your creatures, my Lord."
Lucifer patted the woman's thigh, gesturing for her to get up from his lap. She stood nimbly and he followed her, his fingers entwined in hers.
"I have just the soul for your feathered friend," he said, speaking to me but never removing his eyes from his succubus. "An incubus whose tastes prove to be a bit extreme for ordinary human women. He also displays the intelligence to move up the Hierarchy." He looked at Ash. "I want him directly under you, Ashtaroth. And as Salmac's equal."
Ash nodded solemnly but his icy gaze shifted over to me. "My Lord, shouldn't we see if he is to Lilith's tastes, first?"
"Oh, I don't think she'll be disappointed." Lucifer winked at me as he turned and led his woman away, presumably to somewhere with more privacy. "It's your lucky day, dear Lilith. I just happen to be in a fantastically good mood."
A shiver crept down my spine. No one really knew the full extent of Lucifer's
power. Some insisted he had flaws and weaknesses like any other living being. Others believed, like the Christian god, he was all-seeing and all-knowing. But I'll be damned if he didn't somehow know about my itch and what exactly would scratch it.
Sal carefully placed the raven down on the stone floor and its form immediately began shifting. Like black tar, it stretched up to the height of a man-- a tall man. Its beak shrank back into its face and its dark eyes grew larger. The black feathers faded and disappeared into olive skin.
My heart began to race as my senses took in the naked man who stood before me. Tall with lean, sculpted muscles, dark eyes and raven black hair falling to his collarbone.
"Don't be alarmed, clever bird," I said, my voice already growing low with lust. "What is your name?"
"Raum," he answered with a deep, velvety voice. "But some humans call me Odin."
"Raum," I smiled. "I like that."
"And who are you?" he asked with no hint of fear in his eyes. Incubi being reborn were often confused or disoriented. Unlike me, they had no memories of their past lives. But this one didn't seem concerned at all. Only curious. Perhaps his bird side gave him more wisdom than we believed.
"In this life, you may call me Jezebel."
I found myself leaning toward him unconsciously. His presence was absolutely intoxicating. I knew some of it was from the natural seductive powers of the incubus, but their magic never affected me like this before.
Raum's dark eyes studied me, watching me watch him. A smirk crept across his face as if amused by some private joke. I tried to not let my eyes go below his waist and he seemed intent on making sure I lost that battle.
Meanwhile, his eyes roamed over me shamelessly. For being created from a bird, he looked more hungry and predatory than Sal's lion when he looked at me. And I trembled with the anticipation of knowing exactly what this new demon could do.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sal and Ash exchange a glance. They were pleased with my reaction. It seemed this new addition would go smoothly.
