Ruin, The Turning

by Lucian Bane

  Presenting

  RUIN

  THE JUDGEMENT

  By Lucian Bane

  © 2014 by Lucian Bane

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Lucian Bane or his legal representative.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  **Translation: If you make a copy of this file and share it with friends, whether it is one or one million friends, you are breaking the law, even if you receive nothing in return. If you receive this file from a friend, both you and your friend are breaking the law. No readers’ clubs, groups or associations are authorized to distribute this book on behalf of the authors. Amazon.com is the only authorized online distributor. If you need a different format, please contact the author.

  In my own words: Please don’t fucking steal my work. Thanks.

  Dedication

  To My Wife…

  I love you with all that I am

  Chapter One

  “What are you doing?”

  The hot need in Isadore’s raspy voice ignited the executing fire inside Ruin. He scooped her up in his arms and headed to the stairs. “I need… to love you.” Desire and need stole his ability to think and speak as he made his way to her bed.

  “Love me?” she whispered, holding his face as he kissed her with more hunger than he’d ever felt.

  “Yes,” he gasped, blazing kisses along her face, then jaw. “I need to love you… with all that I am. Right now.” He sucked hard on her neck and groaned when she pulled his hair and fought to get closer to him.

  “Do it, yes, do it. I missed you.”

  How long had they been apart? He wanted to ask but he needed to be buried inside her first, in every conceivable way. The assignment Caliber had programmed into him burned and gnawed over the left side of his chest. Or was that the agony of what he was assigned to do?

  Ruin laid Isadore on the bed, fighting for air around the pressure in his being while stroking her face with one hand and yanking at her clothes with the other. She fought with his shirt and with one desperate thought, he disintegrated it.

  Their bodies came together in a hot fervor of moans and clawing, biting and sucking. With all the need inside him, he thrust into Isadore’s body, drowning her cries with his hungry mouth, growling and grinding without stop, until she screamed his name the way he craved her to— desperate, intense, mind blowing.

  “I love you,” he gasped, keeping his body sealed hard and tight to hers, never wanting to let up or let go as he emptied himself into her.

  She was his. He was hers. And nobody…not even God would take her from him. Caliber’s assignment to kill the woman he loved was a declaration of war.

  ****

  “Wow,” Isadore whispered, taking the cup of coffee from Ruin. “We should separate for four whole hours more often.

  Ruin sat next to her at the kitchen table and lifted her hand to his lips. “Is that all it was?”

  She grinned with raised brows, sipping. “Fraid so.”

  “Felt like a thousand years.”

  She sighed and studied him a few moments. “Well a thousand years is as a day with the Lord.”

  Ruin kissed her palm, hiding his need to growl. God was officially an enemy to him.

  “So you need to do that assignment?”

  He nodded. “Sure. You’re coming with me?”

  “Don’t I have to?”

  “Yes, pretty much.” He kissed at her wrist then along her forearm.

  “Well then I suppose I am.”

  “Maybe we could…make a honeymoon out of it?”

  Her eyes lit up and made him grin. “I like the sound of that.” She gasped as ideas lit her sky blue eyes. “We could travel the US if you want.”

  He pulled her into his lap and cradled her in his arms, kissing her. “I do want that. Let’s do it.”

  “Mmmm. But we just did.”

  He smiled against her lips at her naughty words then anxiety hit him. “Let’s go now. I need to hurry.”

  “Okay!” She hopped up and he watched her run to the stairs. “I’ll pack for both of us,” she called down. “Get the truck ready!”

  “Got it,” he called back, standing and looking out the window at the swamp. He turned and froze at finding Scriber sitting at the table.

  “What are you doing?” The black being asked, his tone low and guarded.

  Ruin slowly eyed him as he walked around the table. The threat of his presence brought his fire and ice and something else dark, buried deep inside him.

  “I’m not your enemy, Ruin.” The dark statue stood slowly. “But if you should not repent of what it is you are doing…you will be terribly sorry.”

  The sincerity in his tone threw Ruin a bit. But there was nothing he would ever be sorrier for than living without Isadore, either. Therefore, he and his God could kiss his ass. “I will do what I am commanded. Protect her. That is my command, my body, my mind, all that I am says that is my sole command. Even your God, in her Bible demands it.”

  “You have been given orders to judge and execute, Carnificem. Obey and you will be rewarded. Disobey, and you will suffer for it.”

  Ruin snarled. “Nothing could be worse than losing her!”

  “Who are you talking to?” Scriber vanished the second Isadore peeked her head through the upper floor.

  “Was just…speaking my mind.”

  “Out loud? To yourself?”

  “To whoever wants to hear.”

  “I’m almost done.” She disappeared back into the bedroom. “We need to lock everything up down there, the shutters and windows. And my canoe should probably be taken out of the water.”

  “Got it,” Ruin called, hurrying to do it before more company showed up that he didn’t want. He needed to find a way to hide her. Until he figured out what exactly was going on and why he was being ordered to judge and execute his wife and how to get out of it.

  After everything was secure, thirty minutes later they drove north. “Oh look, stop there for gas, they have good prices.”

  Ruin fought the need to protest, feeling like they should drive as far from her home as possible even though the powers that be weren’t limited by distance. The urge to get as far away from her home and town as possible seemed like the best thing, despite how illogical it was.

  Isadore hopped out of the truck when they pulled up at the gas pump. “What are you hungry for? You fill up and I’ll stock up?”

  Ruin got out and stared at her from across the truck bed. “Come here.” He held her gaze as she smiled and waltzed her way back to him. She went eagerly into his arms and he pulled her close, leaning his back against the truck as he looked down at her face, lit with joy, so much joy it nearly infuriated him. How dare they take that from her? From him? This light in her pure spirit. Not perfect but pure, beautifully flawed. Which…was an odd combination to him now that he thought about it. He kissed the tip of her nose then her forehead, breathing in slowly. “I love you, Angel,” he whispered.

  She gave a contented moan. “Wow,” she whispered. “To hear those words…I feel like I’m dreaming.” She opened her eyes and gazed at him with a surreal peace. “I’m not dreaming though, am I?” She slowly went serious, pulled his face to her and kissed him with a hunger that caused fire to erupt in his body. It was like a two second rule when touching her. That’s all the time it took for her to light him up.

  She pulled a
way with a soft moan and Ruin grunted while grabbing the hand she cupped his cock with. “I knew you’d be hard,” she whispered.

  “Don’t do that here,” he warned, already calculating where he could fuck her within the next sixty seconds.

  “Oh?” She smiled, assaulting with her other hand. “Is that an order? I like when you order me.”

  Ruin’s cock jerked and he snatched her wrist as images of him ordering her on her knees, flooded him. “Then how about you get your ass in the store and hurry up so I can find a place to do just that?”

  She bit her lower lip and pulled away as another car pulled up at the pump next to him. “There’s a hotel right here in town.” She cast a seductive glance over her shoulder as she headed inside, her words low and dripping with desire.

  Ruin watched her ass swing, imagining his cock buried inside her while he teased her cute exit. When she was safely inside, he turned his attention to the simple but unfamiliar task of putting gas. He studied all the functions on the machine, seeking the piece that would turn it on. He was down to thinking how he might use his powers to figure it out when he lifted up on a handle and the numbers sputtered to zero. A bit fucking ridiculous. Thankfully, Isadore took a long time in the store. He really didn’t want her returning to find he’d been unable to figure out how to turn a gas pump on.

  “What’s your plan?”

  Ruin froze at hearing Scriber’s soft voice on the other side of the pump. “I already told you,” he said quietly.

  “The Diávolos Pipílisma are going to come. You realize this? I will not be able to help.”

  Ruin hardened his jaw. “I’ll deal with it when they do.”

  “You can’t deal with it, you aren’t able. Don’t get on the wrong side of this equation, brother.”

  “I’m not on the wrong side of the equation, you are,” he growled.”

  “This isn’t going to end good, brother.”

  Ruin shoved the gas nozzle back in the slot with a vicious force. “And killing my wife is somehow a better alternative?” Ruin pointed at the dense black being. “Don’t come back unless you have something to say that I can even begin to hear.”

  “Oh my God I took forever,” Isadore said. “Who are you talking to?”

  Ruin spun to her and glanced back to find Scriber gone again. “Talking to the air again.”

  She opened the passenger door and loaded the bags in. “Wait till you see what I got for you to try. You are going to love it.”

  Ruin got into the driver seat, pulling on his seatbelt while looking all around for evidence of anything unusual. “Is that right? Maybe you can feed it to me when we get to that hotel you mentioned. Point me to it, Angel.” He was suddenly torn between driving far away and fast, and fucking her hard and immediately.

  “Take a right out of this parking lot and you will find a Sleep Tight, one point three miles down on the left.”

  “Sleep tight, huh?” Ruin started the truck and hurried as fast as was safe in that direction.

  “Or sleep hard.” She gave a pig like snicker that actually made his cock throb. Everything she did was magical to his body and senses. Like an instrument formed specifically to be played by her. But try as he might, the easy grin he should have given was locked down with the rest of him. Each passing second came with a dread hardened all his arteries into stone. And though he was sure that what he needed to do was definitely fuck her hard and immediately again and again, something else said no. Something said that wasn’t going to happen.

  Ruin drove faster, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

  “You’re passing it,” Isadore said, sitting forward and pointing.

  “I want to get a little farther out of town.”

  She stared at him then slowly sat back. “Oh.”

  His gut tightened more at hearing her pain and confusion. It amazed him to feel that she questioned his love for her over something so simple.

  “I mean sure,” she said, waving a hand. “Livingston is just five miles up.”

  Ruin was glad she’d chosen to think positive, but he wasn’t glad the next town was so close. He realized his body was set to run but he also realized there was really nowhere to run to. But that fact didn’t take the run like hell out of him. Hopefully when they were at the next town, he’d feel better.

  “Perfect day,” she muttered, looking out the window, squirming in her seat a little. But it was nervous. She was trying to be positive but having a hard time. She put an arm on the door and drummed her fingers, nodding her head to a tune in her head. “A-judging we will go…a-judging we will go…hi-ho-the dairy-o-, a judging we will go.” Another snicker. “Okay that…that was in very bad taste, sorry. I get like that when…”

  At the sudden cut off of words, Ruin pressed, “When what?”

  She gave an overdramatic laugh, her eyes wide. “I think I may be nervous! Kind of feels like…” she shrugged, “a kind of honeymoon I guess.”

  Her words loosened his stomach a little, only to be replaced with a remorse that stole his breath. The words were true but he didn’t get why they were. “You’re…nervous? Why?”

  She stared out the window, thumb nail in mouth. “Mm…” she gave a slight shrug, “not like I’m a…virgin or anything. I’m just…nervous…”

  Ruin waited for her to sort through her feelings and name them, keeping his eye on the long stretch of country road.

  “I’m just…” More silence then a frustrated huff, “Hell, who knows what I am,” she dismissed. “I don’t seem to.”

  But she did. And she didn’t want to voice it, that’s what he heard. And really…he was okay with that. He didn’t want her to voice it either. It felt like they were driving along a cliff next to something dark and growling, and one wrong word or thought would throw them into it.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ruin said. “Just…think of the things that make you happy. Okay? How about you put on some music for us?”

  She jumped to the task, seeming grateful for it. “Now that is what I’m talking about,” she muttered, filling the truck with rapid broken sounds as she spun the knob. “There is something about music that moves the mind and body.” She stopped on a station. “Oh! This is one of my favorites.”

  Ruin regarded her, unable to stop his grin this time as she appeared to jump on some stage in her mind, joining the singer. She hopped around on the seat with an invisible mic and sang over the music and so very out of tune. The distraction was enough to make him forget for a moment. The dramatic show had him chuckling out loud before he ever saw it.

  Chapter Two

  Terror slammed Ruin and he stomped on the brakes, jolting them forward. A giant black mass emerged up from the ground some hundred feet before them. The tires screamed with Isadore as a house sized mouth of a beast opened wide and shook the air with a roar of fire. Ruin’s instincts kicked in and turned the fire all around them into dense ice that coated the cab of the truck. Even without seeing, he knew where the truck was headed.

  Ruin vaguely realized armor had formed on his body and in one jab, he elbowed the back glass with the ice spur, the power in it exploding the glass out. Ruin burned her seat belt off then fought to drag her into the bed of the truck.

  “We’re in its mouth!” Isadore shrieked. “We’re in its mouth!”

  “Hold on to me!” She latched limbs to his body and he jumped, his eye on the daylight quickly disappearing before them. Ruin wasn’t sure what it was, maybe the idea of being eaten alive with Isadore that caused the word to rip from him, a word he’d never heard before but knew. “OZIAS!”

  Something huge and cold launched them with immense force through the beast’s abyss of a mouth, now barely a slit.

  The next second they were airborne, not grounded, and whatever was under their asses was frigid. Ruin’s breath shot out in awe at the massive wings of ice flapping on either side of them, the sound sharp and scraping against the air. The beast suddenly went into a nose dive
, angling its large head right, the diamond looking iris seeming to say “hold on”.

  Ruin grabbed the ice shards on the giant neck and did just that with Isadore’s arms wrapped in a death grip around his waist, her scream shredding his eardrum.

  You remembered me.

  The whispered words blasted through Ruin like an arctic breath. The beast gave a sharp roar as if in pain, and the ground rushed up like a hungry sea of death.

  Your sins weaken me.

  Ruin realized they were going to crash. “Hold on to me!” he roared. They hit the ground and the ice beast beneath them exploded like a canon. Ruin and Isadore were suddenly flung down a slide of frigid water, rushing over the ground until they settled with ease, drenched and limbs locked together.

  Gasping heavily, they looked around in awe. The only sign of the steed Ruin knew but didn’t remember, clung to the air in a vapor of steam.

  Though the dense fog, Ruin made out his form. The apparition of terror and eternal darkness approached them in human-like form. But he was no man. He was all demon.

  No, Ruin realized…not demon. The charred cracked muscle over lava, the bright red eyes of sorrow, agony and torment, the dominion and authority in his aura and gait… this was hardly a demon. This was the Devil.

  ****

  Ruin came to in agony, screaming and thrashing. Nearly instantly, Isadore’s screams tore the air. Ruin gasped on the heat in his lungs. He was burning, literally on fire. He fought to get away from the heat, different than any fire he’d felt, pressing in, crushing while it burned.

  “You both will burn this way,” a deep voice said nearby. “But only say the word, and I will save both of you.” Ruin’s frantic mind picked up the final words save both.

  “Yes! Yes, yes!”

  The fire disappeared but Isadore’s screams continued. Ruin’s vision cleared and he roared in agony at seeing her chained to the wall across from him, trembling and naked, her skin bubbling from the fire that had just consumed it.

  “Stop it,” Ruin roared. “I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll do it!”

  The beast walked toward him. “Good,” he whispered suddenly next to his face, his claws digging into his burning flesh. “So glad you’ve come to your roots.”