Angel Slayer

by Michele Hauf

  An hour later he crept into her room. She slept on her side, still wearing the red blouse and skirt. The brown boots sat on the floor before the bed.

  Moonlight spilled through the window she’d opened and the night’s perfume tempted him to sit on the wide sill, his legs up and his head against the stone casement. The vines climbing to the house were in bloom, but he didn’t access his knowledge for their name. Didn’t matter. The sweetest perfume emanated from Six.

  She didn’t stir until the night grew long and morning teased the horizon. When he suspected she would reach up to scratch her neck, Ashur dashed to the bed and caught her wrist gently.

  “Sleep,” he purred. “I’ll hold you, Six.”

  She made a noise, sweet and sleep-drenched, as he carefully lay on the bed and clasped her wrists against his chest. She smiled and nuzzled her head against his shoulder.

  Eden woke in the arms of a demon. Sunlight softened the hard angles on his face. His skin was not so pale but hardly tan, and stubble marked his jaw where he would normally shave. He was exactly as a man should be.

  Tiny laugh lines curved out from the corner of each eye. She was intrigued that he would show signs of age when he had existed so long already. Surely they were not laugh lines. Ashur did not laugh often, she suspected.

  She wondered what he looked like when he was in demon form. He said he would never show her that side of him. Probably she didn’t want to see it. While appearance mattered little to her, if he brandished horns, a tail and hooves she knew it would be difficult to maintain indifference.

  On the other hand, it was she who tried to get the world to view angels in a different light. Perhaps standing before a demon incarnate would be the thing to challenge her sense of right and wrong.

  No. As brave as she was, she suspected facing the demon would have her crying for mercy.

  Wiggling her hand within his clasped fingers, she tried not to wake him. He held her wrists loosely to keep her from scratching the burning fire strafing along her neck. He’d said the beacon would grow weaker with distance, but obviously distance had nothing to do with itch intensity.

  When all but her fingers were free, he grabbed her roughly.

  “Please,” she whispered. “It’s driving me nuts.”

  “Don’t bring the angel to us right now,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I want to spend this time with you.”

  He wanted to spend time with her? She could get behind that suggestion. The more she prolonged the inevitable, the longer she prevented her own anxiety over being abandoned. He was here now. She didn’t want this to end, either.

  Ashur moved in to nuzzle against her cheek. Something a lover would do.

  Did he realize what he was doing, or was he still half asleep?

  It was a weirdly sexual thing when he drew his tongue over her skin. She knew it was merely a means of protection. But separating the two—protection and desire—was not so easy. The heat of his tongue against her flesh stirred delicious sensations at her neck and throughout her body. Her nipples hardened. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against his sleeve.

  Digging her fingers into Ashur’s shirt, Eden tugged him closer. She moved her hips forward, meeting his thighs. He still wore the jeans and heavy leather jacket. It was difficult to feel his muscles beneath the clothing, but she wanted to know if he was experiencing the same desire as she. It wouldn’t be fair if this was a one-sided seduction.

  He whispered aside her ear, “What are you doing?”

  Seduction. When had she changed the game? Well, she was a woman. It was her prerogative.

  “I want to feel you.” Pressing her breasts against his chest, she hoped he could feel her desire manifested. “Give me more than protection, Ashur. Kiss me.”

  “You ask very much.”

  “Is it so difficult for you to kiss me?”

  “It is too easy.”

  “I’m distracting you from the greater cause?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I have a feeling the angel can wait a few minutes. But if you’d rather not—”

  He buried his face into her hair, drawing his nose along her ear. Shimmers of champagne bubbles effervesced through Eden’s veins. His breath burnished a blush at her cheek, which melted down her neck and across her breasts.

  She hadn’t simply lain beside a man like this for a year. She’d begun dating last month, but hadn’t allowed herself to enjoy anything as intimate as this. Two bodies crushed against each other. Breaths mingling. Skin flushing and aching for touch.

  Desire clasped hold of her senses with a determination she’d not touched for…forever.

  When Ashur’s mouth found hers, a whimper escaped her throat. It was a surrender to something she wasn’t sure about, but knelt before, willing to succumb if asked.

  Eden slid her hand down Ashur’s abs, surfing the solid ridges as she snuck up under his shirt. Her fingers explored as determinedly as he did at her mouth. He felt like sun-warmed steel, curved and powerful, yet pliant against her skin. Beneath her touch the sudden rise of goose bumps tickled the whorls on her skin. The normality of it pleased her. She stroked her palm over the bumpy skin, warming it smooth.

  The rough scruff of his beard softly skated along her chin. Moving her kiss higher, she tasted the fine trim of his moustache. She drew her tongue along it then dashed it inside his mouth to tangle with his.

  Somehow she got tangled in the need, the utter desire for touch. For connection. Could she draw him into her without actually pushing it to sex? They had known each other but a day. She just needed this kiss.

  Wrapping her leg over his thigh, she pressed her groin against his. Ashur moaned into her mouth. She felt him harden against her mons. He moved against her, putting himself in a commanding position. He thrust his tongue inside her and dashed it over her teeth, her tongue and behind her upper lip. More demanding now. Discretion abandoned, he sought the intimate edges of her. She wanted him to trace her, to learn her, to keep her.

  “You make me remember,” he said into her mouth.

  “Remember what? Touch?”

  “Passion.”

  Yes, the ferocious desire to become a part of another person through skin, mouth and scent.

  “It’s been too long for you.” She licked a trail down his chin and kissed the fine beard dashing a thin line along his jaw. “I want this, Ashur. This touch.”

  “Yes, touch.”

  His body clenched against hers as if he’d been seized by pain. He gripped her hair and pressed her face against his neck.

  “What is it?” she murmured.

  “Just a twitch. Don’t stop. Brand me, Six. Use your tongue to mark me.”

  The throaty hoarseness in his voice further enticed her wicked intent. Eden touched the tip of her tongue to Ashur’s clavicle. She could not get over how hard his body was. The flesh was warm and malleable, yet his muscles were solid. She’d never been with a man who worked out. Wall Street suits were more her style, and they preferred manscaping over muscle. The difference was so delicious. She did not want to cease exploration.

  Pushing up his shirt, she shoved it high and he tugged it off, along with the leather jacket. He rolled to his back and she straddled him, tending his fiery skin with her tongue. At his nipple she teased it and laved the tiny hard jewel.

  Again he flinched, or maybe all his muscles tensed. His body tightened. It could be a sexual reaction, but she felt it was not. Pausing and seeking his eyes in the morning light, she silently wondered if she should continue.

  “Just a muscle twitch,” he reassured. “From…an old injury. More,” he said and let his head fall onto the pillow.

  Whoever had designed this man had made him tall and lean, offering Eden a vast stretch of tightened abs to tease with her mouth. Licking, kissing, gently biting, she worked along his side. Ashur’s fingers twisted in her hair, gripping and loosely possessing. When she pressed her breasts to his stomach and her hard nipples poked through her
silk shirt and skimmed his skin, he moaned long and racked with desire.

  The sound of his pleasure reassured her. She liked control, liked to be the one on top. Rarely did that happen, so when it did, she refused to shrink in dismay or play the innocent. She may be the astute society girl on the outside, but underneath the pearls and silk a darker rebel sought release. Eden knew what she wanted from this man, and she intended to have it.

  He tugged at her shirt. “You want me to take it off?” she asked.

  This time when his muscles clenched, Ashur sat up and gripped her by the shoulders. Eyes closed in a wince, he held her as he rode out some inner pain she could not fathom. It was awful, for what could make this big, strong man shudder?

  “Something’s wrong,” Eden said. “Is it a demon thing?”

  Coming up from the pain, he opened his eyes—they were brilliant blue, not the mixture of colors she had seen previously. Glancing aside, he stroked her shoulder absently with his thumb.

  “Ashur? Your eyes… Is something wrong?”

  “This is wrong.” He pushed her off him and rose, grabbing his shirt from the floor as he did. He pulled it over his head. “I shouldn’t take advantage of you.”

  “I think it was quite the opposite. I was taking advantage of you!”

  He smirked, but didn’t meet her eyes. “And you did it well.”

  “Tell me it wasn’t wrong.” She smoothed her palms up her arms, feeling small sitting alone amidst the rumpled sheets. “Touching another person, showing them you care about them is never wrong.”

  “Care? Six, you don’t know me. I am…not like you.”

  “I know. You’re a demon. Your body is like steel and your eyes— They’ve changed color. They were bright blue, but now they’ve returned to all colors.”

  “And does that not disturb you?”

  “It should, but, nope, not feeling it right now. Remember, I’m a little touched in the head to begin with, dreaming angels and all. Ashur, you can’t deny you liked kissing me.”

  “I won’t.” He looked out the window where the sun blurred the edges of the walls with a brilliant white glow, again granting him an aura as she’d first seen in the warehouse. Her white knight. “I could kiss you all day. But touching you brings back memories.”

  “From when you used to walk the earth?”

  “No, of after that time. When I was consigned to Beneath for my sin.”

  “Your sin? But if you’re killing angels, that’s beyond sin—”

  “When angels hate, they commit the only sin recognizable by their kind. Demon sin is the opposite.”

  “You mean…?”

  “The only sin a demon can commit is love,” he said sharply. With that, he marched out of the bedroom.

  Kneeling on the center of the bed, Eden clutched the pillow to her chest.

  “Wow. He’s capable of love.”

  Chapter 13

  Ashur stalked out from the cool morning shadows before the house and paced the stone-tiled courtyard under the shade of the chestnut boughs. He couldn’t leave Six’s bedroom fast enough. Pain had rended through his body.

  By the time he reached the courtyard, he was bent over, clutching his head to stop the grotesque shouting and moans of macabre delight the torturer had emitted.

  He stumbled down the steps and into the shadows at the base of the stone wall and fell to his knees. Beating the grass with a fist and clamping his jaw, he maintained control on the yowl seeking voice.

  He must not allow her to see him like this, weakened by something as insubstantial as memory.

  But the memory was so real. And Six’s intimate touches had conjured it.

  The world had once been simpler. Yet in those years of walking the earth, he’d indulged in all mortal sins. It had been recreation for him. And his kind approved.

  It was only when he’d stepped over the line from those mortal excesses and began to embrace emotion and consequence—and morality—that his fellow Sinistari took offense.

  He’d fallen in love. And if ever a demon could sin, love was the ultimate.

  Sent Beneath without trial or recourse, his punishment had been a thousand years of torture. At first they’d tortured his mortal costume, and when that was shredded and oozing he had been allowed to heal and resume his natural form. It is difficult to whip the steel-like flesh of a Sinistari demon, to open it wide and bleed out the black blood. But it had been done, over and over.

  Eventually, after sixty or seventy decades, Ashuriel began to scream and yowl. No longer could he clasp the pride he had learned from the mortals.

  And when he was left to heal, the scars formed, bulging and glossy in his metallic flesh. All emotion had fled. Any speck of morality. Memory of fine moments. He had been reduced to a shell.

  After a thousand years of torture, though, he had still retained his crown. The Sinistari—all demon breeds—regarded him as the master slayer, for following each slaying he never chose the cowardly consolation of a mortal soul. And the Sinistari held him in higher regard for having stolen the sweet mortal pleasure of love and taken his just punishment in return.

  Love had been beaten out of him. With the lash of the bladed whip, Ariel, the Master of Punishment, had beaten away emotion, the exquisite ring of kindness, the subtle flavor of whimsy. Compassion had bled out, humility raped from his veins and solace shattered. It had all been taken, even the lust, greed and the desire for excess all Sinistari embraced.

  But as he’d told Six, no one could take away joy. He’d hoarded the emotion in his darkest recesses, crammed deep within the horde of souls that had writhed in ecstasy during his torture. The souls he’d stolen had sensed their prison master’s punishment and had rejoiced.

  Ashur sat against the stone wall. The pain had begun to recede. What he’d done all those years ago, he would never regret, even after the torture. He had known love. He had received a just punishment.

  Now but days upon the earth, Ashuriel the Black had succumbed to mortal sin again. It wasn’t the sin that bothered him or his fellow breed. Sin he could indulge in and receive an approving nod from the Sinistari and master.

  It was the forbidden love. It could prove his undoing.

  He didn’t love Six. But he did desire her.

  Desire and love were different beasts. There was nothing wrong with indulging lust. It was his right to partake all pleasures the mortal realm offered while he inhabited earth.

  So why did the vicious memories stab at him when Six touched him intimately? Almost as if a warning against the great sin he may yet commit.

  Though the Sinistari and others looked up to him, it was the psychopomps who truly despised Ashuriel. He had stolen their booty. He held no fear for the soul bringers. Come at him with their worst; he would defeat them all.

  He clutched his chest. On occasion he could feel the souls within his black heart flutter, as if seeking escape. They had been consumed by the Fallen who had taught them the arts and other crafts once deemed a sin by man—until Ashur had stolen them.

  How the world had changed to embrace those masterful arts. No longer were those forbidden crafts considered vile, sinful or obscene.

  But he would never release the souls. They were his. Prizes won for the kill. Yes, it was agonizing as he received them into his black heart. As it should be. Yet once there, it comforted him to know he carried them within, his rightful trophies.

  Six had been horrified to learn about his hoarding proclivities. But she was mortal and could never understand the ways of the Sinistari.

  Though she did accept him amazingly well. She’d kissed him. And continued kissing and touching him, even with the knowledge he was a monster.

  He’d never revealed his demonic nature during his previous earth walk. None of his female conquests had a clue to his origins. It had been better that way. Yet would they have been as accepting as Six had they full knowledge of him?

  Likely not. Times were different now.

  Six saw him only as hu
man. She could not begin to comprehend standing before his true demon form. Or perhaps she had some idea. Her painted images astounded him. She was so close to capturing the angel in her works. Combine bits and pieces from each of them and she’d be right on.

  But the image he had seen on the laptop while they’d flown over the Atlantic Ocean disturbed him most. Could she know she had painted him? It was not an exact portrayal, but many parts and features were right on the mark. She had not anticipated that his demonic form bore scars.

  Perhaps all muses had instinctive connections to the Fallen. Did they all dream of angels and attempt to recreate their dreams artistically? Six knew the angel sigils. That knowledge was forbidden to mortals.

  He had not remarked such connections before because he’d never gotten to know a muse personally.

  He recalled Six’s confession that she could not carry a baby to term. He did not understand that. Obviously she had lost a mortal child. So why then had she been chosen to carry a Fallen one’s child?

  Random women were not selected as muses. They must have ancient ties to the Merovingian line of kings, and further back, to the very Christ.

  Could Six carry a Fallen’s child?

  He didn’t have those answers, and it baffled him. What a waste, should the Fallen actually attempt her.

  What would Zaqiel think to learn that truth? Perhaps he’d leave Six alone and be on to the next muse. That would solve one problem Ashur had.

  No, it was best he killed the angel before he could move on to another innocent muse.

  The fiancé Six had told him about had been a bastard, leaving her in the hospital to fare on her own. Had she loved him? Had she loved the unborn child?

  Yes, she’d said she had loved the child but not the father.

  Children were exquisite. Pure and innocent, they compelled Ashur when he saw one. So vastly opposite of what he was.

  It shouldn’t matter to Ashur what happened to Six—but it did.

  Mortal emotion was so confusing. It wasn’t black and white, but so many shades of gray, as his sight had been upon first arriving on earth. He would have strangled the bastard for what he’d done to Six.