Altered: A Beyond the Brothel Walls Novel

by Ryans, Rae Z.

  Hot breath blew across my hardened nipple, replaced by his soft lips and wet tongue. A hoarse moan released from my lips, and Cain chuckled. His hand slid along the ridges of my abs, following the hairy trail, but I stopped him at my belly button, twining our fingers together. My dry lips brushed his furrowed brow.

  I drew the covers back, slipping out from underneath him, and retreated to the adjoined bathroom. Tension thickened my mind. Desire tainted the air. From the doorway, he eyed me; tingles attacked my body, surging to my groin. But where my body said yes, my mind shouted no.

  “There’s a spare razor, soap, and other stuff.” I pointed them out on the vanity sink before easing into the shower stall.

  I slid the door closed, but Cain’s hand blocked it. Our gazes locked; his eyes pled, but I didn’t know for what.

  “Hurry, I don’t get lots of hot water.”

  A shy smile played at his lips and widened, his coppery gaze drifting south. Angels were sexual beings in general, but Cain affected me like no other, leaving me in a perpetual state of need. Need for only him. He slipped past me, pressing himself against me, and I shut the door, willing my cock to behave.

  I paused for a moment, collecting my sanity. Soap scented the air, and I turned. Suds dribbled over his chest as mine constricted. White bubbles ran along his tight abs and gathered on Cain’s erection. My lips smacked, at his peeking tip and the retreating foreskin. I stood there, imitating a scared rabbit, waiting for the predator to pounce.

  Cain inched closer; our cock heads touched. Reminiscent of the alleyway, but roles reversed; he grasped our dicks together. “Come for me,” he whispered, and brushed his mouth against mine. Cain knelt, beads of water catching in his short hair. “Come in my mouth.”

  I wanted to say no, to draw away. His caramel eyes enthralled me in a spell, and his thick lips slipped over my engorged head. Was it all a cruel trick? His hand pumped along my shaft, twisting over the pulsing vein. Did he make me need only him? My thighs trembled, and my fingers grasped into his wet hair. As if he meant to suck me dry, his suction increased until the pressure burned into my curling toes.

  “Slow down…” My hips bucked. “Cain…”

  But I couldn’t hold on, my cods aching, and my cock engorged. His speed increased, slurping and humming over my sensitive organ. My nails scratched at the tile. He pulled back, my tip resting on his tongue. I reached for him, but he slapped my hand and renewed his assault.

  The break in pleasure wasn’t long enough. My hips ground forward, my cock thrusting between his puffy lips. Cods tingled, drawing into me. I warned, “Babe, fuck me, I’m going to cum.” Every muscled tensed. Euphoria washed away my sanity. “I can’t—”

  He didn’t back away, but guzzled my seed. Cain released me, and I leaned against the chilly tile, panting and collecting my senses. Soft kisses showered my thighs before trailing along my torso. He paused, flicking his tongue over each nipple and nibbling from my collarbone to my neck.

  “You’re amazing, babe.” And I meant it. No man had turned me on with nothing more than the sound of his voice or the flicker of his lashes, and I didn’t want it to end, ever.

  Cain smirked and stepped into the spray, rinsing the remaining soap from his body. I blinked; he slipped through the shower door without a word. What the fuck just happened? Quickly I finished washing under the chilly water—the solar power had only offered me a few minutes of lukewarm water.

  I dressed in record speed, taking zero time to coordinate or fix the bed. Poking my head out from my bedroom door, I found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table. Cain had redressed in the borrowed clothes from last night. His fingers drummed along the tabletop. Like the temperature of the water, he had flopped from hot to cold by the time I joined him. A shell had built around Cain, and it remained through the morning.

  The first time I had had a man stay over and my first breakfast with anyone other than Belle; I didn’t have a rulebook telling me how to behave. No matter how hard I pressed on Cain’s walls, he erected them higher. Had he sensed my connection last night? What of the shower? I hoped to break through before Belle arrived and started with her banter. “So…” My brows twisted, I faced away from him.

  Cain slurped the bitter—sorry excuse for—coffee-like sludge in silence and nibbled his toast. Few conveniences existed after the Sundering, but Arcadia suffered less land loss and found a way to bounce back. Far from perfect, but no one starved. Demons and Angels were resilient creatures if not always intelligent. Cain’s chair creaked, denim leg sliding against denim leg.

  I opened my mouth, but closed it and spun around. Bile rose in my stomach. Belle strode on the snow-covered sidewalk. She chatted to herself and threw glances over her shoulder, dreads swaying. Two men hung behind, but they appeared engrossed in their own conversation and not her, probably on their way to the train station. The door downstairs jingled, and the men kept walking. Not even a glance was spared toward my home.

  “Dorian, why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?” High-heels clicked over the hardwood floors.

  I rolled my eyes. When had I ever answered my phone this early in the morning? Besides, the battery needed a recharge after using it last night and it sat downstairs on my desk.

  “You better not still be in bed. Don’t think I won’t drag your ass out and dump you in the snow.”

  Cain snickered. Aside from the lust in his eyes, it was the only other emotion he’d shown all morning.

  I dragged Belle’s usual chair—the only reason I had owned two—to his side. “You can trust her. If you’d rather tell her whatever you’re hiding.” My hand slid over his and squeezed.

  She stomped up the stairs, still complaining, but I left my hand resting on his and caressed the smooth skin. What had happened between last night and this morning? Why do I even care? I gulped. “Belle’s a demon, but one of the good ones.”

  “Good… morning, gentlemen.” Amusement danced the polka in her smiling eyes. “Cain, right?” Belle extended her bangled hand, and he accepted her gesture. A warm smile tilted his lips as exchanges transpired. “Well, this is unexpected seeing as you ditched me yesterday.” She clattered about the kitchen and made her own cup of sludge. “By the by, you owe me for your splurge. Any news on our case?”

  I ignored her and leaned on my arm. A fork twirled in my hand. “Belle is what we call—”

  The tone of his voice snapped. “Elioud. I know what she is.” Cain leaned back in the chair and bore his caramel gaze into me.

  My lifelong ability to read situations left me clueless to his problem.

  Cain pointed his finger and his thick drawled southern accent peeked through. “I don’t know what you are. Something I ain’t never seen before, and here I thought I’d seen it all. Secrets work both ways. Ya know?”

  Belle’s amber-red gaze darted between us, and I gave a slight headshake. Why did everyone have to make such a big deal, as if I didn’t already have more than enough on my plate? She pressed her rosy lips together and crossed her arms over her corset.

  “What does it matter?” My eyes closed, and I pinched between them. Between the case of the missing, Cain’s sister, and now Garland too, I had more than I could handle.

  Downstairs, the phone rang, and I jumped from my seat, toward the staircase. James was supposed to call. Anything to get away and lose myself in a distraction, but Belle proved to be faster, shooting a grin over her shoulder. She stampeded downstairs and rattled the old house.

  Once she was gone, I asked what was bothering him. “Babe, I can’t read your mind, so you got to spit it out.”

  Belle shouted, “Did you just call him babe?” Laughter broke through the silence, and it sounded like she said, “Priceless.”

  Cain blushed, despite his stiffened jaw. I rested against the doorway and squinted at the sunlight bleeding in through the window above the sink. The sun rarely shined anymore. My gut twisted.

  He shoved the chair back, sliding it across the floor, and
he crossed his leg over his thigh. His innocence reflected within the small moment, and the truth tore through me. I could not lie or avoid what I was forever. Hallo was right. Compared to the demons and other angels, we were grotesque. Our beauty radiated soul deep, but it ended at the soul.

  “I can’t take it back, babe. Once you know…” The heaviness of the statement died in my mouth as I strolled toward the living room. My hands dampened, and I shoved them into my pockets. A thickness rose in my throat, and I turned around.

  He shifted again, waiting for me to reveal what he truly didn’t want to know. The part of myself I’d hated, loathed, and feared. Others had dreaded me; others who had professed love and then ran me through on their blades, hefted me onto crosses, and left me to die. Memories: I, too, had survived their torments, but not without injury. It had been because of those men that I wouldn’t allow myself to change.

  My shoulders rolled forward, and I summoned the courage, bravery only Hallo could have offered. More so, I surrendered to the awaiting agony of Death rising.

  My tan flesh melted into hardened bone. A gasp released from Cain, but I didn’t dare turn around. Anyone else and it would not have mattered, but his scorned words or looks I could not face. Wings sprang forth and crackled through the stilled air. His feet tapped against the hardwood floors, and I closed my eyes, fighting the searing agony burning in their corners.

  Father hadn’t created me handsome. No beauty lived in death. Merely bare bones and tattered feathers existed beyond the facade Father granted to me. The ability to blend among the humans had been part of my position. Torn clothing lay at my feet. A silver-gray robe slid over my naked bones, pooling in a shimmery mass at my feet, and the wide hood covered where my face once was.

  “Falcate,” I said, my raspy voice resonated off the walls, and I lifted my arms from my sides. Summoned into my hand was my black-jeweled scythe, appearing in a blink of light from the void of Sheol, swirling and floating by the fireplace. Echoing the hollow of my body, the tenor and pitch of my voice had changed into sinister madness. The bones of my feet clacked, like hooves over the wooden floor, and twisted toward Cain. “Am I beautiful now?”

  Color drained from his pretty boy face. The loud thud quaked through the whole house. He fainted, slipping from the chair. Cain’s response was better than I had expected.

  Belle ran up the steps, into the room, and scowled. “You couldn’t have just told the poor man?” A response refused to come. “Don’t just stand there, dumbass. Help me.” Her face clenched and reddened, as she attempted to heft him from the floor, but Cain was twice her weight and almost double her height. “Dorian.”

  Her fingers snapped at me, but I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do. Cain hadn’t run, but he couldn’t have either. I wouldn’t have wanted to see me when I awoke if I was he, nor did I wish to watch him run, throw stones, or tie a noose.

  My head hung low, and I stared at the floor. One slice, a stab, and the urge to scream ripped through my empty ribcage. No heart resided in the void, yet it ached. Cain was no different. The others before him… what they had done. He would do the same. No one existed on this Earth capable of loving what could not be loved, and those who had loved Death loved only the idea of eternal darkness, not me.

  “Damn it, Dorian Fox.”

  My gaze snapped to her before falling to Cain’s swaying head, lolling against her shoulder. Holding him from behind, she dragged him upright.

  Cain’s mouth moved in a soundless gesture, and his lids blinked open. My heart stilled, but I kept my distance. Moments passed or perhaps minutes, no clock ticked to measure the time in which he glared at me with uneasy eyes.

  Belle sat him in the chair. His white knuckles grasped the sides. In the strained silence, my weight shifted, and I leaned on the scythe, sighing soundlessly. One of three events would unfold. Cain would run, or he would choose to stay. The third option rattled my bones; he would stay, but despise me and secretly plot my demise. No one had ever stayed out of love, and he couldn’t love me.

  His caramel gaze darted between my weapon and my hood. The broken wings grew heavy from years of unused confinement, pushing my shoulders forward. My bones creaked and throbbed, shifting them again, but the decrepit reaction was typical for a man as old as time.

  Her face unreadable, Belle offered nothing. She had seen me before, though. My chest stinging with each passing breath, I waited for someone to say something, anything to ease my ill heart. Cain tilted his head, and his eyes widened, speckled with more green and amber than the usual shimmery brown. Slowly, he sat up more, with the assistance of Belle, but I didn’t dare move.

  Why does his opinion matter? I never stopped to ask myself why I even cared what Cain Westcott thought of me. We hadn’t known each other, not beyond the sexual exploits; a man the ABDA barred me from understanding. But his opinion did matter.

  I need someone to love what I can’t and to show me how to love it for myself.

  My shaking hand released the scythe. He rose. Metal clanked against the floor. I stumbled backward as Cain approached me; his face yielded no readable emotion. We inched—him forward and I backward—and circled the room. He scooped my scythe from the ground and it scratched along the floor. My ass landed on the sofa, feathers cracking, and I gave up the sorriest excuse for a chase I’d ever seen.

  “A reaper,” he whispered, but I shook my head. Wrinkles lined his forehead as he glanced from the scythe to my garb covered bones. “What are you then?”

  My boney hand stretched from the bell sleeve. “Better to show you.”

  He rubbed his neck and glanced over my shoulder at Belle before joining me on the sofa.

  I mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what—”

  Grasping his hand in mine, I cut off his question. Time rapidly unwound and reversed. The world flashed before us, as did the trillions of people who had called this planet home from its inception to their death or ascension. Words described what I saw of the world, even though Cain saw it through my eyes too. Together, Cain and I relived the birth and death of humanity and with their demise, the rise of the Angels and Demons that had followed.

  “Father created and named me Death, and I am the fourth and final Horseman of the Apocalypse. Welcome to Sheol, the Land of the Dead. Each human ever born I have met in one form, or another. My original job revolved around marking humans for the levels of purgatory. Those I thought might seek redemption, by the second coming, I saw again as they died and ushered them to Purgatory.”

  The world continued blinking through various wars and technological advancements. I didn’t show him what had become of me and showed him only what I had done for Father. In the dark spans of Sheol, Cain stood, clutching my bones, and his enlarged eyes soaked in the story of my life and the history of the world.

  Gasps sounded from the humans. I’d sliced through their souls, collecting them before ushering them into Sheol. Vampires were unleashed into the world as the populations boomed, and the humans reproduced faster than I could keep up. Their marks upon the victim’s necks allowed me to track the damned souls.

  Witches and Warlocks joined the ranks; there were too many souls for Markos and Fauna to tempt. Finally, Father imbued Hallowed with portaling, allowing her to move quickly through vast spaces. Eventually, he would give my siblings the same gift. I didn’t show Cain Father’s last gift to me, for it was the key.

  “But… how?” asked Cain. “You’re not a vampire.”

  I replied, “God is my Father.” All roads and answers led back to our father. The grand end of humanity and his rewarding plan all belonged to him.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to re-witness the destruction and death of my hands. No tears could fall, but a burn ripped through my nose and eye sockets.

  Cain tugged my robe. “No more, please, Dorian.”

  I glanced at him. With his beautiful face buried into my sleeve, I fast-forwarded to the day Revelation began. “Babe,” I whispered. “We
’re here, and you need to understand.”

  Before us stood a pale horse, tinted the color green. “I, Death, rode the foul, heaven-sent beast and followed behind the others. Sword, famine, plagues, and by the wild creatures of the Earth, Father gave us reign to watch over his world.”

  The herald angel said, “Come and see!”

  Our horses barreled through the streets of every country, and we strode in a clean line. “War is Markos, and Famine—Pestilence is Fauna. Together they tested the people’s faith. Conquest is Hallowed, and she marked those who had deserved Father’s love and would ascend to the heavens. I slaughtered and condemned those deemed unworthy that day. I murdered. It was my job, but the burden of spilled blood is mine to bear. We are family and a team, and Father gave us the Earth for our service until the final battle is wrought and Heaven comes to Earth.”

  My insides boiled and churned. Murder was the wrong word. Men and women had tossed themselves at my feet, and they had begged for my forgiveness, for my redemption instead of Father’s love and forgiveness. I held no contempt for their fetid ways, but marked them with the beast. Bound and branded, I cast them from my sight, or drew blood.

  In a trembling voice, Cain asked, “Where did you cast them?”

  “The redeemable arrived here.” I sighed. The vision froze, and I pointed to the swirling black mass behind me on the image. The same portal floated in my living room. Always, Sheol was there. Both my horse and scythe, all I had to do was summon it from the ethers. “Those who were not... I cast into Hell.”

  Cain stared at the floor.

  “I am but God’s messenger and personal assassin. They chose their paths.” My scythe was aimed at the humans groveling at my feet in the image. “Look.” The nature of my position hardened me, but I left that part out. Those final days weighed on me after living millennia of lifetimes among his creations. I glanced to Cain, wanting to prove myself wrong. The thought of loving him brought a light and warmth I had never known except in Father’s presence.