by Abby Blake
“So humans aren’t inferior?” Lilly asked, seeming confused now.
“Far from it,” Darian said with a warm smile. “A reliable source confirmed that the paranormal species indigenous to this planet evolved from the same ancestors as humans.”
“Indigenous? As in there are paranormal species on this planet that didn’t evolve here on Earth?”
Darian gave Devlin an apologetic look—one that Lilly noticed immediately—before nodding and dragging the conversation back on track. “Anyway, we’d appreciate your help decoding Bethany’s journal.”
“Unofficially of course,” Ronan said in a serious tone. “Cassandra Lipton is causing Benjamin and Thomas all sorts of headaches with her by-the-book attitude. They’re not certain, but the orders don’t seem to be coming from her. Someone else seems to be pulling her strings, and until we know if they’re friend or foe, PUP Squad Alpha is treading cautiously.”
“Understood,” Jed said with a nod. Devlin had been given his own share of strange orders when he’d been a Navy SEAL, but none of it had been as bewildering as the situation they now found themselves in.
“So the Ruling Body doesn’t know Deeks Security is currently protecting the pixie queen from her own assassins and housing a half dozen miniature pixies across the country?”
“Not yet,” Ronan said, shaking his head. “Fortunately, we haven’t had any more attacks since Jason revealed himself as the traitor, but we’ve recently discovered that pixies are far more vulnerable in miniature form than even they believed. I’d like to bring an end to the attacks before a supposedly indestructible creature dies in our custody.”
“Shit,” Devlin said quietly. How was it possible that his understanding of the world was being turned on its head so thoroughly?
“My thoughts exactly,” Darian said with a soft laugh as he pointed over his shoulder at Ronan. “Who would have thought these short-lived creatures would someday end up a danger to us?”
“What, you mean besides the fact that there are nearly seven billion of us on the planet?” Ronan asked with a raised eyebrow.
And for the first time since he’d signed on for this assignment Devlin understood the conflict the Ruling Body faced. Even if only a small percentage of humans were capable of the skills the Oracle’s receptacles were developing, it was still likely to be a very big number. If the Oracle’s receptacles were allowed to pass their information to others, it would very likely throw the paranormal community into turmoil.
Not only were humans the most abundant sentient species on the planet, it was quite possible they’d soon replace paranormals as the dominant beings on the planet. Considering human history, that didn’t bode well for the future for anyone.
Chapter Six
“Why did Darian apologize to you when I asked about nonindigenous paranormal species?”
“He didn’t apologize,” Devlin said slowly, obviously trying to deny the look Darian had given him had any particular meaning. She waited him out, knowing that she knew enough now that he would either have to answer her question or lie to her face.
If he was a smart man, he wouldn’t lie about this.
“Dev, I already figured out that you’re not human. You haven’t aged a day in the four years since we dated. That combined with the company you keep and the party where I found you, I know that you’re not human. The question is what are you?”
“I’m the man you love,” he said, trying to gather her in his arms. She gave him a look that froze him in place. Did the guy learn nothing while they were dating? She wasn’t some delicate flower needing protection. Yes, she’d been raised in a small town, but she wasn’t stupid, naïve, or poorly educated.
“He’s an angel,” Jed said. He leaned casually against the doorjamb and gave her a mischievous smile.
“Is that true?” she asked Devlin.
But the man didn’t say anything. And he didn’t move. His complete stillness was a little creepy. She’d meant to stop him from changing the subject, but he was taking this whole frozen-by-her-glare thing just a little too far.
“Dev?” she asked pointedly. “Are you going to answer me or not?”
Jed stepped into the room, frowning as he got closer. “Lil, did you do something?”
“Something like what?” she asked nervously.
He shook his head as he walked around Devlin’s frozen form. “I’m not sure. But something you did, or you said…” He shook his head again. “Lil, recreate what you did when you two first started talking.” Jed seemed calm but something urged her to do it quickly.
“I asked a serious question. He gave me an evasive answer. I narrowed my eyes at him because he was going to try and distract me.”
“Your eyes?” Jed said. “Look at him again, narrow your eyes, and think that you want him unfrozen.”
It seemed like a strange thing to do, but considering that “strange” seemed to be the way her life was going these days, she did as he asked.
Devlin dragged in a deep breath, his knees giving out as he fell forward. Jed was there in an instant, helping Lilly get him onto the sofa. He collapsed onto the cushions, dragging Lilly into his arms, crushing her against him. “Do me a favor, baby?” he asked breathlessly. She nodded frantically, still unsure what the hell had happened but willing to promise him and Jed anything. “Warn me before you do that again.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly said urgently, trying to lift away from his embrace.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Devlin said, rubbing a hand over her back, his touch achingly familiar. This was the way he’d held her the day he’d said good-bye.
Panic streaked through her heart. “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded urgently, pride and sanity forgotten in the fear of moments ago.
“What?” Jed asked in a shocked voice.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lil,” Devlin said, pulling her onto his lap. “I promised to protect you and love you for the rest of your life. I have every intention of keeping that promise.” He lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes a moment before kissing her passionately. By the time he pulled away, she was breathing hard, too. “But we need to figure out what just happened. The skill you demonstrated is dangerous. Whatever you did froze all external movement. I literally couldn’t breathe.”
“I could have killed you,” she said as dread flowed over her, sinking deep into her bones.
“I’m a little harder than that to kill,” he said confidently. “But if I’d been human or one of several other species, a prolonged amount of time frozen would have killed me.”
Jed sat down beside them and took her hand into his own. “What were you thinking when you froze Devlin?”
Words were hard to find. Her stomach churned as the what-ifs rolled through her mind. “I was…I was thinking that the look I gave him should be enough to freeze him on the spot.” She glanced at Devlin but lowered her eyes, terrified of doing something else as dangerously unpredictable as she’d just done. “But I didn’t mean it. I was thinking figuratively, not literally.”
“Did you squint or blink?”
“I did. I squinted. Could it be that simple?”
“We won’t know until we try it,” Devlin said, moving her away from him slightly.
She was shaking her head long before he finished the sentence. “Uh-uh, no way. I’m not experimenting on you. What happens if I squint and accidentally blow you up or something?”
“Baby,” Devlin said, lifting her chin so that he could look her in the eyes. She closed them. “Look at me, Lil. My species can survive flying at very high altitudes. I don’t need much oxygen to keep my body functioning. I can literally hold a deep breath for thirty minutes or more. If you’re going to learn to control this skill, I’m your best chance.”
She glanced at Jed and saw him nod his approval. “Lilly, I think this skill is based in telekinesis. That means you can move stuff just by thinking about it. The other Oracle’s receptacles have the same skill. They just use it differently.” He placed a
cup of cold coffee just out of reach on the table beside her. “Without moving, reach for the cup.”
She did as he asked and nothing happened. He frowned, lifted the cup, and peered at the stale coffee thoughtfully. “I have a theory,” he said as he headed into the kitchen. A minute later he came back in with a steaming cup of fresh coffee with cream and sugar just the way Lilly liked it.
“Now reach for the cup.” Again she did as he asked, but this time pulled back in surprise when the cup slid toward her hand.
Jed laughed and shook his head. “What the hell is it with you girls and coffee? Kali, Ava, and Hannah can move their coffee cups and occasionally their e-readers, but nothing else. It’s like it has to be something you really, really want, but even then it’s just little stuff. It’s only when Ava and Hannah were faced with pixie assassins that they were able to tap into the skill and do more damage.”
“Didn’t Hannah put Eric on his ass once?” Devlin asked.
“I forgot about that,” Jed said with a laugh. “I’m not sure who was more surprised. The five-hundred-pound bear-shifter or the woman who threw him clear across the yard with barely a look.”
“So it’s not really a voluntary skill?”
“We’re not really sure what it is, but when Ava and Hannah needed it, they had it.”
“But I wasn’t exactly in danger when I froze Dev.”
“I have a theory about that, too,” Jed said very seriously. He glanced at Devlin and then back at Lilly. “When you asked Devlin what he was, he tried to avoid the question. I’m betting it was the same way he avoided letting you get too close when you were dating.” Lilly didn’t look at Devlin when she bit her lip and nodded in agreement. “Devlin triggered your fight-or-flight response. You really didn’t want him to lie to you by omission, so you stopped him from answering altogether.”
“So every time I get scared I’m liable to freeze someone? I have no control over it?” Lilly asked, her heart starting to pound hard once more. How the hell did she end up a walking time bomb? The thought of killing someone accidentally with this new power was terrifying. Even if assassins were looking for her, she didn’t want this particular skill.
“Actually,” Jed said as Devlin held her close once more, “I think you have a really good chance of learning to control it. Devlin’s suggestion that you use him as a test subject is actually a very good idea. He wasn’t kidding. He’s more than capable of surviving long periods of time without breathing.”
“Which brings me back to my original question,” Lilly said, rubbing her forehead and refusing to look at either of them. “Jed said you’re an angel. Is that true?”
“Not in the strictest interpretation of the word,” Devlin said carefully. She kept her calm, breathing deeply and slowly as the usual irritation at his evasiveness curled through her. When she’d thought him a human Navy SEAL, she’d forgiven him because she understood the nature of his work and the secrecy required. But there was no reason now. She knew about the paranormal world, knew that it existed, and was essentially part of it now herself. He had no reason not to tell her. He must have sensed her internal conflict because he held her closer and finally started talking.
“My people are known as Anjo Keladi Envivs. Essentially it translates to ‘angels with hidden wings.’ That’s why most paranormals refer to us as angels. We’re not angels in the religious sense, but have on many occasions been mistaken for them.” He turned her around, lifting her chin so that he could see her eyes. “We don’t share any of the DNA traits common to species that developed on this planet, so it’s a fairly reasonable assumption that our ancestors were from a different planet.”
“You’re an alien? And you have wings?” she asked in wonder. She’d spent quite a bit of time exploring every inch of the man a few years back. It seemed rather strange that she could have missed a set of wings.
“Want to see them?” Devlin asked with a relieved grin. It seemed now that he’d finally said the words out loud he was quite happy to tell all. Had he been worried she would walk away once she knew the truth? He’d always seemed so confident, so well adjusted, so capable at just about everything that it hadn’t really occurred to her that he might have the same doubts and insecurities that she herself held.
“Of course,” she said with a smile. She leaned up to press a quick kiss to his lips and then scrambled off the sofa and stood back. He glanced around the room, seeming to judge the distance and space he had available, before giving her a typical Devlin-style wink.
His wings just appeared. They didn’t fade in, or grow, or morph like the werewolves had done. They just appeared. One moment they weren’t there and the next they were.
“Shit,” she said, shuffling backward just a little. Devlin’s wings were huge. They took up most of the space in the room, and if she wasn’t mistaken weren’t fully extended in the cramped area. The most surprising part was that they were covered in feathers. Feathers! She was sleeping with a guy with feathers.
The thought surprised a giggle from her mouth, and Devlin grinned wolfishly. “What’s the matter?” he said as his wings moved slowly to surround her. “Did I lose some of my macho points with the white feathers?”
She shook her head quickly, worried that she’d insulted him, but he merely gave her that confident smile once more. He leaned in, his arms wrapping around her waist as his wings enclosed them both. He kissed her softly, his lips playful and coaxing as his hands explored her all over.
“Okay, show-off,” Jed said with a laugh. “Get rid of the wings before you drop feathers all over the carpet.”
“I don’t drop feathers,” Devlin said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. But in the blink of an eye, his wings were gone.
“Where do they go?” she asked, glancing around the room.
“It’s kind of hard to explain, but essentially they exist in another dimension. I have to bring them into this dimension to be able to use them, but as you saw it doesn’t take long to have them ready.”
“Anything else I should know about you?” she asked, feeling much calmer than she had before.
“Let’s see,” he said, holding up his fingers and counting off the points. “Wings? Check. Capable of flying high and fast? Check. Able to hold my breath for long periods of time? Check.” He turned to Jed. “Did I forget anything?”
“Only that you glow in the dark.”
“You do what?” Surely Jed was pulling her leg this time. But Devlin laughed and nodded in agreement.
“But like the wings, I can usually turn that particular skill on and off. The only time it happens involuntarily is if I’m really angry—and I mean really, really angry—or healing someone who’s been injured.”
“Healing?” She reached up and touched the blond hair that was just starting to curl at his temples. As a SEAL he’d always kept his hair very short, but it looked like it would be curly as it grew longer. “No wonder you guys got mistaken for angels. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen paintings of angels with long blonde curls, huge feathered wings, and an inner glow.”
“I’m sure you have,” Devlin said with a soft laugh, “but I can assure you I’m no angel.” He backed up his words by lifting her shirt over her head and dragging her bra away from her breast. “In fact, I think right now I want to be really, really bad. Want to come play with me, pretty lady?”
She gasped as his hands slid lower, unsnapped the button on her jeans, and dragged the material to her feet. His fingers skimmed over her pussy lips, two fingers pushing up into her pussy as his thumb made little circles around her clit. She could feel her juices coating his fingers, her instant arousal no longer surprising. Devlin had always been able to turn her on with a single look. The fact that Jed moved to press up against her naked back just made everything perfect.
“Any lube in that bag of tricks Brody sent you?” Devlin asked Jed.
Jed pressed a kiss to her shoulder, nibbling little bites up the side of her neck before answering.
“Lu
be and more. Much, much more,” he said in a voice that promised all sorts of amazing stuff was about to happen. “I’ll just get the all clear from our backup, and meet you in the bedroom.” He stepped away, opened the leather bag, and grabbed several items. “In the meantime…” He didn’t finish the sentence, just handed Devlin a bottle of lube, a butt plug still in its packaging, and a strange-looking toy that seemed to be a series of balls, each larger than the last, joined together to make a flexible-looking rod.
Devlin grinned wickedly. “This, my sweet Lilly, is an anal probe.” Her butt clenched just at the thought of what Devlin could do with it. He laughed as he lifted her into his arms and headed toward the bedroom. “Kind of appropriate when you think about it.”
She quirked an eyebrow in question.
“Well, I am considered an alien, you know.”
* * * *
Lilly rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, and if her asshole wasn’t clenching in excitement she might have even laughed at the pun. But all she could feel was her pussy pulsing rhythmically, and her juices dribbling onto her outer lips and thighs, as Devlin moved a pillow into the middle of the bed and placed her facedown over it.
“Just like the first time,” he said as his hands traveled up and down her spine in a soothing, hypnotic rhythm. He moved his massage lower, stopping only to unlace her shoes and then drag them and her jeans the rest of the way off her legs. “Relax, baby. Jed and I plan to take good care of you.”
Her breath caught when she heard the snap of the bottle cap. She gasped as the cold liquid dribbled between the cheeks of her ass, but warm fingers spread it gently, caressing the incredibly sensitive skin of her anus before pressing against her back hole and pushing inside. Slowly he caressed her tight muscle, making a sound of approval as she felt herself relax and her anus open up to his gentle invasion.
