The angel turned, letting go of Lucas. No longer being held up, Lucas’ body slumped to the ground like an abandoned marionette. Knowing he was gone, knowing that there was nothing I could do, didn’t stop me.
The angel fell to his knees, eyes wide, body trembling. The stench of fear wafted off of him.
I grinned.
My pain vanished. My wounds healed faster than they had any right to. I pulled myself to standing, no longer weak, no longer helpless. Strength suffused my being. Vengeance is for the living.
“How?” the angel asked, his voice straining with pain.
“The fuck I know,” I said, pulling harder on the connection between us.
I giggled, drunk on whatever I was doing. He filled me. I didn’t know who’s rage I felt was stronger, his or mine. But the fear? Yes, I swallowed every drop of his fear and hungered for more.
He convulsed at my feet. I had no weapon to end this. Nor the strength to cave in his face. I didn’t even want to touch him. I didn’t have to.
“Lex, stop,” Damian cried out.
I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until the bastard lay still, his life drained from his body, the life I had consumed.
I felt it. Whatever had allowed me to take until there was nothing left lingered. Hate that I didn’t even know possible flowed through me, corrupted me.
I fell to my knees, grasping my head.
“Get out!” I screamed.
He was still there, writhing inside me. The last laugh in some gods awful cosmic joke.
Arms wrapped around me, pulling me close.
”It’s okay,” he whispered over and over in my ear.
But it was a lie. I would never be okay again.
Chapter 31
The following days passed in a numb blur. I remained locked in my room, unable to face anyone. As much as I needed to grieve Lucas, I couldn’t do anything while the monster remained trapped in my head, a part of my soul.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Someone knocked on my door, and the hatred quieted for a moment. It wasn’t my hatred, though I’m sure I had plenty of that. It was foreign, unwanted. I had been unable to rid myself of it. The best I’d accomplished was shoving it down, so it no longer consumed every moment.
Damian peeked in. “How are you, niblet?”
I buried my head in my hands, unable to face him, especially him. He’d seen what I had done.
The bed sank as he sat next to me. He pulled me against his chest. I didn’t fight it. I had no more fight in me.
“What am I?” I asked, putting words on my fear.
He said nothing. If he didn’t know he would have said so. His silence meant he knew something but didn’t want to lie.
“Secrets destroy relationships,” I said. “Tell me.”
“I will when I can, niblet. Please just trust me.”
I pushed him away. “Keeping things from me isn’t protecting me. I’m not a child that needs to be kept in the dark.”
“I know you aren’t a kid anymore. I just don’t want to admit it.”
“Why?”
He smiled sadly. “Because if you’re not a kid anymore, you don’t need me.”
“I’ll always need you, big brother.”
He nodded, but I still saw the doubt on his face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I need a little bit of time to find out more, okay?”
“I can still feel him inside me.”
Horror crossed over his face, but he quickly hid it. “I’ll figure this out, niblet. I promise.”
I still felt like he was holding back. Before I could keep pushing, he held up Gladys. She gleamed, spotless, no trace of the earlier battle waged.
“I had it made for you. Was going to give it to you when I thought you were ready. How did you find it? I figured I hid it well.”
“She. And she found me.”
“Of course she did. When you’re ready, we’ll begin your training again.” Amusement played at the corner of his mouth when he called it “she.”
“Why?”
“I thought I could protect you by pushing you away, but now I see where I went wrong. I can’t change who you are. I need to accept that this is the life you want.”
“What are you saying exactly?”
“I want you to start working with me, for real this time, not answering phones or dusting. It’s time I start treating you like a grown-up.”
The words I’d been waiting to hear for years were nothing more than ash in my mouth now.
“I have no interest in being a PI, anymore. I’m keeping my word and going away to college in the fall.”
He frowned. “Lex, I don’t want that. I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s what I want, Damian.”
He sighed. “What are you going to do?”
“Study accounting. That’s nice and safe. Can’t get anyone killed doing their taxes, unless you work for the mob.”
He hugged me. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Like hell, it wasn’t. I didn’t have the energy to argue, though. We both knew the truth, anyhow.
He stood up. “I have a meeting, but I’ll be home for dinner.”
I glanced at the clock. It was a little after noon. Elena was supposed to be picking me up in ten minutes. I didn’t want to go. Would have preferred to be locked away where I couldn’t hurt anyone else.
But I owed Lucas a goodbye at least.
I nodded. “See you at dinner.”
He walked out of the door but turned back at the last minute. “Love you, niblet.”
I couldn’t force the words out of my mouth. How could I love anything when all I felt inside was darkness?
He gave me a forced smile before shutting the door.
It was the last time I saw my brother.
Chapter 32
Elena stood next to me, arm around my shoulders, as I said goodbye to the first boy I’d loved.
It was just us. His dad hadn’t bothered showing up. Probably a good thing. I wasn’t sure what I would have done to him. He might not be as to blame as I was for Lucas’ death, but punishing him would sure be easier.
I felt drained. Elena tried to help, using whatever words she could think of to comfort me. But words are just words, meaningless in the long run.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked, gently.
I looked at her, concern shining in her eyes. “I have to tell you something.”
Looking back, I have no idea why I told her. Maybe I just needed someone to know, to accept me like Lucas had accepted me.
She smiled at me. It was the last time she would. “What is it, Lexi?”
I poured it all out. About me, about Damian and Lucas. Everything, ignoring the growing horror on her face, because letting it out was more important than her reaction.
I really should have been paying more attention to her reaction.
She backed away from me.
“Get away,” she yelled, panic in her voice.
I reached for her, but she swatted my hand away and screamed.
I looked around, worried we were going to attract attention. No one else was around.
“Lanie, listen to me. I’m still me, I’m—”
“Get away from me, you monster. Help!”
I grabbed her shoulders, her panic increasing my own. I’d made a terrible mistake. Now Damian and Wes were in danger because I stupidly opened my mouth.
She struggled, but I increased my grip.
“Elena,” I said, infusing my voice with power. “Look at me.”
She obeyed, the fear in her eyes tangible.
Compulsion is a tricky bastard. I found it distasteful at best, borderline evil at worst. Forcing your will on another, wiping their agency, making them your puppet, it was all something I refused to do.
Until then.
I didn’t use words. There was no need. Blackness engulfed her eyes as I tried my best to scrub the last few minutes from her memory. Wes had explained the
theory before and said that it wasn’t something I needed to practice to be able to do. Trust your instinct, he had said. It knows what to do.
I let go of her mind, freeing it of my control. My head pounded and I felt even more drained.
I was never going to do that again.
I watched her eyes begin to return to normal, her terror completely gone.
She blinked a few times, returning to herself.
She looked at me with confusion in her brown eyes. “Who are you?”
Something had gone wrong. I waited for her memory to straighten itself out.
She looked around the cemetery like she couldn’t remember how she got there. Maybe she couldn’t.
Her eyes returned to mine, and for a moment I thought everything had gone back to normal.
“Who am I?”
Damian
“Damian.” Sara wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me into her body. I breathed deeply in, still mesmerized by her scent, even after all these years. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”
I pulled away and forced a smile I didn’t feel. “You said it was urgent.”
“How is she doing?” Sara asked.
I tried not to cringe. Sara wasn’t supposed to know about Lex. I’d kept my sister a secret for the past four years. Trust me, trying to keep the woman you love and the sister you have to protect separate had required more juggling than I thought I was capable of.
I placed my hands against the swell of her belly, the reason I’d finally told her the truth growing inside.
“She needs more help than I can give her.”
Sara stroked my cheek. “It’s time to tell her everything.”
I sighed. “I don’t even know everything.”
She closed her eyes. “Then I will. Bring me to her, and I’ll explain.”
My throat tightened. I loved her, more than I’d ever loved another woman, but I still didn’t trust her. How could I? Her kind had been hunting those like Lex since the beginning. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn her sword had ended the lives of many abominations.
Abominations. Bullshit. My sister was the furthest thing from an abomination as possible.
I shivered. Lex’s words coming back to me. How she could still feel him inside. She was different now, and it wasn’t just her loss that had changed her.
She’d taken a life, taken it inside of her. There were always consequences.
But she didn’t have to face them alone. She might have thought running away would protect me. She was wrong.
If I had to, I would descend into the depths of Sheol to find her. I hadn’t spent the last eighteen years of my life keeping her safe out of obligation. Obligations end. Family didn’t.
“What are you planning on doing, Damian? Don’t you want her to know your child?” She turned from me. “It hurts that after all this time, you still can’t trust me.”
“She’s my sister. I’m sorry, but I won’t put her at risk to spare your feelings.”
Her face softened. “I know, love. I’m sorry. I just want us to be a family.”
Her words rang hollow. I stepped away unable to put my finger on what was wrong but trusting my instinct.
She didn’t look surprised at my sudden suspicion. She looked at something behind me.
I turned, and my worst nightmare stood only a few feet away. I hadn’t sensed her. Sara’s aura stomped out everyone else’s. Competing with an archangel was hard.
“Hello, Damian,” the woman said with a smile that was branded in my memory. “I’ve missed you.”
She looked no different than she had eighteen years ago.
Her smile widened. The little boy inside of me burst with joy. All I wanted to do was run into my mother’s arms.
But I couldn’t forget what she’d done.
“I’m sorry, Damian,” Sara whispered to me. “She left me no choice.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, my dear old mother raised the gun I hadn’t seen in her hand and pointed it at my heart.
“Where is my daughter?”
7 Years Later
“Ah, Alexis. There’s the feisty cambion I’ve come to love.”
“Our business is done.”
“Not quite.” He pulled out a worn picture from his pocket and slid it across the desk. I didn’t look down.
“My wife is missing.”
I raised my eye at his neutral expression. Most people are desperate to find their lost loved ones. I knew from experience. His total lack of concern was either a sign that he was a damn good actor or a sociopath.
Probably both.
“We have our hands full finding the demon. We don’t have time to chase after your squeeze.”
“She is my life. Please.”
He sounded like a robot, programmed to say the right words but lacking the capacity to emote.
I pushed the picture back toward him without looking at it. “We can’t help you.”
That elicited emotion. His lips curled into a snarl, and he narrowed his brown orbs. “She’s human.”
Well, fuck.
There were unspoken rules of demon/human interaction. You were free to bang the shit out of them. But a relationship? Pfft.
“You married a human?”
“I had my reasons.”
I doubted any of them were love. Demons were incapable of that emotion. Ask me how I know.
Turning my back on someone who was in trouble wasn’t my style. And a human involved with a demon was always going to be in trouble.
I picked the picture up and finally looked down.
My stomach dropped, and my mouth went dry. Standing beside Doug was a beautiful young woman. She was staring up at her husband, instead of the camera. Her chocolate brown eyes shone with love and adoration. I wondered if she’d been affected by his Charm.
Probably not. She was still wearing her wedding dress.
I knew her. Elena.
She had been my best friend before I had betrayed her and stolen her life.
Lex’s adventure continues in Whips, Chains, and Brimstone.
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About the Author
Felicia Beasley has a special place in her heart for misunderstood monsters.
Fascinated with the things that go bump in the night, she has spent a lifetime steeped in mythology and fairy tales.
Drawn to stories with bad-ass heroines and their alpha heroes, she’s spent her life transcribing the many adventures of the people living inside her head.
Whether in our world or one straight from the imagination, her books are full of unforgettable characters, magical adventures, and sizzling hot sex.
Nephilim Falling (Trenton Investigations) Page 16
