“Rowena!” The angel shook her vigorously. “Open your eyes!”
“Fuck off,” she mumbled, getting pretty annoyed with him. Why couldn’t he take a hint and leave her alone?
“You still have to return Hannah’s soul to her body. We’re in someone’s house, and there’s only so long I can keep us hidden from sight.”
“Bollocks!” Rowena had been praying that the last couple of days were just a nightmare and now she had woken from it. She felt around inside her for Hannah, eventually finding her curled up in a terrified ball, metaphorically speaking.
Opening her eyes, Rowena looked straight into Adlai’s clearly worried purple and white ones. He’d been concerned about her? That was new. She wanted to kick herself for being gratified by his concern. She really needed some distance from him and everything that went with him.
Rowena pushed the angel away, or tried to; he wouldn’t let go of her. “If I lose contact with you, you will be seen. This house is full of people right now. Suddenly appearing in the middle of them will not be a good idea.”
Was that sarcasm?
“Ok, get me outside, then I can knee you in the nuts for being such a complete and utter jerk.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” he responded flatly. Ok, that had definitely been sarcasm.
“Arsehole,” Rowena muttered, but a small smile tugged at her lips.
Letting Adlai help her to her feet, Rowena looked around. She could only make out all the people in the room as vague shadows, but got the impression she had landed in the middle of a party. She couldn’t tell if it was day or night, and she had no idea how long they had been beyond the Veil. For all she knew, she could have been gone for a week.
Adlai steered her through the shadow crowd and out of the house. It was nighttime. As the angel released her, Rowena found herself surrounded by rowdy teenagers. They all looked and sounded like they were pretty drunk. Rowena felt envious. When she eventually got home, assuming she survived dealing with the father, she intended to keep drinking until she passed out. She’d have a horrible hang-over when she woke up, but it seemed worth suffering that to get lots of distance from everything for a good long while.
Making their way through the throng of drunk hormone factories gathered in the front garden of the house, Rowena and Adlai finally managed to get to the pavement. Then they began running. They could have got to Hannah’s house via the angel’s peculiar mode of travel, but Rowena didn’t want to do that again with Hannah still inside her. She was pretty certain Hannah didn’t want to either.
The house was dark, silent as the grave. Hannah suddenly seemed to wake up inside Rowena, as if she sensed her body was close.
First they had to get to it.
The father stood to block the way as soon as Rowena opened the back door. He gave Rowena a nasty grin. Goddess, he was one creepy son of a bitch. She thought maybe her best way of dealing with him was being brash.
“Hey, motherfucker! Get out of my bloody way, or I’ll go right through you!” Rowena shouted, trying to sound like she could actually do it. She couldn’t of course, but he didn’t know that.
“You cannot enter here. I have taken her soul. It is mine now.”
Not wanting him to know how wrong he was, Rowena simply said, “I want her body. Nothing else. I want to get her away from you so she can be buried decently.”
The father looked like he was mulling that over. Surprisingly, he stood aside to let Rowena and Adlai inside. It was as cold as Antarctica in the kitchen. Ice clung to every surface. The freezing air wafted in clouds around them, curling icy fingers around her ankles. Rowena reached out for the angel’s hand, seeking the warmth he gave off.
Not trusting for an instant that the father would actually let them leave with Hannah’s body, Rowena ran up the stairs. The bedroom door was open now. Hannah’s body lay on the bed, covered in a layer of white frost.
“Warm her body, angel,” Rowena ordered. “And do it quickly.”
Inside her, Hannah’s spirit strained to return to its proper home. She had to be held back. If she returned now, she would instantly freeze to death. Rowena didn’t want all she had gone through to be a waste of time.
Adlai gathered Hannah’s limp form into his arms and held it close. His heat began to work immediately. Rowena didn’t think Hannah should get back in her body until its core temperature was as near to normal as they had time to allow. The father had to be up to something. There was no way any halfway intelligent psychotic demon would relinquish his bargaining chip so easily. Rowena was up to something too though. A plan had formed in her mind, one that scared the crap out of her.
“She may return now,” Adlai announced.
Immediately, Hannah began pulling herself from inside Rowena. As she did, Rowena concentrated all her thoughts on directing the angel to carry out his part of the plan she’d hastily come up with. He scowled at her but nodded.
Hannah’s eyes opened. A second later, she and the angel vanished.
Rowena let herself quake in fear for a moment. She was alone with what was more than likely an extremely tricky demon, and he was bound to be pissed now the spirit he’d wanted to claim was suddenly snatched away. Oh, and there was the little matter of summoning the Devil with her blood, and binding the father to him.
How the hell did she get herself in these situations?
Rowena crossed to the frozen dressing table in Hannah’s bedroom and picked up a metal nail file. She stabbed it into her hand, wincing a lot at the pain. She didn’t let herself cry out though, even though it hurt like hell. “Morningstar, I summon you to this place!” she shouted. The second one drop of her blood hit the floor, her dead-beat dad was stood in front of her.
“You could just ring me,” he said, studying his fingernails.
“This is a business call. I’ll never call you for anything personal.”
“Business?”
“Yep. Time to have a demon bound to you, Daddy Dearest,” she sneered. She pulled in a deep breath and called out. “Amos Martock, face me!”
The father appeared in the room. He took one look at the empty bed and scowled. Adlai had been right: there was power in using the father’s name. He looked at Rowena, then at the Morningstar. “You have summoned another angel? What do you think he can do to stop me?” He didn’t know who the Morningstar was? That could be useful.
“Another angel, yes,” she agreed vaguely. More like the ultimate fallen angel, but she wasn’t going to spill that little snippet of information.
The Morningstar didn’t look all that pleased his reputation hadn’t preceded him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Rowena shushed him. Oh boy, he did not like that! Tough shit.
“As you can see, I took her body,” Rowena said conversationally, waving her hand at the bed. “Oh, and I returned her spirit to it before she left. You’ve lost her.”
Now she really was in some serious do-do!
The father lunged at her. If she thought her own father was going to help her out, she was severely disappointed. She glanced at him and he shrugged.
Dodging under the father’s arms, she rounded quickly and delivered him a hard kick up the arse, pushing him down onto the bed. And now he was really pissed.
With an angry snarl, he launched himself at Rowena, knocking her to the floor and wrapping his hands around her throat. Before he could get a good grip on her, she grabbed the father’s hand with her bloody one, and the Morningstar’s with her other, thankfully he bent for her to reach. She pushed the demon’s now blooded hand onto her own father’s. “I bind you to the Morningstar for all eternity.” She choked out. “You will never leave his custody. You will suffer every punishment he gives you for every life you have stolen. For the murder of your wife, I ask the Morningstar to make you feel the pain you gave her every day of your marriage. For the murder of your own child, I ask the Morningstar to make you feel every beating you gave her. For the murders of all the other girls, I ask the Morningstar to . . .”
she couldn’t think of a punishment suitable for so many deaths. She was lying under him still and her mind had gone blank.
“Make you feel the agony of having your soul ripped from your body once each day for every girl you did it to,” the Morningstar finished. “Say the words, my child. Complete the binding.”
Rowena repeated what he’d said verbatim and shoved the father off her to scrabble back to her feet.
His hand seemingly glued to the Morningstar’s by her blood, Rowena cringed as the father began to scream in agony. He tried to curl up as he pleaded for mercy.
“Not a chance,” she told him bitterly, rubbing a hand over her tender neck.
As soon as she finished saying it, he started to scream again. It went on and on. Rowena wanted to escape from it, but couldn’t make herself move.
“You have to witness the beginning of his punishment,” the Morningstar commented idly, as if it was all just every day stuff for him. Rowena guessed it probably was.
“I’ve seen enough,” she shouted over the screaming, clamping her hands over her ears.
“Do not leave, Rowena. I would speak to you once I have placed this creature where he belongs.”
Not bothering to answer, Rowena just wanted them to leave. She planned to get out of this house as soon as she could. She had things to get on with. First was getting home and making sure Hannah was alright. Next was getting hold of Stephen so she could ask him to get in touch with Hannah’s fiancé; hopefully they’d get back to together now Hannah’s home didn’t have a demon making it uninhabitable. After that, Rowena had a long date with a vodka bottle.
The Morningstar took his captive beyond the Veil where he belonged.
The sudden silence almost made her jump. It was oppressive.
Pulling herself together, Rowena ran downstairs and searched in the kitchen and then the living room until she found a handbag. She checked there was house keys inside and pulled them out. After going around to make sure the house was secure, Rowena walked out.
~* * * *~
Letting herself into her home, Rowena wanted to go to bed and never, ever get up again. She was mentally and physically exhausted. Unfortunately, she had Hannah to deal with, and the bloody angel.
Rowena took in a deep breath and pushed her front door open.
Hannah was asleep on the sofa, so that was one job that could wait till the morning. Heading for the kitchen, she grabbed the vodka bottle from the freezer and took it to her bedroom. There hadn’t been any sign of Adlai, so she decided he could also be shelved for now.
Pulling her clothes off with one hand, she took long pulls at the bottle in her other hand in between. Once naked, she put the vodka on the bedside cabinet, crawled under the duvet, and wrapped herself up inside it.
~* * * *~
She emerged from her bedroom late the next morning to find Hannah had managed to rustle up an edible breakfast of toast, eggs, orange juice and lots of coffee. Although Rowena didn’t have much of a hangover – what with having fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep before she could hit the vodka too hard – she did have a headache, and she was sure something really nasty had taken a crap in her mouth. Before attempting more than a mouthful of the coffee, she headed to the bathroom to scrub her mouth thoroughly with toothpaste. It dealt with one of her most immediate issues. A couple of aspirin and the food helped settle her head. Then she was finally ready to face the day.
Hannah had stayed quiet while Rowena satisfied her most immediate needs, only communicating enough to ask if Rowena wanted more coffee. The offer got a rather feeble thumbs up, and then the silence returned.
As Rowena finally rose from the table to go and shower and get dressed, Adlai suddenly appeared in the kitchen. Her first instinct was to throw something heavy at him. The only thing to hand was the coffee machine, which she didn’t want to have to replace.
“What do you want?” she demanded grumpily.
“I needed to know you were alright. And we still have things to sort out. Also . . .”
“Also, what?” Rowena narrowed her eyes.
“The Morningstar is not best pleased with you. He asked you to wait for him, but you left.”
“Yeah, well I’m not best pleased with him either! As far as I’m concerned, he can go back to hell and never show his face again!”
“Rowena!” Adlai looked truly shocked. Bully for him.
“You know what? I’ve had it with angels, whether they’re fallen or not! I’m going for a shower, then I’m going to see if Hannah’s fiancé will come and see her, which means I’ve got to deal with Stephen when I should be avoiding him, so the last thing on my ‘to-do’ list is pander to a jumped up fallen angel who suddenly wants to play daddy nearly thirty years too late!”
“Um . . .” Hannah put in hesitantly. “I called Dave first thing this morning and told him everything is sorted out. I’m going to move in with him and sell the house.”
“Oh.” That took a bit of the wind out of Rowena’s sails. “Ok. Great! That means I can put Stephen off for a day or two. Thank you, Hannah.”
“Well, I didn’t hire you to fix my personal life,” the young woman pointed out with a bit of a smile. “I would appreciate it if you could tell me how much I owe you though.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I’ll get a bill to you in a few days. Do you want it sent to Dave’s address?”
“I’ll write it down for you. And thank you for all you’ve done. I’d have been lost without you. I know I mean that literally too.”
“All part of the service,” Rowena told her, hoping she wasn’t going to balk when she received her bill. “By the way, I grabbed your handbag before I left your house. It’s by the front door.”
“Thanks. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
Rowena turned to Adlai again. “Just because I haven’t got as much to do as I thought, it doesn’t mean I’m ready to deal with being the spawn of Satan,” she told him firmly. “For the next twenty four hours, I don’t want anything from you except your complete absence from my life. Got it?”
“You have been very clear. However, I should warn you that the Morningstar mentioned wanting to see you soon.”
“If he turns up here, he’ll just have to fuck off again until my head’s in the right place to deal with him. And fucking off is exactly what you’re going to do now.”
He vanished instantly, and Rowena sighed in relief that she was getting through her ‘to-do’ list so easily. The Morningstar turning up unannounced wasn’t exactly something she relished, but he would just have to wait until she was ready to talk to him.
Hannah declined Rowena’s offer to stay for the day, explaining she had a cab booked to get over to her fiancé’s. She also confided that having been at risk from the father simply because of her virginity had prompted a change of heart on her previous resolve to wait until she was married.
Once Rowena was alone, she headed to the bathroom and stood under a steaming hot shower for a while, letting the water wash her clean of the last few days’ madness. She thought that this last case had to have been the weirdest one by far, and she had a whole career of weird to compare it to. Finding out who her father was had been . . . interesting. Meeting Adlai had been interesting too. She could happily say she would rather have not experienced either, apart from the sex, that was. No one could regret sex like that.
Frowning as she realised she was getting turned on just thinking about it again, she then jumped out of her skin as the shower screen slid open and Adlai joined her in the suddenly much too small space.
“I thought I told you to fuck off,” she said, far too breathlessly for her own comfort. Holy crap, he was gorgeous, especially with water cascading down his golden skin, caressing his every muscle. Her glance dropped to take in his impressive erection. Then she decided not to think about anything for the time being and lose herself in some mind-boggling sex with the sexiest male on the planet.
Wrapping her hand around his cock, Rowena stroked it firmly, pl
aying her thumb on the underside of the head to stimulate him even more. She let him go, took a half step away and lowered to her knees.
Adlai looked at her, seeming confused, until she took him in her mouth. A startled “Oh!” escaped him. Welcome to the fun of blowjobs, she thought smugly as his breathing got louder and more ragged.
“Rowena,” he gasped after a few minutes of her lavishing his cock and balls with attention from her lips and fingers. She guessed he was getting close to coming. She decided to see how open he was to what she wanted to do, and slipped her hand back between his legs to tease her finger over his anus.
Oh yeah, he definitely liked that! She went a step further, slipping her wet finger inside him to stroke it over his prostate. It was as much as he could take; his salty cream jetted into her mouth and down her throat.
Slowly drawing her mouth off him as she eased her finger out, she looked up at him. His stunned but ecstatic expression was extremely gratifying. Having sex with Stephen had taught her a few tricks, but only ones she could use on someone open-minded enough to appreciate them. Adlai was meant to be exactly what she wanted, and sometimes what she wanted was to be in complete control of a man’s pleasure.
Slipping his hands under her arms, Adlai drew her back up and laid his mouth over hers, his tongue exploring the taste of his own juices.
Taking his hand, Rowena pulled him from the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, picking up a second to tuck round under her arms. She held his hand and led the way to the bedroom. She didn’t want him to ruin this with words that were bound to annoy her, so put her finger over her lips to tell him to keep quiet. He nodded obediently.
In the bedroom, Rowena unwrapped him like a present and dried him from head to toe. He copied her, smoothing her towel over every inch of her skin. He lifted her and laid her on the bed, pushing her knees apart to slide his tongue over her softest flesh, concentrating on the hard little nub that made her gasp and writhe with each new touch. Gripping his hair in her fingers, Rowena pushed herself up to his face, taking her pleasure as confidently as she had given him his in the shower. Her moans got louder as she used his tongue to bring her to climax. It hit her suddenly, making her feel as if she was shattering into a million tiny points of ecstasy.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 157
