In Bonds of the Earth (Book of the Watchers 2)

by Janine Ashbless

  Slowly his eyes regained focus. I could feel his cock pulsing inside me.

  He reached up one arm, hooked the back of my neck and pulled me down on top of him. For a moment I tried to resist. I felt his free hand snake around and cup the splayed curve of my ass firmly, fingers brushing the sensitive places bared between my cheeks. Then he pulled my lips to his and kissed me. Long and slow, like he was eating my wild words and taking possession of my tongue. And that was when I came again, whimpering like a small animal and crying out and trying to save myself but failing altogether.

  Desire did not die with my orgasm; I wanted more. He was still hard inside me and I took advantage of that, pushing down on him. Then I sat up, catching his wrists in my hands as he released me. They felt solid as oak under my narrow fingers.

  Azazel’s hot-metal eyes widened and he went very still.

  I should have seen the signs. I should have heeded the warning, as the room temperature plummeted. But I was too high on being fucked, and on wanting to fuck him more. And he didn’t resist. He could have stopped me easily, but he didn’t try. Not in time.

  “No,” he whispered.

  I thought he was joking. Pushing his hands open, I bent to kiss his lips, grinding my pussy on him. He was as hard as ever, after all.

  He twisted under me, fast as a snake, and slammed me onto the mattress. “No!” he cried, recoiling convulsively. For a second almost all the light fled the room, and in that instant I thought the walls towered in around us, huge slabs of rock. The smell of stone and water and blood hung on the dank air. An eagle screamed overhead.

  Then the light came back and there was Azazel hunched on the very edge of the mattress, rubbing at his wrists with knotted hands as if there was something awful on them. The look on his face was a scramble of terror and shame. Then pride slammed down on both, smoothing his features to a bleak insouciance and pushing his shoulders straight.

  “Never do that,” he said thickly. “Never. It makes me…uncomfortable.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, crimson with guilt. What the hell had I been thinking of? Memories of his tortured incarceration must still be imprinted in his very flesh.

  Warmth leached back into the air. He crawled over me across the bed, using his weight to pin me. He gripped my wrists in exactly the way that he’d so objected to me doing to him, and I made my whole body relax, yielding to his far greater strength. If he wanted to break my bones it would take him no effort at all. I looked up into the blackness of his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Azazel,” I told him. “I should have thou—”

  “Shush.” He smiled, mollified by my submission, but I could feel a tremble vibrate from his bones into mine. His lips stooped to mine, then brushed my cheek. “I love you,” he growled in my ear. “Never doubt that, Milja.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, drowning in the scent of his skin, his hair, his heat.

  But why? What am I but a lanky monkey who’s always scared, always angry, and liable to screw up at any time? At least I used to be sweet and innocent. I’m not even that anymore.

  I woke from my doze when I suddenly lost Azazel’s spooning warmth at my back. I don’t think it’d been more than a few minutes since we last spoke. I looked around, wondering why he’d left without a word or a kiss. Then I saw the golden light coming through from the other room and I knew.

  Wrapping the cheap cotton throw from the foot of the bed around my bare body, I padded through to the doorway. The Archangel Michael stood in the middle of my small apartment, looking about him at the book shelves and the pictures. A paperback copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo slipped from his hand back onto the low table.

  “Hello, Milja. Nice place. Has he moved his toothbrush in yet?”

  It was like waking to find a giant bird of prey in my tiny living room; he looked wildly unsuited to a domestic setting and way too big for it, even with wings furled. In fact, with that Roman nose and those unblinking amber eyes, there was something distinctly golden eagle-like about him. If he stretched out he could knock over walls, I thought.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked. “This is my home. You can’t just come barging in!”

  “You’re right,” he said, looking startled. “I have to have your permission. No, hold on, wait…that’s vampires. Shame.”

  I pursed my lips. “Well, God certainly did not hold back on the sarcasm when he made you guys.”

  He smirked. If you’re that good-looking, even a less-than-warm smile can be a weapon of devastating charm. Turning to the couch, he sat down with arms draped over the back and knees spread. It was not so much an invitation as a claiming of territory.

  “What do you want?” I kept my voice hard, even as I thought of the icon of Saint Michael that had stood guard over the key in my father’s church. That holy painting had always made me feel nervous as a child, and he was no less intimidating in the flesh. His piercing gaze rested lightly upon me, with all the gentleness of a sword-point.

  “Nothing.”

  His rigger boots were caked in dried mud, I noticed, and flaking on my rug. I wished he would blink. It still creeped me out, even though Azazel should have inured me to it. “Angels aren’t supposed to lie. What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “So, what…you’re sitting guard over me until Azazel comes back? Is that your plan?”

  “He’s too much of a coward to face me. Runs every time.”

  “If that’s the way you want to call it.”

  He looked at the kitchen door. “I see you have a kettle. You got any tea? I like that Earl Grey stuff. Tastes like flowers.”

  “I know the rules, you know. You can’t actually do anything to me.”

  “True enough. And I’m not stopping you leaving, if that’s worrying you.”

  “I can move out. Get a new place.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll find you. This apartment’s a bit small for the two of us, to be honest.”

  I clenched my jaw, weighing my options. “Okay,” I said, and dropped my wrap to reveal my naked body, in all its post-coital salty glow.

  That wiped the smile off his lips. “Don’t play those games,” he growled, sitting up and looking away from me.

  Love is Azazel’s weak spot. Shame is theirs. They’re terrified of their own human flesh.

  “What? Does this make you uncomfortable? That’s a pity, seeing as how it’s my house and I like to walk around it naked.”

  “You are shameless.” His gaze was sliding all over the place, not daring to settle on me.

  “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” I hefted my breasts and jiggled them. “They’re my tits. In my apartment. If you don’t want to see, clear out.”

  “Put your robe back on,” he rasped.

  “Oops,” I said. “Did I drop it?” Turning my back to him, I spread my feet and, straight-legged, bent over to pick the fabric up again. Nice and slow…

  He moved so fast he’d launched me across the room and onto my bed before I even realized he was out of his seat. The abused mattress twanged in alarm. It knocked the wind out of me—and more than that, shocked me half to death. I wasn’t in the least bit hurt, not even bruised, but I hadn’t expected him to touch me at all, under the rules. Maybe the Boatman sailed closer to the wind than I’d bargained for.

  “Don’t do that, whore!” he barked, leaning into my face. He looked furious. I knew why. It takes a human decades to learn how to deal with all the things that come with an adult body—all those hormones and instincts—without losing control. Angels never had the advantage of a gradual introduction.

  I had two choices: surrender or fight. I bared my teeth and snarled right back at him, matching his rage and contempt. “Or what? You’re going to rape me? ’Cause I think that might just count as a fall from Grace, don’t you? And then you’d be royally fucked, Mister Michael.”

  He recoiled, drawing himself up in undisguised horror. I took advantage of the gap between us to rol
l over and pull the drawer of my bedside cabinet open, pulling out the silicon rabbit sex toy I’d been given at my graduation party. I hadn’t used it in months, I couldn’t even remember if there were any batteries in it, and I certainly wasn’t feeling horny, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

  “Wanna watch?” I asked, spreading my legs wide. “Because that’s what us girls do when we’re home alone these modern days. You can go into the other room if it squicks you out to see. Then you’ll only have to listen to the noises I make.”

  He turned on his heel and stomped away, slamming his hands into the doorframe hard enough to crack the wood. But he didn’t leave altogether. He was just that bit too stubborn.

  And the buzzer rang. My apartment has a concierge service; his light was flashing.

  Sitting there stark naked on my bed with a bright pink sex toy brandished like a weapon against an archangel, I caught my breath and tried to stave off realizing how ridiculous we must look. I couldn’t help listening to the buzzer. It was really annoying.

  Michael was clumping around the living room again, out of my line of sight. I heaved myself off my mattress and went to the wall unit, thumbing the button.

  “What is it?” I snarled.

  “Milja Petak?” came the crackly voice. “Parcel delivery for you downstairs. Needs signing for.”

  Now? Why now!? I rolled my eyes. “Okay.”

  I was in my T-shirt and panties before I had second thoughts. I padded through to the other room and glared at Michael, who was staring out of the window at the pigeons with an expression of affronted determination. “Hold on,” I said, suspiciously. “Would that be you, by any chance? Are you making fake calls?”

  He looked at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. His ruffled feathers were almost visible. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

  “That’s pretty devious,” I had to allow. I was, after all, at least partly dressed again, and my bubble of defensive rage had popped. An uncomfortable awareness was growing in me of just how badly Michael could mess with my life if he wanted to play it that way. Just so long as he left all the wrong decisions to me.

  Well played, Michael.

  I let my pent up breath out in a huff. “Look, let’s talk about this. You’re staking me out like a goat on a wolf-hunt, aren’t you? You can’t catch the wolf, so now you’re waiting for him to come to you. Well, I’ve been there; done that.”

  Michael snorted, but granted me another sidelong glance to show he was listening.

  “It’s not going to work, you know. You can’t hurt me, so you can’t force him to show himself.”

  He swung around, tilting his chin arrogantly. “The Scapegoat will turn up, sooner or later. You are his whore. He will come for you.”

  “Okay, I’m not loving the Biblical insults.” I shrugged off the irritation. “But you’ve got it wrong. Azazel doesn’t have to come back for me.”

  “He needs you.”

  “No he doesn’t.” I took a deep breath. “He might not have worked that one out yet, but he doesn’t. He needs love, care…attention…or he starves; yes okay. But he can get that other places. There are other people who can fill in for me just fine.” Roshana now. Penemuel. “Oh, Michael—you really don’t get human nature, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re built to fall in love. We do it at the drop of a hat. D’you know who my first love was—apart from Azazel? Prince Marko. He was a hero in our fairy stories in Montenegro. He would ride around on his piebald horse Sharatz and save princesses and kill bad guys. I never met him, never saw him, but I was hopelessly in love with him as a child. Then when I was fifteen I fell in love with Prince Andrei from War and Peace. A novel, you know? I mean, I had my own boyfriend at college too, but that didn’t stop me swooning over Andrei. We can’t help ourselves—even a couple of lines in a book is enough to set us off, never mind a living breathing handsome hero like the ones we see in the movies. The fact is, Azazel could find another woman anywhere he looked.”

  Michael looked dismayed. I pressed onward, feeling a bit sick despite my studied disdain.

  “He doesn’t even need to find himself another girlfriend. All he has to do is put a couple of videos up on the Internet and let it go viral—tying his hair up in a man-bun, or rescuing a bunch of kittens from a fire or something, I dunno—and he’d have hundreds of thousands of fans. Little girls, old ladies, every horny woman in between—oh, and the gay guys…They’d all love him. I’d put money that that would keep him going way better than a few priests doling out rations and prayer.”

  “You are all wrought of lust,” he said, appalled.

  “Yep. Pretty much.”

  “But he is obsessed with you, and that is what matters.”

  “At the moment, yeah,” I agreed, biting my lip. “It won’t last. It can’t. I’m going to get old and fat and menopausal and I’ll stop wanting sex and then I’ll die. And Azazel will carry on without me.”

  He frowned. “Doesn’t this…hurt you?”

  “Hell, yes. Of course it does.”

  “Then…then why do you damn yourself eternally for his sake?”

  Oh boy. I spread my hands helplessly. “Because what I have now makes it all worthwhile.”

  Michael shook his head slowly. He wore the expression of a man who finds dog mess smeared on his shoe and can’t understand where he picked it up from.

  “So you’re wasting your time,” I concluded. “If Azazel can’t get to me he’ll give up eventually, and go off and find someone else. And you’ll never get your hands on him. You’ll just sit here watching me play with myself for nothing.”

  “Eventually.” He seized on the word, but weakly. “You underestimate his stubbornness. I think he will come for you.”

  “No, he won’t.” I walked over to the kitchenette and put the kettle on the hob. “I’ve made sure Azazel was listening to every word of this conversation. He knows what you’re planning and he knows the solution, and right now Azazel knows I think he should stay the hell away. Do you still want that cup of tea?”

  Michael didn’t answer. I looked over to see him staring at me, his brow knotted with a look of utter dismay.

  So handsome, I thought. But not nearly devious enough.

  With a shake of his head the archangel vanished. Golden dust hung in the sunlight, settling onto my rug.

  I sat down at the kitchen table, quite silent, as the kettle fizzed. Then I put my face in my hands and stared out wide-eyed from between my fingers.

  It was all true, every word. And I’d used the names often enough to be sure Azazel had heard. So now he knew, if he hadn’t worked it out before.

  I’d given him step by step instructions, pretty much.

  Sooner or later Azazel would have to move on from me. I’d pronounced my own doom.

  7

  THERE WERE GIANTS ON THE EARTH IN THOSE DAYS

  We went out to meet Roshana at her ranch, which wasn’t in Illinois but in the Minnesota North Woods region. She was sitting on a swing at the front of the sprawling modernist wood-and-glass building when we arrived, so intent on the tablet in her lap that she didn’t see us when we first appeared. Not until we crunched across the track did she glance up and stand quickly, laying the computer aside.

  Azazel cleared his throat.

  Roshana was wearing jeans and cowboy boots and a tight yellow T-shirt, which made her look very different from the businesswoman I was familiar with. She stood with fists curled, and the expression on her face was one of trepidation, like a teenager seeing a father she didn’t know for the first time since his release from years in prison. It occurred to me that that was what she still was inside her head—a young girl orphaned by violence, bereft of both mother and father, now making contact again with a family she hadn’t dare hope for in years.

  Still, I couldn’t help feeling that her T-shirt was inappropriately tight for this reunion.

  “Father,” she said quietly. She hadn�
�t looked at me—possibly she hadn’t even noticed I was there.

  “Avansha,” he answered. He was so tense about this meeting that, for once, he hadn’t even screwed me when he picked me up. And I still wasn’t sure whether it was guilt or the resurrection of bad memories that troubled him. Maybe he just didn’t want to get involved with family.

  I bit my lip, feeling like a spare wheel. I’d only tagged along because Azazel looked unhappy enough that he might bail on the encounter. I didn’t want to be here. “I’ll go for a walk,” I suggested into the silence that hung over us. “Find me when you’re ready.”

  For the first time Roshana’s gaze flicked briefly to me. “You can sit inside if you like.”

  “Nah. I’d rather just hang out here.” I touched Azazel’s arm briefly then set off down the track between the front yard and the paddocks, and only then did I let my breath out in a long sagging sigh of relief.

  It was a lovely place Roshana had here—farmland nestled in a river valley between wooded hills. I don’t know how much further north we were than Chicago, but it certainly felt cooler, with an autumnal freshness to the air despite the warm sun. The birches that lined the road margins were starting to shed their golden leaves. The unpaved road was tough on my feet in their inadequate indoor shoes, so I dropped to an amble and stuck my hands in my jeans pockets.

  I couldn’t hear anything from back up at the house, so at least they weren’t shouting at each other.

  Oh God, what’re we going to do about her? She’s a Nephilim, and they are bad news; everyone says that. Even Azazel admits it. And if the Church gets hold of her…