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Books by Jennifer Bene
Dark / BDSM Erotica:
Security Binds Her (Thalia Book 1)
Striking a Balance (Thalia Book 2)
Salvaged by Love (Thalia Book 3)
Of Fog and Fire (Part I & II)
Dark / Paranormal Romance:
Fae (Daughters of Eltera Book 1) (Fall 2015)
Tara (Daughters of Eltera Book 2) (Winter 2015)
BDSM Novellas:
The Invitation
The Rite
Christmas at Purgatory (Thalia Extra #1)
Anthology Appearances:
The More The Merrier (Ménage / BDSM Erotica)
The Darker Side of Love (Dark / BDSM Erotica)
Twist (BDSM Erotica)
The More The Merrier 2 (Ménage / BDSM Erotica)
As Flame to Smoke
by
Eris Adderly
Text copyright © 2015 Eris Adderly
All Rights Reserved
My great thanks to Jim, for catching my stumbles. To Tara for being a leader when one was needed. To each of my fellow Erotic Collective authors, for letting me have a place at your table here. To Kim for pushing me to learn things about myself. To Bruce, always a guiding light. I would like to thank probably more people than I am able to name here, but please know I love you all.
One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke:
— William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act I, scene I
The church was old enough that they’d still been building them to be beautiful, and this gave David Kent some small measure of worldly joy, though he quickly pushed it down. The congregation was funneling into the aisle now after the Rite of Peace and it was no time to be distracted by architecture, crafted to honor the Lord, though it may be. They were watching him.
Today was the first that David — Father Kent now, he thought — would be overseeing the Holy Communion, and he felt the eyes of Fathers O’Neill and Woodward on him, gauging his every word and gesture.
The tops of penitent heads formed twin lines, and worshipers began to kneel at the railing around the chancel. It was somehow different to be evaluated this way, and his fingers gripped the tray of wafers tight enough to whiten his knuckles.
Calm down, Kent. You’ve done this hundreds of times.
He stepped out of his nerves and into the familiar comfort of the rite, calming almost instantly as he spoke the words.
“The body of Christ.”
Some of the communicants received the Eucharist in humbly cupped hands while others, more traditional — typically elders in the congregation — opened their mouths to accept it directly on their tongue. For others, mostly youngsters who’d yet to be confirmed, he simply lay his hand atop their head and gave a blessing.
“The body of Christ,” he murmured again as he made his way down the railing. The last kneeling soul at the end, though, made something inside him stumble, and he glanced up at Father O’Neill, hoping it wasn’t written all over his face.
She was beautiful. An angel. And one wearing a blouse entirely more low-cut than was appropriate for Mass. Or probably for anywhere. He swallowed and kept his movements smooth, or so he hoped, and he stepped in front of her. Golden waves of hair tumbled over her shoulders, framing her breasts, all but challenging him not to stare, to be pure of thought. Lashes angled up to him and wide blue eyes swallowed him whole over velvet-smooth cheeks and a full, pink mouth.
Perhaps they were right. Perhaps you’re not cut out for this, David.
And of course, because everything had to be a trial, instead of holding out her hands, she parted her lips and presented her petite tongue for the wafer. The eyes did not look down, but insisted on holding his as he placed the sacrament there, and he felt that she left her mouth open and held his gaze a trifle too long before taking in the bread.
He’d have to do penance immediately for the images that flashed through his head then. Alternate versions of her on her knees, opening her mouth, accepting.
Father, help me.
He was grateful the second half of the sacrament would require the young woman to lift the tiny glass to her own lips.
“The blood of Christ.”
Back around the railing he went, hoping no one could see him sweat. He was nearly through this thing, and after today, provided he hadn’t been too obviously distraught just now, the other two priests at St. Luke’s would either accept him or not. He’d only been ordained three months ago, just after his twenty-seventh birthday, but it felt like these two men had been judging him for a hundred years.
The rest was a relief. The congregation took their places again in the pews, and the concluding rite poured out of him, familiar and good, as it had for some years now.
“May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
“Amen.”
“Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
“Thanks be to God.”
It was done at last, though he daren’t look over at the senior priests to check their expressions, as much as he wanted. Still he smiled.
Now the real work could begin.
They watched the young priest conduct his first communion through a shimmering veil between the planes. Serah smirked to herself as she noted the hitch in his step when he had to offer the sacrament to the ripe little blonde who flaunted her bosom in a clear effort to toy with a man of the cloth.
“There he is, Initiate.” The voice of The Fallen stirred formless around her, gravelly and amused. “This one should be easy enough. See how he already falters. He has tenuous control at best over the desires that come with being a man of flesh.”
“So I see, Great One,” she nodded her agreement, eager for the official word.
“This priest, this … ‘Father Kent’ … will be your final test.” The disembodied voice tumbled about her in the darkness like a distant rockslide: destructive, inevitable. It made her all but purr with anticipation. “Turn him, Initiate, and you may join us.”
“Yes, Great One,” she said making a hurried sign at her forehead and shoulders, honoring The Fallen with the Circle of Chaos. “It will be done.”
“You have six mortal months’ time.” The ancient voice became many, and charged her from all sides and nowhere at once, rushing in through her pores in a dark current and humming in viscera and marrow. “We have every confidence in your ability. Now go.”
The scene before her bled away from the nave of the church where they’d been watching the priest, and resolved itself now to look upon the façade of the building from the street. It was raining, and Serah knew it to be a new point in mortal time, not the same day as the communion she’d just seen. Her skin prickled with excitement.
She stepped through the veil and onto the slick street in front of St. Luke’s, shaking off the always-startling sensation of pins and needles all over her body, a byproduct of passing through the veil.
A look down showed her modest clothes which were fast soaking through under the chill downpour, and long coils of brazen red hair spilling over a well-formed physique. Her physical body had responded quite nicely to her requests on her way into this plane.
Serah stood in the rain for a time longer, allowing her simple trousers and blouse to be plastered wetly to her curves, translucent and obscene. Warm light made the wide double doors to the church stand out, inviting, against the cold and dark of a late winter night.
She made her way across the street. Up the steps. There were widely-held beliefs that her kind would not be able to enter a House of God, but those notions were not true at all. Not in the least.
Father Kent didn’t stand a chance.
A door groaned open outside the nave, and for a moment he heard the rush of rain from outside. He looked up from the pew he’d been searching for a lost
pair of reading glasses, but there was no further movement at the far end of the church. David bent back to his quest.
He’d given Pearl Hodges his assurances on the phone some twenty minutes ago that he’d check around the area where she normally sat for Mass. The woman had called the church, sure she’d lost her glasses there sometime that morning. So far no luck.
Another wooden bump-thud and one of the doors to the nave swung inward. He abandoned the search.
Now who’s this at eleven o’clock at night?
A petite, wet figure shuffled through the door, letting it fall shut behind her, and stood there for a moment, arms clutched to sides, body almost wavering in place. Lightning flickered outside, making the stained glass in the windows momentarily bright as mid-day, and a few seconds later thunder tumbled its low admonition.
He saw now that the figure was a woman, and he watched silently from where he stood, nearer to the sanctuary than the doors, to see what she’d do. His limited experience had so far taught him that not all who entered the church wished to be immediately approached. Some simply preferred to find a quiet place to pray or contemplate, and he was learning to leave them to it, if that proved the case.
The woman took a step, and then another, into the central aisle between the pews, and he saw by the poorly-concealed stagger in her movements that she was barely on her feet at all. A pale hand reached to clutch at the back of a pew. Something was very wrong here.
His strides took him the length of the aisle in seconds. He arrived at her side as she was bracing her weight on locked arms against the side of the second to last pew. She turned her face to him and it was ghastly pale. Deep circles of blue-grey carved out exhaustion beneath her eyes, and there was almost no color left in her lips.
“Father!” The word choked out of her in a desperate sob as he approached, and for the briefest of moments he saw the anguish of all humanity wavering in a pair of eyes.
“My child, calm yourself,” he said, bringing a hesitant hand to her shoulder, not sure if that sort of comfort would be welcomed. “Please. Sit.” He gestured at the pew. “Tell me what’s wrong. Perhaps I can help.”
Wet hair clung to her scalp, cheekbones, and neck, and he wasn’t sure if she was shaking from being cold and wet, or from some other fear. She didn’t sit, but only stared at him, wide-eyed, chest heaving.
She might need a different sort of help, David. At least to start.
“Do need an ambulance?” he pressed her. “How long have you been out in the rain tonight? You’re shaking. I can call 911.”
Her eyes grew wider at this, if that were even possible, and she shook her head, slowly at first but building vehemence.
“No. No, don’t call anyone.” The woman grabbed at his sleeve, cold fingers coming into a fist. “I can’t be here! I don’t have —”
“My child, relax,” he said, moving between the pews, hoping to persuade her to sit, to calm herself. “Maybe just tell me your name, and then we can —”
“No!” she cried out, her hold on his sleeve becoming rough. “Father, please! I need —”
CRACK.
The lightning and thunder came as a pair, ripping open the night with vicious teeth. The boom and flash jarred at his chest, his temples.
The grip on his arm was gone, and to his horror, the woman was slumping toward the floor, eyes rolling back into her head.
Oh, no. Don’t pass out.
Lights flickered, then died, and there was silence. Candles were already lit here and there, but the nave was now a much dimmer place.
Of course there would be a power outage.
David stared down at the young woman at a loss. She appeared quite unconscious now, limp on her side, having fallen prone in the aisle. He looked around, brow furrowed and lips thin.
Now what?
The phones would be down as well, if this was anything like the last outage. And now he was the only one here. Well. Almost the only one.
His unwitting new charge appeared to be breathing, if shallowly. David worried a knuckle over his lower lip and stood, indecisive, over the rain-soaked body crumpled on the floor of St. Luke’s.
You’re never alone in God’s house, David. Help her.
Right. Of course. Of course he’d help her. Something instinctual stirred to life in him. He frowned, disapproving.
There was no way lying on the hard floor could be of any help to her condition at all. She’d need to be moved. The ideal place would be the modest sofa in his office — it would be the most comfortable — but he didn’t think stumbling around in the dark with a live burden in his arms was such a good idea. The padded bench of the nearest pew for now, then.
Lifting her was another story altogether. Uncooperative dead weight did him no favors, and it was equally awkward to decide where a man committed to a life of celibacy ought to find a handhold on a non-responsive female form. He settled for catching her up beneath her arms to haul her upper body as best he could onto the bench, before scooping up the backs of her knees to persuade her legs to join the rest of her.
Nodding at his handiwork and ignoring his now damp shirt, David hurried off in search of something resembling a blanket.
There were linens in the sacristy, but he was loathe to use an altar cloth. Father Woodward would turn blue if he learned of such an improvisation. After several moments of pawing about in various closets and drawers, he arrived at last at an armful of three large towels, pulled from the small supply the church had in case of any splashed water around the baptistery. They would have to suffice.
He returned to the rear of the nave to find the woman as he’d left her. The towels were enough to cover her, if barely, and he slipped off her flat shoes and set them on the floor before tucking the dry fabric in around her feet.
She looked far less frail covered up this way. Almost peaceful, as if she was merely napping there, and not passed out from exhaustion or trauma, or perhaps both. Color was beginning to come back into her face, and her breathing had evened out into a more normal rhythm.
Curiosity burned at him. What had happened to leave her in such a state? What kind of disaster leaves a person staggering around in the rain in the middle of winter, shivering somewhere close to hypothermia, and not wanting an ambulance?
And why was no one looking out for a beautiful woman like this?
That last thought came from a place he’d been working hard to ignore these last few months. Yet he could see past the wet hair and sickly pallor to know it for truth. She was beautiful.
Though all the same, he supposed someone had been looking out for her. She’d made her way to St. Luke’s, hadn’t she?
There was nothing to do now but wait for her to wake up. Or for the power to come back on. David sat in the next pew and did the only thing that made any sense. He prayed.
“Almighty and Eternal God, You are the everlasting health of those who believe in You. Hear us for Your sick servant … ”
Serah was awake and back in her mortal body long before she decided to show it to the restless priest. It had suited the believability of her charade far better for her to actually pass out than it did to simply feign unconsciousness. She had merely to straddle the veil, one foot on the mortal plane and the other in the Darkness, so to speak, and the body she’d chosen would go limp, seemingly insensible, while she retained a tie to it and could observe from outside.
She’d been counting on the priest to feel the need to move her off the floor, and had not been disappointed. And watching him struggle with just how he should handle her body had put a smirk on her mouth and a fire in her belly for what was to come.
From her vantage point on the other side of the veil, Serah had watched him exhaust all the appropriate prayers he could think of before he lapsed into silence in the darkened house of worship. She waited until just when she sensed he was about to become distracted enough to leave his seat, and then reached out, merging with her body once again and ostensibly coming awake with a cough.
As it should be.
She smiled inside. They could have selected so many other horrific challenges to be her last. This one would be fun. And after so many, many years of service and trials, she was ready for what had been promised in the beginning.
Immortality.
Let the games begin.
“Please,” she croaked, swallowing to wet her throat again, “how long have I been here?”
“Perhaps an hour? Not that long.” He was leaning over the pew in front of hers now, eyes eager for information. It wasn’t every day an attractive young woman came into his church and passed out. Hoping to hone his curiosity further, she cast a nervous glance back toward the tall double doors. He’d see this and his imagination would have her running from someone. Instincts to protect, to hold close would arise.
She levered herself to sit upright, shucking the towels he’d so carefully placed over her off to one side in a pile on the bench. Her fingers plucked at her shirt as if she’d just noticed the state she was in and made a small noise somewhere between dismay and disgust.
“Ugh. I’m wet.”
His eyes were on her; she felt them. Serah had intentionally avoided bra and panties, and the sodden fabric clung to her curves, just as she meant it to. Nipples and navel were quite clearly on display and she looked up to catch him gaping before he could avert his eyes.
“So you are,” he said, clearing his throat, the crease in his brow painting him as delightfully troubled already.
A small initial victory, but what she needed to do was get him in physical proximity, and soon. The less time he had to contemplate his actions tonight, the better.
Let him comfort you.
Serah grimaced and twisted an arm around to make a show of feeling at her spine with awkwardly angled fingers. She hissed.
The Darker Side of Love (A Dark Erotica Boxed Set) Page 24
