Dire (Reaper's Redemption Book 2)

by Thea Atkinson

  It was out before I realized what I was saying, and as I struggled to find a way to say something else that would distract him from it, he cracked a broad smile that made me sputter ineffectively.

  "To be honest," he said. "I've never had this much trouble getting into a girl's bed."

  I thought I heard my teeth crack as I ground them together. I couldn't stop my eye from travelling to where his bicep muscles peeked out from the cuff of sleeve. I knew from my dreams that if I followed the line of that muscle down to his hands, they would feel calloused and rough against my skin. I could feel my face burning.

  "What's wrong?" he said. "Don't you want to sleep with me?" This time the grin was a fully fledged smile. I slapped at his hands as they reached for the blankets.

  "I hope the incubus gets you," I said.

  "It's sure to get me if I climb in there with you," he said.

  Everything in my skin was tingling. My ears were buzzing. I thought I might vomit from nerves.

  "And then what?"

  He shrugged. "We sleep. At least until that thing comes. Which I doubt it's going to happen unless I can get in there with you all snug as two bugs in a rug." He grabbed the corner of the blanket from me and flipped it back. In a panic I snatched them back.

  "Come on, Ayla," he said. "It's already after midnight. I thought bogeymen liked the witching hour." He pushed his hip into my side and started to shove me sideways.

  "How do I know what bogeymen like?" I said, pushing back. "And stop it. You're not sleeping with me."

  He put his finger to my lips and made a shushing sound. "Quiet," he said. "You're going to make your gramp nervous."

  "I'm nervous," I admitted. I was scared of doing something, of looking childish and yet, I didn't know how to act all sophisticated about sharing a bed.

  Having him in my room, that close to me, all those dreams. The thought that even now we were both incubus bait, waiting to see if it would arrive. Everything in my lungs felt like it was being sucked out and I felt the column of my throat ache.

  He pushed his fingers beneath my bottom, scooping, and then he gave me a great push. The flannel of my pyjamas stuck to the flannel of the sheet, holding me in place. He cursed and I snickered. So much for acting sophisticated.

  He caught my gaze with his. "The door is closed," he said. "No one will know we're in the same bed. Except maybe the incubus. " He winked at me. "And surely that's a good thing. We'll get it all huffy and angry so that we don't have to wait all night for it."

  His arm brushed against mine and I squeezed mt eyes closed, enjoying it. I knew I couldn't trust myself not to wrap both arms and both legs around him during the night out of instinct.

  "I'm not sure how the thing will react," I said, avoiding his eye. "But I'm not about to let you climb into my bed."

  There. I sounded convincing. At least I hoped I did.

  He had the grace to look shocked. "You say that as though you think I'm trying to take advantage of you."

  Said like that, sounding like that, I realized how ridiculous I was being. Of course he wouldn't want me. Of course he wouldn't try to take advantage of me. I remembered that kiss of his back in the hospital when Gramp had been admitted. It had been demanding and powerful. Experienced. That was the word that came to mind, and no matter how much experience I might have had with boys, this was a man.

  He would want a woman. Not a child who didn't know how to react to a simple kiss. I thought of the Callum of my dreams and understood how inexperienced I was.

  "Come on, Ayla," he said, scooting further in.

  "Okay," I said, trying my best to swallow down the clump of longing and nerves that was making my chest feel as though my rib cage was trying to split apart. "But stay on your side."

  To his credit, he climbed in without gloating. He placed his pillow between us almost chastely and ran the back of his fingers along the back of my hand.

  "You're safe with me, Ayla," he said. "Even if I do have a soft spot for redheads."

  Safe or not, I imagined I wouldn't sleep for one second just knowing he was right next to me, feeling the heat from his body enveloping me. I couldn't breathe with him there. Couldn't think straight. He was no sooner snuggled down beneath the blankets when I threw them back over the mattress.

  "Where are you going?" he said.

  "Bathroom," I said. I didn't know how he could lie there so contentedly when my heart was pounding in my ears and every inch of my skin was buzzing. I needed to splash some water on my face. Fix my hair. Anything.

  "You're such a coward," he said with a chuckle. "Go. Do what you need to. Just don't wake me up when you come back."

  I stared at myself in the mirror above the sink for several minutes trying to calm myself down. As badly as I wanted to go back, I was scared too. Maybe I should just go into Sarah's room and push into bed with her. Except I didn't want to put her at risk too. Maybe I could just go back to bed and fiddle with my cell phone to keep myself awake. Maybe I should lie on that old air mattress.

  I took a deep breath and fixed my gaze on the freckle between my eyebrows. I could do this. I wasn't the one that should be on the air mattress. He was. How dare he roust me out of my own bed? No doubt he was snoring away in my bed without a care in the world.

  I stormed back down the hall and gripped the handle of my bedroom door.

  I no sooner touched it, when the tattoo on my calf burned. My rib cage burned. The place where I'd been branded on the bottom of my foot burned. Something was in there. Something powerful. The incubus. Had to be. It was back, and Callum was alone in there with it. Facing it alone. How could I be so foolish as to leave him in there, knowing that thing would be back.

  I swallowed down the flood of water that filled my mouth and pushed out three quick, bracing exhales. I could do this. I could open the door. What would it do anyway? Maybe Callum wasn't in trouble at all. Maybe the thing hadn't even figured out yet that it was Callum in the bed and not me.

  I expected to see it standing over the bed, maybe spinning a dream to drop into my subconscious so that he could set about doing what ever it was it had come for.

  But even as I eased the door open, I realized how difficult moving had become. Turning my head to the side was like trying to peek at the partner next to you while riding the Gravitron. It took every inch of my muscle strength to strain my neck enough to see the wall on the other side of the room. Light from the street pooled in and cast shadows on the wall. I thought I saw a large bird pecking at something, pulling long strings of intestines out from a scavenge on my bed.

  But of course a shadow wouldn't be moving. And certainly not so specifically.

  Callum. It struck me like a blow to the stomach. The incubus was here. Whatever it was doing, it was hurting Callum and no doubt while he was in the throes of sleep, probably imagining he was dreaming perfectly lustful thoughts of some redhead somewhere. He was blissfully unaware that he was being attacked by a jealous sex demon, intent on ridding itself of a rival. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rush it.

  But I couldn't move. I could hear my throat working to speak and I knew in the back of my mind, that whenever my voicebox was freed, what would come out would be a bloodcurdling, horrific primal scream.

  I waded through the air in the room as though it were heavy ocean water rising up to my chest. I had a hard time wading through it. It was an entirely different feeling than I had experienced on previous nights. Those times, I'd felt drugged and drunk, but not as though I had to struggle for every inch of movement.

  The shadow on the wall seemed to swing its gaze to me and if I peered out of the corner of my eye, I could swear I saw the thing that cast it. It looked nothing like the benign -looking entity from the night before. Strangely enough, its jealousy had turned it into a terrifying scavenger bird. As ugly as the turkey vultures that had been lurking around the edges of Gramp's property, except this thing was terrifying.

  I couldn't understand why it had a distinctly feminine look when
before it had been very androgynous looking. And those eyes from before had been black, not this deep blood red. Perhaps fury and rage and jealousy had given it power to terrify me. To teach me a lesson. I belonged to it, and now it was going to make me pay by harming the rival that lay in my bed where I should be.

  Its beak gaped open and it screeched at me.

  Everything in me clenched tight in fear. Even my jaw felt like it had locked up. Whatever doubts I had about the thing ran screaming in terror to a deep cavern in the back of my mind. When it shrieked again at me, it was loud enough to throttle my eardrums and the pain of it finally freed my feet. I rushed the bed, launching myself toward the foot of it, scrambling to grab Callum's ankles beneath the blankets. We had to get out of there. Both of us.

  "Get up," I shouted. "Get up. Get up." I pulled at him.

  The thing on top of his chest lifted a bloody claw at me and reached for me as though it planned to wrap those talons around my throat. It hopped once and flapped its wings. Small black drops landed on the bed in front of me. I realized I was clutching my chest as I watched those wings stretch out to half the span of the room and I froze, thinking that they were about to enfold me and pull me toward it, to that gaping beak with the sharp pecking point.

  My heart thudded in my chest with several heavy thrusts. This wasn't the thing that compelled me. This wasn't the thing that I longed for in the deep of night wearing Callum's face. It was a grotesque and frightening thing, and now it was after Callum.

  I gave another hard yank, but to no avail. The bird blinked at me. Too late to stop it, I was pulled back into the middle of the bed and slammed into the very real, very physical feeling of a feathered chest. I stumbled over Callum's legs through the blankets and almost lost my footing as the mattress buckled beneath my feet. I couldn't get loose. I couldn't pull away. I clutched at something and found my fingers gripping on feathers. Even the grounding feeling of contact couldn't steady me. I should try to dig my fingers in, feel for skin, pinch, pull, grab, anything. The incubus's broad wings slammed me backwards against the wall and my arms flung out sideways, trying to catch some sort of balance.

  It screamed at me and took one lunging hop forward. The face was right in mine and even though it was dark in the room, it seemed to glow from within, showing me every inch of its terrifying face.

  And it looked furious.

  In that moment, it seemed as though Callum had come alive. Like sleeping beauty after a kiss from her prince, he let go a heaving gasp. I heard him struggling on the bed, choking on air as though it was water dribbling down his throat. The thing in front of me swung its gaze sideways, taking in the shadow of Callum as he struggled on the bed.

  Callum thrashed sideways, trying to heave himself awake. The incubus shrieked again and made a hopping move toward his chest.

  I made a grab for its wing. A wing for god's sake. The feel of it made me retch and when I discovered the thing wasn't just feathers, but muscle and leathery reptilian skin, I had to swallow down a flood of bile. I yanked my hand back instinctively, shaking it out in revulsion. My palm burned where it had touched. That thing had lain on me, slipping sweet dreams in my mind. I couldn't shake loose the thought that for a creature that was supposed to be compelling all I wanted was to get the heck away from it.

  The next thing I knew, I felt a searing kiss of claws on my collarbone. I fell backwards and off the end of the bed. Something dribbled down my neck and with a sense of wonder, my fingers travelled to the bone of my shoulder, curious and questioning.

  The pads of my fingers met liquid hot and thick. Blood, I realized. I was bleeding.

  A shriek of fury tore through the air that made my eardrums send ripples of response deep into my skull. I remembered Callum teasing me, telling me that we could urge it out by making it jealous.

  Jealous indeed. Well we had done just that, and now it was coming for me.

  CHAPTER 9:

  I was frantically trying to reconcile the image of that androgynous being who had looked at me with such longing the night before with the fierce bird-like creature that had sent hot poker talons into my collarbone, and found I couldn't. All I knew was that I had underestimated the incubus. We all had. I should have argued with Gramp when he'd suggested Callum stay with me. I shouldn't have let Callum into my bed when I knew full well his was the face the incubus used in my dreams to lull me into complacency. We had been foolish. So foolish.

  I had no idea if Callum was still in the room, if he was conscious, or if the incubus had already torn through his chest with those burning talons. I didn't dare call out to him either just in case the incubus had forgotten all about him in his fury at me.

  If I failed before, I had to at least try to succeed for Callum now.

  I could hear the incubus moving across the room with little clicking sounds that reminded me of teeth clattering together. I scrambled for the bed. Surely if I crawled under it that thing might try to follow and would get stuck. Maybe we could trap it under there. It was a ridiculous hope, but I couldn't think of anything to do except run away from it.

  I was on my belly, clawing for the bed when something loomed over me. It was tall and broad and for one full heartbeat I thought I saw the shadows of its wings spreading out against the wall. A hooked beak lifted itself toward the ceiling and opened to let go a shriek. Sweet heaven, the thing was right there. One more second and I would feel those talons tearing into me again. I didn't think I could survive it.

  My memory served me up a quick flash of the top of Azrael's cane and I sobbed out loud because I knew, just knew, I'd be nothing but glittery dust collecting in the top of that thing for all eternity.

  Then the light flicked on and I caught sight of two sets of feet shuffling across the carpet. Feet with blue veins at first and then delicate little pink toes after that. I rolled over onto my side, thinking to warn them away, that the thing was far more awful than we had originally thought. Then I realized whatever was in the room was gone and it was Callum who stood over me, not that beastly thing from seconds before.

  Gone. It was gone. I felt reprieve so sweet, I rolled onto my face with my palms beside my head and cried out loud into the carpet. Everything in my body shuddered.

  I had failed at something; I was sure of it. There was some important piece of information I wasn't putting together. Something that could've made a difference to what had happened. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but every tissue in my body felt squeezed clean of adrenaline and it felt like such a waste of chemical and hormone that I didn't even have the energy to protest when warm hands gripped my shoulders. I turned without thinking into whoever it was that crouched beside me.

  I cried even harder when I realized it was Callum's chest I burrowed my face into. Some fierce reaper I was. I had put him at risk when I should have been lying there awake and waiting for the thing. I had known it was coming. We all did. If we hadn't, we should have. We never should have tempted it like that.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry. It didn't look anything like it was supposed to. I had no idea it would be that bad." I couldn't stop thinking that I could have prevented it.

  I had known, after all, Callum was as good as a caramel apple to the most heinous of supernatural creatures, and I'd let him stay in my room with me. Let him climb into my bed. How could I have been so foolish to think the filthy thing would remain content with one victim? I'd put him at risk.

  Callum shushed me and rocked me back and forth. "It's all right, Ayla," he said. "It's not your fault."

  I flung my arms around his neck in response and clung to him. I barely heard Sarah murmuring to Gramp that there was blood everywhere. It was only when I registered that she was pulling out her cell phone and was mumbling into it that she needed an ambulance that I bolted to my feet, reaching for the wall to steady myself.

  "I'm fine," I said. The last thing I wanted to do was end up in the hospital and leave everyone here at the mercy of that thing. Because it would be back. I knew
it. It hadn't got what it wanted and I wasn't about to leave this property until it was dead, and I had killed it and sent it to perdition or whatever else was out there for a supernatural creature.

  "Hang up," I said. I felt woozy with exhaustion, but when I felt my collarbone, I knew from the stickiness of the fluid that it was already coagulating. "It's nothing."

  Sarah looked at me with a sense of controlled calm. "It's not nothing, Ayla," she said. "You have to get that looked at."

  I shook my head and pulled my T-shirt away from the wound. "It can't be that bad," I said. "A little bandage and peroxide, and I'll be good as new." I tried not to wince when my fingers touched the raw part.

  I looked to Gramp for confirmation and he shuffled over. His fingers probed around the tender flesh. "Looks worse than it is," he said, but when he caught my eye, something moved in the depths of his gaze. He was scared, and I knew it wasn't because the wound looked so awful. It was because I was still standing when I could have easily been lying flat on the floor, breathing my last.

  "Can you clean it up? I asked softly, and he nodded. The plea for a bandage was a chance for him to escape the room and gather his thoughts. I waited until he was gone before I said anything.

  "We ticked it off," I said to Sarah.

  "Understatement of the year," Callum said.

  His voice sounded pensive and far off. I noticed he had sunk into the chair next to the door and was staring at me, but I had the feeling he wasn't seeing me. There was a hollow look to his gaze and his skin looked pasty. Sweat beaded his forehead. I fell onto the edge of the bed with my feet splayed out in front of me. It felt as though every brand that marked my skin so far was on fire and I was having a hard time trying not to run soothing palms over them.

  "What did you do to make it so angry?" Sarah said.

  "Nothing," I said. "I just tried to keep it from attacking him."

  She cocked her head at me. "And you're sure it was attacking him?"