Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1)

by D H Sidebottom

  “Count on it.”

  “Good. Be safe. Love you.”

  Returning her sentiment as she closed the door, I shut my eyes and rested my head back on the headboard. I was exhausted, my body weak, but weirdly, my blood felt energised. Unable to pinpoint exactly what it felt like, I could only explain it as ‘strong’, its pump around my body fortified and fervent, especially to say a few hours ago my veins had been parched and tight.

  “Delilah?” I whispered, leaving my eyes closed to the dim light in the room when my head throbbed at the intrusive brightness.

  I could sense her reluctance. It both saddened and maddened me.

  “Please.”

  I smiled softly at her when my body trembled and she appeared beside me on the bed, her legs up and her face down as she picked at her deep red nail varnish.

  “Mistress,” she said politely, not meeting my eye.

  For a moment, my mouth too dry to talk, I remained silent and stared at her beauty. However, taking a deep breath, I slid my hand between us and gently pulled her fingers away from her nervous action. “I’m not your mistress, Delilah. I think we both know that.”

  Her throat dipped and her eyes slid to the other side of the room.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I didn’t think she was going to answer me at first, her horror at my wisdom making her uneasy and apprehensive, but then she sagged, giving into what she could no longer deny.

  The tears in her eyes hurt my heart when she turned to look at me. “I was so frightened to tell you,” she whispered.

  I covered her hand with my own when she held my face in her long fingers. “But you haven’t told me. Don’t be scared. I found out. I saw your … and in a way my own, past. I beheld your memory.”

  She squeezed her eyes closed and then, as if nervous, her arms hesitantly enveloped me and I gave into her, allowing her to tenderly pull my body against hers.

  “So long,” she whispered, her sorrow and elation making the pitch of her voice high. “I have waited so very long.”

  Her sobs tore out my heart, her heartache fracturing a piece of my soul. “Who?”

  She frowned at me, pulling back to look into my eyes. “Who?”

  “Who did this to you …? I don’t know what to call you.”

  For once, the mouthy angel was quiet, her inability to answer my question hurting me more than the truth. The ‘truth’ of my life was now a brittle lie, a mockery of my existence. Everything had changed, the future now an uncertain pathway. However, I wasn’t angry. A part of me was relieved that I understood why I was the way I was, and why the dark thoughts in my head tortured my nights.

  “He loved you so much.”

  She gasped, her hand coming over her chest as though my words had stabbed her in the heart. The open agony that radiated from her dimmed the sun, waves of desolation pouring from her. My lungs wheezed at the scorch of oxygen in the air with her pain. “As he did you, my darling,” she whispered.

  And as she hugged me to her breast, my own pain drowning out the sun’s rays completely, her mouth rested in my hair and she dropped a loving kiss. “You can call me mother,” she whispered.

  Marie watched the couple argue with sadness, the woman’s tears almost drowning her in their pain. It was so obvious she was in love with him, deeply, but he didn’t feel the same; his soul was betrothed to another. He was telling the pretty dark-haired woman that he wanted a human divorce and that he had found another he had fallen in love with.

  Marie was drunk – again. It was becoming too often but she always found solace in the bottom of every tequila bottle she annihilated, and she found every single empty bottle was a twin for her soul.

  Loneliness had crept upon her during the last few months and the only comfort it provided was the quiet offered to her agonising memories, and she’d found herself in Tors more often than not lately. Tors was the club Marie had attempted to find sex in for the last few weeks. Yet each time it had been offered, her head had shaken and her mouth had said no. Even after all this time she still couldn’t betray him. She just wanted a little comfort, craved some strong arms around her to protect her against the ache of her pining soul, but none of them were Frank, and the realisation of that had sent Marie deeper and deeper into her own solitude. She loved her friends, she really did, and she knew they loved her just as vehemently, but they were each handling their own shit and Marie wasn’t cruel enough to add to their problems.

  The woman ran from Tors with her hand covering her chest as if it would stop her heart from tearing out. It wouldn’t; Marie could tell her that much. Holding it in would only drag out each minute of the clock, each painfully long second another sneer at the isolation suffocating her.

  Sliding off her stool, Marie made her way out of the club, her skin prickling at the chill in the air. It was only the alcohol running her system that gave Marie any comfort nowadays.

  She sighed at days past, eons of pain she couldn’t let go of, no matter how much she tried. And as God was her witness, she had tried. She had tried so hard to let him go.

  Her coupling had been the thing fairy tales were written from, Frank’s love for his mate rivalling the sun’s intensity each morning it warmed the earth. He’d loved her so much. Every morning he had never forgotten to wake her with a tender kiss on each eyelid, and every night he had never given in to sleep without whispering his love for her against her heart, the beat of his own guiding her into the dream realm. And still, after all these years did she whisper back to him that she loved him forever, until her eternal passing.

  A forbidden soft sob burrowed out of Marie’s chest and she squeezed her eyes closed at the sound. She missed Frank so very much. For the one hundred and six years she had been alone, not one of those days hadn’t she thought of her lover, her soulmate.

  “Hey, honey. You got a light?”

  Marie jolted at the unexpected voice. Her senses were off tonight and that bothered her. She really ought to stop hitting the drink.

  “Sorry, no,” she replied, hurrying her step down the alley behind Tors. The man was strange. He wasn’t spiritual but then again, he wasn’t human either, Marie could sense that much.

  A chill crept around her as the shadows recoiled in horror. As she reached the high wall at the end of the alley, and the silver blade pushed through her breastbone, Marie finally smiled.

  Even after one hundred and six years, her Frank hadn’t forgotten her. As her eyes closed to her passing, she reached out and took her mate’s hand, allowing him to lead her into the Ether.

  “How did you know?” I asked Delilah as I settled back onto the bed, curling my legs under me and my fingers around the mug I’d just filled with creamy hot chocolate and brandy. Well, I’d had a bit of a shock, so it was excusable.

  She settled back down, her long sculptured legs encased in her habitual thigh length black leather boots stretched straight out in front of her. Her face was so soft and full of love for me. It was quite the contradiction to her usual tough demeanour, her mouth curled into a reverent smile instead of spewing curses.

  “Know?”

  I winced, hating the clenching of my gut every time I spoke his name. “That my blood wouldn’t hurt Rax.”

  She lowered her eyes and sighed dreamily. “Because you gifted it to him.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” And I didn’t. In fact nothing made sense lately. Everything in my existence was topsy-turvy; lies, truths and facts all jumbled up until each one tested my wisdom.

  “Your blood is gifted to you from my father,” she said quietly, as if the man could hear her. Maybe he could, after all, we were all taught that he was everywhere. "He thought it was a curse, to hinder everyone that came within an inch of me … namely your father.”

  “But my father fed from you.” It wasn’t a question because I already knew the answer.

  “He did.” Her skin burst excitedly in goose bumps as a secret smile curved her lips and lightened her eyes. I shi
vered, remembering the shot of pleasure through my own system when my teeth had punctured Rax’s vein and drawn his soul into my body. “My father was so angry that I had chosen a Gehenna. Especially Strauss. He knew we fed from each other, and he was horrified.” Her happy expression disappeared until her eyes darkened and her face contorted in both rage and agony. “So he cursed my blood, hoping that the next time Strauss fed from me that he would turn to dust.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Your grandfather, Strauss’ father, luckily heard what my father had sanctioned. He met with the Alpha …”

  “The Alpha?” Nodding, she sighed and took my drink, swallowing some down. It was clear that her story ached her heart and I gripped her hand tightly. “If this is too difficult …”

  “No.” She shook her head firmly. “It’s important. It’s the reason you are cursed, as I was.”

  Cursed. The word rumbled around my head.

  “Diablo, your grandfather, begged of the Alpha to help, knowing she was the only one who could, and would understand his pain. The Alpha is what you know as ‘The Almighty’.”

  I reared back, a little confused. “But I thought ‘The Almighty’ was your father … God.”

  She chuckled. “He would like to think so. But no, God isn’t as powerful as he likes to think. The Empyrean and the Gehenna, God and Diablo, they were created by someone much higher.”

  “And that someone is The Alpha.”

  Delilah nodded, taking another sip of the chocolate. “You know, this is really good.”

  I smiled appreciatively. “I’m famous for my chocolate.”

  “You should open a stall.”

  I laughed, imagining the dredgen ignoring the scent of my cursed blood and opting for the chocolate.

  “Anyway,” Delilah continued, “The Alpha, angry that God seemed to think he could suddenly make the rules, went against the decision. But unable to reverse a curse, she altered the curse, adding to it with the Miriam Stones ….”

  “Miriam Stones?”

  “Stones from the creation of the earth. They’re also known as ‘The Alpha Stones’. They hold mystical abilities. After all, they were part of the prime creation and are tethered to the earth’s core.”

  I nodded slowly. My brain was swelling with all the information.

  “The Alpha affixed an amendment to the curse that my blood, if gifted, could heal and sustain the soul of a mate.”

  I chuckled, imagining God’s face when he learned of that little modification, “I bet your father was furious.” She saddened and I wished I could take my amusement and stamp on it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, holding her hand tighter in my own. “I didn’t mean to make light …”

  “No, it’s fine,” she cut in. “But his revenge took my mate from me in the most horrific way.”

  “I’ve heard a little …”

  “Most of it is the truth. He sent me deep into Gehenna to slaughter the man who owned my soul, and after I had done his bidding, God severed my wings so I could never return to Empyrea.”

  I gasped. “But I thought it was Diablo who removed your wings.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Diablo was – is –good to me. He made my existence in Gehenna as pain free as possible. He also took a very hands on approach when he learned of your growth in my belly.”

  Devastation clogged up my throat, my heart breaking for her. “But that’s what I don’t understand. I thought this story was many years ago?”

  “Yes. Two thousand and forty eight years since I have lived without your father.”

  My chest hurt, that possibility burning my brain with implausible information. “But that would mean I’m …”

  “Two thousand and forty seven.” Her grin was wide, her amusement with the horrified look on my face giving her the first smile in a long few hours. Sensing my confusion, she nudged me gently with her elbow. “You have been born four hundred and twenty three times, Willa.”

  “Holy shit! How is that possible?”

  Her smile was so full of pain and happiness that it was difficult to latch onto which one was the most intense. “Diablo loved me as his own. And he sold his soul to The Alpha to give me a chance of happiness with his granddaughter.” Pain overpowered the happiness and a tear rolled slowly down her face. “Because of the curse to my blood, you never survived,” she explained. “My own blood destroyed you many, many times.”

  “Many times?”

  “I was impregnated with you over four hundred times, Willa.”

  I fell back into the softness of the bed, my shock numbing the marrow in my bones. “What? But how is that possible if my father is dead.”

  “That is where your grandfather came in.” She smiled, her eyes softening with every mention of the devil, her love for a man we had all been taught was evil perfection so evident. “Diablo once again called on The Alpha. Declaring his eternal calling to do her bidding, she gave your soul to Diablo. For eons, I would hold you deep within my belly, and my soul. Yet time and time again we lost you to the toxin in my blood stream.”

  “I’m guessing this is where my mother and father come in,” I whispered, not knowing how I knew this part of the story but recognising deep within me that it was the truth.

  Delilah nodded. “The Alpha requested the presence of your grandfather. After decades of watching both Diablo’s and my own souls break every time we lost you, she offered her assistance. She gave wisdom to Diablo to give your soul to a couple, a very specific couple who could birth you without the curse that ravaged my body.”

  “Mother and father.”

  “Yes. I can tell you they were beyond shocked when The Alpha called for them. But they were only too happy to help. After all, it’s not often The Almighty asks for a favour.”

  I laughed, nodding. “I bet.” I frowned, a part of this not making any sense. “So how come you live within me. If my parents were surrogates, then how come you didn’t raise me?”

  She laughed, but it was bitter and full of anger. “My father, once again.”

  I stilled, the power of Delilah’s hatred sucking the oxygen from the room.

  “During my time in Gehenna, unknown to any of us, God was working on something. A week before you were born, he sent an army he had created after me, my blood a temptation too powerful to resist.”

  “The dredgen!”

  “Yep. My father had built a ‘thing’ specifically to slaughter his own child.”

  “Oh, hell,” I breathed out in astonishment.

  “I owe my soul to The Alpha,” she whispered as she stroked my hair away from my face. “I didn’t care of my death, but it was the fact that after all the years trying, getting so close, holding you in my arms had been snatched from me yet again. But unable to return me to my previous self, The Alpha allowed my soul to merge with yours. To protect you.” She smiled at me, folding her arm around my shoulders to pull me deep into her. “However,” she lowered her voice, “to shield you from him your identity must be hidden. My father knows of your existence and he knows what you are but he doesn’t know who you are.”

  “What I am?”

  She cupped my face, turning my face to hers as intensity lit her pretty blue eyes. “You are very special Willa.”

  I didn’t like where this was heading and I braced myself for her next words.

  “You are not only my daughter, you are Strauss’.”

  I knew that but there was something else she was trying to tell me. “I don’t understand.”

  “Strauss was Diablo’s son,” she whispered. “But he was also The Alpha’s son.”

  Holy fucking shit sticks!

  “You mean The Almighty is my …”

  “Your Grandmother, yes.”

  Sergeant Grant Miller sighed with fury and sorrow, his eyes unable to move from the pretty yellow-haired siren, her long silky hair burnt a deep red with the amount of her blood that dyed it.

  “Nothing of use around her, Sarg,” PC Hansmith mumbled, her anger at
such a despicable murder evident in the croak of her throat.

  “Do we have ID?”

  Nodding, she lifted a driving license between her gloved fingers. “Marie Trent, twenty-four.”

  Crouching before the body, or rather, half a body, Miller lifted the long hair from her face with his pen, his breath catching at the sight of this young girl’s beauty. “Vice?” he asked but already knew the answer.

  “Nah, don’t think so,” Hansmith replied. “Gerry in Tors says she was in there between ten and two last night. She’s a regular. Never brought trouble. Apparently she was approached by several males, all of whom she sent packing. She left the club at around two, and the brewery delivery guy found her this morning.”

  “Such a waste,” Miller said under his breath. Standing, he turned to Hansmith. “See you later?”

  She smiled, her straight white teeth making him drop his gaze to them in awe. Hansmith was pretty, not stunning or what he’d call beautiful, but she had a big smile, a bigger heart, and even bigger tits.

  “Sure,” she replied. “Usual place?”

  He nodded then walked away, leaving Hansmith to deal with Valerie, the coroner Miller always used because she was the only one tough enough to give him the truth. Most of the court system was as bent as Miller’s right testicle, but he trusted Valerie. They’d worked together for over ten years now, and she was the only fucker stupid enough to stand for his bullshit.

  “Miller!”

  Miller groaned, rolling his eyes deep within his head at the sound of the voice that called him out. “Go home, Red!”

  “Aww, come on, Sergeant! Just a snippet.” Francis Trevelli, or ‘Red’ to the local police force - owing to her flame red hair - pleaded, side skipping beside Miller with her annoying little dictaphone she insisted on using twenty years after they had gone out of fashion. “I’m even offering to blow your dick for something on this one!”

  Miller paused, turning to her with his eyebrows high. “And what makes you think I want that pretty mouth on my dick, Red?”