by Harley James
The corded sinew tying his chest and back together.
The knitting of his leg muscles as they bunched with his movements, rocking into her.
His gaze. Intense. Unyielding.
Marking her as though he were staking a claim.
She felt like she was his. She wanted to be his. Never had she ached to be woven into someone’s existence as she did with him. It went against every independent fiber of her being.
“Sydney.” A plea that she would never deny.
Her fingers splayed across his back, ran down his long, strong spine to dig her nails into the working muscles of his ass, and spread herself wider. More open to him than she had ever been to another soul.
Her heels pressed deep into his glutes as he growled possessively into her neck. Her head arched back into the pillows when the slow build finally broke the dam.
Tears streamed down her cheeks with the release, her whole body quaking—joy, fear, euphoria—it was all the same. Too big to confine, to describe. She shook and took what he so freely gave. On and on as he joined her in the great big dark. The place where all colors met and merged.
She kissed his rugged cheekbones, took his lips between her teeth, and knew. Knew these moments of bliss would be short-lived if they didn’t find a way to send Baal back to Hell.
As her heart began to settle, Spencer pulled back and stilled, his eyes growing vacant. Turning inward.
Listening.
She was sure of it. But to whom? His security team? Nate and Jessie? She held her breath, watching for the slightest giveaway of emotion on his face as he held himself above her. Nothing to see. Until a tensing in his cheek. Her heart picked up again. Please don’t let it be bad.
Seconds stretched endlessly. Shadows on the wall flickered, a disturbance to the candle on the nightstand.
Her head swiveled on the pillow, but there was nothing to see. No person, no ghost. Only more shadows. She turned her head back to him, raising her hands to move him from her, but he blinked and came back into himself, the look in his eyes making it hard to breathe.
“No.” She shook her head to make sure he understood. Don’t tell me something’s happened to my family.
Spencer pressed his forearm into her clavicle to hold her down, his palm sliding up her cheek. “Your family in Minnesota is safe. But…oh my darling, Baal has Tiana.”
Chapter 32
Sydney’s lips wobbled, a massive bubble filling her chest as she pushed Spencer away. She scrambled to sit up as he leaned back. She tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t fill her chest.
Can’t speak.
She jumped from the bed to grab her clothes. Tiana had been through so much trauma in her life. Violence and neglect—an ugliness no one should have to endure. What must she be suffering at the hands of an archdemon?
A choking sob wrenched out as horrific images streamed through her mind. The world condensed in a heartbeat. Sydney ran to exit Spencer’s bedroom, but he hooked an arm around her waist.
“Let me go!” She pulled ineffectually at his hands.
“Do not be short-sighted. You cannot run off half-cocked with fear and rage, or he shall consume you and your sister both.”
His low bellow pushed through her layers of panic. “But what if she’s already dead?”
“She’s not. Baal needs her for leverage. He’s too smart to hurt her.”
She brought her gaze to his. “He wouldn’t have known about her if I hadn’t been on my way to see her! He probably heard Neo and I canvassing the homeless encampments.”
His brows pulled together. “Perhaps, but he is a master at uncovering motivation. He probably already knew about her shortly after his stop at your parents’ house. Since he can’t get to you, he’ll go after what you love. That in turn motivates me to confront him because of my feelings for you—my need to make you happy. It’s a solid plan, actually.” He rubbed a hand up her spine to cup the back of her neck, twining his fingers in her hair to tilt her chin up.
“I will fix this.”
His voice. In her head again. She frowned at him, cocking her head. “You’ve been doing that for a while now. Haven’t you?”
“Speaking telepathically?” A satisfied light shone in his eyes. “Yes, I am. I’m relieved you can hear me.”
Her lips parted. “How?”
“I’m not certain. Telepathy is generally only a pathway between Guardians, and psychic humans like Pepper. Or between soul mates.”
Huh. “So then why…?”
“I’m not going to question good fortune at this point. I only hope it holds. If you need me, you have only to reach for me in your mind.” He kissed her before she could speak, then pulled away to slip on a navy, button-down Oxford shirt.
She finished straightening her clothes, too. “What do we do now?”
“I’ll take Neo and Atamu to see if we can find out where Baal is holding Tiana.”
She gathered her hair into a ponytail. “I’m going with you.”
“Absolutely not. You’ll wait here for my summons.” He looked suddenly at the door. “I’m quite certain none of us will have long to wait for the next development,” he murmured distractedly.
A shiver went up Sydney’s spine.
A heartbeat later, a heavy knock sounded at the bedroom door.
Chapter 33
Spencer beat Sydney to the door. Pepper was already retreating back down the hallway, hollering over her shoulder. “Hustle, Jessie’s downstairs!”
Sydney shoved past Spencer but felt him close behind as she sprinted down the stairs to the being who was in charge of protecting her family. She skidded to a halt before the angel dressed in black leather. Sydney nearly choked at the very real distress on Jessie’s face.
Spencer wrapped Sydney’s cold hand in his own. “What is it, Jessica?”
Sydney tried to pray, but all the words jumbled in her mind. Jessie’s silvery blue eyes softened when she turned her gaze to Sydney briefly before addressing Spencer. “Baal’s methods are far-reaching. He confiscated all the supplies, then blew up the manufacturing plant that has been producing Joaquin’s experimental meds to treat his immune disorder. Three hundred deaths, many dozens more are injured.”
Oh my God. Sydney pressed a fist into her gut.
“Joaquin has one more dose on hand,” Jessie continued. “Baal says he’ll turn over enough medicine to last Joaquin until they start production at another facility, provided we turn over not only your relic, Spencer, but the one Nate and I guard as well.”
Jessie said more, but it became background noise as Sydney’s mind dove inward. Images of Joaquin’s shiny black hair as he chased butterflies in their backyard. Later, him lying in a hospital bed, his face so pallid she had to leave the room before she screamed at the doctors for being so clueless about what to do for him. All the IVs, the blood draws, his loss of childhood. Lost to a disease that didn’t care that he brought joy to everyone he’d ever met.
Until fifteen CCs of a clear liquid administered once a week brought his color back. Brought his vigor back.
Brought the joy back.
And in doing so, brought hope to SanFran’s Mission district where he helped revitalize local efforts to empower youth to choose education over gangs.
He was one person— one she loved. What about all the other families mourning their loved ones killed by Baal’s senseless, single-minded evil?
Sydney grabbed a pilsner glass from the bar and chucked it at the DJ’s stage before collapsing in a heap on the dancefloor. “The bastard!” This wasn’t right.
It wasn’t right.
Spencer picked her up, but even in his arms she felt powerless and empty. The carefully blank look on his face told her all she needed to know.
Their backs were against the wall, and Baal had a gun pointed at them from every angle.
Chapter 34
Spencer swung his feet over the edge of the bed and glanced back to make sure he hadn’t disturbed Sydney. Soft ligh
t from the alley filtered through the long gray curtains, casting more shadows than light on her bare shoulders peeking above the sheet.
She hadn’t moved since she’d fallen asleep two hours ago after coming home from another fruitless mission to determine where Baal was holding Tiana. He’d given in and let her join the search party since Raj, Neo, and two other freelance Guardians had all put their hands in the huddle.
Spencer also hadn’t moved in the two hours they’d been home, but he hadn’t slept either.
Sydney’s brother Joaquin had taken his last dose of medicine three days ago, which meant his health would start to deteriorate soon. For eleven days, they’d searched for Tiana, tried to find another pharmaceutical company that carried the immune-suppressing drugs Joaquin needed, and consulted with other Guardians about how to deal with Baal’s continued guerrilla tactics.
So far, all leads were dead ends, the priests hadn’t made any headway with the exorcisms—losing twelve human souls to complete possession—and Baal’s rephaim army had proved well-coordinated with their terror campaign.
The city was in its third-day of lockdown. All public transportation stopped, and schools, government, and businesses closed while heavily-armed police and SWAT teams sought suspects involved with three bombings and two public riots that culminated in mass shootings. Baal had even used Spencer’s xiphos to fillet a high-profile member of the city council on the grand staircase at San Francisco City Hall.
Total death toll at eighty-three with many more to come until Spencer could figure out a way to stop the archdemon.
Dread awful.
The terror alert was raised to the highest level and people were advised not to congregate publicly, but the authorities would never catch the guilty ones because they were looking for human perpetrators. Law enforcement wasn’t equipped to deal with demons. How do you fight something you don’t even know exists?
Fucking rephaim.
To make matters more dire, tomorrow was Winter Solstice—Baal’s deadline for Spencer to turn over not only the Holy Robe, but also Nate and Jessie’s relic.
Impossible.
He obviously couldn’t hand over the relics, but he couldn’t bear to watch Sydney suffer if something happened to Tiana, Joaquin, or anyone else she loved. Pain and guilt like that didn’t ever go away. He should know. Margaret had suffered, and many other people’s lives had been destroyed because of his father’s need to annihilate everything that had ever brought Spencer joy. Why?
He’d had more than four hundred years to puzzle it out, but answers never came.
The bed sheets rustled, and fingers slid up his chest to rest over his heart. “Come back to bed. You need to be at full strength.” Her sleep-heavy voice brought him both comfort and self-reproach.
He brushed her hair back from her brow. “Sorry to wake you. I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d go down and see how the exorcisms are going.” And spend some of my nervous energy on the streets kicking the shit out of any rephaim unlucky enough to cross my path.
“I have a better idea.” She pulled him down on top of her. It still surprised him that she could hear his thoughts. At times, it was discomfiting. More and more, though, he was coming to depend on it. Which added another layer of uneasiness. Relying on human connections to this extent was pure folly.
He captured her lips with his to batten back the sorrow. To stay in the here and now. To feel. The plumpness of her breasts under his palms, how fragrant her skin, how lush her thighs that parted in carnal welcome. I don’t deserve it. But he stroked inside her, building their pleasure. Her hips surged against him as she grabbed his face. “Don’t turn away from me.”
He paused, his arms and legs shaking with the effort to hold back as he locked gazes with her in the shadows. “Even if I wanted to turn away, I couldn’t,” he said, softly.
“Then love me with your darkness, with your light. I need you right now.”
He could hear her. Feel her need. It was growing in him, too. Complex and confounding. Expanding like a life-saving raft as the ship was going down. Terrible and consoling.
He lowered himself to press all along her body, seating himself deep, rocking and sliding slow, controlled, hungry for every nuance of their glide and press. The give and take of their bodies. The tightening of her sheath as he pulsed inside her.
Grind and sink.
Slow.
Breathless.
Her sighs shook him. Their bodies, slick and hot, her nipples pebbled against his chest. Her vocalizations, inarticulate. Her head twisted against the pillows as he took her hands, entwining their fingers next to her ears, stopping his hips. Throbbing inside her.
In the next rock of his hips, he registered her scream as pleasure streaked through him. They came together and they burned. Inside. Fire. In his chest. Groin. He raked at the sheets, pinning her down, head next to hers, feeling like a phoenix. Burning, burning away the old in a flood of euphoric pain.
Long moments passed, their harsh breathing the only sounds in the still shadows of the room. When his muscles stopped trembling he leaned up to kiss her forehead. Kiss her eyelids. Her cheeks.
Her lips. The tiny mole on the edge of her chin. “I love your skin.”
She smiled into his eyes and brought her right hand to his chest. Her fingertips swept across his pectoral several times before she stilled.
He moved off her. “Sorry, too heavy.”
She sat up and grabbed his shoulders, squinting at his chest in the low light. “No, Spencer, no.” She leaned over to the switch on the nightstand lamp. Her eyes widening as she turned back to look at his chest. “Your scar!”
His heart thumped, his pulse surged as his hand rubbed over the intact skin of his chest. Disbelieving, he hurried to the mirror next to the bedroom door.
Death scar…Gone.
He swung around to find Sydney standing right behind him, teeth catching her bottom lip, hands twined in front her naked body.
There was a whole world in her teary, smiling eyes. He went deep to probe at the new, fine gossamer filament that sprang to life, glimmering and sparkling. A pathway between their souls.
A marvel.
“I am yours, and you are mine, my darling. Truly”.
She nodded, her body flushing pink with profound emotion.
With slightly shaking hands, he reached for her. As she stepped into his arms, a distant church bell tolled midnight—the start of Winter Solstice.
And all the lights in the city went dark.
Chapter 35
Sydney shivered on the leather sofa in front of the roaring fire Spencer had started in the bedroom’s hearth, more from nerves than temperature. Her eyes were gritty, her heart like a gray lump of clay clogging up her chest. “Where are you now?” she pushed out, God-knows-where into the city darkened by Baal’s black evil.
One moment of silence stretched into two. Sydney rose from the sofa. “Spencer?”
He’d left three hours ago, the responsibility of solving their multitude of problems and keeping the city warm weighing heavily on his shoulders. Baal had ushered in bone-rattling cold temperatures that squatted over San Francisco like a pall, the frigid winds screaming down the deserted streets and fingering into the cracks of homes built for mild California climates.
Outside the safety of Inferno, there was an atmosphere of war. Army and National Guard convoys rolled through the streets. Armored cars were posted at central points outside government buildings and the marinas. Police had even requested a social media blackout to prevent disclosure of police and military operations.
“Spencer, talk to me. Are you okay?”
According to Guardian lore, she was his soul mate. She didn’t really know what to think of that, but she’d seen the proof of his healed death scar. Maybe the length of years as a Guardian influences how fast the scar heals, he’d postulated.
The look in his eyes—like she was a treasure beyond value—had left her at a loss for words. How could this happen? she
’d asked for fifteen minutes after he’d kissed her and left to go defend the city from cold, demons, and whatever else Baal had up his sleeve.
Fifteen minutes, she’d sat in the bed they’d just made love in and asked how.
Wasted time. Like now, wandering around the bedroom like some cosseted princess while her man’s hide was in the line of fire.
Do something. But what? She looked around the room at the expensive, original artwork, the wooden ceiling beams with Latin inscriptions she couldn’t translate, all the fine furniture—modern pieces tastefully mixed with relics of the past that had held up—
Wait.
Relics.
She flashed back to the story Shadow told her about how Jessie had successfully used the Veil of Veronica to help defeat Asmodeus. She’d even been human at the time. And of course, Katherine had used the Chains of St Peter to aid her fight against Leviathan.
If there was a good chance she could help by using Spencer’s relic, shouldn’t she go for it? As his soul mate, she was in this fight as deeply as he was, surely.
Sydney braided her hair, weighing the opportunity-to-risk ratio, which was admittedly difficult since this whole relic-business was largely a mystery. She wrapped the ends of her hair with a clear rubber band, then stared at her pale face in the mirror.
In twenty days, her whole world had shifted. But she was still the same person. Needing to act. To make decisions that would affect her destiny. So corny, but it was true whether she was embarrassed by it or not.
I choose not to be.
It was ultimately so freeing to choose action over idleness.
Please let me be choosing correctly.
She turned away from the mirror and quickly dressed in jeans and a heavy, gray sweatshirt. Then she gathered her coat, a stocking cap and gloves, a St. Michael medallion, two vials of chrism oil, and three packets of salt from the console in Spencer’s outer lounge.
