by Zandria West
‘You’re so sweet,’ he murmurs in my ear, ‘and your blood is making me even harder…’ I can feel him growing inside me, filling me. He releases my hair and I open myself to him completely, leaning my head down onto the mass of soft pillows and letting my hips rise high, spreading my legs wider. I feel his tight grip on my hips as we move together, his cock so deep inside me I can barely breathe.
In the distance, I register a voice crackling over the loudspeaker. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the flight to Las Caldas is now ready for boarding. Please make your way to the gate.’
‘Fuck…’ he moans.
Las Caldas. That’s us.
‘We have to go,’ I say, though I don’t stop moving – I can’t stop moving.
He pulls out and before I have a chance to protest, he flips me onto my back again and as I reach my legs around him, he lowers himself onto me, his entry almost gentle this time. I see the smear of red around his mouth. His eyes are so dark, it’s like the pupils have expanded to hide all the blue with their black. He laces his fingers through mine and lowers his face so his cheek presses against mine. His breath is heavy and warm in my ear. The whole length of our bodies presses together now, legs entwined, bellies and chests in contact as we pick up the rhythm again, faster and with more urgency. I rock my hips to meet his and he groans into my ear. My skin is slicked with sweat and we’re sliding against one another. I run my tongue along the dip beside his collar bone, over the hard plane of his pecs, then grab one of his tiny nipples between my teeth and pull gently at the delicate nub.
‘Fuck –’ Alex exhales.
‘Come for me,’ I say, looking up at him. ‘I want to feel you come inside me…’ I shift the angle of my hips and feel him responding instantly, as his length pushes deeper, gliding with delicious friction against me.
I can’t hold on much longer. He grabs a hold of my hair and pulls again, and the pressure sends me over the edge.
‘Alex,’ I sob, wrapping my arms tightly around him, totally absorbed in the intense rush of pleasure that’s washing over me. I hear his breathing change, see his muscles tense and then as he looks directly into my eyes and lets out a cry. I feel him spasming inside me, and a rush of hot liquid fills me.
He collapses. For a moment we lie, entwined and peaceful. He strokes my breasts gently, and kisses me with tender possessiveness.
‘This is the final boarding call for the flight JF-9931 to Las Caldas. Would all passengers please make their way to the boarding gate immediately.’
I close my eyes. ‘Fuck,’ I moan.
‘Am I going to have to carry you onto that plane?’ Alex asks, and even without opening my eyes I can hear the smile in his voice.
‘No, I’m okay,’ I sit up and climb out of bed and reach for my clothes.
‘Ah, I’d recommend a quick clean up before you get dressed, or they might call the police.’
I catch a glimpse of myself in a floor to ceiling mirror and for a moment I stop and gape. There’s quite a lot of blood smeared down my neck, along my shoulder, and over my chest.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ Alex assures me, a little sheepishly. ‘It was just, it got spread around a bit, when we were, well you know…’
‘Fucking?’ I say, cocking an eyebrow, amused that my cheeky, sexy, dangerous vampire is almost lost for words.
‘Anyway, thirty second shower should fix it. In you go…’ and he smacks my butt and shoos me into the shower cubicle, which is enormous and has a showerhead that gives an excellent approximation of a severe tropical downpour.
Five minutes later, we’re clean and dressed and slightly damp, not just from the shower. We’re walking hand in hand through the boarding gate, carrying our boarding passes, feeling very much like the newly-wed couple that we’re meant to be. Alex takes my boarding pass, and hands both our passes to the girl on the flight bridge, who looks up at him with a star-struck expression of awe.
‘Welcome aboard, Mr Murphy. You’re seated in first class today. My name is Natasha and I’ll be happy to assist to your every need during our flight.’
I roll my eyes.
‘If there’s anything I or my wife need, we’ll be sure to let you know,’ Alex smiles, taking my arm and guiding me the few rows to where our seats are waiting in First Class.
Down the length of the plane, deep in the belly of economy, I can just make out Gabriel and Grayson. Reuben’s here too somewhere. I can’t see him, but I can sense him. Gabriel looks … tense. My cheeks redden as he catches my eye and raises an eyebrow accusingly.
I grin and shrug an apology.
It’s the first time in about a decade that I’ve got onto a plane without being medicated, so if nothing else, Alex has successfully cured my fear of flying.
23
GABRIEL
Although it was awkward being front and centre to Lana and Alexander’s lovemaking whilst crammed into a crowded waiting area at Gate Fifteen, I’m glad that it happened. It was probably for the best that the two of them stayed out of public sight while we were waiting at the airport – that was why I’d organised VIP lounge access, after all. To reduce the chances of Lana being spotted, should an alert have been issued for her arrest.
Extradition processes are slow and cumbersome, and extradition between realms where there is a human involved is almost unheard of, but nothing is impossible. Darian has resources and influence that stretch across both realms. Now that I know of the depth of his involvement, my concern to get Lana to safety as soon as possible has only increased.
‘I see Alex hasn’t changed,’ Grayson says drily as the stewardess goes through the emergency procedures and the plane begins to taxi down the runway.
‘You’d be surprised,’ I say.
Grayson sits still as a statue beside me, his eyes trained on the endless grey tarmac that is our view out of the window. The engine roars and the plane begins to pick up speed as it blasts down the runway. I grip the arms of the seat tighter and feel the world dropping away beneath me as the huge, cumbersome thing climbs easily into the air.
‘Thank you,’ I say, turning to study Grayson’s stony, impassive features. Once I would have said we were close. But that was a long time ago, and whatever has happened between then and now has changed him deeply.
‘For what?’
‘For what you did… for Lana…’
‘For torturing her? Is that what you’re thanking me for?’ He meets my gazes and holds it. ‘Or maybe it’s for fucking her and then leaving her captive in a dirty prison cell, when she thought I’d come to rescue her.’
‘You did rescue her. You gave up your chance to return home.’
Grayson gives a hard laugh. ‘He never would have held up his end of the bargain anyway,’ he says.
‘No, I’m serious, if you hadn’t –’
‘Just drop it Gabe,’ Grayson says in a voice that invites no reply. ‘In case you’re having trouble interpreting the body language, or, you know, the actual language, I don’t want to talk about it. You can thank me all you want, but Alex won’t come anywhere near me and Reuben fingers his knife every time he looks at me. It’s all he can do not to shove a blade through my chest.’
‘They’ll come around.’
‘You think? You think they’ll forgive me for what I’ve done to Lana?’
I take a breath. ‘You did what you had to in order to save Lana. She’s safe now, thanks to you. I’m sure they’ll see that soon enough.’
Grayson snorts and shakes his head.
‘Your tendency to wishful thinking hasn’t changed, warlock,’ he says.
I look back out the window as Grayson gestures to an approaching stewardess.
‘I need a drink. And some peanuts. And something to read so I don’t have to listen to this fucking asshole anymore.’
The stewardess looks at me awkwardly then looks back to Grayson.
‘Certainly, sir. We’ve got an extensive drinks menu that I can –‘
‘Bourbon. Straight.’
‘Would you like ice with that?’
‘Sure. Why not.’
He looks away as the girl hurries back down the aisle.
I lean back in the seat and close my eyes. If he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to talk. I saw as much as I needed to when the binding was formed – I absorbed it in an instant, but I know it was the memory of years. Torture. Horror. Pain. If I’d been where he’d been, suffered obediently for so long in the hope of redemption, only to give it all up in a single moment, I wouldn’t want to make idle conversation either.
The waitress returns a minute later, carrying a tray in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
‘Here you go, sir,’ she says brightly, though her smile is a little too tight and her hand is shaking slightly as she lowers the tray over Grayson’s lap. ‘Bourbon. Beer nuts. And today’s paper. Just let me know if you need anything else, alright?’
He looks at her intensely. ‘What I need is answers. But you can’t give them to me, can you Cheryl?’
For a second I think Grayson’s using his angelic powers to see deep into her thoughts, but then I spot the large name tag she wears pinned to one breast. I feel sorry for the girl. Her eyes widen and her gaze flickers from side to side, as though searching for a way out.
‘Ah, that would depend on what the questions are, sir. If you’d like some information about the flight or our destination, I can certainly –’
He waves a hand and looks away. ‘Go,’ he says and there’s a tone of command in his voice that makes even my skin prickle.
‘Ah, of course sir, thank you sir…’ she stumbles as she turns and almost runs back down the aisle.
‘Was it really necessary to frighten her?’ I say.
Grayson turns on me and the look in his eyes chills my blood. Whatever happened inside that prison has broken him in some fundamental way.
‘What is necessary? Tell me? Is pain necessary? Fear? Anguish? What purpose do such feelings serve? Why are they permitted? Why must there be so many little moments of hell in the lives of people who have done nothing to deserve it…’
He downs his drink in a few large gulps.
It’s going to be a long flight.
Then I spot something. I take the newspaper from his tray and unfold it before me. I study the picture and the words for a long time, not speaking or moving.
‘What is it?’ Grayson says, leaning across to see.
I hold it up so he can see it too.
The heading on the front page says Unleashing Hell and there’s a grainy picture of a shattered city, bodies strewn amongst the rubble, tanks patrolling streets that are shrouded in smoke and dust.
‘In an unprecedented atrocity, the first large-scale demon attack recorded since the signing of the Accord has taken place in the city of Denzel, Pennsylvania,’ I read. ‘Countless people were killed and many more have been injured or are missing. The attackers were driven off by armed troops. It is not known how or where they entered through the Barrier. A major breach is suspected, and authorities have warned citizens to be on the alert for further attacks. High level talks between governments have commenced about how to tackle this alarming development, with many recommending a rapid show of force…’
‘It has begun,’ Grayson breathes.
‘I thought we had more time,’ I say, fear suddenly taking me. Fear for Lana, fear for what we must do, fear for the peace of this fragile human world.
‘You’d better hope this witch we’re meeting knows how to activate the Barrier.’
I don’t know what terrifies me more. That she won’t know what we need to do, or that she will, and I’ll have to face a terrible choice my mother placed upon me.
The damage caused by a whole army of demons would be nothing to the destruction the Dark God would wreak were he permitted to return from his exile.
24
LANA
The flight was uneventful. We landed and cleared customs without anyone showing any particular interest in us. A car was waiting at the airport. We’ve been driving now for more than two hours along steep, rough, winding roads which are taking us deep into the mountains.
‘Are we almost there?’ I ask Gabriel.
I’ve needed to pee for about half an hour now, and the jerky, bouncy movements of the car are making that need increasingly urgent.
‘Not too much further,’ Gabriel says. He’s looking even more brooding than usual, gazing out of the windows beside me to the dense jungle that surrounds us.
It’s hard to believe there’s an airstrip out here somewhere. Harder still to believe that we’re going to fly even deeper into these mountains before landing at a remote convent to meet my mother.
I pat the backpack that sits between my feet. The Dad Jar is still there. Gabriel rescued it for me, when I was taken by the demons. I feel it’s comforting shape and solidity. Dad is coming with me to see my mother. He always loved the mountains. I imagine going for a hike to a beautiful place with a view to the far horizon, the sound of running water, the flicker of sunlight and shadows as the sun’s rays pass through the trees. That’s where I’ll scatter his ashes. Somewhere peaceful and remote.
‘How’re you feeling?’ Reuben growls protectively.
‘Okay,’ I say, meeting his concerned gaze. There’s something about simply looking into his gold-flecked eyes that makes me feel calmer. I take his huge hand, lace my fingers through his and squeeze. He’s sitting on the other side of me to Gabriel, with Alex cramped in next to him closest to the door, and Grayson in the passenger seat in the front. I don’t know where I am or what’s going to happen next, but I feel safe with my men around me.
The driver is a silent, skinny dark-haired guy with acne and a shoe-string moustache. He hardly said four words to Gabriel when he met us at the airport, and he takes the steep turns on this mountain road much faster than I’m comfortable with. The cigarette he’s smoking fills the car with acrid, slightly spicy smelling smoke. I can’t wait for this bit of the trip to be done with.
And then?
I have no idea.
We round a corner and the car pulls to a sudden stop. I’m flung forwards, and only Reuben’s strong arms around me prevent me from slamming into the seat in front of me.
‘Okay, that’s not good,’ Grayson mutters, shifting in his seat.
I sit up taller so I can see through the front windscreen. In the centre of the road ahead of us I spot a small roadblock, manned by two soldiers with automatic weapons slung carelessly over their shoulders. One of them stands and approaches the car. The other lounges on a milk crate, chewing gum and reading a novel with a picture of a buxom blonde woman being kissed by a darkly handsome army officer on the cover. Reuben’s grip tightens on my hand.
‘Were we expecting this?’ Grayson asks, his voice icy.
‘No,’ Gabriel says. ‘Let me handle it.’
The driver winds the window down and the soldier approaches, leaning casually against the side of the car. Even before he speaks, I can smell the strong aroma of liquor on his breath. His eyes are glazed and blood-shot. He glances back at me, winks and grins. Reuben grips my hand so tightly it feels like a bone is about to pop. He lets out a low, rumbling growl. I squeeze back, as much to try and settle him down as for my own reassurance.
The driver and the soldier start talking in a language I don’t know. My hearing strains. I’m desperate to understand what’s being said but I have no idea. I make out the name of the town where the airport is located, but I don’t recognise any other words. They’re not speaking Spanish. Some local dialect, maybe? The driver shifts in his seat and I hear a rustling noise as he pulls out a thick wad of notes. Ah, the universal language of bribery. The soldier smiles and nods as the money changes hands. Tucking the cash in his back pocket, he gives us all a quick salute, then turns and starts to walk away. I hear him calling out to the man at the barrier, who stands and starts to raise it.
It’s okay. All they wanted was a bit of cash to grease
their palms. They’re going to let us through.
A moment later, a sharp crack echoes in the air, and then a second one follows it, and I see the soldier closest to us crumple. Blood is pooling like a dark halo next to his head.
‘Fuck!’ Alex yells. ‘Drive, damnit, we’re under attack! Drive!’
Reuben pulls me down so my head is buried in his lap. He leans over and covers me with his body. I can hear Gabriel muttering under his breath. I hope he’s casting a protective spell of some kind, though maybe he’s just swearing.
The car isn’t moving. Why isn’t the car moving?
My heart races as panic starts to surge through me, making me feel light-headed.
There’s another crack, this one louder, and I feel a splatter of something warm and wet on my arm.
‘Shit!’ I push Reuben away and sit up. I’m covered in somebody’s blood. I’m terrified that one of my men has been hit. My body is humming with terror and my heart is pounding. Everything feels jerky and weird, like time is being sped up and slowed down both at once.
Then I see our attacker standing directly in front of the shattered front windscreen of the car. It’s… a girl? She’s dressed in ragged camos and dark glasses, her curly dark hair bound back with a blood red bandana that matches her lipstick. She’s holding a gun in neatly-manicured fingers. In front of me, the driver has collapsed forward onto the steering wheel. Half his head is gone, I notice, feeling strangely numb.
‘Out of the car!’ the girl yells to us, the words heavily accented but still recognisable.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ Alex curses.
The girl raises the gun, points it directly up into the air, and then fires.
‘Next time it will be one of you. Out!’
‘Do what she says,’ Gabriel says in a low, calm voice. ‘It will be alright. I’ll make sure of it.’
Reuben doesn’t let go of me though. He’s holding me so tight it’s almost crushing me. I hear a car door open and see Grayson step out of the front, hands raised. He takes a couple of slow, careful paces towards her.
