Chapter 95
“Love isn’t brains, children. It’s blood.”
—SPIKE, “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER”
G abriel sat at the spinning wheel, and Shemhazai hooked up one of the ends of the tubes that was attached to the crucified Yahweh to the back of the kiln. He also produced a strange basket that was filled with something that looked like unprocessed wool, though the fibers moved and shimmered as if the fluff was somehow alive.
I wanted to scream at them to move faster, but I bit back my anxiety. Every second without Ramel felt like an eternity.
If this didn’t work, I truly didn’t know what I would do.
“What is that?” I asked, gesturing to the basket of wool. Even with my memories back, it didn’t look familiar.
“Raw soul fiber. Yahweh usually weaves souls with wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord… I think we can leave out those last two for Ramel, though,” Gabriel chuckled, and Hypnos looked fascinated.
“You ready for this?” Shem asked Gabe, who lifted an elegant shoulder, his ebony wings rustling gently behind him. The tips trailed in the stormy clouds beneath our feet, and I found myself thinking that the wings suited him .
“I’ve never exactly been into arts and fucking crafts, but let’s see what I can do.” He smirked, cracking his knuckles in front of him. He pumped the pedal at his feet, and the spinning wheel began to turn. Shem handed him some of the soul fiber from the basket before gesturing for me to move forward.
“Come here, Lilith, you have a stalker. I need him to agree to being spun into the rest of the soul fiber.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, and Shem grinned at me, his green eyes flashing.
“Ramel. He’s hanging around you like a bad idea.” He pointed over my shoulder and traced the outline of a body in the air. I glanced over my shoulder in shock.
“Is that what you keep looking at?” I gasped, and Shem nodded.
“Yep, now come stand next to Gabe so we can spin him up and get him back into his body.”
My heart was slamming in my chest. Ramel was here?
‘You will have me forever, Lilith. Even if you can’t feel me with you.’
His final words rang through my head. Was it possible he had truly refused to pass on? The smug look on Shem’s face told me it was. Ramel had stayed true to his word and refused to leave me, even in death.
I stepped up to Gabe, and Shem reached out to grab what looked like a handful of nothing over my shoulder. He pulled what I assumed was Ramel’s spirit to the spindle of the spinning wheel as Gabriel continued to weave.
Suddenly, the kiln sprang to life, and ink-black smoke began to chug from the vents. Yahweh screamed in the distance as the kiln sucked more of his magic down the golden tubing that Shemhazai and Gabriel had installed.
I could barely breathe — I wrung my fingers together anxiously, unable to tear my gaze away from the door of the kiln.
What felt like an eternity passed in near silence. Only Yahweh’s relentless screaming could be heard as Shem, Hypnos, and I waited for Gabriel to finish his work.
Finally, the wheel slowed, and the smoke from the kiln thinned.
For two long beats, there was silence. Even Yahweh seemed to be spent.
I slid forward, laying my hand on the closed door of the kiln, swallowing past a thick lump in my throat.
“Ramel?” I whispered against the door. My magic reached for him, and there was a flicker behind the thick clay.
Was he alive?
Without warning, the door blew open with such force I was pushed back several steps. There was a blur of black, and suddenly, a hard body slammed into me.
Next thing I knew, I was horizontal, and Ramel was on top of me, his hazel eyes wild and feral. His pupils were engorged and had nearly eaten the entirety of his irises .
The excitement and ecstasy I felt to see him alive quickly bled away to shock and concern at the look of thirst and hunger that haunted his features.
“Ramel… I thought… I thought you were gone,” I whispered, unable to look away from his near animalistic gaze.
A sinister smile spread across his lips, exposing long, pointed canines. I frowned… He hadn’t had those before.
“I’ve already told you, Lilith. You will never escape me. You are mine, and I will never fucking let you go,” he snarled as he threaded a midnight hand into my hair. Yanking my head to the side, he sank his new fangs into the side of my neck.
“Well… that’s new,” Shem commented dryly, and I gasped in shock as he sucked, gulping back mouthfuls of my blood.
‘Mine.’ Ramel’s voice rolled through my mind as he drank.
‘Yours,’ I replied back into his head, my heart fluttering in elation. He was alive. He was back. My nightmare had survived God’s wrath and returned to me. If he wanted my blood, that was what he would have.
Each pull on my throat stoked a fire in my core. He worried his teeth deeper into my flesh and growled as his throat worked, gulping back my blood as if he were a man dying of thirst. I felt my magic rush into him, returning the strength that he had lost in death. He filled his veins with my essence as if they were riverbeds welcoming rain after a drought. My blood finished the work that Yahweh’s magic started, eternally solidifying Ramel and returning the demon I had gifted him to his body.
The initial pain of his bite quickly changed to an intoxicating burning pleasure and I groaned beneath him, running my own midnight hands up into his hair, pressing him further into my throat. I felt a bleating need grow in my chest. He was mine. I had made him, and I would never allow anyone to take him from me again. I ran my sharp nails down the back of his neck hard enough to draw blood.
I wanted more.
He snarled in approval, pulling back slightly. “Lilith…” He stroked a hand down the side of my face.
“Do it again,” I growled, my voice nearly cracking with need. I found myself grinding my hips beneath him; the power of his bite had set my body on fire, and I suddenly needed him inside me. I could feel the hard ridge of him pressing against me, and I knew he was just as desperate for me as I was for him.
His nearly all-black eyes widened in surprise at my request.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for. I will devour you.” His voice was raw and animalistic. There was an inhumane growl rumbling in his chest as he pressed me further back into the stormy clouds beneath us .
“Take what you need, I want to feel you inside of me,” I hissed.
“Should we… give them some privacy?” I barely heard Hypnos as Ramel ripped my dress down, exposing my chest to him.
“No,” Shem said, sounding mildly entertained. “I like to watch.”
Ramel sank his fangs into one of my breasts, and I cried out in ecstasy, arching against him as another impossibly hot line of pleasure surged directly to my clit. I spread my legs and pulled his hips closer to me, grinding harder against him as the pleasure rode my body.
Every inch of me needed him to be touching me. My skin was burning, and my heart was throbbing in my chest. He rolled his tongue over the wounds he had pierced into my breast, and both of my nipples hardened so quickly that I gasped.
My hips were moving of their own accord, relentlessly grinding up against him, begging him to take me. My throat was tight, and my eyes were full of tears.
He was back.
He was here. He had kept his promise and never left me.
Without removing his teeth from my chest, Ramel’s hand found its way between my legs. He growled angrily when he found me bare. He rolled his eyes up to meet mine, and the rage I saw there was for what Rafael had tried to take for himself.
“He’s dead. I unmade him,” I soothed my demon. He released my breast and wrapped his hand around my throat as he rose up over me. He pulled his cock out of his Reaper’s shroud and lined himself up with my entrance.
“This is mine,” he hissed, and I nodded, swallowing against the tight grip of his hand.
“Yours,” I confirmed, and he slammed into me. I screamed as he pulled out and thrust back in. My heart stuttered in my chest, and I closed my eyes, reveling in the fact that he was alive. He was inside me. I had him back, finally.
“Eyes open, Lilith,” he growled as he continued to pump in and out of me. “I want you to look me in the eyes while I fuck you.”
My eyes flew open, and I did as he asked. With the hand that wasn’t wrapped around my throat, he reached between us and began to stroke featherlight circles around my clit. I whimpered at the contact. The contrast between the gentle touch of his fingers and the ruthless strokes of his cock sent my body into a confused cacophony of ecstasy, and I found myself immediately on the edge of oblivion.
“Come for me. Come for your nightmare, Lilith. Show me how much you love being haunted,” he ordered. He had been training my body for weeks to come on his command, and I couldn’t resist it, even if I wanted to.
I came apart, breaking open for him and screaming his name as he spilled himself into me.
With an angel, a demon, and a god as our witness, we consummated our love and claimed the dominion of Heaven as our own.
We had both died that day, but I had never felt more alive.