6. Anger and Lust
Deyva
“D o you think I can sit up on the balcony? Kais let me go up there last night.”
Zach whipped around to face me in the center of the hallway. His frustration with me was peppered with other flavors—attraction, annoyance, and a small dash of fear.
“I thought I said where you could sit,” he ground out, nostrils flaring.
“I’m just throwing out suggestions.” I shrugged. “People won’t be able to see me up there, but I won’t be confined like a child.” Or a pet.
“I need to be able to see where you are at all times.” Zach’s grumpiness rivaled Kais’ in that moment, and I not-so-secretly delighted in getting under his skin too. “The answer is no.”
He turned to continue down the hall and I followed, letting out a dramatic, wistful little sigh. His broad shoulders bristled at the sound but otherwise didn’t react.
So prickly, these pious virgins.
When we reached the door to the chapel, he stuck his head through and looked around before opening it fully.
“Just stay behind the pulpit,” he muttered. “I have to talk to some people, but one of the others should be here soon.”
“Yes, Father.” I tossed him a smirk, leaning against the short staircase leading up to the platform.
Zach turned a delicious shade of red and jumped the staircase in two long strides. I heard the murmurings of people as he went to address them, and quickly tuned them out. Souls and salvation, yawn.
Now utterly bored, I paced back and forth along the back of the pulpit. Soreness and fatigue shot up my feet as I walked—I wouldn’t last much longer without an actual feeding and the priests needed to know. Their safety—and that of their people—would be at risk if I came close to starvation.
If only I had gotten any actual sustenance from that breakfast sandwich.
It certainly tasted good enough. I licked my lips, my tongue finding tiny remnants of breadcrumbs in the corners of my mouth.
Humans had no idea how easy they had it, just being able to put things in their mouths to live another day.
Not that I wouldn’t mind putting something else in my mouth , I thought, glancing at Zach and smirking to myself.
Zach wasn’t leading a sermon this morning, so there was no collective swell of faith for me to siphon from. The handful of people in the church were calm without huge spikes in their emotional state, so that didn’t do much for me either.
I paused in my pacing, already feeling drained as I leaned against a wall. The temptation was strong to just pop onto the pulpit and feed on the shock and fear of people seeing me, not to mention seeing the pricelessness of Zach’s reaction. It would be better than nothing.
But I had to listen, to do as I was told, if I wanted a snowball’s chance of surviving. Kimaris would be forming a plan to get me back by now, most likely under King Belial’s nose.
My eyes closed halfway, my body starting to sway on my feet. I just needed a little taste of something to feel alert. Maybe Zach would…
“Devya?”
A hand, warm and firm, squeezed around my shoulder. My eyes focused to find the man in question blinking at me.
“Hi, Zach.” A tight smile pulled at my lips as I forced myself not to feed from that physical touch, nor the taste of unease clouding around him like a perfume.
“You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet.”
“Yeah, you know. Getting tossed out of another realm, walking a couple miles through hellfire, and barely eating anything tends to be pretty draining.”
His mouth tightened, and again that sympathy washed over me like a cool waterfall. As much as he tried to be a righteous hard-ass, that sweet sympathetic taste was palpable in him.
“I need to take a few confessions.” He tilted his head toward the wooden box, only slightly bigger than a phone booth, to the side of the pulpit. “Can I trust you to stay back here while I do that?”
“Mmm.” I tapped a finger on my chin. “I’d really prefer to go up to the balcony.”
“No! Fucking—” He stopped himself, jaw clenching with a huff of breath.
“Careful now,” I chided. “Wouldn’t want you to say your Lord’s name in vain.”
The look he gave me was ripe with anger, but I picked up a heady taste of desire from him too. Ah, anger and lust—the perfect emotional mix for a hate fuck. He’d never take me up on it, but it would soothe the barbs of his prickliness nicely.
“Come on, please?” My plea wasn’t desperate now like it was to get out of the office, but I couldn’t help from poking Zach’s hornet nest just to see what would happen under all that restraint.
“I’ll stay hidden, I promise. And I’ll be able to see when Stav or Kais come back so I won’t be your problem anymore. ”
He hesitated another moment before grunting out, “Fine. Let’s go.”
“No need!” I headed for the door we’d just come out of. “I know my way.”
I pulled it open and headed down the hallway Kais took me last night.
Part of me wanted to see if Zach would insist on following me like a reluctant, sexually repressed bodyguard.
The fact that he didn’t caught me off-guard.
If the most pious of my three priests actually took me at my word, maybe there was hope for me yet.
Taking care to stay out of sight of anyone below, I made it to the second level just in time to see a woman step into the confessional and close the small wooden door behind her. Zach was presumably already inside, no doubt taking the responsibility of unburdening this woman’s soul very seriously.
Curiosity locked my gaze onto that little wooden booth, wondering what they talked about. These days, humans did little more to survive from one day to the next. Earth was no fun anymore, what sins did people have to confess?
A creeping thought wandered in just as the ancient, heavy front doors of the church opened and Stavros walked down the aisle. Several heads in the pews turned to look, all female.
“Good morning, Father,” some murmured as he passed them.
“Good morning,” he returned politely, the twitch in his eye at being called Father barely visible. “Where’s Father Zach?”
“Taking confession. If you don’t mind, Father,” one woman rose from her pew, stepping out into the aisle to get closer to Stavros, “might I have a word with you in private?”
I froze, watching the exchange from my voyeuristic hiding place.
The woman stepped closer to him, hands clasped in front of her demurely, while her forearms conveniently pressed her breasts together.
Stavros' gaze flicked over her, his expression unreadable, but I tasted the apprehension spiking off of him.
And from her, the want was thick and palpable in the air.
“What is this regarding?” Stavros asked with measured caution.
“A personal matter, Father. I would really prefer to speak with you alone.”
His tongue stuck out to wet his lips, a large hand coming up to idly scratch the dark scruff coating his cheeks.
“Don’t do it,” I whispered, not that he could hear me. “You think I’m a trap? You’re looking right at one!”
“Sure, why don’t we, uh,” he scrubbed a hand down his face, suddenly looking weary, “talk in the office?”
The woman looked all too pleased as they walked together around the pulpit to the back door of the chapel.
I hesitated for all of five seconds before leaving the balcony, making my way silently down the stairs and hallway.
Zach wasn’t likely to come looking for me if he had more confessions to hear, and Stav would know where I was soon enough.
The main hallway was empty when I made it back to the first floor, the door of the office where I’d been kept was closed.
I crept closer, pressing myself against the wall alongside the door and hardly daring to breathe.
Low, murmured voices came from the other side.
While my hearing was slightly better than a human’s, I still struggled to pick up more than a few words of the conversation.
“…vows. Can’t do that…”
“…at home… he won’t…”
“…sorry. I can talk to…”
“…please? Just once?…”
I bit my knuckle to keep from making a sound. Stavros' voice was low and firm, tempered and even throughout the whole exchange, while the woman steadily pitched higher as she seemed to grow more desperate. The door flew open suddenly and I let out a squeak of surprise, giving away my cover.
The woman’s head whipped around to face me, shock and then venom in her eyes. She continued turning until facing Stavros, sitting behind the desk looking defeated.
“Did you know this… creature was eavesdropping outside the door?” Her pinning stare returned to me. “Why is it still here?”
“Emma, you heard Zach’s talk last night,” Stavros answered wearily. “We’re giving her sanctuary here. She’s not a prisoner.”
“Well if she’s skulking around the church, listening to private conversations, maybe she should be!”
“Eavesdropping is not a crime.” Stavros leaned back in his chair. “If she truly were a demon, she’d probably be up to far worse.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’ll handle it, Emma. Thank you for coming to me with your…concerns. Have a good day now.”
Emma did not look pleased at being dismissed by him, despite being on her way out of the office anyway. She turned without another glance, speed walking down the hall while I took a moment to taste the emotions she threw in the air. They were familiar, but not something I tasted often.
When they hit me, a fiery mix of possessiveness, intense desire, and embarrassment, I turned into Stavros' doorway with a gleeful smile.
“She wants to bang the shit outta you.”
He coughed with surprise. “You heard that much, huh?”
“No, hardly anything, actually. But I tasted everything she felt on her way out of here.” I leaned against the doorjamb, studying him as he studied me. “But you turned her down. Why?”
“Why?” He had the nerve to scoff. “I’m a priest.”
“Nah, come on, Stav.” I stepped into the room, shrinking the distance between us.
“Maybe you were at one point, but you don’t even put on a collar anymore.
And you certainly don’t abstain from sins of the flesh.
” Reaching the edge of the desk, I placed my elbows down and propped my face in my hands. “So why? She’s pretty. Not your type?”
“What does it matter to you?” The question was defensive, but his tone was light, his curiosity matching mine. “You haven’t been here a whole day, now you’re all interested in our personal lives?”
“Hers? Nah. Yours? Yes.” I drummed my fingers on the sides of my face as I peered across the desk at him. “Once upon a time, you would have taken her up on it, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not that kind of person anymore,” he finally admitted. “Emma’s married and I…learned my lesson the last time something like that happened.”
“What changed?” I felt like a talk show host, salivating for juicy details.
“I dunno, maybe getting my ass shipped up here and then the fucking apocalypse had something to do with it.”
Ahh, there it was. The source of the bitterness and guilt lacing his taste—the part of him that he perceived to be a weakness.
I tilted my head into one hand, gazing at the lines of his face.
Classic swarthy Greek features, with a dusting of gray in his hair and beard.
Handsome with a jagged edge, in some ways even more jagged than Kais, and with none of Zach’s pretty-boyishness.
There was nothing pretty about Stavros, he was all rough masculinity.
No wonder married women wanted “private meetings” with him.
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with lusting after pretty women and enjoying sex,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, thanks,” he huffed, cheeks reddening as his voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’ll remember that.”
“If things are so bad at home for poor Emma, you might even be doing her a favor.”
He shook his head. “No, she and her family come to church every weekend. Her husband’s dealing with a bout of depression.
It would be all messed up.” His eyes sharpened, focusing on me as if seeing me there for the first time.
“That was supposed to be private. I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. ”
“It’s nice to have someone to confide in, isn’t it?” I smiled. “To have someone listen to you for once.”
“Are you,” his dark eyes narrowed, “doing something to me?”
“No, I’m not feeding from you, I swear.” I returned to standing upright, his gaze following my movement. “But your inclination is to trust me, to unload all these burdens you carry for others.”
Stavros shook his head again, this time rubbing his forehead with a groan.
“Didn’t sleep well last night, did you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Yes, because I wasn’t in your dreams. The knowledge hung between us, unspoken.
His hands dropped to his lap and Stavros leaned back in his seat, eyes studying my face with an interest that was more than his usual sexually potent stare.
“I’m not the only tired one, am I?” he asked, frowning. Concern, worry. I wasn’t sure if it was for me, or for his people because of me.
“I am also not sleeping,” I said, lips quirking as I shrugged a shoulder.
Stavros just shook his head. “It’s not that. You...don’t look much better than you did when you arrived.”
“Gee, Stav. No wonder all the ladies come panting after you,” I teased, my smile growing brittle. He was right though.
Stavros didn’t have many markers of the priesthood. He was weak when it came to restraint, intensely eager when it came to violence against Hell, and reluctant when it came to offering counsel. What he was , was empathetic.
You have to tell them anyway , I thought.
“I can’t sustain on just...scraps. Especially not if I’m going to be staying away from the rest of your people,” I said, looking down at my own lap, fingering the seam of the leggings I’d been given.
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“And I meant it.” I looked up and met Stavros’ hard gaze. “But at some point...in a week or so, I may become dangerous. Weak, but dangerous. You’ll have to think of somewhere to...put me. To keep me away from everyone.”
Stavros stiffened as I sighed, accepting that I may have just handed over a kind of confession, one that might end up leading to me withering away to nothing in a dark, small room in a basement.
He leaned forward, frowning, hands splayed against the surface of the desk. The emotions came quick and I breathed them in, but it was just licks in comparison to what I needed. “Why did you come here? If you can’t survive in this place then—”
“Because I would rather starve to death here, with mercy, than end up back in Hell,” I said, holding his stare, watching the whip lashes of horror, anger, and sorrow rushing through his eyes. “It’s not a joke, Stavros. It’s not a ploy. I will tell you when it’s time.”