26. More Blessed to Give #3
“Uhh...happy one month,” I said. I’d meant to do a thing, but Kais kinda had a lock on the bringing her flowers routine, so this would do. “I got you a present.”
Deyva laughed and grinned, eyeing our flushed and sweaty lover as he tried to ride me, whimpering and whining for more. “Prettiest present ever. Looks tasty too. Can I lick it?”
“Please,” Zach moaned. “Please, please, please.”
“The present approves,” I answered, voice tight as Zach clenched.
Deyva ran for the bed, pouncing on the mattress, making it—and Zach and I—bounce, a plethora of moans rising.
Deyva swallowed Zach down with little effort, and I figured all of Bethel probably caught his resulting howl.
She batted my hand away, taking over the work of tormenting him, and I settled my hands on his hips, helping him ride me.
I figured we might end up owing Zach an apology for the litany of sacrilege that came out of his mouth next, but it was worth it for the way his ass milked me like the greediest mouth ever.
“Not gonna last,” I gasped.
“Go on,” Deyva said, lifting her head enough to let me see the vibrant shade of crimson in her eyes. “Fill up that pretty ass. I’ll lick it clean too.”
Zach and I were both goners after that, bucking and fucking like wild animals, giving Deyva every last drop of lust, cum, and desperate pleasure we had to offer.
I was finishing cleaning up the remnants of the schoolroom art project the next day, musing that paper maché goop and cum were disconcertingly similar, my lips twitching at the sexual turn my brain had taken, when a hand settled on my shoulder
“Father Stavros.”
My smile turned into a cringe and I wrestled it down into a smooth, impassive expression before turning to find Emma Smythe at my back, standing a little too close.
There was nothing particularly cringe-worthy about Emma, only that she’d caught me in a weak and somewhat inebriated moment a couple years ago and had proceeded to make use of me every few months, up until Deyva’s arrival.
She was married, and eighty percent of the time she and her husband seemed happy.
The other twenty percent, one or both of them was looking for release elsewhere.
It wasn’t totally uncommon in Bethel, we all felt a bit caged up in this town, but I had a feeling that if I had Deyva’s ability to flavor emotions, Emma’s around me might be tinged with something unpalatable.
“Mrs. Smythe,” I said, nodding. “I’m just finishing up here.”
“I know, I…” Emma’s head turned, a lock of auburn hair falling over her cheek as she pretended to blush. “I was hoping to speak to you alone.”
The windows of the room rattled and I glanced in their direction, eyes widening at the whip and toss of the trees outside, a flurry of brown leaves streaking by.
It had been nice out, relatively speaking, just an hour ago when I’d left Kais at the shooting range.
We definitely hadn’t been expecting a windstorm.
I turned back to find Emma even closer, and I backed into the low tables, a kid’s sized chair scratching against the linoleum.
“Stav, I just can’t—” she started again, eyes blinking rapidly like she was about to cry, or trying to fake it.
“Emma, I’m going to stop you now,” I said, catching her hands and ignoring the clutch of them around mine as I pushed her back a step and moved to give myself room to move away.
“I know that you find some...relief or comfort in looking outside your marriage, but unless you want counsel, I can’t be that for you. ”
Emma’s jaw tightened, blue eyes flashing. “You provide plenty of comfort and relief for that—that creature .”
“Deyva and I are in a relationship, yes.”
She gasped, eyes growing wide. “You’re a priest!”
Like somehow a committed relationship was so much worse that one-night stands that just kept regretfully happening?
“I was, or maybe I am,” I said, shrugging.
“I want to be here to support Bethel in whatever struggles you all face. Just as this town has been there as I’ve struggled.
I’m whatever I can be, considering the situation.
But I am very happy, and I plan on being very faithful to my relationship.
” She didn’t need to know yet that my relationship included Zach.
That was up to him when he wanted to share.
“And I really recommend that you try talking to your husband, or your friends, and see if you can find a way to be too.
Even if it's an understanding about what you both need outside of your marriage.”
Emma’s shoulders sagged, mouth twisting with distaste as she blinked up at me. “I don’t understand what you see in her.”
I shrugged. “Have you even tried?” Outside, the wind roared, drawing my gaze back to the window. “Emma, I think I better go check and see if we’re looking at a storm or something else.”
“Right, well...thanks for nothing,” Emma muttered, sweeping her hair back off her face. “I suppose I can’t be surprised you’d end up with a hellion made to suck dick all day.”
“Emma,” I snapped, fists clenching. Except what could I really do?
If it was her husband, I probably would’ve snapped off and hit him, but that wasn’t the right reaction either.
I glared at her, jaw grinding as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Sort your shit out,” I said slowly.
“And quit fucking trying to add me to the pile.”
She blanched and I left her alone in the room, dropping the sticky mess of shredded newspaper into the wastebasket on my way out.
It was harder to hear the storm outside from the church hall, but it was banging the doors by the time I reached them.
The sky outside was dark and thick with clouds—no, not clouds but smoke.
Figures stood out in the street, and it took a surprising amount of effort for me to shoulder the doors open, their gunfire-bang as they slammed shut ominous, even in the howl of storm.
I jogged against the incredible current of the wind, so rough it was like hands pushing me backward, trying to tear my clothes back, burning my eyes dry.
The air was far hotter than it should’ve been, as if it were the middle of July instead of the tail end of October.
My eyes watered and it took me a minute to pick out the familiar silhouette of Deyva in the crowd, that usual wide berth of space from the others surrounding her. I moved to her side and she jumped as my arms wrapped around her shoulders, clutching her against my chest.
“We haven’t seen this before,” I said in her ear, not sure if she could even hear me over the roar.
I didn’t hear her answer, but I watched it on her lips. “I have.”
I looked up, frowning, and finally saw the monster in the smoke, my eyes growing wide, tears tracking down my face as the wind snapped them away.
There was an inferno in the smoke, a dark black spiral of dense smog, occasionally thin enough to reveal the red blaze inside.
It spun like a tornado with limbs reaching out, clawing at the ground outside of the gate, dragging itself closer.
A shadow loomed behind me and I jumped, turning to find Az at my side, his wings tucked as close as they could be to his back, feathers rustling.
“What is it?” I shouted.
“Hellhound,” Az and Deyva said at once.
I frowned and looked back to the tangle of flame. It took me a moment to see it, the slow shifting at the bottom, a massive head the size of a car snuffling and blazing along the ground. Christ, the thing was the size of a house, headed straight for the gate.
“What does it want?” someone cried. “What is it doing?”
“Searching,” Azariah answered, but he looked to Deyva with a rare solemnity, and my arms tightened around her, not sure if I was trying to comfort her or reassure myself.
Deyva only watched the beast, the cracks in its black form reminding me of lava bursting and cooling in a constant cycle.
The smoke and smog surrounding the hellhound billowed back and revealed a figure seated astride the creature’s massive shoulders.
Massive, and made from that same shifting and smoking fire as the hellhound, the rider’s face was blank aside from two ruby red eyes glinting.
“Another fucking general, just what we need,” I hissed. I turned to Azariah. “What can we fight a hellhound with?”
He shook his head. “The gate will hold. It can’t come in. It will return to Hell soon.”
“Az,” Deyva said, and I twisted so I could see her frown, the smoke reflected in her eyes.
“The gate will hold,” Azariah repeated.
Kais and Zach found us, urging the residents back into their homes, but quickly giving up the effort, coming to stand at my side, Zach’s hand catching Deyva’s.
The hellhound and its rider prowled closer, some of the roar of the storm blending into the beast’s low chuffing as it searched the ground, right up to the gate.
The hound’s head lifted from the ground at last, and it looked nothing like a hound, more like a dragon, but the flare of its nostrils was clear as the massive head bowed to our small, shabby little gate.
The hellhound huffed and growled so loud that the ground vibrated.
Fire-yellow eyes stared over the gate to us, and I thought for a moment my eyes might burn right out of their sockets as I stared back, before I realized it wasn’t me it was looking at.
“Az, are you sure?” I asked. “What if it—”
“Flesh bags!” The voice was sudden and crackling, flames licking out of the rider’s mouth with every word. “I am sent on behalf of King Belial to retrieve what was wrongly released from his service.”
The townspeople around us turned to stare at Deyva, and I held on tight to her as she shifted in my embrace.
“No,” I growled in her ear, but the general continued before I could.
“Hand over the angel Azariah, and your town will remain unscathed. The armies of Hell will never march to your gates again if you comply.”
For a moment, silence blanketed the entire crowd gathered at the gate. And then all hell broke loose.