Chapter Seven #2
“I couldn’t get back fast enough,” Caliban replied. “I’ve spent years glued to your side, and now that you need me the most—”
My chuckle was light but genuine. Even the worst news was a crackle of love and light on my tongue when speaking with him. “The realms are at stake. Believe me, I get it.”
“I sensed you were about to leave, and I had to say goodbye.”
I didn’t feel the need to ask how or why we were bonded, and that was all there was to it.
Caliban guided me away from the protective glare of our bouncer, steering us back into the sanctuary. With the witches in their various annexes and my friends in the atrium, our best shot at privacy was in the open, echoing hall.
My heart was not unlike that of a hummingbird, though I couldn’t explain why. I’d been alone with him countless times. I’d loved him. I’d fucked him. I’d fought for him. But after our fight and in light of all that had been revealed, I had no way of knowing what had or hadn’t changed.
Maybe the unease was the sense memory of my years in church. Maybe it was being on stage with a demon. Maybe it was standing before the pulpit, not for confession, but for rebellion.
I struggled to look into his too-beautiful eyes as we moved.
He stopped us at the front, under the shadow of the cross.
He planted a hand on the wooden pulpit. The motion forced my back against the religious symbol.
Taut excitement throbbed between us as I squinted into the sunlight.
Caliban took a step, blocking the light from the window so I could look into his face.
“You reek of Heaven,” he said, running a finger along my jaw.
I suppressed the knee-jerk desire to apologize. I’d chosen to go with Silas. I couldn’t regret whatever spices or myrrh stained my skin as a result of my stance against Fauna and everyone who’d facilitated her manipulation.
“He isn’t with Heaven anymore,” I said quietly, but my words were unconvincing.
“He is until he falls,” Caliban said. His elbow bent ever so slightly, allowing him to invade my space. Our chests were almost touching. Cool air rolled off of him, alleviating much of the prickly sacrilege I felt from the pulpit. “And you?” he said. “Who are you with?”
I swallowed, shaking my head. I wanted to tell him that I was with him, but I couldn’t promise that was true.
The testimony caught in my throat, snagged between the betrayal I still felt, the lore that thrust him and me into a sticky web, and the cycles of manipulation and coercion at the hands of so many others, all hoping that I might facilitate the end of the world without my knowledge or consent.
“Fenrir,” I said, mouth dry. It was the only name I knew I’d come by honestly.
He’d been given no forewarning as to who I was or what role I played.
We’d made an arrangement based solely on the vision we’d shared.
Whether or not his compliance was tied to Fauna’s, I couldn’t know. I said, “I’m with the apocalypse dog.”
I dipped beneath Caliban’s arm to grab the last remaining bottle of wine. The seven-dollar twist-off might not do much for the nervous cotton on my tongue, but I needed something in my mouth. I took a swig.
He chuckled lightly. “Fenrir is worthy of loyalty. I don’t suppose there’s anything I might do to tilt the scales in my favor?
” His fingers brushed over my cheek, running along my jaw, cupping the side of my face with that soothing, chilling effect.
I savored the shiver that snaked through me.
He seemed to appreciate it as well, drinking his fill as my body responded to the pleasure of his touch.
“We’re going to meet Alessia Clovis,” I said for lack of anything better to fill the silence. If I refrained from speaking for much longer, I knew he’d kiss me, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I took another long swig.
“Excellent.”
I allowed my gathered brows to do the talking.
“She’s a formidable ally,” he elaborated, “and I’ve never known anyone more primed to see the gods fall. It’ll be better not to have us around, but I don’t want you to go in unguarded. Would you consider allowing Fauna—”
“No.” I bit off his sentence, chewing it up and spitting it out. “Two witches are coming with us for warding. They’re women, so they’ll be allowed where Az and Silas aren’t. I don’t need her.”
He closed his eyes, frosted lashes obscuring whatever guarded emotion he felt. I shifted my weight from one foot to another, attempting unsuccessfully to free his hand from my hair. There was too much at stake to let myself unravel. I was avoiding the inevitable, desperate to hold it together.
Instead, he let his hand gravitate south of my ear, cupping the side of my neck.
“I understand, Love, but—”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “There will be someone there to intercede. A duchess. Priscilla said it was a demon?”
Curious surprise painted the arch of his brows.
“Duchess Vapula,” I said. “One of the witches I mentioned, Priscilla, is calling on—”
“The Infernal Court.” He nodded approvingly.
“Once again: excellent. The Royal Court held an audience with the four courts after you made your announcement. Hell’s support is unanimous.
I’m not surprised you’ll have someone on your team, but I’m relieved it’s happened so quickly, and so directly.
Plus, the Duchess will like you. Her divinity is tightly interwoven with creativity.
As a writer, she’s probably had her eye on you. ”
I chewed on my lip, looking at our shoes as I asked, “And you? I assume you aren’t staying?”
He folded himself in even more tightly, pressing himself into me, forcing the angled ridge of the pulpit deeper into my back.
His thumb slid to a resting place beneath my chin, forcing my face up until I had no choice but to look at him.
“I’m moving Heaven and Hell to ensure we have it all, Love. And I do mean that literally.”
“What does that—”
His thumb traced a line down the front column of my throat, moving over my collarbone before dragging an excruciatingly slow path down my side, landing on my hip.
The decompression of his fingers had a rather predictable effect as my body cried out for him, whether or not I consented to its calls.
The deepest parts of me bloomed, heat spreading from my core and settling in the places that wanted him most.
“It means,” he said, brushing his lips over mine, “that I will be hosting the most miserable meetings of my life. I will be brokering peace and inciting war, while desperate to be at your side.”
“Then stay.” My breath hitched. “Let me rally the troops.”
I brought the wine to my lips again, if only for something to do with my nervous energy. He snagged the green glass, stopping it before it reached my tongue.
“You’re avoiding me,” he said.
“I’m taking the sacraments,” I joked weakly. “The blood of the antichrist.”
“And the body?” he said, squeezing the fingers that rested on my hip.
I was going to lose my goddamn mind. I tried again, a desperate, futile attempt to delay him, to hold it together, to maintain whatever scraps of dignity I possessed. “I may be mortal, but I’m swinging for the fences with our End of the World team.”
The gravel of his soft, low chuckle made me tingle.
He said, “Medusa is a powerhouse I could never sway—Ms. Clovis, as it were. You have a shot I’ll never have.
She possesses an asset that could change the game for us.
Besides, if she joins our cause, I imagine she has an array of allies.
Ones who’ve been primed to despise the gods for one reason or another.
Until I can be at your side, Azrames will be with you. ”
“And Silas,” I added.
I didn’t miss the muscle that ticked in his jaw as he repeated, “You smell like Heaven.” The air was forced from my lungs as he reacted.
In one swift movement, he’d flipped me so I was facing the pulpit, chest bent over the wood.
The pressure was equal parts terrifying and delicious as he growled in my ear, “Let’s fix that, shall we? ”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Heaven is my enemy.”
“Is that so?”
My cheek burned on the holy wood as I barely managed to choke out his name. “Caliban—”
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
But I’d rather die than peel his hands from my body. I was an addict, and I needed him.
His teeth were already on my neck, one hand balled in my hair as he pinned me against the structure.
Something primal and possessive swept between us.
I couldn’t control my moan as he moved over me.
The juxtaposition of fire and ice nearly sent my body into shock as his free hand slipped easily down the front of my sweatpants.
Either he’d scented my arousal or knew me well enough to understand exactly what his presence did to me.
The pressure, the tension, the domination were cruel.
“We’re in a church,” I gasped.
I wasn’t wearing panties beneath my sweats. His fingers hovered just above my entrance. The cross cast a dim shadow over my face as I leaned into the sacred space. The hand in my hair tightened with painful intensity as he repeated himself, “Tell me to stop.”
Hundreds of pews watched silently as the Prince of Hell made me moan.
It took one finger to test just how ready I was.
He groaned approvingly as he slipped in a second, then a third.
The blur of tension, of pressure, of command overpowered me as he slipped his soaked hand out from within me.
I ached in his absence, but I wasn’t left alone for long.
He maintained his hold on my hair as he tugged the band of my sweats down over my ass.
I gripped the pulpit’s wooden ridges, face pressed into the center, precisely where a Bible should be.
“Hold on,” he said.
I reached around to try to set him free from the cage of his pants, but I cried out in sharp, delicious pain as my attempt at involvement was denied.
“Don’t let go.”