Chapter 1 #2
I drag myself to my feet, stumble out of the ritual room and through the narrow hallway to my apartment proper.
The walls are close here, painted a dull beige I’ve never bothered to change.
My apartment is small —a studio, basically —with the ritual room carved out of the only closet.
Futon against one wall doubling as couch and bed.
Kitchenette with two burners and a microwave I never use.
A window which looks out over the alley and the dumpsters below.
It’s not much. But the wards are strong, the rent is cheap, and no one asks questions.
My phone is on the kitchen counter, chipped laminate, circa 1987, and I grab it with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice before I can pull up my contacts.
My vision is blurring at the edges. The hunger is getting worse, not better.
Sweat is running down my spine. My hands are trembling so hard I can barely hold the phone.
Ash.
I press call. Hold the phone to my ear. Count the rings. One. Two.
He picks up on the second ring. “Raven? It’s two in the morning.”
“I need you.” The words come out broken, desperate, and I hate it. Hate how I sound. Hate that I need this, need him, need anything I can’t do myself. But I can’t do this myself. That’s the whole fucking problem. “Now. Please.”
There’s a pause. Then: “Lust?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in ten.” He hangs up.
I sink to the floor, back against the cabinets, and wait.
The kitchen tile is cold. I focus on that.
The chill seeping through my jeans. The way my breath sounds too loud in the quiet apartment.
The distant sound of sirens somewhere in the city.
Anything to anchor myself. Anything to remind me that I’m still me underneath this borrowed hunger.
Ten minutes feels like ten hours.
I count the cracks in the ceiling. Trace the pattern of the water stain with my eyes.
Think about the bills I need to pay. My sister Luna’s tuition that’s due next month.
The grocery run I keep putting off. Mundane things.
Human things. Things that have nothing to do with angels or sins or the way my body is trying to tear itself apart from the inside out.
It doesn’t help much.
But it’s something to hold on to while I wait for Ash to save me from myself.
Ash has a key. He lets himself in and finds me exactly where I left myself: on the kitchen floor, shaking, trying not to claw my skin off.
“Jesus, Raven.” He crouches in front of me, and I can see the concern in his eyes even through the haze of lust turning my vision soft at the edges.
They’re dark, almost black, with flecks of red when the light catches them right.
Demon blood. Not a lot, maybe three or four generations back, but enough to make him immune to most supernatural bullshit.
Enough to make him useful when I need someone who won’t get tangled up in the same nets that catch everyone else.
Enough to make him safe.
He’s wearing a leather jacket over a t-shirt that’s seen better days, jeans with holes in the knees.
His dark hair is messy, like he rolled out of bed and came straight here.
He probably did. There’s stubble on his jaw, and he smells like cigarettes and the cheap cologne he thinks covers it up.
It doesn’t. But I don’t care. Right now, he could smell like a dumpster fire, and I’d still want to bury my face in his neck and never let go.
“How bad?” he asks, and his voice is careful. Professional, almost.
“Bad.” I reach for him, and he catches my hands, holds them still before I can grab him like the desperate thing I am.
His skin is warm. Warmer than mine. Warmer than human.
It helps. A little. Just enough to remind me how to breathe.
“Six months worth. I didn’t-I didn’t realize he’d fed off her this much. ”
“You never do.” He’s not judging. Just stating facts. He pulls me up, guides me toward the futon. The sheets are clean, at least. I try to keep that much together.
He sits on the edge of the bed, pulls me into his lap.
The relief is immediate. His arms go around me, solid, and I bury my face in his neck.
He smells like smoke and leather and something dark, danker, I can never name but makes me think of comfort anyway.
His touch grounds me, blunts the sharp edge of need enough that I can think past it to something like coherence.
Almost.
Not quite.
I pull back just enough to look at him, and whatever he sees in my face makes his expression shift. Understanding, but also something else. Something that looks like want but can’t be. We don’t do that.
We don’t do feelings.
“Raven...”
I kiss him before he can finish. Hard, desperate, all teeth and hunger and six months of someone else’s starvation pouring out of me into him. He makes a sound, surprise? And then his hands are in my hair, on my waist, pulling me closer.
“Need you,” I gasp against his mouth. Not a request. A demand. A necessity. “Ash, I need—“
“I know.” His voice is rough, careful. “I know. I’ve got you.”
And he does.
His hands are everywhere—in my hair, my waist, sliding under my tank top to find bare skin. The contact sends electricity through me, making the hunger surge and recede at the same time. It’s not enough. Nothing is enough when lust has you between its teeth.
“Easy,” he murmurs against my mouth, even as I’m pulling at his jacket, his shirt, trying to get closer. “Let me...”
But I can’t wait. Can’t be patient. The sin is burning through me, demanding, consuming. I swing my leg over his lap, straddle him, press against him hard enough that he groans.
“Raven.“ It’s half warning, half surrender.
“Please.” I hate how it sounds, how desperate I am. But I need this, him. Need the hunger to stop before it tears me apart. “Please, Ash.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I see it in his eyes, the thing he never says, the feeling I pretend not to notice. But then he nods, and his hands are on my hips, steadying me.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
He does. He always does.
His mouth finds mine again, slower this time, more deliberate. One hand tangles in my hair while the other slides down my spine, pulling me flush against him. I can feel him through our clothes—hard, ready, exactly what the lust is screaming for.
I reach between us, fumbling with his belt, his zipper. My hands are still shaking, but he doesn’t stop me. Just watches my face with those dark eyes, concern and desire warring in equal measure.
“You sure?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Even though we’ve done this before.
“Yes.” It comes out as a hiss. “Just fucking help me get these clothes off.”
He helps me then, lifts me just enough to strip my jeans down, his own following. And then his hands are on my bare hips, skin on skin, and the relief is immediate. The hunger recognizes what’s coming and eases just from the promise of it.
“Slow,” he says, even though his voice is strained. “We go slow.”
But slow is impossible when you’re drowning. I shift to get him exactly where I need him and sink onto him in one movement, taking him fully, and the sound that tears from my throat is half sob, half moan. Full. Finally full. The emptiness recedes, just for a moment.
“Fuck,” Ash breathes, fingers digging into my hips. “Raven.”
I move before he can say anything else. Rock against him, chasing the relief, the release, the way his body in mine makes the hunger finally quiet. He matches my rhythm, hands guiding me, helping me take what I need.
It’s desperate. Messy. More necessity than pleasure, but pleasure comes anyway, crashing through me in waves as I move faster, harder, chasing the edge that will finally make this stop. Grinding my pussy hard onto the top of his cock to shoot little bolts of pleasure through my clit.
“That’s it,” Ash murmurs against my neck, one hand sliding up to cup my breast through my tank top. “Take what you need. I’m here.”
And I do. I use him, his body, his touch, his presence, to burn through the lust like fire through paper. Every thrust, every point of contact between us feeds the hunger and exhausts it at the same time, until finally...
Finally.
The orgasm hits like a breaking wave. I cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, body clenching around him as the lust purges in a flood of heat and relief and blessed, blessed emptiness.
Ash follows a moment later, groaning my name into my hair, holding me tight as he comes. Hot and deep inside me.
And then it’s over.
The lust is gone, burned out finally, leaving nothing but ashes and exhaustion. I collapse against his chest, trembling, completely spent, small rivulets of sweat tickling my neck.
I wake six hours later with Ash still in my bed, one arm slung over my waist like an anchor holding me to the world.
I feel scraped hollow. Every muscle aches as if I ran a marathon.
My head throbs in time with my pulse. There’s dried blood on my palm from where I cut it for the ritual, cracked and brown. My mouth tastes like copper.
Standard Tuesday.
The room is gray with early morning light filtering through the thin curtains.
The city is waking outside: traffic, voices, someone’s car alarm going off three blocks away.
The sounds of normal people living normal lives.
Lives that don’t include angels or sins or waking up feeling like you’ve been beaten with a bat from the inside out.
I ease out from under Ash’s arm, careful not to wake him. He’s done enough. More than enough. I pull on a t-shirt from the floor, his probably, as it’s too big, and pad out to the kitchen, barefoot, my feet silent on the cold tile.
I stop dead.
There are seven letters on my kitchen table. Ones that weren’t there last night.