Chapter Eleven
Angelica
I soaked in the tub until the water turned cold and my skin was pruned, hoping the hot water could somehow leach the memories that assaulted me just as much as the moments they conjured.
I scrubbed my hair, as if I could somehow dig out the memory of Derek’s eyes when he’d had Trey by the throat, the sight of those black veins on his skin. It hadn’t been my son I’d seen, it had been David as Specter.
The sight was in itself a time machine, throwing me back to when I was the petrified woman with no power against the cruelty of the man that was supposed to love me most. The memories landed on me like fists, and I hurt all over with phantom bruises. Even as I told myself that it was just the trauma, that I was safe, that any pain was from the cave, the echo of his spiteful words wormed their way into my mind.
I was nothing.
I was weak.
I was useless.
I wasn’t as beautiful as I had been.
I’d let myself go.
I was used up.
I’d sucked all the potential out of him with each child I squeezed out.
I was a dead weight, not a partner.
The sting on my scalp made me stop scrubbing and I looked down at my fingernails to see blood.
“I’m strong. It wasn’t my fault…it wasn’t my fault. I am strong. I am a good person. I am worthy of love…it wasn’t my fault.”
The bite of the soap, and then the water as it flowed over the cuts on my body cut through the rising panic in my throat that the affirmations couldn’t touch.
As I dried off, I calmed myself with a to do list for the mission.
I moisturized and brushed my teeth, the familiar routine offering a place of peace.
But as I dragged a brush through my hair Derek’s face crashed into the calm I was finding, and I dropped it in a clatter to the floor.
What is wrong with him? Is it those runes? If it is, then he has to stop using them. I can’t lose him to darkness too. I won’t.
I closed my eyes against the terror that thought produced.
It was stunning how quickly these memories, that one moment in the Jeep, had managed to disarm me. All the therapy, the years of putting myself back together, of finding out who I was, and here I was ready to fall to the floor and cry myself to sleep.
I’m still me…David’s memory, all of this. None of these memories, these fears can take it away unless I let it.
I repeated the affirmations as I braided my wet hair back. By the time I was slipping into a soft bathrobe, it was all a simmering stew that I felt, but was no longer being dominated by. The more I sank into the mission, the faster all of this could go back to the vault in my mind.
I’d just come out of the bathroom when the bedroom door opened, and Trey walked in. He was in different clothes, and there was no mud or sediment clinging to his scales like there had been when we got home, so he must’ve taken a shower. But instead of looking refreshed, Trey looked down right exhausted. His scales were duller, and his smile lacked the cocky gleam that I couldn’t decide whether to love or hate.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking up to him and noticing the bloody cloth held to his forearm. “What the hell happened? Did…did Derek…?”
“No, nothing like that. He’s very apologetic about what happened in the mine and in the Jeep. No, this was for a blood stone for River, to help her recover quicker.”
“Sit down, I’ll get the first aid kit,” I said to him. “Why your blood?”
“Because Dragon blood is basically distilled magic after making our homes near the main sources of magic in this realm since…well, forever.”
By the time I got back, he’d bled through the wash cloth.
“How deep did you cut?” I asked, panic sharpening my voice.
“I…I had to use a special blade to cut through my scales. It tends to make us bleed a bit more than is normal.”
His voice was reedy, thin, and it bit into my resolve to see him as a casual fling. The small, quiet thought that he could bleed out and die was a lead weight in my stomach as I dug gauze out of the kit and pressed it to his wound. Then I pulled out the sutures and had a flashback of stitching up David, never quite sure if I was helping Arch Angel or Specter.
“Angelica?”
His voice jerked me out of the memories and I jumped.
“Talk to me,” Trey’s voice was gentle. “What are you thinking right now? What’s that frown for?”
I took his other hand and had him hold the new gauze on the part of his cut that I wasn’t about to stitch up, and pierced his scales with the supernaturally enhanced needle. He drew in a sharp breath, his face tensing and I decided to hell with hiding things from him. He’d seen my reaction in the mine and the Jeep, he was far too observant not to. I could lie, but I was so damn tired of that. Maybe I could have one person at the Archive that could know the whole truth about David. If anyone would refrain from looking at me like I was a poor broken thing, it was Trey.
“I used to sew up David after he would come back from a big fight in Silver City,” I said, my voice halting.
He waited for me to continue as my hands fell into the rhythm of suturing like it had only been yesterday.
“It must be hard for you to have those flashbacks,” he whispered after a few minutes.
I swallowed, trying to loosen that knot in my throat.
“I haven’t had one in a while. But Derek…he looked so much like him in the Jeep. And I…”
My hands shook and Trey let out a hiss.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Do you want me to do it?”
“No, I’m almost done.”
His talon-tipped hand brushed a loose strand of hair back from my face and those sharp nails grazed my neck. It was then that I realized I was wearing a robe and nothing else. He could probably see straight down to my tits.
Nothing he didn’t see last night. Good god, was that really just last night?
“David was a good man,” I whispered, the words surprising me as much as Trey. “Before the darkness in him spread.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes, desperately.
I shrugged though, trying to not show how much the story was eating me alive. He’d asked me this before but I wasn’t ready. So few knew the ugly truth; most were my own children and I couldn’t open up to them. The few friends that knew a bit more than the official story still didn’t know all of it. All these years and there wasn’t a single person that I could lean on, confide in.
But maybe…
I tied off the sutures and smeared antibacterial cream on the wound, feeling Trey’s eyes, like a lick of warmth across my skin.
“The angelic artifact split him down the middle, separating his light and dark sides. It was subtle at first, barely recognizable. But after Nathan was born…he started saying things, going missing for days at a time and coming back with mysterious wounds. It was then that the Archive figured out what had happened but it was too late to save him.”
Trey waited, so patient, while I tried to figure out how to uncover the secret I’d carried alone for so long. I wrapped some gauze on his forearm and taped it into place before sitting next to him on the bed.
“It got ugly,” my voice was so rough, so broken, I almost thought it was someone else talking. “He became abusive, cruel when his dark side took over. He called it Specter, and his good side persona was Arch Angel. The two fought inside of him for dominance constantly. Can you imagine that? Actually being aware of the good and bad in you, warring all the time? It drove him to do things…terrible things. To himself, to…to me.”
Trey’s fingers twitched on his lap, as if he wanted to take my hand but he didn’t make a move. I wanted him to touch me, to draw comfort from his solid presence but I didn’t initiate anything. I was too afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t get the rest out. It was odd that after a lifetime of keeping my past locked down so tight, I was now driven to spill all of it. I needed to unburden myself to Trey, perhaps the one person on this planet who wouldn’t judge me for my past, and who would be strong enough to bear it with me.
“He started to go after the kids too, convinced that he had to train them to take on the evil in the world, in him. That’s how Max lost his hearing in his left ear, David made him run in the snow until he collapsed. He made Derek believe that he was the only one who could save the family, and it almost killed him. And when Nathan, being…well, Nathan, pushed back against it, he started telling him how worthless he was, how he was a coward.”
I bit my lip against the burn of tears in my eyes as I remembered my carefree little boy becoming withdrawn and acting out.
“I started sending the kids away to camps or school trips, friends’ houses,” I continued, “anything I could think of to get them away from here. But by that time, the Archive had discovered they were Celestial and Francesca wanted them for their power. David told her that if she touched our children, he’d kill her. It was the only time I saw her truly scared and I knew that if I left and took the kids, she would move in and take them from me. She had the influence, the power to do that to a Mundane woman. So I stayed and tried to protect them as best I could but it…it tore us apart.”
“They seem to love you very much.”
I gave him a bitter laugh and twisted the belt of the robe between my fingers.
“Yes, now they do, even if we avoid talking about my job as much as possible. But it took a lot of time, a lot of unpacking all the hurt I’d participated in, whether or not I’d meant to.”
My voice broke and tears fell in hot, condemning drops down my face.
“When Ava was a teenager, I couldn’t run enough interference to keep her safe. She was the only one in the house, her brothers had all left. She was having night terrors, sleepwalking, and I was scared that one night, she’d wander across Specter and end up dead. I was tired of being scared all the time, of hiding my bruises from everyone.”
That part got a low growl out of him that turned to one of those wonderful purrs I was starting to love far too much.
“So I made the decision to give David over to the Archive to be imprisoned. But it was too late to really save our family. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but there wasn’t anything to salvage. I destroyed my family.”
“That’s not what I see.”
I scrubbed tears off my face and shook my head.
“I’m serious,” he said, tilting my chin up, forcing me to look him the eyes. “I can’t speak to those days, but I see you with them now, and they love you. They’re incredible, protecting those weaker than them, facing dangers most people can’t even imagine. Where do you think they learned such courage?”
“Because I let them live with a monster.”
“You said yourself that David wasn’t always that way. You told me that you were looking for the sundial and other supernatural avenues to cure him. It’s not stupid to have hope, Angelica. And when you realized it was over, you did the right thing. The hard thing.”
I stood up, unable to take the compassion he was lavishing on me.
“It shouldn’t have mattered, I should’ve protected them better…found a different way.”
“Alright, let’s say you’re right. Have you ever asked them what they think now? If they hold anything against you?”
The conversation at breakfast shot through my mind, attacking the guilt that had been my constant companion for a long time. I shifted on my feet, hugging myself and not meeting his eye.
“You know,” I said, my voice brittle, “Derek broke him out of the mystical prison, he thought there was a way to heal his father. He presented David to me like…like a gift and I played along, smiling, pretending to be happy. But the entire time I was terrified. I hated it when he touched me, when he tried to act like everything was going to magically become wonderful. And when he died…the boys were devastated. But all I could think of was that I was finally free. I’ve never told them that, even though it’s the reason Derek had to give up his powers, the reason half of Silver City is still a wreck. They all thought I wanted him back, but I just wanted to not live under his shadow anymore.”
Trey got to his feet slowly, as if approaching a skittish animal. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to touch me or not, but when he softly gripped my elbows and leaned down to catch my eye there was a sense of safety, comfort I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“One person I’ve not heard your concern for,” Trey’s hands coasted up my arms, “is yourself. At least your kids had you running interference, taking the brunt, as you said. But Angelica, who was there to defend you, for you to lean on?”
His words punched me straight through the chest, upending the very last of my strength. A cry burst out of my mouth, chest constricting like a snake was around me. Though I clapped a hand over my mouth, that one sound was the start of an avalanche and before I knew it I was sobbing so hard I bent in half.
His strong arms caught me before I could fall to the floor, holding me tightly against him as a lifetime of pain that I’d ignored and denied came flooding out. I hadn’t realized it was so close to the surface, rotting and overflowing into the confines of the space I’d given it in my soul. I couldn’t stop it and so I just stopped trying, finally.
My body ached from remembering the wounds on my soul and flesh, and my cries became angry one second and grief stricken the next. Until finally, after I didn’t know how long, the tears began to slow and the burden on me began to ease enough for me to breathe a little deeper each minute.
When the torrent dried up, I just let myself rest against him. Somehow, he’d managed to gather me onto his lap, and he was sitting with his long legs stretched out, back against the bed while we sat on the floor. I nuzzled against his chest, my head just under his chin. Even though I was perched on top of him, Trey didn’t take advantage of the situation. He drew small circles up my arm, his fingers soft and soothing. And there was the tiniest hint of a purr rolling up from his chest that relaxed my tight muscles, quieted the rolling currents of my mind.
“Thank you,” I whispered against him.
“I want to be here for you, so thank you , for opening up to me.”
There was no condemnation in his voice, not a hint that he was asking for anything more from me than just this. But I had the sudden need to drown myself in the explosive pleasure only he could give me.
I drew back just enough to look at his face. He was still wearing his hybrid Dragon form, the afternoon light glinting off his scales. I ran my fingertips along his strong jaw and up to his cheek. He was solid, but his scales were soft, beautiful like jewels. The more I touched him, the more I wanted him to do more than simply rub my back.
I felt lighter than I had in a very long time, the result of my confession to him. Maybe it would all eventually come back, maybe not. But right now, I was intoxicated by his body and this sense of freedom.
When his hands tightened on my hips, as my lips grazed the underside of his jaw, I knew that I was about to cross a line.
Last night I’d just barely managed to keep my heart out of it. But today, my defenses were gone. It may have allowed me to unburden myself to him, but it was also going to risk giving too much of myself to Trey if I let him take this where we both wanted it to.
But don’t fuck buddies comfort each other? Can’t they be there for one another like this?
I was ravenous for his hard body against mine, for his tongue and hands to make me forget how bad this had hurt to relive.
“Angelica,” he breathed, “we don’t have to…”
“I need you. I…I want you.”
A flicker of something, there and gone too fast to pin down, raced through his gaze and was eclipsed by the roguish grin I knew so well.
The one that’s just as much his armor, as keeping distance is mine.
I didn’t let myself unpack what that stray thought meant, not when Trey was now looking at me with such hunger.
“Well, how can I refuse a request like that?”
A second later I was on my back, robe hiked up around my hips as he dove down and started feasting on me. I gripped one of those beautiful spikes on his head and just let everything else go.
There were no regrets here, no guilt. This was beyond all of that, this was for me and I was going to drink it down to the last dregs.
When Trey’s mouth drew my clit between his lips, my back bowed as electricity shot up my body. Without an ounce of shame, I ground myself against his mouth, desperate for the right rhythm and friction. His fingers plunged into my cunt, curling deliciously at the same time he rubbed my clit in circles.
“Oh god…like that,” I moaned, staring down at him.
He was looking up at me from between my legs like a supplicant at the altar of a goddess. He wanted to please me, to make me feel good. It was everything to him and he was studying me to see how I reacted to more pressure on my clit or a different rhythm inside of me. I couldn’t remember anyone, not even David, being so focused on my pleasure.
I reached down with my other hand and caressed his face as I started to move against him. He grinned at me and held my gaze as he ran his long, forked tongue along my clit. I couldn’t look away as he curled the end around that sensitive bud and stroked me.
An obscene sound burst from my mouth and my eyes rolled back as a rush of wet spilled from me. My body shook with fire and light. It went on and on until I whimpered and pushed at him to release me. And only when he’d licked and sucked every bit of moisture off my thighs and cunt did he begin to kiss his way up my body.
“Watching you come is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he breathed just before drawing my nipple into his mouth.
I hadn’t come down fully from that orgasm, and every nerve in my body lit up with his wicked ministrations on my flesh. His teeth were sharper, his hands more demanding and arousing.
I wasn’t aware of him removing his pants but when his mouth seized mine in a possessive kiss, the head of his dick pressed against my opening. I wanted it so bad that I was whining, pleading against his mouth and trying to move my body to take him inside.
Trey reached down and ran his fingers around his cock and then brought the clear lubrication to my lips. The cinnamon taste spread over my tongue, just on edge of painfully spicy. A tingling warmth began to spread out, slow and decadent. And without warning, I could feel everything to an acute perfection that bordered on pain.
Every slide of his skin against me, the tiniest prick of his teeth against my lips, the tension in his fingers as he kneaded and plucked at my most sensitive flesh. The world narrowed until this was everything.
There was no carpet under my back, no rain on the roof, or thunder. Only Trey and where our bodies met as he slowly breached me.
“Look at me,” he demanded in a dark, rasped voice.
I could do nothing except obey, the goddess suddenly overtaken by the worshiper.
How he managed to be so controlled, when I felt like I would die if he didn’t make me come, I had no idea. But as he fucked me with a ferocious slowness, our eyes were locked together. In the back of my mind, in the few places where logical thought could still function, I knew this was too intimate, a connection was forming, a steel cord that would be excruciating to break. But I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care.
I wanted it all.
No.
I needed it, to the deepest part of myself. I needed to be tied to him, heart and soul right now.
My hands dug into his scales as best I could because the way he was winding me up was agonizing. Our breaths mingled, our bodies moved as one. We were both adrift and anchored at the same time, and while that scared me, I also found comfort in it.
His movements became harder, faster, and the heat he’d stoked was burning me up inside.
“Trey…please…please I need to…” I begged him to release me from the delicious torment.
“Not yet,” he growled, his body slapping against mine. “I want all of you…fuck, Angelica. If you only…”
“Take it all,” I asked, blind to the recklessness of the plea. “Take my body, my soul…”
“I…you don’t mean that,” his voice cracked.
“Trey…”
I writhed and whimpered under him, desperate now for release. I could feel the edges of it but for some reason I couldn’t cross over and the tension was torture.
Trey breathed harsh words in Draconian against my skin, raising my legs up as he nipped and sucked his way down the column of my throat. When he got to my shoulder, he stopped everything, as if he were suddenly aware of a danger I wasn’t.
“No…No…Don’t stop...”
With a shudder, I heard what I thought was, “Just a little” and then he let out a pained groan just before his mouth clamped down on my shoulder. I felt the sharpness of his teeth barely puncture my skin and I couldn’t believe it. That single sensation was a bomb of pleasure and light going off inside of me.
I wrapped my legs around him and gyrated up as he slammed into me, utterly lost now. For some reason I wanted more of his teeth in me, more of his mouth. I wanted him to sink them deep and mark me. And as if he could read my mind, the smallest pinch of his fangs tipped me over the edge. All the tension burst inside of me, I was a firework exploding, sparks free falling and never landing. My toes were curling and I wanted to hold onto this feeling and never let it go.
The heat of his cum lashed my channel, and it was so much warmer than last night, spreading a comforting lull through my body. The pinching strain of his knot was distant as I drifted on a euphoria I’d never felt during sex. This was all new, not just his Dragon anatomy. Being with Trey was an experience that was ruinous and I couldn’t help myself.
Slowly, I came back to my body. The sensation of my hands running across his shoulders and arms, the flex of his muscles where my legs wrapped around his hips, the sucking bite of his mouth.
“Angelica? Are you alright?” Trey asked.
“Mmmm… I’m wonderful .”
I let my lips trail lazy kisses along his jaw.
“You…dear Fates woman, if you keep doing that, my knot won’t deflate for hours.”
“Good,” I murmured against him, “I want more of whatever that was. I think I saw the face of god.”
I giggled like a fucking adolescent. And then snorted in embarrassment, only to giggle again! I was starting to think his cock might also have intoxicating cum.
He leaned back, the spot between his eyes creased when he looked at me even though he was giving me a crooked grin.
“What is going on with you?”
“Can’t a woman be happy when she’s been thoroughly fucked?”
His eyebrows winged up and his grin widened.
“Absolutely. Especially when I’ve been the one doing the fucking.”
I snorted again and then dissolved into more giggles as he nuzzled my neck, his talons tickling my sides. My laughter turned full throated and I attempted to find any ticklish spots on him.
“It’s…not…fair!” I said, while trying to breathe through the laughter. “You’re not ticklish!”
“You’ll just have to try harder to find my spots,” he chuckled, kissing the tip of my nose.
Tiny, gasping chuckles escaped as I smiled up at him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so free, so…
“Happy,” I whispered. “I’m happy.”
Trey’s face relaxed, as if he’d just let go of something immeasurably heavy and he kissed me so soft and slow.
He pulled back, about to say something when his eyes snagged on my shoulder. His peaceful expression cracked into a frown as he brushed his fingers over the spot.
“What’s wrong?” I giggled again. “Did you give me a hickey? God, my kids are going to love that.”
He laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it.
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “The boys like to posture, but no one is going to kick your ass, I promise.”
“That’s a relief,” he breathed.
But I got the impression the relief had very little to do with what I said, and more about how his fingers were probing the spot.
“Trey, seriously, why are you freaking out about a hickey? I would’ve thought you’d be proud to leave a mark on me, or aren’t Dragons primal creatures?”
He opened his mouth to answer and then gave me a shocked frown.
“You are far too blasé about that,” he said.
I waved his words away.
“Please, you try managing a whole staff of Supernaturals when a quarter of them lose their fucking minds once a month during the full moon. I’ve seen it all.”
“Yes, but you’ve never seen a Dragon go primal.”
“You say that like it’s a special thing.”
“Well,” Trey said, with a playful grin, “I think it is. But maybe you need to experience it and be the judge.”
My stomach did an actual flip, which I did my best to bury. But it’s really hard to do a head flip and stand up straight when you’re flat on your back with a Dragon knot in your cunt.
“Or was that just bluster?” he asked when I took too long to answer.
I puffed out a breath through my lips and looked at him like he was insane.
“No, I just…I’m not sure I want to agree to something when I don’t know the parameters.”
“Oh, I see,” he began to slowly draw a line of biting kisses down my throat. “So you don’t like not being in control…” Now he was to my chest, just above my breast and sparks were breaking out on my skin. “You’re too afraid to try something new.”
He whispered the word against the stiff peek of my nipple before drawing it slow and sharply into his mouth.
But just as I was starting to get wound up again, Trey released me and his knot slipped out. With a final, quick kiss to my lips, he stood up and began to walk to the bathroom, giving me an excellent view of his tight ass.
“Wait,” I gasped, “where are you going?”
“I’m going to have a quick shower.”
“But…I mean we might have a little time…”
“If you want more, meet me in the garden after everyone has gone to bed. Wear shoes good for running.”
Goose bumps broke out across my skin and my heart stuttered as I realized what he was saying.
“That is,” he continued, “if you’re not afraid.”
Oh, that son of a bitch!
I jumped up onto my feet and tossed my head, staring up at him with my best, unbothered stare.
“Of course not.”
“Good. It’s a date.”
“Not a date, this isn’t a dating kind of relationship.”
“Oh, yes,” he nodded, “just fucking. I forgot. Well, then, in the interest of ‘just fucking’, I would think you’d want the full Dragon experience.”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.”
I nodded.
He did the same.
And then there was a knock at the door which gave us a blessed end to the conversation.
I slipped on my robe again and tried to fix my ruined braid while Trey pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, which he had no business looking so good in.
“Yes?” I asked, when I opened the door.
Max stood there, eyes growing huge when he saw me and then a deep red color took over his face and turned him into a giant bearded tomato. I knew how I looked, with reddened lips, scratches up and down my throat and face, and my hair a mess that screamed “just been fucked” but really, my grown children needed to get over it.
“Uh…I could come back.”
“No, it’s fine. What is it?”
“It’s the, uh, translation,” Max cleared his throat and directed his gaze up at the ceiling. “I ran the sample through three times and it came up the same every time. It’s definitely Draconian, a very old version of the written language, so I think you were right about it being the Ancient dialect. I was hoping you could come down and take a look at the journal, it might be easier than running it through the program. Plus, I found a few things in cross referencing that you might want to see, it might fill in some of the blanks in the journal but I think we’d get a more accurate connection from you instead of a program.”
The words spilled out of Max at an ever increasing pace until he took a large breath at the end as if he were relieved to have gotten it all out.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll be right there,” Trey said with a crooked grin.
Max nodded, looking between the two of us before scurrying down the hall like he couldn’t away fast enough.
“I think we traumatized him,” Trey said.
I shrugged.
“He’ll get over it.”
“Don’t think this will get you out of tonight,” Trey continued before walking out.
I didn’t know whether to be excited or nervous.
Both…definitely both.