Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
E ddie fired up the lighting board for that night’s performance. On stage, a volunteer was presetting the props. All as if it was same old, same old. This had been her life up until recently, and she’d been happy with that life. Okay, maybe not happy, but definitely content…ish.
The problem for Eddie with having made her decision about Shade was that now she wanted to act on that decision. Except the fate of the fucking world kept getting in their way.
She’d already waited an obscenely long time. All those wasted opportunities haunted her. All the opportunities she’d had to jump Shade’s bones, and she’d turned them down. What a fucking idiot, because now her and Dee’s tiny living quarters were heaving at the seams.
Dee and Eddie kept the Paradise Players doing their thing. The Importance of Being Earnest was its normal sold out with Sophia causing a stir amongst their annual crowd. Despite the praise Sophia was getting, she managed to keep Lillian happy. That right there was proof that archangels could perform miracles.
Eddie finished her precheck and left the lighting booth.
The dressing room door opened as she approached the backstage area.
“Edsie.” Lillian dimpled at her. “All ready for tonight?”
“Yup.” Like she was every night.
Lillian pulled her into a perfume-drenched hug. “Of course you are. We know we can always rely on our Edsie.”
Eddie liberated herself from a cloud of vanilla and tuberose. “Full house again tonight.”
“Wonderful.” Lillian clapped and twinkled at her. “Earnest is always so popular with the patrons.”
Which is how Peter and Lillian got it on the Paradise Player’s play selection each year. Mind you, this year’s departure from the norm into Macbeth hadn’t gone the way anyone had expected.
The barest trace of a frown line crinkled between Lillian’s eyes. “Actually, Edsie, I’m glad I ran into you.”
Which, in Lillian speak, meant she’d been lying in wait for her, ensuring it was Eddie and not Dee in the lighting booth. Dee had no tolerance for Lillian’s “artistic temperament.”
“Oh?” Eddie kept it noncommittal.
“Yes.” Lillian glanced around them. “But not here. Come inside.”
She followed Lillian into the dressing room.
The other actors were due in the next fifteen minutes, but for now, it was her and Lillian—what joy!
“Edsie.” Lillian’s green eyes widened. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I can’t stay silent a moment longer.”
Eddie braced for anything from Lillian being upstaged to alien abduction. “Okay.”
“You know I’m not one to talk about myself.” Lillian pressed her perfectly manicured nails—bare of polish for her latest role—to her chest.
“Sure,” Eddie said.
“But I have…special abilities.” Lillian gave her a long, weighty look. “Unusual abilities of the mystic kind.”
It would be the first Eddie had seen or heard of that, but sure, why not? They already had resident witches and visiting archangels and hell princes. Not to mention the marauding demons and her being Nephilim. “Mystical abilities?”
She still had to make sure the volunteers for front of house had arrived and were preparing the auditorium.
“Don’t press me for details.” Lillian held up one palm to stop a protest Eddie had no intention of making. She closed her eyes and breathed deep “I can offer you no tangible proof.” The hand on Lillian’s chest fisted over her solar plexus. “But I feel it to be true, and these feelings are never wrong.”
A tingle of alarm shot through Eddie. They’d done what they could to conceal what was going on from the theatre volunteers and patrons, but it was possible someone had noticed something. “What do you feel to be true, Lillian?”
Opening her eyes, Lillian leaned in. “There is a strange vibe in the theatre.”
“Vibe?” Relief made her want to giggle.
“Vibe,” Lillian intoned. “I think Rodney is up to something. Something…nefarious.”
Rodney was always up to something. Rodney lived for the somethings he could be up to. But nefarious sounded like a stretch. “Right.” Eddie nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Thank you, Edsie.” Lillian’s eyes misted. “You are always so supportive and understanding.”
Voices of the remaining cast chattered from outside.
Lillian pressed a finger to her lips. “Let’s keep this our little secret.”
“No worries.” Eddie was becoming an expert secret keeper. “Break a leg tonight.”
“Always,” Lillian trilled.
Eddie greeted the performers as she passed them in the corridor.
The props room door opened, and Eddie was yanked inside.
The door slammed shut moments before Eddie’s back made contact with it.
“I thought she’d never fucking shut up.” Shade growled and caged her head between his hands. His teeth flashed white in the dark room. “I was waiting for you.”
They barely had any time alone. “Were you?”
“Mmm.” Shade’s low grumble reverberated through her. He ran his nose from her neck to her ear. “I need my fix of you.”
And Eddie was instantly turned on. Her breathing quickened. Her knees turned to jelly, and warm, thick desire unfurled in her gut.
“The things I want to do to you, Eddie,” Shade rasped in her ear before he sucked her lobe into his hot, wet mouth.
“Tell me.” Eddie gripped his waist and pulled him against her.
His erection pressed against her belly. That perfect cock, hot and hard for her.
“These.” Shade cupped her breasts. “I want to start here.” His thumbs circled her nipples. “I want to suck and bite and get these nipples hard for me.”
“Mission accomplished.” Eddie moaned as he pinched her nipples.
“And here.” He pressed his cock against her core. I want to make you come with my fingers.” He bit her neck. “Taste your orgasm on my tongue.” He rotated his cock against her. “Get you so wet for me I can slide inside you.”
“Oh, God.” Eddie wanted that too. All of that. Again and again.
Shade slammed his mouth down over hers. His tongue speared into her mouth. The honey and musk taste of him was like her drug, and Eddie kissed him back, chasing her fix.
He slid a hand into the waistband of her leggings and into her panties. “So wet for me already.”
“Yes.” Eddie thrust her hips against his questing fingers.
Shade found her clit and rubbed slow, torturous circles. “Would you like that, Eddie?” He slid a finger inside her. “This tells me you would.”
“Yes.” She panted.
“I watch you, Eddie.” A second finger joined the first and his thumb worked her clitoris. “I watch you and know that you’re mine.”
She gripped his waist, rocking mindlessly against him. “I’ve seen you.” She wanted him too. Desperate for him, but there never seemed to be a time or opportunity. “I want you.” That didn’t go far enough. “I need you.”
She was so close.
Shade pumped into her, his thumb hitting her just right. “Come for me, Eddie. Let me hear you. Let me feel you.”
Eddie’s climax rolled through her. He swallowed her cry in his kiss.
“Eddie.” He slid his hand free, and stuck his fingers in his mouth. Groaning around the taste of her, he closed his eyes. “I’m going slowly fucking mad.”
He was so hard, and she palmed his length. “Let me help with that.”
“No.” He raised her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her palm. “The first time I come with you, will be inside you.”
“Has anybody seen Eddie?” Dee’s voice shattered their momentary haven.
“She was in the lighting booth,” a volunteer answered.
Shade sighed and kissed her softly. “Don’t you fucking hate reality?”
“So much.”
They waited for the corridor to go quiet again and slipped out.
“Hey.” Eddie caught Shade’s hand before he could walk away. “Let’s do that again some time.”
His answering smile was all heat and want. “Any time, Eddie. Any fucking time.”
“Eddie!” Dee hurried down the corridor. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You need to see something.”
“I was doing my pre-checks.” Eddie cursed the heat creeping into her cheeks.
Shade’s low chuckle didn’t help.
“I’ll help you with those later.” That Dee didn’t notice her blushing banished the high Shade had put her on.
Eddie followed Dee to their living quarters. “What is it?”
Dee stopped in the door to her bedroom and pointed to Emma.
Emma and Ethan were sitting on Dee’s bed watching the small television jammed amongst her collection of antique perfume bottles.
“I was watching the news,” Dee said. “The children were playing, not even paying attention.”
Emma was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and she was glowing. Not like good health and happiness glowing, but glowing like she’d been lit up from inside by her own internal follow spot.
“What the hell?” Eddie stepped closer to Emma and the nimbus of golden light.
Magic prickled against her skin and vibrated through her belly.
“Emma pretty.” Ethan stared at his sister and chortled.
Still intent on the television, Emma rocked back and forth. The light from within her grew even stronger.
Feeling way out of her depth, Eddie glanced at Shade.
He shook his head. He had no idea either.
Eddie kept her voice soft and nonthreatening so as not to startle the little girl. “Emma?”
“I can heal them.” Emma pointed at the television. “I can heal them.” Her high, childlike voice was at odds with the gravity of the statement. “I am here to heal them all.”
“Who, sweetheart, heal who?” Eddie looked at the screen.
A reporter was standing in an overcrowded hospital. The closed caption gave his name and the location as Muldersdrift, South Africa.
The reporter was talking about the outbreak of a virus in the region that had already claimed hundreds of lives. “Authorities are reporting the spread of the virus to surrounding urban areas.” The reporter stared portentously into the camera. “Coming so close on the heels of the COVID pandemic, the World Health Organization is urging?—”
“Shit,” Shade whispered.
Eddie looked at him.
“Pestilence,” he said.
“I can heal them.” Emma raised her voice. She held out her small incandescent hands. “See.”
“Emma.” Dee approached the bed. “Those sick people are a long way from here.”
“In Africa.” Emma nodded at the television. “That man said so. You need to take me there.”
“We can’t take you there.” Dee gentled her tone. “It’s too far away.”
“No.” Emma wailed, and tears filled her eyes. “You don’t understand. I have to go there. I have to heal them.”
Dee sat beside her and reached for her.
“NO.” Emma shoved her hands away. “I have to go. I have to.”
Ethan’s lip quivered and he sobbed. “Emma! What’s wrong with Emma?”
Eddie sensed the compulsion before Shade said, “You’re tired. You need to sleep.”
Both children crumpled over fast asleep.
Eddie turned to him. “What the fuck was that?”
“She was getting hysterical, I?—”
“Yes, I get that.” Eddie stared at a now not glowing Emma. “What the fuck did Emma mean by that?”