CHAPTER TEN #2
Oliver reached his climax moments after mine. I was just returning to Earth while his cock twitched inside of me, and Oliver released a deep groan. His muscles flexed and strained as the sound drew out of him.
Once we’d both gone still, both of us momentarily spent, Oliver’s forehead lowered to my shoulder. I was still sitting on the barrel, and now that I wasn’t completely distracted by him, I noticed how precarious the lid was.
Oliver must’ve noticed at the same time or picked up on my discomfort, somehow.
He finally pulled his cock out of me and scooped me up into his arms. He lowered himself back to the ground and set me between his legs, my back resting against his chest. Then he rested his chin on the top of my head, as if he’d just arrived home after a long, long journey.
My entire body rose and fell as I heaved a soul-weary sigh.
“What are you thinking?” Oliver murmured.
I was thinking that the body I had given him was warm. Solid. Mortal. Which meant the body I’d given Lucifer was the same. But what if he was a different kind of monster than Oliver? What if I had completely restored the Dark Prince, as he once was, and brought him back as an original angel?
If that was the case, I didn’t think he could be killed in the sense that he’d be obliterated from existence—if anything, slitting his throat in this dimension would probably just send him back to his own—but even banishment would be better than doing nothing …
My thoughts cut short when Oliver’s body jerked. I twisted around to give him a sharp look. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s summoning me.” Oliver refocused on my face, and his features seemed sharper, suddenly. His eyes were strange, the sea-glass blue giving way to something else. “Olorel.”
Adrenaline was a dull roar in my ears. I turned, kneeling in front of him, and held onto Oliver so tight my fingers dug into his skin. “Wait, what about Olorel?”
Oliver spoke haltingly, as if there were a hand wrapped tightly around his throat. “That’s when … he’s making his next move.”
My heart sank. As I desperately tried to think of how to stop Lucifer, something else occurred to me.
Wild hope flared. “Wait. Lucifer has no way to find the grave now! The only person who knew is dead, right? In one of the houses, there was a faerie who shot himself. He left a note. The one you put back in his hand, because you knew I’d find it.
‘I have heard about the others. I am the last. He will come for me soon.’”
“He … has a backup plan … another way to find it,” Oliver gasped. Perspiration gleamed at his brow and he’d started trembling. “I d-didn’t tell him, Fortuna. When he had … had me on that table, I didn’t …”
Before I could ask any more questions, Oliver wrenched himself free. He pulled his clothes on with rough, abrupt movements, and then swung toward the doors. I scrambled up and rushed after him without hesitation, extending a hand to touch him. “Ollie—”
“Don’t, Fortuna!” he rasped, jerking away.
Too late. I’d seen the color of his eyes.
The bright, violent red. The hunger of the Beast, and the guilt of the man.
As Oliver yanked the barn doors open, I reached for him again, fighting a rush of pity.
This … creature, this being, was like me.
Dark. Apart. Strange. I’d created him, just like he said, and apparently Oliver had inherited my demons.
The eternal inner battle between my power and my humanity.
The urge to bury my face into fear like it was a bloody carcass and feast, and the small voice telling me to resist.
“You can fight it,” I told him, my fingers curling around his arms. As if I could hold Oliver together, keep him here, with just the warm press of my fingers. “I do. A lot of the time, I fucking win, Ollie.”
He turned his head, not quite looking at me. His voice was a rumble as he asked, “And when you don’t?”
Unbidden, I thought of Belanor. Of the last time I’d seen him, and what I’d done to him. Lucifer may have handed me the knife, but he’d only coaxed out what had already been inside me. When I didn’t win against those dark urges, I became the Beast, too. I was no better than Oliver.
Before I could say anything else, his body quaked, and he doubled over in pain. When Oliver peered up at me, long teeth gleamed against his bottom lip.
“Olorel,” he repeated, those dark veins creeping into his face. They looked like thin, dead tree branches. “You have until then to stop him.”
“Or you could stop him,” I said, my voice soft. I kept my hands at my sides, fighting the urge to touch him again. Oliver had claws now; he was losing control.
“He still needs …” A thin line of blood slid out of Oliver’s nose. His lips moved as he fought to keep speaking.
Panic sluiced through me. I abandoned caution completely, rushing forward to slide my hands along his jaw. His skin was so hot that it hurt. “Ollie, stop. It’s okay, I can figure it out.”
But Oliver didn’t look at me. He frowned at the ground, his brow furrowed.
I knew that look in his eye. Oliver had my demons, which meant he had my stubbornness, too.
He held onto the edge of the door, a vein bulging at his temple.
Then his body gave a violent wrench, and I heard a terrible cracking sound, as if every bone in his body had broken.
Oliver gave a pained shout, his face twisting. “He wants—”
He cut off with a cry, bending over. As I watched fully formed wings sprout from his back, then explode into the air so hard that black feathers rained down, I knew Oliver would pay for this, too.
Lucifer would find out what he’d told me, if he hadn’t already.
I’d seen what the devil did to the ones who disobeyed him or betrayed his trust. As I watched Oliver retreat into the rain, I remembered.
Bloody tools on a table. The pale glint of exposed bone. The ragged edge of an agonized scream. Wide, glazed eyes. The memories cut through me like the knife I’d used through Belanor’s flesh.
My heart lurched, and I ran after him, blurting, “Don’t go back, Ollie. We’ll figure this out, you don’t have to—”
He flapped his wings, and the gust knocked me back, just like it had Collith and Laurie. I went flying as Oliver rose into the air. I recovered just in time to see him disappear into the dark sky. Within seconds, the sound of his wingbeats faded.
I stayed where I was, my mind dull with helpless shock.
The rain hit my upturned face again. It had calmed now, the deafening torrent slowed down to a silvery drizzle.
A black feather floated toward me, flitting through the weak moonlight.
I held out my palm, and I barely felt anything as it settled against my skin.
I closed my fingers around the wispy strands.
I stood there for another minute, maybe longer.
Eventually I retrieved my things from the floor of the barn and made my way back home in a slow, detached state.
I got to the Door without incident, and no one stopped me as I stepped out on the other side.
Leaves rustled beneath my shoes with every step.
Minutes later, I stood in the bathroom of the loft, staring at myself in the mirror.
There was no sign of Collith or Laurie, and my family was exactly how I’d left them, as if everything had been a dream.
But it wasn’t a dream, I knew that. I still had the proof in my fist, in the water that dripped from the ends of my hair, in the soreness between my legs.
My mind went back and replayed everything that had happened tonight.
The fight between the three males I loved, and what I’d just done in that barn.
I gazed at my pale reflection, holding the feather in one hand and a sleeping pill in the other.
Weak, I thought, watching the eyes in the glass darken. I couldn’t be trusted to make the right choices anymore.
I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed it.