Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1) (9 page)

Damn!

“The dredgen!” she declared with a look of utter horror.

I spun around, readying myself for the fucking half-bred prick but no one was there.

“I killed him! He drank my blood and he died!” she declared with a look of terror, her eyes widening with alarm. “If you take my blood, you’ll die!”

I realised she was mumbling about the prince of the toilet block on Trent Avenue; the dredgen that had munched on her then turned into her minion. Stunned, I stared at her. She was terrified, horrified. “I nearly killed you!” she rambled on. “Shit, I could have killed you!”

For a moment I couldn’t speak, her concern shocking me. She was Empyrean. I was Gehenna. We were constructed to kill each other; it was in our genes. I wasn’t ever supposed to enter Empyrea, or her Gehenna, yet here we were, conversing not just mentally, which in itself was crazy, but talking and touching in her room. She’d summoned a succubus for fuck’s sake. I’d rushed to Jaron to ask him how she’d managed that when I knew that only dark magic could grant what was needed to bring one forward, but he’d been as dumbfounded and shocked as I was. But now I understood exactly how she’d done it. Why did I not see it before?

It hit me at once and I stared around her bedroom. The dark colours, the crazy posters she had on her wall. Then I snapped my eyes back to hers, the deep blue with a hint of brown staring back at me. My gaze moved to her lip ring, her nose ring – everything
UN-
angelic about her.

“Oh my fucking shit!” I choked out.

She stilled. “What?” She looked behind her, checking to see if there was someone there.

“No …” I muttered as I fell back into the seat and stared at her. “No, it’s not possible!”

“RAX! What?”

“You’re a half breed!”

Her gasp of offence barely registered in my head. “I am not one of those filthy creatures!” She referred to dredgen who were half vampires and half living-dead.

“Not a dredgen!” I struggled to form words, but when I finally got them out, her eyes rolled and she once again passed out in my arms. “You’re half and half, my little seraph. You’re both dark and light. Empyrean
and
Gehenna.”

R
ax was still in my room when my eyes reopened. My head throbbed – again. The headaches had gradually been getting worse and I made a mental note to visit the infirmary.

“Hey, Seraph.” His tone was soft but I sensed his irritation with my frequent fainting spells.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Frowning, he planted himself on the bed beside me. “What for?”

Shrugging, I could feel the heat on my cheeks. “I can’t understand why my father made me a soul taker. I’m a wuss.”

He laughed then quietened when he saw my shame. “Hey,” he whispered, his voice warm and comforting. I stilled when he slowly slid his fingers into mine. His grip was hot and I shivered when heat travelled up my arm and tingled around my body, settling right between my legs. “You are not a wuss. You’ve had a shock.”

I shook my head and pulled away from him. I was angry with myself. Rax was right when he said I needed a gun. I couldn’t even protect my friend in a damn car park with human scum. “I need to learn to fight.”

He rolled his eyes and huffed. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I admit that maybe a little self-defence training might be good,” he mumbled with a stern look on his face. “Although I agree about your father. Why he would push you out on the streets when he knows who you are is …”

“He doesn’t know what I am!”

He lifted an eyebrow and scoffed. “Really? Maybe you should ask him.”

“I can’t be both,” I breathed as I fell back onto the headboard, Rax’s declaration whispering through my head.

“You’re both dark and light. Empyrean and Gehenna.”

I’m not! I can’t be!

“You are,”
he said adamantly in my head.

“Get out of my head, Rax!” I scowled at him.

I gasped and pressed back further when he leaned into me, the tip of his nose touching my own. “Maybe I like being inside you.”

My belly throbbed and I forced myself to remove the images his words conjured in my head. His breath heated my face, his stare piercing into my damn soul. “I see you, Willa. The real you. What you need. What you want,” he whispered, almost coldly. My heart stopped as a glaze descended in his eyes, turning the usual cherry browns into a misty gold, the hint of blue that was there intensifying until glints of sapphires danced like jewels.

“Rax?”

“God, I have never wanted someone like I want you.”

I couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat when, very slowly, he ran his tongue along the edge of my jaw. His hot breath caused goosebumps to break out in the tracks of his saliva. My thighs trembled when I heard the snap of his teeth and the graze of them on my skin. My mouth watered, the beat of my heart going crazy when hunger buried its way through me. I wanted his teeth to slide into my flesh. I wanted him to drink what I offered him. I’d never wanted anything more.

He moaned into my neck, and just as my fingers slid into his hair to press him deeper, his mouth was on mine, his tongue pushing past his teeth so he could taste me. Another of his groans lit a fire in my belly as I gripped onto him like my life depended on it. His lips were firm, directing and dominant as he devoured me in his kiss, his warm breath mingling with my own until a blissful tremble seeped into the marrow of my bones.

My pussy grew almost as desperate as me, the pulsing throb driving me insane when his large hand cupped my breast through the silk of my pyjama top, my nipple pressing into his touch, needing him and begging him for more.

But then everything slammed to a halt when his teeth punctured my bottom lip and a sweet taste of honey and truffles exploded on my taste buds.

Shit!

I scrambled away when Rax snarled deeply, his fingers catching my throat in a deep hold.

“You’re mine, Seraph,” he growled when I scuttled back and dropped off the bed, my arse bouncing on the floor.

“Rax, no!” I tried as sternly as possible, the tremble in my thighs now dictating the tone of my voice. “You can’t!”

“It’s mine,” he hissed, his eyes blazing as he crawled off the bed towards me. His movements were fluid, ethereal, as we both slid across the floor, me away from him and him towards me. “You are mine, my sweet seraph.”

“RAX!”

I whimpered, my eyes closing when I braced myself for his loss of control as his hands pinned me under him when I had nowhere else to go. He brought his mouth to my neck. “No,” I sobbed. I’d kill him. My blood would kill him. “God damn it!”

He was whipped back so fast I had to blink to focus on the blur of his body flying across the room. The succubus was back, her long lithe body stood firm before me. I couldn’t help but focus on her pert backside. I was so jealous.

“Keep your filthy mouth to yourself, Halam!” she hissed as she took a step towards his stunned body. He was slumped against the wall, his wide eyes, now back to their usual colour, staring up at her in awe.

“Holy shit!” he whispered.

“I’m not so sure about the holy,” she countered as she dropped to a crouch in front of him. “You wait to be asked before you take.”

He frowned at her. “Take what?”

“My mistress’ blood, you thief!”

“What’s your name?” It was a stupid question but the only one I wanted an answer to right then.

She turned to me, her smile softening. “You really have to ask?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No apologies needed.” She came to me, leaving a stunned Rax watching closely. Kneeling before me, she dipped her head. “My name is Delilah.”

‘Legend tells that one specific angel, Delilah, fell in love with a dark angel, Strauss.’

There I went again. The world went black and I heard Rax’s annoyed huff before the darkness took me.

“S
it!” Marie ordered when I walked into Fred’s the next night. Bobby waved to me but carried on serving a customer. I’d expected a barrage of questions, but he seemed to be dealing with it better than I’d expected.

Frannie pushed my usual cranberry and Bud across our table to me. “Something is going on, missy.” She narrowed her eyes accusingly on me.

Sighing after I had downed half my beer, I shrugged. “Shit is going on. I dunno where to start.”

“At the beginning,” Sadie said, so I did, and they sat quietly listening to everything that had happened over the previous week. They all eyed Bobby when I told them he knew about us, but he just grinned and waved to them.

“Is he here now?” Marie asked, lowering her voice.

“Who?”

She peered around the table. “Rax.”

Chuckling, I shook my head. “I’m sure you’d see him, Marie. He’s not a figment of my imagination.”

Frannie was quiet, contemplative, as she watched me. I turned to her. “What?”

“Well,” she tapped her fingers on the table. “I get it, not sure how, but I do. Yet what I don’t understand is …” She leaned towards me, lowering her voice, “you got into Gehenna?” I nodded. “Because, as Rax says, you’re ‘both’?”

“Yep.”

“Well, how did he get into your apartment?”

I stilled. “Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“He must be both as well.”

“Like fuck!”
Rax hissed in my head.

“Are you always this nosy?” I asked him. I wondered if I’d ever have any privacy again.

“He here?” Marie asked, her eyes lighting. They dimmed with disappointment when I shook my head. But then her eyes widened over my head and I blew out a breath and turned.

“Do you not have friends of your own?”

He grinned at me. “I like your friends.” He took the spare stool around our table. All my friends gawped at him. I didn’t like the way Marie perked her tits out, her eyes twinkling when they raked over his body. “Besides, I brought my own with me. Thought we could make a night of it.”

As if by magic, three more men came up to the table. A tall guy grinned down at me, his long blonde hair flopping over his forehead. “Dexter,” he said. His eyes slid over me, the twinkle in them showing he liked what he saw. When he picked up another stool and placed it between Rax’s and mine, Rax slid across and settled himself on it, pointing to his now empty one.