Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel (26 page)

“Fuck Alex, you’re beautiful,” he whispered reverently but nearly inaudibly. His sapphire eyes met mine. “Last night I wanted to taste you so bad it drove me just short of insane not being able to.”

I shuddered at the admission. If he would have said the same thing the night before, I would have let him do what he was no doubt about to do now with a public audience and all. I had been that far gone, that far lost in the heat and the lust of the moment. I would have been mortified about it in the morning, but I would have welcomed him replacing his hand with his head buried between my thighs at the time.

“I need to taste you Alex. I’ve wanted to since the night I met you. Will you let me?”

I bit down on my bottom lip and shook my head yes, unable to find words at the moment. I’d never been so exposed to anybody in my life. I hadn’t lied to Chase the previous night. I wasn’t a virgin, but my experience was also limited to a couple of times with a single person and at eighteen things had never been this intimate or this intense.
 

He gripped both of my ankles spreading my legs farther apart, baring me to him further. Then his hands slid up my legs and wedged themselves underneath me to grip my bottom. He buried his head between my legs and thrust his tongue inside me. My back arched and my hands tangled in his short curls. I wanted to cry out but I remembered where we were so I tempered the sound to a whimper instead. Like he did to my neck, he licked and tasted and kissed and nibbled on the most intimate part of me. I writhed beneath him as he did so. I closed my eyes against the mounting pressure building inside of me. Then he speared me with his tongue again and slid one then two fingers in behind it. I gasped as my eyes shot open. He picked up the tempo from blissfully slow to relentless in the pursuit of what he was after. His tongue thrust in and out of me in sync with his fingers building the pressure to maddening proportions. I squeezed my legs together, further trapping his head between them, not ever wanting him to move. I called out his name at the same time his fingers made their way to the sensitive spot hidden within my folds. It sent a jolt of an electrical current zinging through my body. He pressed down on it at the same time his tongue and fingers thrust into me powerfully and deep. The dual sensations overloaded my nervous system and I tried, I really, really tried not to shout out his name but it happened anyway as every nerve within my body short circuited and damn near exploded.
 

I pulled on my clothes while Chase pulled on his shirt. I didn’t miss the fact that I had been naked except for my cotton bra and he remained clothed except for his shirt. He quirked an eyebrow at me when I frowned at him. Still feeling bolder than I normally would have I was about to explain the cause of my contorted face then saunter over to him and rectify the issue, but footsteps outside the door let us know that someone was approaching before they turned the knob and pushed it open.
 

“Bennett told me that I could find you down here,” Charissa said as she walked into the room. She held a shopping bag out to me. “Ash and I came across this while we were at Lenox today. I figured you’d be too busy, or still too
sick,”
she coughed, “to have the time before Saturday. It should fit and there are shoes and accessories in there too.”

I eyed the bag wearily, like it contained a molotov instead of something for me to wear to the party that commemorated both my mother’s birthday and the day she and my dad had died. I took it with unsteady hands without looking into it. “Thanks,” I said making every attempt to sound like I meant it. It wasn’t that I was ungrateful. I honestly did appreciate the thought and the effort. But the end of the week would come soon enough as well as the depression that always set in in the days leading up to it. It hadn’t set in yet. I was surprised the phone call from my grandmother reminding me about it did not kick it off, but I assumed it was because all of the other shit and revelations from the last few days were crowding my mind.
 

“Are you coming this year?” I always made sure she and Bennett were on the guest list but they never came.
 

“No, I’m not,” she said stiffly.
 

“It’s not intruding if I’m inviting you as my guest.” It was a conversation we’d had every year since my grandmother began the tradition seven years ago.

“Alex, that’s a special time for your family.”

“You and Bennett and the kids are my family too,” I countered.

“Yes, we are. But we both know how your grandmother feels about us. It would be distasteful for us to go.”

“Thanks for the outfit,” I muttered. And okay, my thanks this time was all spite without an ounce of authenticity. She bought me one every year out of guilt and to serve as an apology for not going.
 

She pulled me into a hug and I blew out a huffy breath, annoyed at the fact that I was always unable to stay mad at her for it. It irked me, it even hurt a little because it was a day that I needed her to be there for me, but I understood.
 

“I’ll let you guys get back to it,” she said letting me go.
 

“Before you leave I have a question for you?”

“What’s up?”

“Can you tell me about the first war between the Archangels and the Brethren and then the second one that ended in our creation?” I had enough of a conscience to look guilty when I asked the question.

 
Charissa was obsessed with digging into the history of The Society and researching its creation and the events that predated it. She’d come to act as The Society’s historian, and if there was information anyone in The Society wanted to know about the history of the Nephilim they sought her out. She’d scoured libraries, museums, and private collections across the world looking for historical manuscripts with any mention of Nephilim, Daemons, Archangels, Brethren or the wars. She bartered for and bought the ones that were up for sale and photocopied or took notes over the ones that were not.
 
The question I’d just asked her was a tale she’d told me many times since I was a child. But I’d only half-heartedly listened for the sake of being polite. I’d never really cared about the details before. I’d never had a reason to until now.

As it always did whenever somebody asked her about her historical research, her face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “Sure. Where do you want me to start and how much of it do you want to hear?”

“At the beginning and all of it.”

She beamed even brighter. It wasn’t a request she got too often. The story was long and sordid and complicated and not too many people had a long enough attention span to listen to it in its entirety.
 

 
Charissa motioned to the training mat beneath out feet. “Cop a squat. This will take a while.” She plopped down crossing her legs. I sat stretched out on the mat in front of her with my legs straight and leaning back on my elbows. Chase sat down next to me and rested his arms on his knees.
 

“Lucifer started out as the Most High’s most beloved Archangel and his right hand. He was beautiful and cunning and intelligent but he was also the proudest and most arrogant of them all. The Most High loves all of his creations, but he loved none of the Archangels more than he did Lucifer, and none of the Archangels loved the Most High more than Lucifer did. Lucifer sat beside the Most High while he created Earth. He watched as he painted the world with blue skies and white clouds and green grass and red clay and every color in between. Then he raised mountains and carved out oceans and imbued the Earth with lower life forms. Lucifer looked on as all of this happened, excited and in awe at the magnificent gift his creator was making for him and his brothers and sisters. Then after Earth was created and populated with lower life, the Most High created humankind and gifted the Earth to them. Lucifer didn’t take it well. His pride left him insulted and his arrogance left him feeling cheated. He grew to detest mankind. He considered humans to be inferior to Archangels in every way. They did not deserve the wonder that the Most High had given them. He and his fellow Archangels did. Lucifer used his charm and his cunningness to eloquently sway Archangels to his point of view. Those Archangels who supported Lucifer collectively called themselves The Brethren. Lucifer bided his time until he’d amassed enough followers to his side. Then he led them in a revolt against heaven and the Most High. The Brethren rallied for Lucifer to replace the Most High as heaven’s sovereign. Upon his installation, Lucifer had promised to re-gift the Earth to the Archangels who sided with him and give them dominion over it and all life that inhabited it, including humanity. Michael led the Archangels who remained loyal to the Most High in the fight against The Brethren. They almost lost. Lucifer had turned so many Archangels against heaven that the odds were not in favor of the forces that Michael led. In addition, Lucifer himself was more powerful than them all. He’d grown to be almost as powerful as the Most High himself. As the Most High’s most beloved and right hand, Lucifer had been gifted with a number of unique abilities and powers over the millennia. Michael went to the Most High and asked him to bestow upon him powers that rivaled Lucifers and would allow him to defeat him. The Most High told Michael that it was impossible to impart the tremendous amount of power that Lucifer had accumulated to one individual in an instant. It would shock the individual’s system and result in the irreparable short circuiting of his mental faculties. Michael proposed an alternative. He advised the Most High to divide the power among multiple Archangels. Their mental psyches could collectively shoulder the burden, making them more able to withstand the shock to their systems. The division of power would not do them much good individually but as a unit they would be just as strong as Lucifer and could counteract his power. The Most High accepted Michael’s advice and asked for volunteers for the task because while the risk of shattering their psyches was greatly reduced, it still remained a possibility. The Most High would not force any of his Archangels to make so great a sacrifice. Michael volunteered along with twelve others. The Most High refused Michael. He’d risen from third in command to his new Second when Lucifer rebelled and Michael had become too valuable a leader to risk losing. The Most High did accept the offered sacrifice of the other twelve Archangels that volunteered. He divided among them powers and abilities that equaled Lucifer’s and would enable them able to stand against him. Michael’s plan worked. The twelve that volunteered became known as The Twelve and assumed roles as Michael’s lieutenants. Together, with the rest of the Archangels who did not betray heaven at their backs, they defeated The Brethren and crushed the revolt. As punishment for their actions, The Brethren were cast out of heaven and into the newly created hell— a prison world created
 
by the Most High to be the antithesis to everything that made Lucifer and The Brethren covet Earth so greatly. Millennia later, The Brethren found a way to escape hell via a rip that was created in the void between their prison world and Earth. They wreaked great havoc on Earth. Many humans were killed and many more were tricked into becoming their slaves. Michael and the Archangels came to Earth and the second war between Archangels and Brethren ensued. The Archangels were similar to their Brethren counterparts in that they too lacked compassion for humanity and considered themselves the superior species. The second war went on for a thousand years. All life on Earth was nearly destroyed as both Archangels and Brethren regarded anything other than themselves as collateral damage. Humanity suffered the most. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as civilization after civilization fell during the war. The two sides would have eviscerated the Earth itself but the Most High loved humanity and the planet too much to allow that to happen. He ordered Michael to negotiate a ceasefire with Lucifer. Lucifer was receptive to negotiations as he too saw that they were destroying Earth. He didn’t care if mankind survived but he did care if the gift that should have rightfully been his survived. During the negotiations Lucifer asked Michael to ask the Most High why he seemed to love mankind over humankind. Why did he gift them the Earth and not his first creations, his superior creations? The Most High told Michael to tell Lucifer that he did gift the Earth to his superior creations. The Most High said that he believed mankind to be inherently good, making them superior to angelkind and more worthy of Earth. When Lucifer heard this he told Michael that he would cease fighting on Earth. Him and his Brethren would return to hell and he would even tell the Archangels how the rip had been created that allowed them to escape and how to re-seal it. The conditions to his retreat were that the Archangels had to return to heaven as well, but the war would continue. Lucifer said he would never stop coveting Earth just as he knew the Most High would never allow him dominion over it. But he offered to go about it in a more subtle and much less devastating manner. His mission had changed. He became obsessed with proving his creator wrong. It was dominion over human souls that he began to want more than the Earth itself. He wanted to corrupt them all and rub the Most High’s face in his belief that they were superior. Lucifer was so confident that he could achieve this that he made the Most High a proposition that would allow him to get both his desires if he won in the end. The Most High was as determined to teach Lucifer a lesson and prove him wrong as Lucifer himself was in regards to him. And so the Most High accepted his proposition and the struggle between Archangels and Brethren became a struggle between heaven and hell with human souls as one of the types of chess pieces on their game board. The other two types are Daemons and Nephilim. Lucifer turned the willing human slaves his Brethren had accumulated into Daemons. He stripped them of what little humanity remained within them and left behind nothing but their ugly cores. The Most High instructed Michael and his Archangels to lay with humans to create Nephilim. The half-human, half-archangel offspring retained all of the humanity and compassion of their half-human nature but were also gifted with increased speed, strength, and endurance. They didn’t inherit any powers that the Archangels possessed except for one— they could heal another individual even of fatal wounds. When the Archnagels and Brethren retreated from Earth, they left Daemons and Nephilim in their place to continue their fight. The Daemons’ were given instructions to corrupt as many human souls as they could by whatever means. We were organized into The Society of Nephilim and given the sacred duty of hunting the Daemons down and killing them. Initially mankind knew about both, their predators and their protectors. But human memory of the Archangels and Brethren that once walked and fought among them faded with time. Their current ignorance of our and the Daemons’ existence is a two-headed coin. On one side it prevents them from going into a blind panic over an unchangeable hand that fate dealt them long ago, but on the other side their lack of knowledge makes them all the more vulnerable to being corrupted.”