Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (28 page)

CHAPTER 24

He let her go. His lungs burned like poison. Christ redeemer, he was still too fragile. He couldn’t control his rage, and his heart swelled with the dumb urge to apologize.

But she just stood there, trembling. “So that’s still what you think of me, is it? A demon’s whore?”

“You’re Chosen, aren’t you?” He ruffled sweaty feathers, overheating. “Infected directly from the source? You expect me to believe you drank his blood from a glass?”

“Don’t you want to know what happened to me? Do you even care?”

His throat tightened. Damn her for asking a direct question. “Make your lame excuses to someone else,” he said tightly. “It doesn’t matter—”

“I killed my sister’s little girl.”

He gulped, and his rage withered cold.

He’d never had children, of course. Never someone who relied on him for everything. But he’d known the sorrow of fallen comrades, soldiers who fought at his side. He’d lost friends when he fell. That was bad enough. But to lose a child…

Rose’s mouth crumpled. “Bridie. She’s six. She lives…she
lived with me, while her mom…” She swallowed, and swiped her eyes roughly. “Well, my sister’s in prison, it’s a long story, and you don’t actually give a shit, so…”

Japheth touched her shoulder, stopping her from turning away. “I’m listening.” Soft. Gentle. The best he could make it.

Rose gazed up at him, sorrow brimming black. And she sighed, weary, and leaned back against the glass. “One night, I… I was celebrating.” Her voice was small, lost. “I’d started a new job, see. I’m a dancer, and this show, it was…well, it was everything I’d ever wanted.” Distant light brightened her face, long-forgotten joy. “So me and my friends, we went out, and I left Bridie with my neighbor like usual. I didn’t normally stay out so late, I’d come right home, but that night was special, so… They put her to bed, and…that was the night
he
took me.”

Shadows haunted her eyes. Her chin trembled. Jesus, she was trying not to cry. “The next morning, I woke up in my apartment, and… Bridie was dead. Gone. There was blood all over the place…and I…”

He tried to speak, but his throat squeezed shut. What the hell was there to say?
I’m sorry
was stupid, futile.

Rose banged her fists against the glass at her sides. “You think I wanted that, angel?
It was an accident!
I made a mistake! I screamed for forgiveness until my heart bled out, and you know what I got? Nothing. So don’t give me crap about responsibility. If your God wanted me, I was there for the taking. He abandoned me.”

I didn’t mean it. It was a mistake
…How he’d screamed it to himself, so many times, like bloody ruts worn into his brain.

But raging at fate was useless. He’d learned that the hard way. “Hell of a mistake,” he said harshly. “
Don’t screw a demon.
It’s not rocket science.”

“I got drunk and went home with some guy,” she retorted. “Maybe that doesn’t happen on your perfect little island? But it’s not a capital offense. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a pool of blood.”

“So you did screw him, then.” Japheth gritted his teeth on incoherent fury. The insane desire to lick her clean, kiss the
demon’s foul breath from her body. Thrust himself deep inside her and make her scream his name to the sky, show the world to whom she belonged…

Right
. He struggled to ice his shattered dignity. This stone-age jealousy thing was getting old real fast. Next he’d be dragging her off to his cave by the hair.

“He tricked me!” Her voice rose, grating. “I was an idiot, okay? I was celebrating. I was lonely, if you must know. I was flattered that a guy like that would want me.
Mea
fucking
culpa.
You think I wanted what he did to me?” Her eyes flamed dark with rage. “You think I asked to be
violated
? Fuck you, angel, you have no goddamn
idea
what I went through.”

Her scent dizzied him, a dark and dangerous drug. He wanted to swallow more. Madness wrapped itself around his mind, wispy and glowing like a wraith.
This is crazy. I don’t believe her. Can’t believe her
…

He growled, and in hot frustration he grabbed her by the arm and slammed his left palm into her forehead.

No. Don’t want to. Can’t invade her like this
…But he had to know.

The angel’s mark on her skin flashed, azure bright, responding to the touch of his sigil. She gasped, reeling, but he held her upright and flung a desperate prayer skywards.
Heaven, help me see. Show me the truth.

Visions swamped him, so clear they dazzled. Fluvium, his crazy eyes shadowed behind a crafty spell, just a soft-spoken guy, deadly handsome but human. Rose’s womanly perfume, flowers and spice, mixing with the dark musk of the demon’s skin. Their limbs entwining, mouths molding wet, his fingers pinching her nipples, her long flexible legs wrapped around the demon’s hips as he eased within her, her low female moans of delight, rising, peaking, breathless…

Japheth gasped, choking on pure sensation. His feathers stung, too sensitive. His skin burned. His pulse tortured him, banging in his ears, making him hard and aching. It was too much.

He tried to pull back, but his senses dragged him down, deeper and darker until he
felt
her inside him, a wailing, tortured
ghost that possessed him and wouldn’t let go. He
was
her, lying on those rough cushions. The stale flavor of vodka and cigarettes, flickering candlelight, drunk and swimming out of his mind with delight…

The pleasure won’t stop. It’s too much. He’s got his fingers playing on my clit—sweet Jesus—and his cock is so deep inside me, fuck, I can feel it, he’s splitting me open, emptying me, letting me wash out over him… It hits me again, a shockwave of raw sensation that cripples me. I cry out. I’ve never come this hard in my life. It’s astonishing. I’m so exposed, so vulnerable. And the sound he’s making, guttural, hungry, deep inside his chest like
…

Oh, Jesus. I moan, helpless. I’m coming again. Again, and again, more and forever and it hurts, God, it rips me apart… I can’t endure it. “No,” I gasp. “Don’t. Stop.” But he won’t stop. My legs are thrashing, I’m twitching like electric shock. I’m out of control. I gasp for some air, and he presses my face into his shoulder, my teeth gnash down and…oh, fuck. That’s blood. That’s skin, crunching in my teeth. I’m BITING him, he’s bleeding, it’s running over my face and into my mouth and I want to be sick. I choke. It splashes, hot and thick, painting my face, my breasts.

And he…he just laughs.

Holy crap, I’ve BITTEN him and he’s laughing.

And I realize I’m afraid.

I’m panicking. This isn’t fun anymore. Blood spills down his chest from my bite marks. And he’s dragging my mouth back onto the gash. He’s very strong. I struggle and spit it out, dizzy. “No,” I splutter, “don’t, what the hell are you…” But the blood spurts into my mouth, hot and coppery, disgusting. He forces it in, stops me from breathing. Stars dance in my eyes. I have to swallow or I’ll suffocate. My throat convulses, and the stuff hits my stomach, crawling, writhing in my guts like a burning snake
…

“Ahh.” His fingers dig cruelly into my skull. He’s crushing me. He won’t let me move. “Drink me, Rose. Take me in. You’ll live forever.”

He’s still inside me, still caressing my flesh, but now I’m crawling inside like worms, it’s so disgusting… I’m helpless. I have to swallow more and more. And this psychopath is enjoying it. I can feel how hard he is inside me, how his breath catches every time I swallow and I’m sick and I’m fucking terrified and oh, God, I want to die. I want him to strangle me and get it over with. I just want this to stop.

I’m crying now. Begging, every time he lets me choke in a breath. “Please… Let me go… I won’t tell anyone… We can fuck some more, you can do whatever you want… You can…you can hurt me. Just not this. Not this…”

But he won’t stop. And finally his back arches, impossibly flexible, and with a beastly roar he comes, spilling acid deep inside me. It hurts, like some vicious animal is chewing me out inside. I scream. Blood froths, and something black and disgusting like a slug squirms its way down my throat. Horror drowns me. He’s killing me. My heart’s going to explode. I’m going to die. I struggle and choke until my eyes water, but there’s nothing I can do
…

Dizzy, Japheth staggered backwards. His palm ripped from Rose’s forehead, leaving a second burn. And ugly truth sizzled into his brain.

Fluvium had tricked her. Forced her to drink from him, while she suffered unutterable torment.

He stumbled to his knees, and his rage exploded.

Blue lightning flashed, a smoking crack of thunder that split the window in two. Acid ate his bones, his muscles so tight they screamed. Hunt Fluvium across this black hell of a city and peel the dirty motherfucker’s skin off. Wrap Rose in his arms, comfort her, stroke her hair and whisper that she was safe now, that he’d never let anyone hurt her again.

As if another man could erase what the evil bastard had done to her.

Anguish stabbed his heart, a rough demon-steel blade. Her wounds would never heal. The horror would always be there, lurking inside, waiting to consume her.

But terrifying icy logic slashed through his sympathy. Fluvium had tricked her. Taken her against her will. The curse wasn’t her fault.

And if it wasn’t her fault…

He reeled. The floor shuddered. The cracked window lit
with forked blue static, and he struggled to deny it, hold it in like he had for centuries.

You will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

He couldn’t unsee what he’d seen. Couldn’t unknow what he knew.

With every fiber of his stolen soul, he believed in redemption. Because his heart was pure. He could still make up for whatever he’d done. So if he could still earn a second chance…

The bottom crashed out of his world, and he fell.

If I can earn redemption
…

…then so can she.

CHAPTER 25

Rose staggered, her forehead smoking, and drowned in a burning ocean of horror.

Her brain twisted in knots.
No. Not that. Don’t let him see
…

But too late. Fluvium’s dreadful assault had replayed in her mind like a disgusting horror film, and Japheth had seen it all.

He knows.

Toxic shame mushroomed in her guts. She squeezed her eyelids on stupid tears. She shouldn’t be ashamed. It wasn’t her fault…

She covered her mouth, sick bile boiling in her throat. Japheth was a guy, for fuck’s sake. They didn’t get what it was like to be a woman. He probably thought she’d brought it on herself. What did she expect, when she flirted, wore a short skirt, showed her tits? When she came onto a guy like that? She’d gone to his bed willingly enough to start with. Japheth would think she’d asked for it…

The floor
shook, and her sharp vampire nose smelled a storm.

Wind swirled her hair back. Tiny blue lightning forked on the window, crackling in Japheth’s golden feathers. The floor shook. He quivered, every muscle wrenched hard, and the air shimmered black with power about to explode.