Conquer the Dark (10 page)

He thrust so hard within her that it made her sit up and hug him as one strong arm captured her waist and he flat-palmed the bed for balance. From beneath his tightly closed lids she could see a thin line of neon blue-white light that followed the edges of his dark lashes. He seemed immobilized by pleasure for a moment, then something within him gave way as his fist slowly closed on the duvet, and his wings beat the air in time with his thrusts.

The nightstand lamps fell, furniture moved in increments, and the drapes billowed at the disturbance of the air. The steady drone of his twelve-foot wingspan threatened mirrors, wall art, as he dropped his hold on the bedding to splay his hand against her back as her hair was caught in the maelstrom he created in the room.

“Cel … este … Oh … Cel … este …”

He sobbed her name as though calling out for someone lost in the midst of a storm, then returned again and again to her body with hard thrusts as if he were trying to anchor her to him forever.

Burning, blue-white-charged sweat ran down his chest, over the eight contracting bricks in his abdomen to course over her belly and across her thighs. All she could do was hold on and slip into that pool of Light pleasure so deep that each inhalation sounded like a gasp of a drowning woman, and every exhalation was framed by her deep
moan. She could now feel his voice through his shaft inside her as he matched her voice pattern like a revival call and response, every deep-baritone stanza sending shock waves in rings up her canal until she could literally feel the vibration of his voice explode within her womb. That’s when she lost the rhythm and the last vestiges of control as she wept and he rode her harder.

It had never before been like this; something was different about this time. He bit his lip until it bled, his face was wet from tears, and then he released a subsonic moan that literally put a crack in the television screen and the window behind them. If he hadn’t pressed her against his body as he lifted them a foot above the bed, she might have swallowed her tongue when the first pleasure seizure struck.

The powerful sensation made her arms and legs go limp as molten heat filled her, climbing up her torso to squeeze her heart. Holding her head in one wide-spread palm and her upper back with the other, he repeatedly convulsed against her, heaving seed and pleasure from his body into hers. Then he dropped.

They hit the bed with a thud, him bracing himself with his hands at her sides to save her from his full weight. Panting, gulping air, he spoke to her in bursts after a moment, his biceps straining to hold his own weight.

“Oh, God, Celeste … forgive me, baby. I lost control … I think I might have really messed up.”

For a moment she couldn’t answer him as reality began to set in. “What if you like really did … and I wind up pregnant? What’s gonna happen? Is that a rule that could get us a lightning bolt?” She peered at him and bit her lip when he closed his eyes.

“It won’t get
you
a lightning bolt …
me
, perhaps.” He tried to smile, but it wasn’t his normally confident one.

“I don’t guess this is something we can pray about?”

Again he closed his eyes. “One can always pray for forgiveness … oh, man …”

“Tell me it’s gonna be all right.”

He nodded. “It’s gonna be all right.”

Silence enveloped them as she settled against his stone-hewn chest trying not to panic. All she could do was caress his sides as he wrapped her in his wings.

S
he looked up at
Azrael and then over to the clock that was now turned on its side on the floor. By Isda’s edict, they were supposed to be in the restaurant in fifteen minutes. She so couldn’t deal with any vast cosmic misstep they might have just made. It was too late anyway—and if this was the end of the world, what a way to go out.

Maybe it was the overall stress or the insane levels of endorphins that now flooded her system, but suddenly she laughed as she held the sides of his face. She closed her eyes as the laughter turned into crying.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not, Az,” she said, both laughing and crying. “Oh, my God …”

“Yeah,” he said, then kissed her forehead, glancing around the partially destroyed room. His serious
expression gave way to slow laughter. “Well, at least I feel better. How about you?”

For a moment she just stared at him as he retracted his wings and rolled off her. He slung a thick forearm over his eyes and sighed as his laughter ebbed. “This is soooo not in the book.”

“Ya think?” She sat up slowly and glanced around the suite. “We can only hope management hasn’t been called.”

He sat up slowly. “Well, at least I can fix the room.” He waved an arm and the chairs righted themselves, the cracks in the TV and window vanished, and the clock jumped back up on the table as the pictures on the wall straightened. Azrael glanced up and then looked at his hand.

“Well, I guess that’s a good sign,” she said, shaking her head and trying to get her hair to fluff down. “Can you fix this while you’re at it?”

“I was just joking around,” he said nervously. “You’ve never seen me do that. Kill demons, yes. That’s my specialty—but manifesting, moving matter … not so much.”

The two stared at each other for a moment.

“That’s a good thing, right?” she said quietly.

“Given where we are and what we’re supposed to do, one can only hope.”

Celeste kept her gaze
lowered as they rejoined the group in the restaurant. They were a half hour late to the table and her legs were still wobbly. When Azrael muttered a greeting and sat down hard like an unsteady old man, Bath Kol almost spit out his beer. Aziza kicked him under
the table. Celeste looked at her sisters sheepishly, and they all glanced back at her with understanding. Just their complicit smiles made her feel better.

“So, now the gang’s all here,” Isda said in a peevish tone. “At least let the ’oman eat something before we head out to the desert.”

“I’m not really that hungry,” Celeste said, hoping to avoid any further embarrassment. She could grab an apple or whatever, for all she cared.

But Isda shook his head. “Your electrolytes are all off and you need some carbs so your sugar doesn’t drop enough to make you pass out. The heat out there ain’t no joke … and if you would be so kind as to hydrate her, Azrael. I do believe I left everybody water in the room.”

Azrael just nodded and opened a menu. Melissa winked at Celeste and continued grazing on her salad. But Celeste did notice that Paschar was still touching his mate a lot, rubbing her back and sitting well into her seating area. She felt for the poor man. On the other hand, Gavreel was cleaning a plate of hummus and falafel, wiping it with fluffy whole-wheat pita bread. Judging by the litter by his place setting, he was a very peaceful individual now.

Celeste smiled as she placed her order and listened to Azrael order nearly half the menu. Anything that wasn’t meat was fair game, and he’d already grabbed a roll. All worry about carbs and organic fare had obviously flown out of the window in this land where such luxuries seemed unheard of now. The guys had clearly adopted the policy to go local and clean out their systems later. Even Aziza had to relent. It was that or starve.

A newly revolutionized Egypt didn’t have chichi organic restaurants, supermarkets, or five-star hotels that could keep up the posture of luxury these days without extreme effort.

Once the waitress left, Isda released a huff of breath. “Okay, folks, here’s what ground intel has found out so far.” Isda leaned in closer. “The Egyptian Museum is closed, mon. No big surprise about that, right?”

“What?” Celeste whispered as she glanced around the table.

“Beyond the protests, low staff levels, and all the hullabaloo, there was a so-called incident there yesterday morning, right about the time you all got on the flight. But they gwan open it up like tomorrow after they mop up and the authorities get done—too much tourist business to be lost … what little is trickling in. Everything is still spotty, you know. Things kinda open when they want to now. There’s no schedule. But they gotta open the main tourist attractions, even if they only got a third of the buses coming in than they did before.”

“Mop up?” Azrael said quietly, leaning in.

Gavreel stopped eating and leaned in next to him. “Found a body gutted and drained in the storeroom.”

“Might have something to do with us, might not,” Pas-char said. “But the timing is really suspicious.”

Bath Kol nodded. “Right now, that poor bastard’s family is catching liquid hell. Because of the way he was killed, nervous authorities are saying Al Qaeda might have turned on him, he could have been a terrorist or in the crime scene here. You know how shit gets spun when there’s no answers and the dark side is involved, bro. Just
the way they say he was butchered put that event on my radar.”

“I definitely felt something weird when we passed the museum,” Celeste admitted quietly. “It was dark.”

Isda folded his arms over his chest. “Den I say we eat up and get our girl out into the desert.”

Her body felt like
a wet noodle, and after being with Azrael, taking a hot shower, then eating, the last thing she felt like doing was going on a potentially hazardous quest. If she could have curled up into a little ball of humanity and gone to sleep for a couple of hours, she would have been a happy camper. But that just wasn’t in the cards.

An impromptu ladies’ room meeting when they all hit the lobby was just what her spirit needed. Aziza was the one to sense it first and called for it as only the Queen Mother of the group could.

“Gentlemen, we will be back,” Aziza announced in a nonnegotiable tone. “The conditions on the road will be spotty at best, I’m sure. And after all this water we’ve forced down, we need to make one last run before getting into the van.”

Without fanfare or giving the brothers options to protest the delay, she lifted her head and walked in front of the three younger women, who quickly followed. None of them said a word until they’d cleared and shut the outer ladies’ room door. Maggie checked the stalls as though about to do a bank heist. Melissa grabbed Celeste by the arm, and Aziza said a quick prayer to seal the room against bad vibes.

“What is
wrong
with them?” Melissa asked in a quiet rush, staring at Celeste and then the others. “And make it quick before some tourist wants in here with us and we can’t talk.”

“Girl, I don’t know,” Celeste admitted. “It’s like they are feeding off the energy from this region. Azrael said it’s a vortex, where they all first came in for the initial battle with the fallen. So the brothers are hype.”

“More than hype, they’re also horny as shit,” Maggie said, wiping her brow with an exaggerated smile.

Celeste started laughing. “Uh, yeah …”

“It’s the energy firing up their kundalinis,” Aziza said with a wide grin.

The women burst out laughing, then quickly covered their mouths.

“That is a way to put it, ’Ziza,” Maggie said, giggling hard.

“No, I’m serious. Kundalini energy is chi, spinal energy, chakra source energy—oh, never mind,” Aziza replied, unable to hold back her quiet brand of melodic laughter.

“But if they’re so, uh … out of control,” Melissa said, her smile beginning to fade, “what if they really lose control?”

All smiles faded as they stared at Melissa.

“I’m just saying that because Paschar was afraid that he couldn’t pull it together to focus on not being out of control … and you know regular human contraception doesn’t work on these guys—their seed just burns right through it. Full intent not to procreate has to be their will, and so I told him I didn’t want to get a lightning bolt
thrown his way and that made him back off me. I know we’re now able to sleep with them without dooming them to eternity on earth, but I don’t think the whole procreation edict or ban on having hybrid children by Heaven was ever lifted, do you?”

Beginning to pace, Melissa’s normally analytical calm fractured right before their eyes. “It’s like my whole life is changed in a snap. We’ve all be swept up into this altered reality where none of us know the rules, if we’re breaking the rules or—”