Devil Inside (26 page)

Harley smirked at Levi and pulled the sweater over her head.  Even though her desire for Levi’s blood still smoldered, she found that if she concentrated hard enough she was able to contain it.  She held his gaze as she walked around him to the bed.  Levi followed her, and when she climbed onto the bed on her hands and knees he lowered himself over her back.  She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled with wicked glee and he gripped her hair and pulled her head back.  Her hope was to keep him away from her teeth as much as possible.  She could see that his eyes were cold and black and she wondered if hers were too.  He bit her neck and even though she could feel his fangs he didn’t break the skin.  A part of her realized that she wanted him to bite her.  The idea flashed through her head and caused her stomach to shudder with excitement.  She could feel her Nocte raise up and purr in expectation.  When he didn’t, she could feel the Nocte deflate a little.  Realizing that there was a creature inside her experiencing what she experienced gave her a momentary pause.  She felt exposed and embarrassed briefly.  But the feeling passed quickly as she leaned back into Levi’s body, concentrating on the feel of him against her.

Levi pulled her bra down as he continued to bite and kiss the back of her neck.  The hairs on her arms prickled.  She wanted him so bad that she had to clamp her teeth shut against the growl that she could feel trying to force its way out of her.  She started to pull her pants down to hurry things along, but Levi shoved her hands aside with a grunt that sounded more animal than human.  He yanked the elastic band to her knees and pushed her forward.  She heard him finish unzipping his jeans and she looked at him over her shoulder again.  She cried out in both pain and pleasure as he used her shoulder for leverage as he thrust himself into her.

Harley could tell that he had definitely held himself back before.  His strength and intensity took her breath away.  He leaned over her and held her head a back with a hand on her forehead.  His other hand bore down on top of hers as he held his weight from pressing down on her too much.  As it was, it took all her strength to not fall forward.  With each thrust both Harley and Levi groaned in ecstasy.  The feeling was nothing like Harley had ever felt before.  She could feel the ripples of pleasure course through her on two different levels.  It was physical.  She could feel Levi’s power and it made her heart pound with excitement and she tingled in all the most important places.  But she could also feel it in her...
soul
?  It coursed through her with pulsing electricity.  She knew her Nocte was writhing in ecstasy along with her.   She could feel the Nocte ripple along her spine and hum deep inside her.

Harley reached down and stroked herself.  As she did so Levi began pushing against her even harder.   The pleasure began to shudder through her and she could barely breathe.  She was momentarily distracted by a growling sound until she realized it was coming from her own throat and she almost laughed at the strange sensation.  When Harley came it was with a blinding explosion of pure pleasure.  It coursed through her and everything around her seemed to slow down.  She could feel Levi’s breathe against her cheek and she could feel his heartbeat against her back.  But for a moment she felt like they were the same person.  She could feel herself as Levi felt her.  She could see herself as Levi saw her.  When she heard and felt his breath catch she realized that he was experiencing the same thing.  She felt as if she was staring into a mirror spinning out of control—unable to tell which side of the mirror she was actually on.

The physical pleasure Harley experienced was two-fold and she found herself rising to the edge of another orgasm.  As she came a second time, she was unable to continue to support her own weight and she fell forward.   Levi followed her down and wrapped his arms around her chest.   Their legs tangled together and she buried her face in the pillow to muffle her cry as she came again.  This time Levi came at the same time with a cry of his own.  They lay without moving for several minutes gasping for air.  Harley’s body tingled and purred.  When Harley finally stirred, coming back to her senses, Levi rolled off her onto his back.

“I have never experienced anything like that in my life,” she breathed.

“I—,” he panted, “haven’t either”

“What was that?” Harley didn’t have to elaborate.  Levi knew what she meant.

“I don’t know.”  He thought for a few minutes.  He had recovered quickly and was no longer gasping for breath.  He was silent long enough that Harley started to think that he had fallen asleep.  “I’m going to have to ask Nya about this.  Things have been…different since you woke up from the bonding process,” he said thoughtfully.  “Don’t you think so?”

“Yeah,” she answered after a minute.  “But I don’t know how much of it is just the Nocte bond.  I don’t know what is exactly normal.”

“I don’t think this is normal.  I mean, Nya brought me into the bond and I never felt like this towards her.  This strange connection…”

Harley ignored the twinge of jealously that she felt over that. 
Have Levi and Nya slept together
she wondered?  It was none of her business if they had, so she tried to let the thought go.  The feeling that Levi was hers and only hers crept back into her stomach again.  She fought the urge to reach out and sink her fingernails into his skin. 
What the hell has come over me?  I don’t OWN Levi.  Not any more than he owns me
she told herself firmly.

Harley watched Levi as he lay with one hand above his head and the other on the small of her back.  She could feel his warm skin against hers.  She couldn’t grow used to it and instead it lay there like a heated beacon alerting her to Levi’s presence.  She needed to distract herself from the strange possessive feeling that continued to bubble inside her so she decided to change the subject.

“So, what exactly is going on in Miami?” she asked.

Levi looked at her and she knew that he could see in the dark as well as she could now.  “There have been quite a few humans who have turned up dead with Vigilum marks on them.  Not all of the bodies were taken care of before the police found them.”

“Who takes care of the bodies?”

“Usually, in weird cases like this, when the bodies don’t take care of themselves, other Vigilum would take care of it.  Or if it were the Praesidio one of us would take care of it.”

“What happens to Nocte or Lux when they die?”

“We all burn.”

“Oh.”

Levi continued. “There also seems to have been a lot of Ignis deaths and the Turba are causing more trouble as a result.  Then the other night a Nocte died,” there was an edge to his voice when he revealed this.

Harley felt her hackles rise. 
Miami
.  The desire to go to Miami prodded at her from out of nowhere.  The urge to go and hunt the thing that had done this suddenly burned through her. 
Miami.  Hunt—kill.
  The words flashed themselves through her mind spurred by a burning anger that she couldn’t locate the source of.

“Miami…” she was surprised to realize the word had whispered itself from her own mouth.

“What?”

“I want to go to Miami,” she found herself answering before she had a chance to think about it.  She felt Levi stiffen beside her.  She rolled from her stomach and propped herself up on her elbow.  She could feel the intensity of the look that she gave him.

“Look,” he said almost sadly, “I told you that we would both have different jobs to do.  You can’t go with me to Miami tomorrow.  You have even trained yet and—,” his words broke off when Harley punched him in the side.  She hadn’t realized how hard she had hit him until he grunted in pain.

Instead of feeling guilty, she got angry.  “I don’t want to go to Miami to be with you,” she snapped.  Levi just watched her warily. 

“Then why do you want to go to Miami?

Harley thought about it for a minute. 
Why do I want to go to Miami so bad
?  She was so confused, because now she couldn’t remember what was so pressing about Miami.  Yeah, she was eager to know what was going on.  And knew with certainty it was important to take care of business there.  But her objective was Blondie
—
the Ignis who had caused Jamie’s death.  “I—I’m not so sure now,” she finally admitted.

Levi raised an eyebrow at her.  She steeled herself, ready to defend her momentary need to go with him.  She didn’t have an answer, and she certainly didn’t want to have to try to explain something to Levi that she didn’t even understand herself.  She refused to meet his eyes and let her confusion and embarrassment show.  Levi must have had second thoughts about arguing with her, because he let it go.  Instead, as a peace offering and distraction, he rolled over so that he lay above her.  She scowled up at him, trying her best to stay angry.  But when he began kissing his way down her stomach she realized she had forgotten why she was mad to begin with.

Later, Harley knew the sun was rising because Levi began to get tired—fast.  As he always did when the sun rose.  She waited to feel the slamming weight of exhaustion falling over her as she watched Levi’s eyes grow tired.  But it never came.  She was still wide awake when the sun peeked around the edges of the heavy curtains that covered the window.  She didn’t feel any different.  Levi said that they would be really weak in the daylight and that the Nocte slept during the day.  But she felt the same as she had for the last eight hours or so and she could tell that her Nocte was still wide awake humming through her body as it (she—Harley had to get used to the fact that her Nocte was definitely female) had been.  Harley knew the creature didn’t like the light—but her Nocte wasn’t afraid of it.  She could feel the devil inside her shying away from the daylight.  But she still felt strong and full of power.  Harley wondered if she should be concerned about this.  Eventually, when she did get tired and drifted off to sleep it was the normal falling asleep that she had experienced all her life. 
Why does my Nocte seem so different than everyone else,
she wondered as she drifted off to sleep finally.

_______________________

Harley had barely closed her eyes when she snapped them open again.  She was surrounded by flames.  She knew immediately that she was dreaming because she was no longer in the “farmhouse-that-wasn’t-a-farmhouse” in bed with Levi.  Instead, she was in her childhood home and it was burning around her.  The second hand furniture was the same and the cigarette burned carpet was the same. Her stomach turned to ice and she surveyed the house in which she now found herself.  Flames stroked the wall and carpet with a deadly caress as it melted the cheap synthetic fibers.  Her parents were nowhere to be seen.  They weren’t fighting on the floor as they had that night.  She slowly spun in a circle surveying the small living/dining area of the house.  The smoke was beginning to fill the confined space but Harley wasn’t affected by it in this dream world.  It didn’t burn her lungs as it had when she was a child.  The burning house seemed to serve as only background to set the mood instead of real fire. As she turned towards the dining room her breath caught in her throat.  She could see the small, dirty bare feet curled under the table.

Harley closed her eyes and forced herself to remember that this was a dream—that it wasn’t real.  She had been saved from this fire many, many years ago.  She was no longer the weak little girl desperately waiting for her parents to rescue her. But she couldn’t separate what she knew from the feeling of impending doom as the fire crept closer and closer to the table under which the little girl cowered.  She didn’t remember it being this close to her during the real events.  Andy had pulled her from underneath the table well before the fire reached her.  But now, in this surreal world, the fire climbed high enough to create a three sided cave of sorts around the table.  Dream or not, she couldn’t separate her panic from the dream, and she couldn’t watch herself burn.

Harley quickly made her way towards the table and placed a hand on it to steady herself.  She slowly crouched down and came face to face with the memory that had haunted her for eighteen years.  The little girl sat on the floor with her legs folded underneath her.  Her red hair was knotted and obviously hadn’t been brushed in a long time.  Her dress was too small for her and stained.  The little girl was looking away from her, towards the front of the house where her parents should have been.  Tears streamed down her face but Little Harley didn’t make a sound.  Adult Harley winced and her stomach cramped at the sight before her.  She knew how things had been, but seeing it made it even more real.  Seeing it meant that her brain wasn’t just constructing an image of a memory.  It became an undeniable reality.  The little girl’s misery and pathetic condition brought the shame and guilt slamming home to Harley.

“Hi” she said softly and soothingly as possible but the little girl ignored her.  The fire still didn’t come any closer, yet the sense of danger only grew stronger.  The heat began to increase and as Harley watched the flames flicker she suspected that they weren’t just background any longer.  She knew this dream wasn’t a memory—this dream was more than that.  Harley knew without a doubt that she needed to get herself out of the fire.  She wasn’t sure what would happen if she didn’t, but she just knew that it would be bad.

“Harley,” she tried again.  Finally, the girl turned and looked at her.  She stopped crying and just stared at her, as if she could see right through her.  Looking into her own face was disconcerting and left Harley disoriented.  After a moment, the little girl’s mouth stretched into a humorless smile.  She slowly blinked and when she opened her eyes they were a solid, lifeless black.  The movement of the flames flickering in the reflection in her eyes was the only thing that made them look alive.  Harley’s heart began to pound.  The little girl wasn’t crying any more but she made no move to come out from underneath the table either.  She continued to stare at Harley with her cold black eyes as the panic grew in her gut.