Lost In Time: A Fallen Novel (23 page)

“Have you heard of Pompeii?”

She nodded, and laughed. “You fell because of Pompeii?”

He turned away from her; he still felt the pain of those souls. “You may laugh all you like, but it was something that should have been avoided. Men, women and children were killed. Innocence was burned and wiped from the earth that horrible day. I gave everything I was and more in protest.” Turning back to her, he let her see his emotion. He had never spoken to anyone about how he had Fallen, not even Jessica. But he wasn’t going to hide this from her. “The Elysian Fields are full of love and kindness. Angels should guide and show mercy. That day none was to be had. So I chose to be exiled rather than not give mercy where it was deserved.”

Celeste just looked at him not speaking. The humor from a moment before was gone. She held out her hand, and they Flashed into a side street off of Bourbon Street. They could hear the merriment of the city just beyond the shadows were they stood.

“It doesn’t matter,” Celeste said, looking down the street at the brightly lit bars and tourist attractions. “But I think you did the right thing.”

He touched her shoulder, turning her around. He pressed her against the brick wall of the alley. “It does matter very much. Thank you, Celeste.” And then he kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, one of gratitude, one of caring and kindness. But he felt the power of his need and lust just under the surface, desperate to be released.

When he pulled back, she smiled at him, taking his breath away. “Gods, Celeste, I wish you would do that more often.”

Her smile faltered. “What?”

He rubbed his thumb along her full bottom lip. “Smile at me.”

“That’s all you want from me? A smile?” she asked, laughing.

Marcus moaned and leaned against her, pressing his proof of his need for her against her belly. “No that is not all I want from you, but it’s a good start.”

“Ready?” she asked. He nodded, and they Flashed back to the deserted business district.

“Why did you never reveal yourself in the Infernos?”

              She looked at him hard. “By the time I was born, Mother was already starting to lose it. Dante had pulled away from her, she got pregnant on purpose. She stole his blood and bonded herself to him. She knew she was losing him, and did everything possible to stop it.”

She shrugged but he could tell what she was saying was hard for her. “I am an abomination, something that should have never been. When I was born, Dante took me to the river of souls to get rid of me. But he says I looked up at him with my violet eyes, and he couldn’t do it. He fell in love with me, regardless of the fact I should never have been born; that he should have never been capable of love after descending from the heavens.”

Those words stabbed at Marcus like nothing ever had before. “You feel like you’re an abomination?” he asked.

She nodded with complete honesty. “Of course, it’s what I am.”

Marcus took her in his arms. “Every soul has meaning and purpose, Celeste. You are the furthest thing from an abomination that I could think of.”

“Marcus, you say that as if I should be ashamed or hurt by what I am. I am neither. It is just the way things are. We need to move.” He nodded, not letting go of her as they Flashed into an open field.

“You are not an abomination,” he whispered into her ear and held her, partly because she was allowing him to and partly because he wanted her to know that he really didn’t think she was what she thought. “You’re one of the most amazing women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.” He leaned back and looked into her face; her eyes glowed in the darkness. “So you hide from the world because of being told you are an abomination?”

She laughed. “I was kept safe, Marcus. My brothers and father deal with the worst of the world both in mortal and Other. They did what they had to do in order to keep me from being hurt. And I left the Infernos and came to the mortal plane all the time.”

Marcus stepped back. “Why?”

“Sex,” she said honestly. Marcus let his arms fall to his side, and he fisted and released his hands several times. The thought of her coming here just to seek out sex with nameless and faceless men made him want to kill every single one of them.

He turned away from her and took several steps trying to control his temper. With one word she had pushed him from zero to a hundred on a scale of angry.

“Marcus I need sex. I’m a sex Demon, it’s a fact.” The way she said it made it so he didn’t have an argument against it. Not without sounding like a total fool.

“What happened to this man you fell in love with?” he demanded, angry at a man who could have stopped the nameless sex, but was too stupid to know what he had. If she had fallen for someone she would have been kept safe in the Infernos.

Her face fell. “I explained, Marcus he wasn’t the man I thought he was and therefore my feelings for him have changed.”

She didn’t want to talk about it, he could tell. “But the thought of you with nameless men—”

She put her hand on his mouth stopping his words. “Don’t think about it. You didn’t know me, didn’t know I existed. It is the past.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, feeling as if he needed to place a mark on her, mark her as his so she would never need to have sex with nameless men again while he was here. As far as he was concerned the vow was broken. She was his, and he was going to do whatever he needed to do in order to keep her.

He pressed his lips to hers urgently. She didn’t fight him, kissing him back. For the first time they were on the same page.

He finally pulled his lips away, and looked around. “What I wouldn’t give for a bed.” His hands roamed all over her body.

“Breathe,” she warned, Flashing them back to the cemetery. Monoliths and slabs of granite lay out around them.

He leaned back. “Not exactly what I had in mind but—”and kissed her, his hand sliding down to cup her butt. His fingers slipped inside the seam of her legs, and he pulled her up so she wrapped her legs around his waist. He backed her up against a large slab of granite.

“Marcus I need you so bad, I can’t think,” she growled into his ear as she pulled his shirt from his pants. Celeste ran her hands up his ribs. She could feel his muscles twitch and jump as her fingers ran along him.

“Does it help that I feel the same way?” he moaned in her ear. She melted against him as he said it, giving into him.

Celeste pulled away, pinning him with her violet eyes. “Are you sure?” the question held so many different questions: his vow, his life, what he had fought for and believed in.

He answered her by kissing her and pulling her into his arms.

****

She had never felt so safe and so cared for in all her life. She was with the one man she had dreamt about for over two hundred years. He touched her like he worshiped her. He made her feel like she was the most important thing in the world, and that was a new feeling to her.

              Cool hands touched her lower back, and she arched forward, gasping.

He chuckled. “Sorry, it’s a chilly night.”

“Then why am I burning up?” she asked. She cupped his face and pulled him down to kiss. She never wanted this moment to end.

His hands moved to the front, and she pulled her cloak off, tossing it over her shoulder. Marcus pushed her down so she lay flat on the granite. He pushed her top over her breasts and stood staring at her for a long moment.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. Leaning down, he took one nipple into his mouth.

Celeste had to bite her lip in ecstasy. She arched up into his mouth, wanting to be as close as she could to him. She felt like no matter how close they got, it would never be close enough.

“Damn, Celeste.” He lapped at her body. His free hand pinched her other nipple, and he switched sides as he rubbed his erection against her. “I need you.”

She laughed. “Yes, I can feel that.”

He moved so that he could look into her face. “You think this is funny?” he asked with mock indignation.

Celeste rotated her hips in a way that would drive him crazy, and he closed his eyes tight, not breathing.

“Never,” she said, pulling him down by his hair so that she could kiss him.

When she finally released him, he buried his face in her neck, moaning. “Sweet Mother of all the Gods.”

She pulled back, her smile lighting up the night. “No. Celeste, Sex Demon Reaper.”

This time he laughed and kissed her again.

“Marcus.” She whispered his name when he pulled his mouth away to move kisses down her throat.

“Hmm?”

“We need to keep moving, we are on a mission, remember?”

He leaned up on his elbows, a sour look on his face. “Celeste, one of these days we are going to finish what we start before it kills me.”

She pulled her shirt down and grabbed her cloak, straightening out the long sword. “Haven’t heard of a cold shower?” she teased. “Besides, you haven’t had a woman in five hundred years. What’s another couple of days, weeks, months? Self-satisfaction?” She laughed at the look he gave her. “What?”

“Celeste I haven’t, I mean… Gods,” he stammered, pulling away.

“What?” had she done something wrong? Said something wrong?

“Celeste, when I took my vow of celibacy?” she nodded. “I haven’t been with a woman since then nor have I taken pleasure for myself. Besides wet dreams that I can’t stop. And lately those have involved you in so many different ways I can’t stand it. I haven’t—”

“Marcus are you blushing?” she asked as he tried to turn from her.

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about it. Where are we headed next?” he asked. He took her hand refusing to look at her.

“Why did you take that vow?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

He took a deep breath in order to answer, and she Flashed them to a bridge overlooking the river.

“A woman,” he answered. “For a woman I thought I loved and couldn’t live without, but it’s amazing what you can live through.” His voice dropped, and he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “For a woman, Celeste. A woman I could never have.”

She noticed he hadn’t said a woman he didn’t want, but a woman he couldn’t have. Celeste felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on her. If he could have this mythical Jessica would he turn away from Celeste? Forget that she existed again? The pain that caused almost doubled her over.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered without any real sympathy.

Marcus stared out into the slow moving river and shrugged. “Nothing to apologize for. You had nothing to do with what happened.” He turned, smiling down at her, and as he had said earlier, she wished he would smile at her more often as well. “You’re here now, and that is all the matters.”

Celeste backed up as if he had struck her. “So, I’m your second choice because it didn’t work out with the woman you took a vow of celibacy for over five hundred years ago?”

“That is not what I said,” Marcus growled, but this time it did nothing for her but piss her off. “You took that wrong.”

“Really?” she asked pushing him as hard as she could. He gasped as he started to tumble over the railing of the bridge. At the last moment, she grabbed his ankle and Flashed them back to an alley on Bourbon Street.

“Son of a bitch,” Marcus bellowed. Landing on his back, his head cracked against the dirty cement. Celeste actually felt bad.

“Was that really necessary?” he snarled with his eyes closed.

She crossed her arms. “Yes,” she said, masking her hurt with sarcasm.

“I swear to all the gods in heaven and hell, I will never ever understand you.” He finally pushed himself to his feet. “One second you’re moaning to bring down the heavens, and the next screaming like a banshee and pissed as hell. You are impossible to understand.”

“Then it’s a good thing we won’t be around each other for all that long isn’t it?” she said, turning from him and walking down the alley.

“Don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart. I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned on him. “Excuse me?”

Marcus approached and enunciated each word carefully. “I’m not done with you.” He looked her up and down as if she were a piece of meat. “In fact I haven’t even started.”

She saw red and swung at him. He caught her wrist, smiling at her. “You’ll have to try a little harder,” he taunted.

That was one of the last things people did: taunt her. Dropping into a squat, she swung one leg out, sweeping his legs out from beneath him, but he refused to let go of her hand, and he took her down as he fell back.

Celeste cringed as her wrist popped painfully. She flipped over him so she was crouched at his head, and her wrist no longer bent at a different angel then it should have been.

Marcus immediately let her go. “Celeste,” he said, urgently. “Your wrist.”

She shook her head as he tried to rise. Elbowing him straight in the temple, he dropped to the cement like a ton of rocks, out cold. “I’m not sure if you know this, Fallen, but I play dirty and stopping a fight for sympathy is a sure way to get your ass handed to you,” she whispered to his unconscious face. Patting him on the chest, she Flashed them back to the house.