Natural Consequences (35 page)

Amber crawled into the bed, still wearing the robe. Jason turned out the lights and got in beside her. To the angels, the room hardly darkened; there were shadows now, but the light shed by their halos and their natural radiance remained.

“You seem quite proud of your sex life,” said Theresa.

“Yeah, maybe I am. Maybe I’m thrilled to be in the relationship I’ve found. But I don’t go putting it in anyone’s face—‘cept right now, ‘cause you two uptight bitches are sitting here in
my home
pissing and moaning about a couple of people maybe getting it on. When the hell did we all get so fucking uptight about fucking?”

Jason and Amber settled in. They shifted a bit. “Comfy bed,” observed Amber.

“Better than what I’ve got at home,” nodded Jason.

“Angels fuck. Angels fuck all the time,” Rachel continued, ignoring the renewed wince on Daniel’s face. “When did we all get
wound up? I mean we don’t have orgies in front of everyone or anything, but nobody ever felt ashamed about it.”

She turned to look at the pair of mortals laying on the bed. “She totally wants to fuck him,” Rachel said again. “Wow, look at her. Staring at the ceiling fighting with herself over it. That’s a whole big bag of conflict there.” She turned to Theresa. “So I get the guilt over building this whole relationship on a foundation of bullshit, but what’s her other damage? She’s already gone this far with him, what difference does it make if they bump uglies?”

“Amber does, in fact, suffer from a guilty conscience,” Theresa answered.

“That can just make it hotter. Worked for me the first time with Alex.”

The other two angels glared at her, fuming with wide eyes. “There is also the matter of her professional standards,” Theresa continued rather than engage with Rachel’s over-sharing. “Ordinarily, fostering this sort of a relationship with the subject of an investigation would destroy the case, get her fired and quite possibly even sentenced to prison. Those rules likely do not apply here, though. She is not entirely comfortable with that, or with what she has already done… and her superior refuses to clarify the matter.”

“Wow,” Rachel frowned. “Sucks to be her. And poor Jason.”

“Tell me about it,” Daniel sighed.

“Do you think Rachel’s really an angel?” asked Amber in the darkness.

“I think she’s something that we would call an angel,” said Jason, “but what an angel actually
is
may not be what we think.”

“What’s that mean?”

Like Amber, Jason stared up toward a ceiling he could not see. “Think like a scientist. You can make observations, right? She’s got wings, and a bright ring of light around her head, and she can do amazing things, right?”

“Yeah, Jason, I’d pretty much call that an angel.”

“Okay, but when you see a big animal in the ocean with tentacles and huge eyes, do you automatically think ‘sea monster?’ Maybe you would’ve a hundred years ago. But now you know better, and so you might think, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a giant squid.’ You only know better, though, because other people have taken the time to make the observations and study them over time and gather evidence.

“Now, we both
know
that all this supernatural stuff is real. I’ve seen demons and werewolves and shit now, right? But that just means that I can study them—theoretically, anyway, ‘cause I don’t want to make a habit of this shit—and then I can figure out what they really are. And then they go from being a ‘monster’ to being a specific kind of animal.

“I’ve known Rachel for like a month. I can say offhand that she’s an angel because she fits a popular image, but to be rational about all this, it’s not like I have a firm, scientific explanation of what an angel actually
is
.”

“You said Alex went to Hell.”

“I did, but again, that’s just a convenient term. I know he got pulled into some other dimension, or maybe he got transported to someplace that exists in this dimension but we can’t normally get to it. But do I know that was Hell? Do I know that’s really where bad people go when they die? How do I know I’m not jumping to conclusions about something that could be rationally explained if I had more data?”

“Know what I like best about Jason?” asked Rachel. “He’s smart.”

“So you say,” Theresa frowned. “After all he has seen and experienced, he still doubts. I would not necessarily call that intelligence.”

“Not givin’ up on being an atheist then, huh?” Amber mused. “After all this?”

Jason nodded. “Anytime God wants to come out and prove to me that he exists, I’m happy to hear him out. But it might be a tough thing to manage.” He smiled at Amber’s snort of laughter. “Is Rachel an angel? Sure, I guess, but I don’t know what that actually means. I just know she’s my friend.”

“Aww!” Rachel blushed. She stepped forward. “I wanna hug him! But now I can’t! Dammit… Amber, hug him, you cold-hearted deceitful—“

“I like being your friend,” Amber said.

“Aww,” sighed Rachel. “Dammit. She meant that. Bitch.”

“Even with all the crazy supernatural bullshit?”

“Yeah. Even with. You handled it well.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “The world went crazy and you kept your head. Your friend might be a bad ass with a sword and Rachel might be an angel, but you were the one who made me feel like I might get out of that alive.”

Rachel blinked and stood back. She watched as Amber leaned in closer to him, her hand moving from his chest to slip around h
is neck. “Wow,” she said. “She meant that.”

Jason propped himself up on his elbows, meeting Amber’s lips with his. The two kissed softly, but hungrily.

“She did,” Theresa agreed quietly. “Oh, my Amber.”

Their kiss deepened. Whatever her nervousness over her mission and regulations, Amber found her immediate needs and emotions more pressing. After all she had learned, she was surer than ever that Jason was one of the good guys. She still didn’t know her real boundaries. Perhaps this was okay. And perhaps, even if it wasn’t, there simply wouldn’t be proof…

She broke off from the kiss then, her forehead leaning against Jason’s. “I’m not ready yet,” she confessed.

Rachel groaned loudly.
“Well, they’re in for the night, I guess. Up to you two whether you’re gonna stand around and gawk like a couple a’ fuckin’ pervs or go check on your other charges or whatever, but I’m late for a three-way.” She stepped through the bed, pausing only to look at Daniel. The angel looked on at the pair on the bed with both hands covering his face, though his fingers spread enough to allow him to see. “Daniel, seriously? C’mon, she just red-carded herself. It’s over.”

“Rachel, you could stop this
from going any further!” Daniel protested, pointing at the bedmates.

“So could either of you,” she shrugged.

“But we can only drop hints! Give them signs that they will likely ignore! You could show yourself and tell them to stop!”

Rachel gasped in blatantly feigned offense. “Daniel! How could you even suggest that? What sort of angel would I be if I were to interrupt something as intimate and beautiful as this? What sort of
lady
?”

With that, she strode right through the wall, leaving Daniel and Theresa behind to wring their hands or whatever they might do. Rachel moved through the dark hallway with only a single step, intending to move straight to the bedroom, but her sense of responsibility got the better of her. Wildly pleasurable sensations continued to run through her body as the mystic bonds between herself and Alex shared the joys of his night with her. She wanted nothing more than to join in.

It might be difficult, she realized. No matter what sort of front she put up before Daniel and Theresa, her heart remained troubled. The secrets she had to keep from her lovers seemed to only multiply… and whereas Alex might not have a clue about Amber, Lorelei already held suspicions.

This conversation might well require an investment of time. If she had to run out in the middle of it, matters would likely only g
et worse. Best to ensure she had the time. Rachel needed to double-check on her city. Rather than going straight to the master bedroom, Rachel turned and walked through the other guest bedroom.

She heard whimpers and the sounds of kissing. A bed frame, though bought specifically for its sturdiness, gave up an occasional creak. Rachel turned toward the sound and found two young women, naked and intertwined on top of the sheets.

Rachel sighed at the glorious moment. They were trusting, faithful and madly in love. However they might stray in the name of curiosity and fun, the two were a solid match. They were also dead sexy.

“What kind of lady indeed,” Rachel muttered. She smacked Onyx on her tight,
pert butt. The resultant yelp of surprise followed Rachel and her playful grin out the window.

* * *

She lay atop her lover with her legs spread for his mouth, freely reciprocating the pleasures he lavished upon her sex with her own kiss. They forgot all about time and gave little thought to their troubles, escaping for now in this solace. They enjoyed the taste of one another and the shameless intimacy of this act.

Lorelei release
d him from her mouth when she sensed the new arrival. Nothing about this development inclined her to apologize or cover herself up. Were it not for the earlier events of their evening, the succubus wouldn’t have even paused until the newcomer joined them.

Guilt and worry rarely appeared on Rachel’s face. Nor did she often look hurt.

She stood near the foot of the bed, out of Lorelei’s reach with her arms crossed over her chest. The signs of the night’s battle still marred her clothes, but the scars on her flesh continued to fade. “You two feel so good,” she said with a quiet, plainly apologetic tone.

“Alex,”
said Lorelei. The sensuality and submission vanished from her voice.

Nearly smothered between her legs, Alex broke off only long enough to correct her: “Master,” he grinned.

She shifted her hips. “Alex, my love,” she said, turning her body to roll off him. The succubus sat up straight on the bed, glancing at her somewhat surprised lover. “Rachel is here.”

Her tone preempted any sort of smile from him. Alex sat up. “Rachel? Oh my God, are you okay?”

She nodded as he stood and moved to her. “I’m fine. Or at least, I will be. It’s not as bad as it looks. I mean yeah, I feel pretty beat up, but I’m moving around fine. Just the cost of doing business with fucknut monsters. Gotta take a few hits if you wanna dish any out, y’know? I’ll be fine.”

The shimmer of tears in her eyes as she turned to Alex left him in doubt. He put an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t sound fine.”

“It’s not about getting a little scratched up,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here with you.”

Alex looked over to Lorelei and found her still sitting on the bed, watching silently. He felt surprised that she wasn’t at Rachel’s side even quicker than he was. “I feel bad about carrying on without you tonight,” he confessed. “I mean, I know you don’t want us waiting on you, but after tonight—“

“No, Alex, it was the right thing,” Rachel interrupted, shaking her head. “You needed it. We all did.”

“I still feel bad.”

“This was necessary,” Lorelei said. “This, or something like it. I had to bring you out of the chaos of your memories and the stress of your abduction. I took advantage of our intimacy and our bonds to do so.”

“I don’t—I’m not saying I feel bad about tonight, just that I don’t want Rachel to think we forgot about her.”

“I’d never think that,” Rachel said. “That’s not what bothers me.” She let him guide her to the foot of the bed, where they sat down together. Rather than moving to join her lovers, Lorelei remained where she sat.

“Then what is bothering you?”

She let out a fretful sigh. “Too many things. There’s so much I can’t tell you. I don’t even know how to explain it.” The angel looked over at Lorelei. “I’m sorry.”

Emotion vanished from Lorelei’s face. “
Did your concerns have anything to do with the attack tonight?”

“No! No, if it was about that, I’d have been able to
do
something. I had no more warning about that pack of assholes than you did. I wasn’t with him because I had to go find out what’s up with… this,” she shrugged. “If I had known the supernatural goat dick brigade would show up tonight, the rules about intervening wouldn’t apply.”

“Do they still?”

“Yeah,” Rachel answered. “I’m sorry, but they do.”

“Lorelei,” Alex broke in, his arm still around the angel, “are you mad at her?”

“Rachel knows some troubling information,” she frowned, carefully choosing her words in response to the blonde’s pleading look. “Were she to tell you, she would violate the trust that the Hosts have placed in her regarding her relationship with you, or regarding her responsibilities for this city. I am unsure which, because she hasn’t shared this information with me… though I have my suspicions.”

“Lorelei, you know I love you,” said Rachel.

“But you do not trust me.”