Rebel (12 page)

He moved his tongue in her mouth, and he knew she wasn’t used to kissing like this. He knew how to kiss—God, he’d had enough practice—and women liked to be kissed, to be held. He liked to kiss them and hold them. And fuck them. He’d get around to that. Right now he was enjoying Martha’s slow capitulation, a nerve cell at a time, and when her tongue moved against his he wanted to crow in triumph, to shove her back against the door and bury himself inside her as he drank from her. Drank deeply.

He could lose himself so easily, his body, his clever, calculating mind, in the sheer pleasure of her. He didn’t
want to think, to plan, to scheme. He simply wanted.

Wanted what he couldn’t have. He was almost at the point of no return, and he sensed she was already there, the erotic visions tumbling through her mind in a kaleidoscope of images, and he knew if he saw them as well he’d climax there against her, fully clothed.

It took everything he had to slowly bring her down. To soften his kiss, let his hands move over her back in a steady, soothing gesture, calming her as he tried to calm himself. He finally broke the kiss, and she gasped for breath, and he wanted to laugh. He really would need to teach her how to breathe when he kissed her.

He pressed her face against his chest, letting her rest there as she slowly came back from that exquisite, almost painful state of arousal, and he stroked the cap of dark curls. He wanted her blood so badly he could already taste it; it would be thick and sweet, filling his body with the kind of power few knew. But he had to hold back. Couldn’t rush her. No matter how badly he needed to.

He heard the faint sigh as the last bit of tension left her body, and for a moment she was quiescent, limp, leaning against him. As her muscles tightened again, as if she realized where she was and what she was doing, he released her, stepping back.

“You know,”
he said in a conversational tone, “when we actually fuck, we’ll probably blow the roof off this place.” He used the term deliberately, just to see her reaction.

He expected her to turn and run. He was very dangerous to her, and she knew it. A cautious woman would have run as far and as fast as she could, and Martha struck him as a cautious woman. But instead she stood her ground, facing him, small and stern. “How many times must I tell you? I want you to leave me alone.”

“Do you? You could have fooled me. Whose tongue was in my mouth, then? I thought it was yours.”

He saw her hand twitch, and he knew she wanted to hit him. He was used to bringing that out in women. At least he never hit back.

“Don’t worry, little rabbit,” he said with a laugh. “Go ahead and run away. For now.”

She ran.

M
ETATRON DID NOT CONSIDER
himself a man made for stealth. He had a warrior’s brutal acceptance of the price that must be paid, and he climbed the stairs to Raziel’s apartment with a solemn, heavy tread. He didn’t worry about people seeing him. Cain would get the blame for this, which was fine with Metatron. They wouldn’t be able to prove anything, because Cain would have no knowledge of it. The deed would be done swiftly and efficiently, distracting everyone.

It had taken him long hours of deliberation to decide how best to accomplish his mission. He had promised not to kill, so the Source would stay alive. Besides, he relied on her blood to survive, at least until his curse was lifted as he brought Sheol under Uriel’s power. It would have been so simple to throw
her off the balcony outside her window. He knew she liked to perch up there—he’d seen her often enough as she looked out over Sheol. Easy enough to slip. But that would kill her as well, and he had promised.

He took his promises very seriously. Besides, he didn’t want her dead. She had been kind to him, and her blood had kept him alive. He honored his obligations, and he owed her.

He’d finally decided to use poison. He didn’t like the thought—poison was a woman’s weapon, and he was a man of action. But in Uriel’s service he had learned to be devious, to do what needed to be done. As he would do now.

Sheol had no poisons, he’d learned with disgust, and hadn’t that knowledge taken a great deal of cunning to discern? Nothing to rid her of the spawn from a distance. The best he could come up with was a powerful but essentially harmless sleeping draft, and it had taken him a while to work out the details. He could drug the Source, get rid of her friends, and then kick her in the stomach. No more foul offspring of the unholy. Not only would Raziel be useless, the entire community would be grief-stricken. And those who depended on the blood of the Source would be deprived at first and then victim to the sorrow that suffused her. During the years she’d moped about because she couldn’t have children by her accursed husband, her blood had become more and more
depressing. The few unbonded went into an empathic decline when they fed, and several of them had gone in desperate search of a mate rather than endure that constant grieving.

They would be prey to even deeper despair once the thing growing inside her was gone, and this time Uriel would be able to march in and take over with little difficulty. In fact, Metatron hadn’t even needed Cain. He could take care of all this himself.

Perhaps Cain might be the one to fall from a balcony, if something could be done to his wings. It was hard to kill one of the Fallen, particularly one strangely impervious to fire, but Metatron had little doubt he could do it. He was, after all, an expert at death.

The demon Lilith sat in a chair by the Source’s bed, some kind of needlework in her hands. Her fingers moved swiftly, efficiently, but he had no interest in such frivolity. He bowed, low and respectfully, as he’d learned with Uriel. Raziel kept insisting it was unnecessary. Metatron still bowed.

“Metatron,” the Source greeted him in soft surprise. Everything about her was soft, her brown hair and eyes, the dreamy expression on her face, the smile that lingered around her mouth. He frowned. There was sex in the air, and he glanced at the Source. Surely that was impossible.

“Is something wrong?” Rachel asked sharply. She worried, did the demon. He liked that.

“No,” he said. “I’ve
simply come to offer my respects to the Source. I haven’t seen her in several weeks and I wished to reassure myself that all was well.” That had sounded like a reasonable excuse to him. There had been no ritual bloodings in the past few months. Rachel had unexpected talents, and she’d removed blood from the Source by means of some strange, ungodly combination of needles and tubing, and the blood had been delivered in a tiny bottle, enough to sustain him. Indeed, he preferred it that way. The drinking of blood was shameful enough; to put his mouth to a woman’s body had been anathema. This way no one had to witness his degradation, and he could keep himself away from her decadent female flesh.

She lay in bed, ripe, fecund, the roundness of her belly a reproach to the Supreme Power who had made them and cursed them, and a danger to everything Uriel ruled. It was wrong, and he would end it.

“That’s very sweet of you, Metatron,” she said, taking him at face value. That was another failing of the Source—she trusted too easily. She didn’t see danger until it was too late.

He hoped Uriel wouldn’t destroy her as he’d destroyed Tamarr. Even though she was the unholiest of the unholies and deserved to be ripped apart, he liked to watch her. Asbel had told him he had an unfortunate fascination with the woman, and
Metatron had almost killed him for that. He’d resisted, sensing Asbel would be an easy one to turn, unaware that Uriel had already taken care of it. But now Asbel was dead, and Metatron had been forced to turn to Cain, with his snakelike charm and his annoying manners, bringing him back to Sheol to help him complete his mission.

“I wondered if there was anything I could do for you, my lady,” he said respectfully.

“How very kind of you, Metatron. But I’m fine. Well taken care of, in fact.”

“She’s fine,” Rachel echoed with just the slightest edge to her voice. They’d never liked each other, not since she’d interfered with his intended execution of Azazel. In the end Metatron had been the one to die, and only the healing power of the ocean had saved him, leaving him no choice but to cast his lot with the Fallen. He wondered why it hadn’t saved the first wave of Uriel’s armies in the battle that followed a few months later. They’d drowned in the water, their wings weighted down by it, pulled underneath to vanish into the darkness.

He’d killed his share of Uriel’s followers that day. After all, he needed to convince everyone he hated Uriel as much as they did. The only way Uriel would lift his banishment and allow him back in was if Metatron brought with him a substantial boon. The death of the threat growing in the Source’s belly
would go a long way toward achieving that, and the destruction of Sheol should ensure it.

“Then I will take my leave.” He began to back toward the door, when Rachel grew suddenly alert. She rose as well, setting her knitting down, clearly expecting to return to it today.

“Azazel needs me,” she said to the Source in an undertone, obviously hoping he wouldn’t hear her. “I won’t be long. Unless you need me to stay?”

He didn’t need to hear. He’d arranged this, quite neatly, if he chose to compliment himself. A note delivered to Azazel at just the right moment ensured Rachel would be called away on a perfectly reasonable pretext, and with any luck the Source would be unguarded. Though others visited, there was usually only one person keeping her company on a steady basis, and he’d simply waited until it was Rachel’s turn.

“I’ll be perfectly fine,” the Source said. “Metatron can stay and talk to me.”

He’d anticipated this as well. “I wish I could, my lady, but I am late for a meeting with the archangel Michael. I promised I would train with him. If you prefer, I can stay, but I hate to disappoint him.”

He could sense Rachel’s relief. The demon truly didn’t trust him, long after everyone else in Sheol had accepted him. He was going to have to do something about that, and soon. But first things first.

“Of course not, Metatron. You go along with Rachel. I only have company because I get bored, and boredom is not a fatal condition.” She smiled at him, and Metatron felt that familiar, uncomfortable feeling inside him. If Uriel gave orders to kill her, he would follow them without question. But for some complicated reason, he was pleased those orders hadn’t come.

Metatron descended the stairs with Rachel in a hostile silence. He supposed he could make an effort to charm her out of her suspicions, except that he had no charm, unlike Cain, with his glittering, devious smile. This way Rachel could never suspect him when they found the Source on the floor, bleeding. He had an alibi, an excuse. He just had to hope the Source would drink the tea he’d dosed.

It had been a simple matter of distracting the women while he dropped the powder into the omnipresent mug of greenish tea the Source drank by the gallon. According to Rachel, who mixed the concoction herself, it helped nausea and strengthened the creature inside her, and she’d been religious in her intake. He calculated she’d be unconscious in thirty-three minutes. He was very good at numbers.

He followed his plan, showing up at the workout room to meet with Michael, who’d forgotten an appointment that had never existed in the first place. “Do not bestir yourself, Archangel,” Metatron said
with unusual magnanimity. “I will run on the beach for an hour or so.” Thereby setting up his final alibi.

He did run, a light, effortless jog, until he reached the second cove formed by the uneven coastline, well out of sight of everyone. And then he took off, soaring upward, keeping out of sight as best he could, until he landed lightly on the small ledge outside the rooms that housed the Alpha and his mate.

She was still awake, and he wanted to curse. He watched as she took the mug and drained it, making a face as she did so, and he waited, pleased with his plans, patient. Uriel would call him home when this came to pass, and Metatron would once more take his place at his right hand.

The Source reached over to set the empty mug on the table beside the bed, but she fumbled; it fell on the floor as she collapsed back against the pillows, unconscious at last.

It didn’t even matter if she was still slightly awake. The draft had an amnesiac side effect—she wouldn’t remember anything of the hour or so before she took the drug. He could walk in there and take care of this at any time now.

But he didn’t want to see her eyes when he did it. Even if she forgot, he wanted her to be asleep. She deserved punishment, but that would be for Uriel to decide. This was the best he could offer his erstwhile master.

The window was unlatched, as always. No one in Sheol worried about security among themselves. He pushed it open and stepped inside.

I
HAD NOWHERE
to go that felt secure. My rooms were too isolated, which had been a blessing before Cain showed up. Not any longer. He seemed to have a preternatural awareness of my presence—he found me wherever I went to ground.

I went to the one place that always calmed me. I went down to the water.

I slipped off my sandals and wiggled my toes in the sand. I could still feel his mouth on mine. Still taste him. Thomas had never kissed me like that. Oh, I knew what it was like—or I’d thought I did. The men, my mother’s friends, had tried to do that to me when they thought no one was looking. I hadn’t let them, keeping my jaw clamped and my mouth tight.

I had let Cain.

The vision hit me so hard I sank to my knees with a cry of pain. It was cruel and bloody: the Source lying on the ground, clutching her stomach, screaming, screaming, in a pool of blood, as the dark figure watched and her baby died within her.

I didn’t pause to catch my breath, to recover. There was no time. I surged to my feet and began screaming for Raziel, shrieking his name as I ran
toward the house. It took me only a moment to find him.

“Calm down,” Raziel ordered, dictatorial as always. “What’s wrong?”

“Allie!” I cried. “She’s in danger. Someone’s trying to hurt her! We have to get to her. Now!”