Redemption (Book 4, The Redemption Series) (18 page)

Is that what my father wants for me?

I look up to stare at Amalie’s window feeling a desperate need to be closer to her.

I phase into her old room. Something shiny catches my eye on her nightstand, and I walk over to see what it is. I pick up the holo-crystal and allow it to play the last video viewed.

I stand and watch the scene of me chasing her in the woods and her tripping, nearly falling to the ground. I remember feeling lucky to have phased in just in time to cushion her fall. It was the moment she told me we would be having a baby. The video caught the elation I felt after she made her announcement. I didn’t know then that the pregnancy was actually a death sentence for Amalie, or I wouldn’t have looked so happy. It was one of the few moments in my life that I felt pure joy.

When the video stops playing, I set the crystal back where I found it. I sit down on the side of the bed and pull Amalie’s pillow against my chest. I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination playing a trick on me or not, but I swear I can still smell her scent on the pillowcase. I put the pillow back down in its place and lay my head on it. As if feeling her presence in the room with me, I allow myself to close my eyes. Sleep is something that rarely finds me, but with my own guardian angel watching over me, I allow it to whisk me away to another place.

At least until I hear Anna scream....

Chapter 17

(Return to Anna’s POV)

I do indeed find my husband anxiously pacing back and forth in the sitting room as he awaits my return. When he looks up and sees me walk in, his shoulders visibly relax, and I hear an audible sigh of relief.

“What do you need?” Malcolm asks me as I walk over to him, looking like he desperately wants to help me in whatever way he can.

“For you to hold me,” I tell him, not needing anything else or wanting more.

Malcolm opens his arms as I step up to him and closes them around me, making me feel safe and whole. We stand like that for a long time, neither of us saying anything because words are useless in that moment. I may know that Millie and Daniel are in Heaven, but that doesn’t erase the pain of feeling their absence from my everyday life.

Phasing every day to Heaven to see them really isn’t an option for me either. It would simply make accepting their departure from this plane of existence that much harder. Heaven is meant for those who pass on to the next realm of being. Every time I go there, I can feel it pushing me to leave and silently telling me that I don’t belong there, at least not yet. I still have more to accomplish on Earth before I can take my final rest.

“Where did my papa go?” I ask Malcolm, still holding onto him but wondering where my father is.

“He went upstairs to his old room,” Malcolm tells me. “He wanted to bathe and take a little time for himself to wrap his mind around everything that’s happened since he’s been gone. I tried to fill him in on what he didn’t already know. I guess Lucifer told him some of it the last time he saw him.”

  “Did he say where he’s been all this time?”

“Levi stuck him out in some isolated cabin up on top of the Himalayan Mountains. It could only be accessed by phasing there and the only people who even knew it existed were Levi and Lucifer. I thought I knew all their secret hideouts, but apparently I missed that one.”

“He’s been there this whole time?”

“No. Apparently, Lucifer moved him so Levi couldn’t find him either. It’s kind of odd…”

I lift my head off Malcolm’s chest to look up at him and ask, “What’s odd?”

“Lucifer took Andre to the house Jess and Mason used to have in the Caribbean. I haven’t been there in over six hundred years, none of us have. But Andre said it looked just like it did when they lived in it. I guess Lucifer has been keeping the place up. I just never knew. It probably would have taken me another thousand years to even think to check there.”

“I think that’s nice that he would honor her memory like that,” I say, wondering what else Lucifer might have done that no one would have suspected.

He might not openly acknowledge it, but he still had a soft spot inside his heart where Jess was concerned. She was probably one of the few true friends he ever had during his exile on Earth. It was obvious to me she still meant a great deal to him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still visit the site of her house in Cypress Hollow or keep her beach house livable after all these years. Lucifer might try to act like he didn’t care about her, but it’s obvious by his actions that he did and still does.

Out of nowhere, I feel a penetrating burning sensation tear through the center of my chest. I try to ignore it because I’ve finally found a small bit of peace in Malcolm’s arms. His comfort is something I don’t want to let go of yet. But the ache stoutly refuses to be ignored. The pain intensifies to a point where I end up forcefully pushing Malcolm away from me. I don’t know what’s happening, but I do know I don’t want him too close to me. I would literally die on the spot if I did something unknowingly to hurt, or possibly even kill, him.

Malcolm moves to come back to me, but I hold up my hands to stop him.

“Stay back!” I order, bending at the waist as a wave of excruciating pain hits me.

“Anna!” Malcolm says, moving forward again in his eagerness to help.

“Please, Malcolm,” I plead, tears born from this newfound agony cascading down my face. “Please stay away from me! I don’t want to hurt you!”

The torture becomes so intense I grow weak in the knees and drop to the floor, clutching at my mid-section and bending down until my forehead presses against the cool wood. At the height of my agony, I squeeze my eyes shut and scream.

My shriek acts as a beacon to those who care about me. Everyone in the house, with the exception of Bai and Linn, come running or phasing into the sitting room. I feel someone, I’m not even sure who, rest their hand on my back.

“Get away from me!” I yell, doing my best to warn them. “Don’t touch me!”

“What’s happening to Anna?” I hear Vala demand hysterically.

“I don’t know,” Malcolm answers, sounding bewildered and frightened.

“What the hell is happening to her hair?” I hear my papa ask in amazement.

I force my eyes open and look at my hair. It acts like a natural curtain surrounding my face, and I see that my papa is right. Inexplicably, it’s turning from my natural brown to the color of snow.

Another wave of agony wracks my body, coursing down into my extremities and causing me to tremble violently.

“We have to do something!” Lucifer says urgently.

I feel someone place his hand on top of my head.

“Get away from me,” I beg through my sobs, not wanting to accidentally harm anyone else I love.

“Anna,” Malcolm says gently, “my touch has eased your pain in the past. Maybe it can help you again. Please, at least let me try, my love. Let me help you.”

I lift my head from the floor and look at Malcolm as he kneels in front of me. He stares into my eyes for a moment as if something else is wrong.

“What?” I ask him. “What's wrong?”

“Your eyes...,” he says, staring at them in confusion. “They're blue now like that's their natural color.”

Another surge of pain envelops me, causing me to scream and squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, I look back at Malcolm and think I see a shadowy figure standing directly behind him. I’m not sure if it’s real or a simple trick of the light in the room mixed with my own blurred vision. As another wave of pain floods my entire body, I close my eyes and almost wish for death just to end my agony.

“Where does it hurt?” Malcolm asks tenderly.

“Everywhere,” I admit, feeling like the torture my body is being put through is about to push me over the edge into madness.

Malcolm stands and picks me up in his arms. Without saying a word to the others, he phases us to our bedroom. He lays me on the bed and quickly takes our shoes off. He climbs on top of me, gently laying his body down on top of mine like a mirror image. He brings my arms up over my head to lay against the pillow, twining our fingers together to make us one. We’re completely connected from our hands to our feet. Malcolm’s heaviness and unusually warm body temperature act like a compress against the pain. He begins to kiss my face softly, lovingly. This quiet moment tells me we don’t need words to say ‘I love you’. The trail of my tears is soon vanquished and the sharp, excruciating pain in my body begins to subside into a dull ache. I feel like I can breathe easier now and actually take in a deep breath.

“Any better?” Malcolm asks, gently nipping at my lower lip with his teeth.

“A little bit,” I tell him.

“Am I too heavy for you?” he asks, continuing his pleasurable exploration with his lips down the side of my neck.

“No,” I tell him, turning my head to the side slightly to give him unobstructed access to my neck. “You’re not too heavy for me. Your weight feels good, actually, almost like its pushing the pain down. Please, don’t move.”

“Can I move my hands?”

“As long as you move them on my body,” I whisper, not wanting to lose a bit of his warmth.

I feel Malcolm smile against my neck.

“That was the plan, my love,” he whispers back, sliding his hands slowly down my arms and against my sides.

When I feel his hands reach up underneath my shirt, I moan, but not so much in pleasure more in relief. The warmth of his hands as they slide over my naked stomach eases the torment my body is experiencing. By the time his hands reach my breast and squeeze gently, the pain is all but gone. I slip my fingers through Malcolm’s short locks and bring his head down to mine for a mind-blowing kiss.

Just as Malcolm moans against my mouth, I hear something unexpected.

“Oh my dear Lord in Heaven,” my papa says, “I
told
you it was a bad idea to just barge in here.”

Malcolm quickly lifts his head from mine, and we look at our intruders standing by the now open door to our bedroom.

My papa has his head tilted down and is using one hand to shield his eyes from the sight of Malcolm and I making out on the bed.

“Now I’ll have to live with that image burned into my memory until the day I die. Thanks a lot, Lucifer,” papa says, shaking his head in dismay and trembling slightly in disgust.

Lucifer stares at us with eyes wide, like he’s been hit with a stun gun and can’t move a single muscle.

“I’ve seen some horrible things in my time,” Lucifer finally says, “but I think I might actually become ill after witnessing that.”

Malcolm rolls off my body and from the bed in one swift, single movement.

“Well, if the two of you had thought to knock first,” he tells my fathers, sounding slightly exasperated, “perhaps you could have saved yourselves the horror of seeing your son-in-law making out with your daughter.”

Papa spreads his fingers slightly and peeks at us through the slits they make as if he’s confirming that it's safe to remove his hand from in front of his face.

“We were worried,” my papa says when he sees me sit up.

I assume he was waiting to make sure I was fully clothed before disposing of his only means of protection to shield him from my lost chastity. He has to know Malcolm and I have had sex by now, quite a few times in fact. Perhaps fathers like to pretend that the men their daughters marry don’t actually do anything once the bedroom door is closed. I quickly feel my cheeks heat up as I think about all the things Malcolm has done to me on the bed I’m sitting on. When I see my fathers begin to walk over to me, I quickly stand up from the bed.

“How are you feeling?” my papa asks.

“Are you all right?” Lucifer inquires at exactly the same time.

“I’m better,” I tell them both, trying to sound reassuring. “Malcolm’s always known what to do to help me.”

“Grope you?” Lucifer asks, giving Malcolm a rather disapproving side-ways glance.

“Hold me,” I tell them.

I notice both of them looking at my hair. I had almost forgotten about that. I reach up and pull a hand full of strands forward to look at my new hair color a bit more closely.

“Why did my hair turn white?” I ask to no one person in particular. “And my eyes turn blue?”

“The seals must be…changing you in some way,” Lucifer deduces. “The sooner you get rid of them the better, Anna.”

I reach out and place a hand on Lucifer’s right arm, squeezing gently.

“Does that mean you’ll help me?” I ask him, on the verge of happy tears because I already know what his answer will be.

“There’s no turning back now,” he says, placing his free hand over the one I have on his arm. “If we don’t get them out of you, they’ll kill you, and I will never let that happen. As soon as you get Mammon’s seal, I will give you mine and you can phase to Heaven to take them back where they belong.”

I throw myself into my father’s arms and hug him tight.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling a relief beyond words.

“You’re welcome,” Lucifer says, hugging me back. “But we have work to do.”

I pull back and ask, “What do you suggest?”

“First off you need to find Mammon,” Lucifer replies. “I can’t find him anymore, and I doubt he’s just sitting in Virga waiting for you to come for him.”

“Edgar Ellis might know where to find his son,” Malcolm says. “I say we go to Edgar and ask him where his good for nothing progeny is hiding out these days.”

“I’m not sure he’ll talk to us,” I tell Malcolm, remembering my last conversation with the Emperor of Virga.

“Why is that?” Malcolm asks.

I tell him.

“Well that self-righteous son of a bitch,” Malcolm growls after I’m done. “I can’t believe he had the gall to say those things to you. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Edgar. He’ll tell us what he knows whether he wants to or not.”

“I would offer to go with you,” my papa says, his face tense with pent up anger, “but I might say things to him that would hinder your fact finding mission.”

“Malcolm and I will go,” I tell my fathers, not wanting either of them to travel with us. Truth be told, I would have asked Malcolm to stay behind too, but I knew that was never going to happen no matter how much I insisted. “We’ll get what information he has and be back soon.”

“Just be careful, cherub,” my papa says leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.

“If you can’t make that old codger blush,” Lucifer tells Malcolm, “come and get me. I know
all
the skeletons in his particular closet.”