Of Consuming Fire (9 page)

“Baby, please — ” Eli tried to pull her close to him, to wrap his arms around her.

“No! This is bullshit! He’s holding us hostage. I’m about to give birth in captivity. And he goes around saying something doom and gloom every five seconds. I’ve had it!” Abilene’s face turned red.

An alarm started blaring from one of the monitors.

• • •

Initially, he had come over here only to lesson some of his Temptation’s anger; however, Jayden felt a genuine and rare flare of concern as a monitor for the baby’s heartbeat began to blare in warning. The mother’s anxiety was affecting the health of the innocent. The small woman reached beneath the blankets again, and a second later shrieked, “I’m crowning!”

The blue-eyed one swayed on his feet. “Oh, God, the baby’s coming.” He turned toward Jayden’s Temptation with wide eyes. “What the hell am
I
supposed to do? I don’t know anything about this!”

And then, against all reason or anything Jayden ever would have expected, his Temptation turned her eyes upon
him
. The silent plea in their depths shot straight through Jayden’s spine. Jayden clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. This went against his instinct. His orders were to
end
these people, not to help them.

But the innocent was in danger. And the innocent was the priority.

“There is very little you have to do,” Jayden said to the man quietly. “Her body does the work. You only need to catch your daughter.” He walked forward slowly, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. “Little human,” he said as kindly as possible to the small, frightened woman in the bed.

Her wide, terror-filled eyes turned on him. The alarm continued to sound.

“I know you are frightened, but you must calm. Remember yourself.”

With his eyes, Jayden urged the blue-eyed one to take her hand, and once he did, Jayden felt the delicate one mentally take the reins of her panic and try to pull them back. “Yes, good,” he coached her softly.

After a few moments, the alarm faltered and then fell silent. Jayden allowed himself to relax. He placed his hand on the blue-eyed one’s shoulder and urged him to the end of the bed. “Tell him what to do,” Jayden told the delicate one. “He is strong for his family. He will take care of you.”

Without another word, Jayden turned from the bed, strode past his Temptation where she gaped at him with a wide-open mouth, and took up residence leaning against the wall right outside the room.

Less than a minute later, the indignant cry of a newborn babe filled the air. Though he told himself not to look — that
life
was none of his concern — Jayden could not stop himself from peeking into the room.

The blue-eyed one held an infant so tiny it barely filled his palms. The baby was warm and wiggly and perfectly formed. She had a head full of ebony ringlets, and she gazed upon her father with wide, blue eyes. Jayden’s heart swelled as the infant’s innocence flooded his body like a warm, consuming fire.

This was every angel’s favorite part of humanity — the perfect, innocent beginning. He felt his cheeks burn and realized he was smiling. This new life — she was beautiful. The infant scowled at Jayden over her father’s shoulder and her tiny, perfect face twisted as she screamed with all the power her small lungs could give her. The infant’s feelings poured out of her: she wanted — no,
needed
— the woman in the bed. Loved her mother.

The feelings were so pure, so perfect, not even the blue-eyed one was confused about what she needed. He walked quickly to his mate’s bedside and placed the baby on her mother’s chest. The delicate one gasped and cuddled her child close to her breast. The defilers’ intense, unconditional love for the baby permeated the room, strong and unforgiving, and Jayden was momentarily humbled by the selflessness of the humans’ feelings.

The blue-eyed one climbed into bed with his family and wrapped his arms around the woman and child. “Oh, God, she’s so beautiful,” he said reverently, brushing a palm over the baby’s head and pressing a kiss to his mate’s cheek. “A girl,” he whispered. “I was secretly hoping for a girl.”

“So,” the delicate one said, “Genesis it is.”

The blue-eyed one nodded and pulled his family close.

Jayden watched all of this without a word. All he could think of was that he was going to soon take this child’s —
Genesis’s
— parents from her. Introduce pain into Genesis’s young life. Return beautiful, guiltless love with pain.

It did not settle well within his heart.

He felt warmth at his side and turned his head. His Temptation stood beside him. “Thank you,” she whispered, gifting him with the smallest and shyest of smiles.

Jayden felt it down to the tips of his toes. He tore his eyes from her and looked again at Genesis. The first life he had ever started rather than ended. And then a thought so shocking it had him stumbling backward flashed through his mind:
Do I have to kill them?

The Compulsion rioted within him, and Jayden used all of his strength to push it back down again.

Weariness weighed Jayden down. Of course he had to. In the end, it mattered not whether he wanted to. It
would
happen. Doubting himself now would only bring on the Compulsion quickly.

He forced his eyes from the beautiful family and walked away.

The next morning, Jayden was in his usual place by the cave-in, but a very unusual aura of worry crowded his thoughts.

He could not shake a concern that the humans were going to run out of food.

Jayden had not once checked the supplies since packing the defilers into this wing of the facility — he hadn’t cared if they lived longer or died sooner. But now, with an infant in their numbers, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to have such a cavalier attitude toward the humans’ survival. After all, the infant they named Genesis was also human, and she did
not
deserve to suffer.

The worry continued to dig into Jayden’s thoughts. With an exasperated sigh, Jayden pushed off of the rubble and stalked down the hallway toward the supply closet to check on the number of MREs. Hopefully no one would see him in this expression of caring, however little it might be.

Jayden wrenched open the supply closet, quickly scanned the contents, and frowned. No, they did not have nearly enough supplies for five grown adults and a growing child for seven months.

Jayden was running figures in his head when another steady stream of worry filtered through Jayden’s mind. For a moment, he was completely confused. Was he truly worrying about yet another problem? Heaven above, he was going completely soft!

It took him only a moment more to realize the second stream of thoughts was not
his
. They were his Temptation’s. They felt so important to him, so close to what he should be paying heed to, that he had mistaken them for his own thoughts.

He raised a hand and massaged his furrowed brow. With a steeling breath, he relaxed his mental guard and allowed his Temptation’s thoughts to flood him fully.

The sheer volume of her anxiety almost bowled him over. He had to take a stumbling step back. Her complete lack of options for distraction was driving her toward the edge of what she could handle mentally. Always before, she had her work to distract her. God, the pain hurt so badly. She needed to be busy.
Pain
. Now she had nothing. Was trapped in a hallway with two happy couples and her worst nightmare. Why was this happening to her? She had nothing. No laptop. No research.
PAIN
. No projects. Nothing.
Nothing. NOTHING!

Jayden jerked himself out of her thoughts with a gasp. A longing reared its head within him. The desire to ease her hurt — to fix her problem — was so overwhelming, Jayden could not ignore it.

Without thought, he began to rationalize taking action. He
had
just been pondering how it did not seem just to imprison them without creature comforts. Granted,
food
was not so much a comfort as a necessity, but —

Jayden stared down the hallway at the pile of rubble blocking the exit. It would take seconds — perhaps a minute — to return to the main room and retrieve some of his Temptation’s items.

He allowed his senses to probe the other defiler’s rooms. They were occupied the same way they were always occupied when the doors were closed. This time, however, the realization that they were all making love left him with a heavy feeling of want rather than disgust.

Jayden forcefully shoved that line of thought from his mind, and in its wake laid a decision. Was he really going to do this? Seek to make her stay with him more comfortable?

He took three steps toward the exit before he realized there had never really been a decision to make at all.

• • •

The breathing exercises weren’t working! Grace could hear her breaths echoing throughout the sparse room, and at the rate that she was pacing back and forth, it wasn’t only from hyperventilation. She was going to start wearing a literal path in the floor if she didn’t get a hold of herself.

Another bolt of pain shot up her spine, and Grace gritted her teeth and walked faster. It didn’t work. She was unable to prevent a whimper, no matter how fast she paced. The pain was so much worse today. It was the third day since she had Impulse-paired. She’d made it longer without release than any of the other two couples made it during the first few days of their relationships — and that thought, which had been her first upon waking today, no longer gave her any comfort.

Grace groaned as the pain continued and rubbed fingers over her temples, trying to hold back the raging migraine perched in the wings. “I need to work!” she shouted to the empty room.

Immediate chagrin rushed in. Had she seriously just screamed in an empty room like a toddler?

The thoughts of her laptop and research just feet away, but as inaccessible as though they were miles away were torturing her.

She had just spun on her heel to make another pass in front of the door for perhaps the ten thousandth time when a sharp knock sounded.

She jerked it open and was met with a rather timid-looking angel. Before she could stop herself, she looked at his wings where they peeked over his broad shoulders.

Why
? Why did
he
get to disappear?

She could feel the ferocity of her scowl as she dragged her eyes from his wings to his face and was marginally pleased when the angel leaned away from her slightly. Oh, she was itching for a fight, and he was the perfect culprit. “
What
?” she growled, hands on hips.

His eyes flicked away from hers and danced around without landing on anything. In someone else, Grace would call the behavior
nervousness
.

“I thought … perhaps … ” The angel’s chest rose and fell with a quick huff, and he stared at the ceiling momentarily, dismay and annoyance flaring across his face. He met her eyes again and drew his hands from behind his back. “Here,” he said unceremoniously, thrusting a battered brown bag at her.

Grace stared at it for several seconds before she recognized it as her beat-up leather satchel. She could see the corner of her laptop peeking through the edge of the flap. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Well … yes. I, uh, thought you might need. Well — ” He broke off and looked at the floor again. He wiggled the satchel where it still hovered between them.

Grace snatched it from his fingers, careful not to touch him, and pulled it to her chest. She could see notes peeking from the back pocket — notes that had been on her desk. He’d seen them and made sure to put them in the bag for her.

The gesture made her irrationally angry. “You think this what, makes us okay now or something?” she spat at him.

His head shot up and his eyes widened. “No, I — ”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “God, you’re all the same!” And even though she hated him in that second, she couldn’t prevent herself from looking at his body. His robe had mended itself from the gunshot wound he received days ago, and the blood had vanished from its fabric. It lay on his body like the finest silk. His wide chest filled it out beautifully, and she discovered herself licking her lip. She forced herself to sneer at a splash of blood that marred the flawless patch of skin at the base of his neck where his robe did not reach. If she didn’t go on the offense, and soon, she would throw herself at him. That patch of skin would be her undoing. The Impulse pain flared hotly, and she turned the groan of pain into a stinging retort. “Don’t you ever bathe?” she threw into his face. She scowled at him and spun around.

With that, she slammed the door in his face.

And immediately felt like shit. She looked down at the bag she still clutched to her chest and noticed that he’d even tucked her favorite pen in with the notes. The pain flared again along with the realization that she’d been a class-A bitch.

Did he deserve it? Oh, yeah. But “winning him over,” the group’s current brilliant plan for escape, might have just been shot to hell. With a weary sigh, she gently set her satchel down on the bed and walked to the door, not quite sure she was really getting ready to apologize to the psycho who was holding her captive.

When she opened the door this time, it was with dread. But the hallway was empty. Grace looked right and left and didn’t see him. The door of the room next to hers was standing open, however, and she figured he’d gone in there to pout. Or whatever it was angels did when chubby redheads ripped them a new one. Her feet dragged as she forced herself to walk into the adjacent room, an apology ready to trip off of her tongue as soon as she saw him so she could get this over with.

She spun into the room. “Angel, I’m s — ” She stumbled to a stop.

The angel’s hand paused where it was dribbling water from the running sink over his bare pectoral. Over his bare
everything
. The angel’s robe lay in a puddle on the floor at his feet. He was standing by the hand-washing sink in the corner and giving himself a whore’s bath, except looking at him made
Grace
want to be the whore.