Wasteland (22 page)

Her neck begged to be nipped, but I kept sweeping my eyes downward. I trailed my finger to where the zipper met her tank top, smooth skin beckoning my touch.

“David,” she sighed.

I cupped her breasts, and her wings went rigid.

She clasped her fingers behind my neck and pulled herself up to me. Her wings cooled me, but the beast within still pierced my heart with its molten claws.

Take her.

My hands navigated her hips and over her backside. I hoisted her up. Her legs cinched my waist, and she latched her feet behind me, kindling the inferno. Not the demonic flame, but one of lust. Desire.

“I’ve waited for you, David.”

“Why? We cannot be together.” I grazed on her jaw line down her neck.

“Not yet.” She suckled my earlobe. “But soon.”

“How? You’re betrothed. I am de—”

“Shhh. Do not say that word ever again.” She palmed my face. “You are my David. I do not want to ever hear that evil word come from your mouth again.” She drew in her wings and slid down the front of my body to her feet.

Her thumb brushed my lips. I held her palm to my cheek. “How are you so cool to me?”

“The Light. It flows through my veins now. From Jessica.” Her gentle kisses spanned my chest, to the collarbone. Her hands rested on my sides.

I lost my breath at her softness, and my body throbbed. “Please stop. I cannot bear it.”

“I’m sorry. I just missed you so much.” She hugged me and lay her cheek against my chest. “It took years to find you.”

“How did you?”

“Followed demon after demon. We recognized the big ones you called the Elite Guard. They still hunted Jessica, even though her conversion had been complete.”

“What is Jessica?” I petted Beka’s long, soft hair as she clung to me. Thankfully she’d stopped moving against me. The contrasting cold emanating from her, and the warmth of her body challenged my weakened resolve.

“Pure Light.” Beka gazed into my eyes. “Able to convert evil to goodness just by her touch.”

“Demons?”

“Those not fully converted.”

“There are more half-demons like me?”

“No. There is no one like you, David. You’re the first of your kind, but yes, there are people who choose evil, but before they do the act required of them, take an innocent’s life, they are not fully demon.”

“I’ve heard of that. Jessica can remove that evil from them with only her touch?”

Beka nodded into my chest.

“And she can do that for me? Remove my demon half and vanquish the contract?”

“We just need to get you to her. The loss of our vehicle has slowed us, but we’ll get you there. If it’s the last thing I do, David, we’ll get you there. I pledge it.”

I leaned back, forcing her to look me in the eye. This didn’t make sense. She wasn’t free to be with me. “Why are you doing all this? You’re betrothed.”

“Your majesties.” Russell stepped through a split in the trees. “Come, the food is ready. Let’s rest and be on our way.”

My heart slammed against my chest. “Majesties?”

CHAPTER 32

“Sit. Eat. You must get your strength back.” Russell handed me a piece of bark fashioned into a plate overflowing with chunks of meat. “We are far from the city.”

I peeked at Beka, and she nodded.

“Please, tell me everything,” I said as I shoveled the first bite into my mouth, still stumbling over Russell calling me
Majesty
.

The raging campfire in front of me crackled, sending sparks up into the darkness. Trees towered over us, but I spied a flicker of the full moon through the foliage. Beka sat close to me, legs crossed, and Russell and Abraham sat on the leaf-padded ground across from us.

“Remember how precious a treasure Jessica was?” Russell said.

“Yes. I remember you sacrificing your Queen for her.”

Russell coughed into his hand. “But you were there to save her. And you will soon see that Jessica was well worth it.”

“Why is she not here?”

“We couldn’t risk her safety to bring her to you for your rescue. She’s back in Arizona under guard,” Beka said.

I devoured the rest of my meal in three bites and handed Russell my wooden plate for more. “Go on.”

“When Jessica received the pure Light, with it, she received inspired sight.”

“Inspired sight?” I asked.

“She looks through eyes unlike anyone’s. They see deep into people, their soul, their goodness, and their evil. She shared some of her insight with me when she touched me. She confirmed me as Queen. Turned me into what I am now. A Guardian Angel.” She nestled closer to me as she picked up a piece of meat. “Part of that insight was a picture of my mate. The one who will rule with me.”

I gulped a stray piece of meat lodged in my throat.

“I’d always known I would join with someone to rule, and I’ve saved myself for that person, but when I met you, I was willing to give it up just to have you by my side.” She slid the back of her hand over her mouth. “But how could I mate with a demon? Evil could never rule over the Guardians.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“But Jessica sees through different eyes. When she looked at you, she saw the future. It was you by my side as my King. That’s why she had to get to you. But your Master’s Elite Guard stole you from our grasp before she could make contact.”

“How? Why me?”

“She sees the full prophecy, not just the little part we knew of, about my being queen and joining with an angel to rule. Your mother made a contract with Lucifer. Sold the soul of her first born into servitude. But Michael, the Archangel, knew you were destined to be more than a demon, so he instituted a clause into your contract.”

“Clause?”

Beka nodded at Russell. He sat up and the fire cast a dancing shadow over his face. “David,” he said. “He gave you choice. If you were to choose the life of a demon, so be it, but you had to be presented with a pure choice. Lucifer knew the fleshly needs of man—meaning—he knew how tempting sex can be to men, so he made that the deciding factor. Should you choose to lay with a woman, you would be confirmed demon, and you would lose your humanity. But all these years, you didn’t. You made it to Michael’s final moment of choice.”

“Jessica,” I whispered.

Beka smiled. “Yes. When you chose to give up Jessica to us, to the Light, you chose humanity over darkness.”

“Why did I not shed my demon at that moment?” I set my wooden plate on the ground before me and rested my elbows on my knees. “If it is just choice, why continue the punishment?”

“Jessica needed to touch your skin in order for your demon to be banished.” Tears welled in Beka’s eyes. “But you were taken.”

“Why would Master send me to retrieve Jessica, knowing all of this? I’d never wanted to be full demon. He’s always known that. He must have known I would choose Jessica.”

“Part of the agreement. By contract, your Master
had
to allow you to come here. He awoke you a few years early of your sentence, did he not?” Beka asked.

“He did. I never knew the reason.”

“That is why. He knew the sensory deprivation would leave you hungry and thirsty for worldly pleasures, including finding comfort in a woman’s arms. My guess is he’d hoped you would fall before you retrieved Jessica. Be too weak to face another sentence by turning her over to us, or letting her go. Therefore, your choice made, you wouldn’t step into your destined role.”

“He’s known this all along.” I kneaded the back of my neck. My limbs felt heavy, like iron rods, lead flowing through my veins. “The timing of my punishment, to leave me vulnerable. Sending me to that club hours after my release.
Everything.
”

“He’s deceived you this entire time. If he would have gotten you to give in, chosen your demon side, making it to Michael’s choice wouldn’t have mattered. Lucifer would have mated you with Master’s Queen and you would rule the demonic world instead of Master.” Beka gripped my forearm.

“He never would have allowed that.”

“Right,” Russell said. “If you were demon, he would be able to kill you; therefore, remaining in his position.”

“No wonder he wanted me to convert so badly. He would have killed me outright.” So often he’d tempted me. Gage, too.

I bolted to my feet and ambled a distance away. I’d preserved my humanity, hoping for a way out of my contract. To become human. Never had I expected this. I could not be a King of the…I’d killed so many Guardians. Brought innocent people to Master. This couldn’t be true.

The further I got from the camp, the more the burn settled in. I stopped. The blazing needles punctured my heart. I allowed some of my evil to surface and analyzed the ebony nails slicing through my fingertips.

Something like me could never become king of the Guardians. No being had the ability to purge four centuries of darkness coursing through my veins. The things I’d done.

Don’t hope for redemption.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, David,” Beka said. “I’ve had thirty-five years for the truth to sink in, and sometimes I still can’t believe.”

“There has to be a mistake.”

She stood shoulder to shoulder with me. “No. It’s not a mistake. Can’t you feel it?”

“What?”

“How did you feel the first time you saw me?”

“I thought you were an angel. Dancing on that floor. I joked that two hundred and fifty years of confinement would be worth a few minutes in your arms.” I studied the ground. “And here you turn out to be an angel.”

Fingers twined with mine. Her light skin sharply contrasted mine. She brought my hand close to her face and brushed her cheek against my knuckles.

I retracted my talons. “How can you stand to be so close to me when some of my demon is surfaced? How are you not repulsed?”

“Because I know it’s not your true self. Something your mother cursed you into before you were even conceived.” Her jaw muscles twitched. “She had no idea what she’d done when making that deal.”

“I’ve hated her for centuries.”

“But, despite what she’d done, she’d started the prophecy. Your prophecy, David.” She closed her eyes and faced skyward. “Our destiny. As mates.”

Light strokes of softness tickled my arm. I turned to find feathers massaging my skin, cooling the demon inside of me.

“Where do the wings go?”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “They fold behind me and dissolve into my skin when not needed. That is why I must have two slits in everything I wear, in case I need them quickly.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Somewhat. But nothing like what you’ve endured for all those centuries in captivity.” A single tear slid over her cheek and dripped off her jaw. “I can only imagine the agony, the—”

“Don’t.” I swallowed the bitter rage. “I am strong. I choose you, Beka. Take me to Jessica. If I am to be your mate, I would like very much for that to happen soon.”

Her arm snaked around my waist, and her wing encircled my shoulders. “As would I, but you can hardly stand on your own volition. You need to rest, then we will move quickly.”

“How far are we?”

“You slept many hours in the car, but we are still outside Arizona’s borders. The Guardians are on the move toward us, with Jessica, to a blessed spot in the northern corner. We were to meet there tonight. I will take to the sky and scout ahead, looking for a town from which we can procure a car and get you more food. We need you strong.”

“It is dark, how will you see?”

She turned into me. “My eyesight is quite good now.”

I absorbed the sensation of her body formed to mine. A flicker of doubt fanned to life in my stomach. Everything I’d ever dreamt of in a female stood beside me. A precious woman to cherish and make love to. A chance to remove my demon rested in Jessica, a young girl hiding only hours from me. Waiting to help me.

Even though I was new to this century, disarrayed from thirty-five years of captivity and plagued with the constant twinge of Master’s punishment, I was still aware of the phrase
too good to be true
.

CHAPTER 33

“Hurry, my king, we’re close,” Russell said.

“Don’t call me that.” I stomped toward him.

He chuckled and pointed ahead. I peeked around the corner of the building. Beka’s slight frame stood proud as she talked to a tall man, with dark hair. He leaned in over her.

A thundering rumble rolled in my chest.

“Going to be one of those possessive-type husbands I see,” Russell said with a snicker and waved me to follow him. “Relax, she’s just wooing him with her angelic charm. We need a car quickly. She said she saw a bunch of demons combing the woods and this small town, looking for you.”

“
A bunch of
…your language has changed.”

“Hanging around a teenager will do that.” Russell smiled. “Jessica is a unique mixture of teenager, adult, and ancient. It’s quite intriguing.”

“Teenager? It’s been thirty-five years.”

“You’ll understand when you see her. She may be the prophesied Merus and nearing fifty years old, but she looks no more than eighteen.” Russell slapped my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Just trust us. We’ll get you to her.”

“So, Master has known this entire time that should I choose Light, I would become something different?”

So much had changed while I was away. “Yes. Lucifer is his boss, after all. He’s the one who made the deal with Michael and put you in his care.”

“Care.” I wouldn’t have chosen that word to describe how Master treated me.

We came to a stop, and squatted behind a thick tree trunk fifty feet from the rental lot. Behind us, cars sped by. Sun sifted through the swaying branches sheltering us, and the breeze carried a fruity scent from nearby citrus trees.

“He’s not winning any Daddy awards any time soon that’s for sure.”

“No wonder he always sought to punish me and to tempt me. Yet, had I given in, I would have dethroned him—if he couldn’t kill me.”

“I’m sure Master would have tried, yes, but I truly doubt Lucifer would have allowed you killed.” Russell stared straight ahead. “Who is Master to argue with what Lucifer wants, right? You demons are sick creatures.”

I dug my elbow into his ribs. “Careful, I have been away from my Beka’s cooling touch for some time now. I could morph and end you in a second, you realize that, don’t you?”