9
Needless to say, Luc refused to join me on my quest to the Sierra Madres after that. After Asher’s confession, Luc had swiftly turned on his heel and slammed out of my room. Now it was just Asher and I combing through the sparse mountain range, looking for the trail that would lead us to the zombie hive.
“Feels like old times.” I hip-bumped him when he got close to me.
His smiles were coming more freely now. I liked it.
Like really liked it.
A. Whole. Freaking. Lot.
The man had a way of getting under my skin. The way the ends of his hair clung to his neck, how his bronzed skin almost gleamed in the midday sun. Dressed in those sexy-as-sin jeans that hugged his massive thighs and muscular waist. I had to blow out a breath to get Lust to chill the hell out.
She was writhing and purring and making me want to jump him right here, right now. To toss him down on the packed red sand and have my wicked, wicked way with him. Didn’t matter that we were currently walking through hell on earth, full of scorpions and rattlers and every other kind of nasty killing machine out there.
I hadn’t felt this carefree, this... happy... in a long, long time.
That word stopped my daydreams cold. It was like a slap of icy water in the face and made me halt. We were searching for a zombie hive. Reputedly one that’d already killed several mortals. What I should be doing was keeping my head on a swivel, not glued on Asher’s ass, which looked amazing in those jeans.
As if sensing that’d I’d stopped walking, he turned and looked at me. A hot breeze blew across the desert sands, slapping tiny grains against my cheeks and scraping them raw.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, back at my side in a nanosecond. The sun was beating down on my brow, and I knew I’d looked better. And I hated that when he got so close to me, his unique scent completely overwhelmed me— a musk of man, danger, and cool silk sheets. Lust was salivating. Pestilence was in hiding, though I still felt his oily stickiness clinging deep, deep down inside. He wasn’t sure what to think of my sudden obsession with the priest. It both confused and disgusted him.
Lust was in full control and she had been ever since the death priest showed up in my room.
Disgusted with my inability to focus, I shoved him back. Regardless of the combustible heat I felt, I was still angry with him.
“Nothing.”
Brown eyes licked at my face for a brief yet all-encompassing second, making me feel itchy in my own skin. Sighing, he looked at the dead landscape and then pointed to a small shadowy shelf of red rock in the distance.
“C’mon, we need to take a break. Hot as hell out here.”
Grabbing my hand, he lifted a brow, waiting for me to trace us over. I’d discovered that Asher couldn’t move as I did. He could move fast, ridiculously fast, but he couldn’t actually trace, which was just a fancy word for breaking down my body into its simplest and most basic form, free-floating molecules, and traveling across distances in the blink of an eye. In that form, anything I could hold or carry, I could also trace. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it for long—the concentration it required to make sure I kept all my bits and pieces together was exhausting.
Snapping my fangs at him, I broke down, then wrapped my molecules around him like a hug and dragged him with me. His laughter echoed all around us.
The moment we arrived, I gathered myself and frowned at him. “What are you doing, Asher?”
I kicked at a large gray rock with the toe of my boot. A five-inch scorpion drew up on its hind legs and curled its tail at me in a defensive posture before quickly scuttling off. Sitting cross-legged, I stared at the deadly beauty of the harsh landscape, my ears ringing hollowly with the sounds of Hell and the cries of the damned as the memories of that night flooded me all over again.
The brush of his hand on my overheated forearm brought me back to the present.
“I’m here helping you. You know that.”
Rolling my eyes, I tucked my knees to my chest and shook my head. “You know exactly what I mean. You broke into my trailer. Again.” I eyed him sideways, hating that all I wanted to do was run my fingers along the scruff of his jaw, claim his lips, and burn this whole damn world down with the strength of my passion.
His lips twitched. “Made you orgasm too—don’t forget that.”
My cheeks flamed and I shot to my feet. I really didn’t want to leave the shadowy cove. While it felt like eighty in here, outside it was a hundred plus and even though it couldn’t bake me permanently, it was about as comfortable as taking a dip in a volcanic hot spring.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. First time we met, you tried to kill me.” I tapped my head where he’d very nearly caved my skull in. Had I been mortal, the strength of that blow would have killed me instantly. “Then you call me all these names and you—”
Standing, he grabbed my shaking hands and clamped them to his chest so that I could feel the steady beat of his heart. And once again the world spun out of focus and all I could concentrate on was the breath we shared and the richness of his eyes that I’d once found to be so dull.
They weren’t dull at all. They were warm and full and staring at me with the type of intensity no one ever had when looking at me before.
“I never shift.” The words spilled from my lips before I had time to censor my thoughts. “You look at me like that, and I never shift.”
Dragging a length of my hair through his hand, he shook his head. “I could tell you the truth of that night, if you really want me to.”
“I want something, Asher. I want some goddamn truth for once. I don’t want to walk in the dark anymore. I want to know...” I took a deep breath. “Can I trust you?”
Because this was so much more than me trusting him not to shank me when I wasn’t looking. As impossible as it might be for anyone to believe, the truth of it is demons feel. We don’t like to feel because if we allowed the emotions in, they would consume us. Literally burn us up like a moth’s wings in flames.
Maybe that’s why we all bore a moth’s wings marking. To remind us to stay cold, to never let go. Because if we let someone under our skin, into our heart, that person owned us. Mind and soul.
It would be nothing for Asher to ruin me. I was one kiss away from being consumed.
His warm palm slowly slid up the length of my neck before wrapping around my throat in a gentle hold that could turn deadly in an instant. I stood there and let him, knowing if he squeezed I wouldn’t fight.
I’d lived so long, done so much wrong, hurt those I loved most, it wouldn’t be much of a loss to this world to not have me in it.
But he didn’t squeeze; his touch was a tender caress that almost made me want to cry.
“I told you that night in the trailer that I’d been following you. And I have. Pandora, I’ve followed you most of your life.”
The confession wasn’t one I’d expected at all. My mouth dropped open. “Wh...what?”
“In all this world, there are only ever five priests. And all we do is find you and destroy you.” His words rang with the conviction of one who believed in the truth of his words. “I’ve killed so many.”
I swallowed hard, heart thrumming in my chest. But even though there was fear, I took a step closer. I’ve always liked dancing with fire.
Wetting my lips, my nervous system jolted when those formidable eyes of his zoomed into the motion and I knew I wasn’t crazy. Asher wanted me with the same type of madness that I needed him.
“But every time I looked at you, you confused me. When I discovered why, I was so far gone, I’d become a traitor to my own kind. I was never going to let anything hurt you.”
My ears rang as I crawled through my extensive memory banks, trying to find him. To place him, fix him at a certain point in my life, but he was never there. I shivered to think that all along, a death priest had known of me and I’d never realized it.
“Why’d you stab me that night?”
It was hard to concentrate when his thumb kept gently fluttering against the hollow of my neck.
“Because if I hadn’t done that, if I hadn’t distracted the eyes, they would have killed you.”
I frowned. “The eyes? I always thought that was you.”
His smile was beautiful, wide and guileless, and I couldn’t help but trace the dimple in his cheek. After all this time, I couldn’t believe that I could freely touch him like this. That not only would he let me, but judging by the way his lashes dipped and his body trembled, I knew he liked it.
“I need to show you something, but I need you to understand and not ask too many questions when I do. Because I can’t explain it all. But it’s time you learned certain things.”
Nibbling the corner of my lip, I nodded.
Dropping his hands, he stepped back and I ached for his touch. But curiosity kept me rooted to the spot.
His eyes raked over me, demanded I not turn away. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. Because they were swirling now, no longer just brown, but flickering, glowing with the red embers of banked coals.
And then there was fire dancing within them and I gasped, because I knew those eyes. I’d seen them many times.
The air became so thick I could barely breathe it in. My skin tingled as massive electrical sparks crashed into the cove.
Asher was so still, so focused, and I had to look away because there was a presence beside him.
A shadowy residue that stretched and grew, forming arms and legs. Seconds later, the Gray Man stood before me.
I must have been in shock, because I couldn’t talk. My brain was desperately trying to figure it out, to see how I could have missed the obvious.
Finally my synapses fired and I pointed. “Gray Man!”
Then the power was sucked back into Asher and the charge of ozone was gone. The air was still hot, but sweet, and I drank it in.
“Tell me how that’s possible?” I demanded.
Of all the supernatural creatures in the world, the priests were legendary. Not just because they were demon killers, but because so little was known of them. They were our version of the boogieman, and I just happened to have one in my corner.
Maybe.
If he could be believed. But it was hard breaking a millennia worth of indoctrination. I hugged my arms to my chest.
Holding his hands up, possibly to calm me, or maybe because he thought I might go demon on him, he walked toward me like one would an enraged momma bear. The fire in his eyes was gone, now they were the same mesmerizing brown I remembered.
Images flashed through my head—of me, practically disemboweled on the roof of an abandoned building with no chance of escaping the vampires in pursuit; of the Gray Man carrying me to safety; in Hell, completely shocked after witnessing Billy’s death and enthralled by Wrath to the point that I could do nothing to save myself; the Gray Man’s arms wrapped so gently around me, so tightly, and I remembered that at the time he’d felt so much more solid that I’d remembered him ever being; the night in Grace’s room with my dagger poised above her heart and the Gray Man talking me off the ledge before I destroyed any chance of fully uncovering the truth.
I shook my head, blinking back into focus. “Oh my God.”
“I’ve never left you, Pandora.”
“What is that thing?” He’d better not lie to me either, because I’d leave the bastard to fry out here by himself. I didn’t care that on more than one occasion GM had saved my ass.
I hated lies, hated that everyone around me only ever gave me half-truths. He had one chance at redemption or I was gone, and I didn’t care how many times he found me, he’d never catch me. Not if I didn’t want him to.
Scratching the back of his head, he turned to stare out at the still, empty desert. “I’m gonna tell you everything I can, up to a certain point. There are things I simply can’t tell you. Much as I wish I could.”
“But if you know and you can, you’ll tell me?” I pressed because it was important to me. I understood if he was under a geas so that he couldn’t speak that was one thing, but if he could, he’d better damn well speak up.
“I vow it. But you’re not going to like most of what I say.”
“I don’t care if I like it—if it’s the truth, I have a right to know.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he yanked me by the wrist and pulled me down with him, forcing me to sit on his lap. It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions, but I sensed he needed to touch me, that in some way it soothed him.
I wasn’t your average demon; I liked touch. In fact, I craved it. You might think a lust Nephilim gets touch all the time. But sex and touch (the soul-deep kind that you only get to experience rarely, and only if you’re lucky) are two different things. It was why I’d clung to Kemen the way I had, because he’d always touched me like he loved me.
Asher’s hand slid under my shirt and I was no longer just hot, I was feverish. My skin, my nerves, every fiber of me was fully aware of him. Our breaths synchronized and I closed my eyes and let Asher wash through me.
His mouth was right by my ear as he said, “Priests have gifts. Most of us. It’s why we become what we do. We’re not made, we’re chosen.”
Rough fingers worked the clasp of my bra. I went totally still.
“Is the Gray Man yours?”
“Yes, but no one knows it, because I have another. And it was that one I showed them. I don’t know why I kept that ability hidden, but long before I realized my true destiny, something within me knew to tuck him away.”
“What is he exactly?” My breath hitched when my clasp snapped open.
“It’s called flashing. The Gray Man is a projection.”
I wet my lips. “But he’s powerful.”
Asher laughed and the sound vibrated through my chest. I’m pretty sure I moaned. This was the best foreplay I’d ever had.
His hands slid sideways, drawing the bra open so that we were now bare skin to bare skin.
“He’s nothing compared to me, Pandora. He’s just an extension. But he was also instrumental in keeping whatever was tailing you busy. I have to be careful because of who I am. Because of who owns me, my true intentions had to always be disguised.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when he blew on the shell of my ear.
“Who... who owns you?”
Sharp teeth caught my earlobe and tugged on it gently. I moaned. Couldn’t help it. I was so turned on I could barely see straight.
“Can’t,” he murmured, before pressing a lingering, wet kiss on the side of my neck just as his palms grazed the swells of my breasts.
I was going to combust—my skin shivered with the heat of my lust and I knew my eyes were swirling.
“Priest, you’re playing with fire.” I gripped his steely forearms, digging my nails in.
He hissed, but I didn’t think it was because it hurt. Pressing his forehead to my head, he inhaled deeply as if savoring my scent, drawing it deep inside him.
“Do you want me to stop?” His whispered breath fanned my hair.
“Yes.” I squeezed tighter when his hands began loosening. “No.”
He chuckled. “Can’t be both ways, little demon.”
I moaned. “God, I hate you.”
Planting a quick kiss on my head, he withdrew his hands from my shirt and instead laced them around my middle. For a while neither of us spoke, and I knew I should be looking for a posse of the shambling dead, but I was choosing to be selfish. Choosing a moment to myself.
“Can I ask you one thing?” I asked when my pulse finally returned to normal.
“Yes.”
I smiled; I liked how willing he was to speak with me. To tell me whatever I wanted to know. Knowing that what I was about to say would expose the truest intentions of my heart, possibly giving him the ammo he needed against me, I decided to take the leap.
Because the one argument I’d always had with Luc was that at some point we had to decide whether to deny our humanity or use the heart we were born with. I was using my heart.
Twisting in his lap so that I was now straddling him, I locked my gaze with his and bared my insecurities. “Is it my Lust?”
And I knew he understood the question—it had nothing at all to do with sex. Sex was just sex. Two bodies colliding for a finite moment in time, it was pleasure that soon faded and meant absolutely nothing other than temporarily satisfying an unquenchable craving.
He didn’t move his hands from around my waist, didn’t lift them up to my face and frame it, but I swear I felt the power of his eyes move through me like a deliberate caress.
“I first saw you six hundred and sixty-seven years and twenty-three days ago. My orders were to find you, to kill you on sight. I never questioned it, never. I was a machine, built for one purpose. To eradicate the darkness. To snuff it out.”
I tried to focus on something other than the fact he’d just told me that he’d first seen me in 1347 AD. Luc would have flipped out if he’d known that for years a death priest had known not only my location, but the location of our family. Our band. That might have been enough for him to cast me out.
But I wasn’t scared. I should be.
“But when I saw you, nothing made sense. I would have killed you without a second thought if you’d been...” His hot gaze burned straight through me.
“Screwing around?” I offered.
When his nostrils flared, my pulse quivered with excitement, with fear. Because there was no doubt my priest was a predator, a lethal killer more than capable of taking me down. The coils of his power... his energy... was raw and magnificent as it scraped against my sensitized flesh.
I lived around alphas, around men who barked and pissed and could rip a monster apart with just their teeth. But Asher was so much more than all of them.
My body hummed.
“Yes. But you weren’t doing that.” His eyes turned distant. “It was the height of the plague, and there was a little girl covered in sores. Bleeding out, close to death, and you were kneeling beside her, holding her hand, telling her it would be all right. I couldn’t make sense of you.”
I couldn’t recall the memory. Mostly because I remembered the plague, remembered the streets littered with bodies—the smell of death and decay was everywhere. My family had refused to enter the city gates. None of us could catch human diseases, but it hadn’t mattered, because most Nephilim refused to own up to their humanity. Humans were little better than a food source, what did it matter to them if a few thousand died?
But it had mattered to me, and every night I’d walk the streets, determined to be a friend to the abandoned ones, because no one should have to die alone. It’s not how they came in, and it wasn’t how they should go out.
He tipped my chin up when I glanced down.
“And that’s it? That was the catalyst to become my stalker?”
The dimple reappeared. “Stalker.” He snorted. “You intrigued me. Confounded me. I followed you to learn you, and the more I learned, the more confused I became. The more convinced I was that your death meant something to them. A lot more than the mere fact you were Nephilim.”
“Why?”
His jaw clenched.
“Can’t?” I whispered.
“No, I can’t. But the truth is I don’t know everything there is to know about you. About why they want you out.”
“If you found me so easily, then how come someone else hasn’t?” I shivered with the sudden icy thought of another set of eyes bearing down on me.
He rubbed my arms, completely in tune with my emotions.
“I didn’t find you easily. It took me almost a year to track you down. Once I did, I kept you hidden. I threw my people off your scent.”
“Why would you do that for me? I am Nephilim, Asher. I do sex it up with anything I can. Whenever I can. I’m not good.”
His eyes flickered and his hands tightened just slightly. “You are who you were born to be, but you’re also more, and I saw that goodness in you.”
“Good?” I laughed. “I’ve never been called good. And since coming back from Hell, I feel more evil than ever.”
“Pestilence.” He nodded gravely. “I tried to stop you, but I couldn’t reach you in time.”
“I don’t know how to stop him. When I get angry, or depressed, he’s... stronger.” I shrugged and rolled my wrists.
“Have you felt him since you’ve been with me?”
Funny he should ask that question, because I had been very curious as to that demon’s absence. “Not really. I know he’s still in me, but he’s silent. Are you doing that?”
“I can mute him. A little. Just enough to help you learn to tame him. He’s no different than your Lust. You just have to learn to control him.”
“I did a piss-poor job of it in the market.”
“What happened in the market?”
Well, obviously he wasn’t always following me.
“I’m not really sure.” I grimaced. “I was eating and a man bumped into me and Pestilence just poured into him.”
“He startled you?”
I picked at my thumbnail.
Grabbing my fingers, he threaded his through mine. “We’ll work on that. What happened to the man?”
I wonder if he realized he’d said we?
“He was sick already when I found him. But then he bumped into someone else and transferred Pestilence to him, and I had to follow the other guy because he was running and had grabbed another girl and I knew a plague would spread if I didn’t stop them. The first guy was collapsed on the ground. I told everyone to stay away from him and not to touch him. I’m pretty sure they weren’t planning to anyway.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then what?”
“I grabbed the couple that ran off, transferred the plague back inside me, but when I returned for the first guy, he was gone. Same thing happened last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
The sun was suddenly obscured by clouds, blotting out the brightness and instantly cooling the interior of the cove.
“A mom lost her child at our carnival. I looked for him, so did my family, but we never found him. When we returned to let the mom know, she was gone too. Then late last night I heard someone outside my trailer. When I went to investigate, there was a red mum on my steps. Any idea what all that means?”
His brows were furrowed and I couldn’t help myself anymore, I brushed my fingers along the soft curls at the nape of his neck. Sighing, he leaned into my touch. I was crazy curious why his hair was brown all of a sudden and hoped he planned to solve that mystery for me at some point.
“We’re hunting zombies—are mums significant to them?” he asked me.
I sighed. “I don’t know. I can’t trust the Order. For all I know, this is just another one of Grace’s elaborate ruses.”
He cleared his throat in such a way as to get me instantly suspicious.
“What?”
“This is the part where you’re not going to like what I say.”
My blood ran cold. My fingers stilled in his hair. “Spit it out.”
“Pandora, I’m working with Grace. I have been for the past six months.”