The Nephilim War: Book One Page 5

  The grin widened to a smile. “Yes, you would. I don’t even have to read your mind to see that. You wear your thoughts—“

  “You can read my mind?” She drew the covers up around her body as though that would protect her thoughts from him.

  “I’m an angel. Of course, I can read your mind.”

  “You’re a fallen angel.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. If you really want me…” he left the sentence unfinished.

  She tried to empty her mind of all thought, terrified now that he had seen every perverted fantasy she had had from the first moment she saw him enter this room. He wasn’t helping matters, though. As she watched in stunned disbelief, he let his robe fall open.

  The sight of him naked had her in a near swoon. His sable mane spilled over his shoulders as he stood, legs spread wide with the flaps of his robe hanging loose. His rosy nipples were displayed for her viewing pleasure, as was the thick thatch of hair between his legs where his cock bobbed invitingly.

  “Come here, or I will come and get you.”

  She thought about refusing him, but that was as far as it went. If he got on the bed now there was no telling what would happen.

  With the wool comforter wrapped about her, she crawled towards him.

  Raven watched her crawl. Watched as the comforter slid to display a bare thigh. It looked so inviting that he knew he wouldn’t last. This was like playing with fire. The mere sight of her had the blood draining from his head and engorging his full length until it was standing at attention and ready for action. Desire replaced his blood, and it flowed through his veins with a force that wouldn’t be ignored. He wanted to drive himself into her.

  Damn Michael for sending him out on an impossible mission.

  Charity knelt before him, her chest heaving.

  “Good girl. Now taste.”

  He held his finger before her lips. She didn’t stop to think. She closed her mouth over his finger and sucked in the delicious taste of mashed potatoes and creamy butter. She felt the rough edges of his skin against her tongue as she swirled it along the length of it.

  When he pulled his finger free of her mouth, he left behind a faint taste of butter.

  “Wasn’t that good?” he asked softly.

  She tried to breathe calmly but was doing a lousy job of it. Even as she tried to empty her head, she marveled at how the tight bands of muscle stood out beneath skin so smooth and supple, she would have been happy to spend hours running her hands along the silky planes of his body. She wanted to slide her fingers under the folds of his robe and feel every muscle, every inch of skin. Surely there could be nothing wrong with touching. And if they happened to kiss once or twice, what harm could come from that? Nobody had to know.

  With the tip of a finger, he tilted her face towards his.

  “You are a bad girl,” he admonished. “So naughty.” He closed his eyes, as if giving himself strength, and stepped away from her. “You must remember what I am.”

  “An angel who teases.”

  “Just an angel.”

  In stark contradiction to what he’d just said, he leaned forward and closed his mouth over hers. Heat swelled within her as his tongue filled her mouth. She moaned against his lips and strained her body towards his. Too soon, though, the kiss was over. He’d stood, clasping both of her wrists in one hand. “Be a good girl, now.”

  “Me! You’re the one who started it.”

  “You were the one with the dirty thoughts.”

  “Well, stay out of my head, then. What kind of thoughts did you think I’d have after you practically stripped right in front of me?”

  He began removing trays and dishes from the cart.

  She was a big girl. It wasn’t beyond her capabilities to share a room with a man, albeit the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen, and not have lustful thoughts about him. She could do this, would do this. She wasn’t about to throw herself at him again after all.

  She helped him remove trays and dishes and set them on the bed around them.

  “So what happened?” She asked, trying to draw her mind from its present lustful musings.

  “Father sent the archangels to cast us from the earth while He sent a great flood to wipe out our offspring. It was horrible. You cannot imagine the horror of such a thing; seeing your children, however evil, die.”

  Grateful to resume their former conversation, she said, “Back home, if it rains for three days straight, people get pretty bent out of shape. I can’t imagine a forty-day rain.”

  “Ah, but that’s it. It wasn’t just rain. Of course the heavens opened and rain fell, but the very earth opened up. Water poured forth from everywhere. Moisture from above and below so there was nowhere to hide. Even the oceans spilled over. Our children were left to drown, and there was nothing we could do about it. We were trapped beneath the earth.”

  “All of them died?”

  “A small number survived. Had it not been so, there wouldn’t be any vampires or beastmen today. Of course, they have since passed on their curse to humans and increased their numbers. The ones who survived were the ones able to shift into their spirit form and rise above the waters. All others died. For the Watchers, all of us were imprisoned beneath the earth’s surface save one.” He held up a finger to stress the number. “Azriel was imprisoned alone because his sin was greater than ours. He was cast into the outer darkness of Dudael and bound hand and foot. Sharpened stones were hurled upon him, and he was to remain there forever, never to see the light again until the Day of Judgment when he would be cast into the eternal fire.”

  He turned to the bedside table and poured more wine into his goblet. She watched him as he gripped the stem of the glass and tipped it to his lips. His eyes closed as he swallowed and his eyelashes fluttered against his face like the wings of a black butterfly.

  “And?” She prompted.

  “Can’t you guess what comes next? No? Okay then, I’ll tell you. The Watchers were all imprisoned for many millennia. Our bindings were inescapable, or so the archangels thought. Two days ago, I was summoned from my prison to meet with my old friend, Michael. In the simplest of terms, he told me that the evil one, Azriel, had escaped and returned to the earth. And it’s up to me to retrieve him.” She began to speak, but he held up a finger for her to stop. “There is one other thing.” He rolled a slice of ham and folded it into his mouth. She was forced to wait patiently as he finished chewing. “I think you’ll like this part. Azriel is in search of a female, half human and half Nephilim. Like her Nephilim ancestors, she has the ability to copy the abilities of her sexual mates, meaning if she mates with a vampire, for a time she will take on his ability to suck blood, read minds, air walk, and whatever else he can do. If she mates with a werewolf, she will take on his strength and his ability to shapeshift. Do you understand how dangerous such a woman would be if aligned with Azriel? There would be no end to the harm they would do.”

  “But what harm could two people, even two supernatural people, do on a world full of billions?”

  “A fallen angel and a Nephilim? I couldn’t begin to calculate. But you do have some idea. You saw me in the church yesterday. You saw what I’m capable of. I could have killed every person in that building if I chose. Smashed them against the wall like so much trash with a simple thought, or brought the entire structure of the building down on them. All angels, fallen or not, can move matter with their minds. You pair someone like me with a Nephilim, and there’s no telling what harm we could do. But you're right when you say they would be limited. That’s why Azriel is going to use the Nephilim female to locate her ancestors who were exiled to another realm nearly ten thousand years ago.”

  “Azriel, fallen angels, Nephilim…” She shrugged. “It’s too much. First, I don’t get why Azriel would even want to come to earth. You make it sound like cops and robbers. Like he has some vendetta against man.”

  “God’s chosen few? But of course, Charity, don’t be so naïve. All the Watchers
do. Why do you think we descended from heaven and took human form? Because we admire what humans have and envy the pedestal Father has placed them on. Care for another drink?”

  “No,” she said, carefully cutting a bit of smoked salmon, “I want to know why you’re telling me this. I’ve never heard of Azriel or Nephilim, so why take me?”

  He refilled her empty goblet, giving her a grin that made her very uncomfortable. “You haven’t figured it out yet?” he asked.

  Suddenly, the room door crashed into the far wall, and the sound of footsteps echoed off the walls. Charity dove beneath the blankets while Raven got to his feet. His wings spanned out around him, and he set his glare on the foyer.

  Chapter Four

  Matching red heads appeared, one male and one female. Both of the figures were unnaturally tall, both sauntered in with their heads held high, walking with a confidence Charity had never herself felt, and both were heading right for Raven. Charity wondered if she should do something, and if so, what?

  The male held a staff of twisted wood that rose nearly to his shoulders. It was thick with age and pocked and nicked from years of use. The female, green eyes glittering with what looked to Charity like malevolence, looked dangerous. She had a large brown satchel thrown over a shoulder and was darting quick glances around the room. Though she didn’t hold a staff or a weapon of any kind, she looked deadly enough without one. A cruel smile turned her lips up at the corners, and her hands were clenched into tight fists that blanched her skin.

  Charity threw a quick look at Raven to see what he was making of their visitors, but his face was shielded from her by one of his wings.

  “Great One,” the man gasped. His voice held just the hint of a Scottish accent. To Charity’s considerable surprise, the huge redheaded male nearly collapsed to his knees before Raven. The only thing keeping him level was the firm hand the female set on his forearm. “I had not thought to believe the signs. But it’s true. It’s really you.”

  Raven lowered his wings so they settled over his naked lower body and smiled.

  “Old friend,” Raven pronounced in solemn tones, “It is I.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” the raven-haired beauty said, “you are here, and we are here. We are all very happy to see each other.” She hefted her male companion to his feet, then collapsed on the bed. The entire structure shook. “It took us two days to get here. I’m beat, and Myrddin tells me I won’t have time to rest. We have to hit the road. You ask me, Alaric can very well come to us. I don’t care if he doesn’t know you’re here, he should sense your presence. I did after all. Your phone call was completely unnecessary, Raven. I took it as an insult.”

  The woman could have been a supermodel had she wanted to. Her long legs were covered by simple blue jeans, and she wore a plain brown sweater. This was a woman who didn’t need to spend a lot of money on herself to look beautiful. She quite simply was beautiful. And her companion wasn’t too bad either. A closer look at him showed his hair to be more strawberry blonde than red, and his eyes were a bright jade in color. A sprinkling of freckles over his nose made him seem far less threatening than he had seemed when he’d strode in. Though she could sense the danger in the man in the way he held his body and the way he took in his surroundings. He couldn’t be anything more than thirty-five, though he seemed far older. His eyes spoke of ages past and secrets known.

  “Aliceanna,” the man chastised, “do you not see the relevance of this meeting? For the first time…for the first time in our very existence, Raven is before us in the flesh.” He reached a tentative hand with shaking fingers in Raven’s direction. “We did not conjure him. Yet he is here.”

  Raven clasped the shaking hand and held it against his bare chest. “I am real.”

  “Your heart…it beats.”

  “His mouth…it talks,” the female said. “For crying out loud, Myrddin, what did you expect? The body is human, after all.”

  Raven twisted to look at Aliceanna. His smile broadened. “And you are as beautiful as ever, Aliceanna.”

  “Damn right. Now where’s this female you told us about? I actually had to go into an American mall to find these things.”

  Charity, who had tucked herself into the furthest corner of the bed so as not to be noticed, watched as the female began dumping the contents on of the bag she carried on the floor.

  A sudden, all-encompassing desire to hide rolled over Charity when she saw Raven turn to face her. She should have told him she didn’t do well with people, especially strangers. He should have told her he was expecting company.

  “Myrddin, Aliceanna,” Raven said, stretching his arm in her direction, “this is Charity. The last human Nephilim. And Charity—“

  “What?” Charity screeched. “Nephilim…me? Like hell.”

  “This is Aliceanna and Myrddin,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  Charity was still stuck on his first statement. That she was Nephilim.

  Aliceanna stared at her. From her gaping mouth and narrowed eyes, Charity guessed Aliceanna was nearly as shocked as she was. “This…this is the last human Nephilim? My gosh, Raven, where’s the rest of her? There has to be some mistake. She’s so tiny.”

  “No mistake,” Raven said. “I had to fight Azriel to take her. He knows who she is even if you don’t.”

  Aliceanna grimaced at the gentle reprimand.

  “Well, Azriel made a mistake,” Charity declared. “Wait. Who the hell is Azriel?” But she didn’t have to wait for Raven to answer. She knew exactly who Azriel was. “The white angel.”

  “But she’s so small,” Aliceanna was saying. “You!” She called to Charity, “How tall are you? And how much do you weigh?”

  Charity had to work her lips before any sound came out. “Five feet five.”

  “She’s almost a foot shorter than me. How on earth can she be Nephilim? They were giants.”

  “Her mother is human,” Myrddin said.

  Raven was pulling snakeskin pants over his thighs when Charity looked at him. She sent out a silent plea for help in his direction. In response, he grabbed up his boots and socks and began shoving his feet into them. “You are Nephilim, and yes, Azriel is your white angel.”

  This couldn’t be right, Charity thought. There had to be some kind of mistake here. She wasn’t Nephilim, she was human. But if it was a mistake, how could she explain the recent events of her life? The white angel swooping into the church, and his ability to move objects and people without touching them was unexplainable unless he was an angel. Raven’s ability to fly her from Baltimore to Prague was also unexplainable, except that angels had wings. Clearly neither man was human. So if neither man were human, if both men were angels and both had come for her…

  “No!” She declared to nobody in particular.

  “Come here, little one,” Aliceanna demanded. “I have clothes for you to wear.”

  Charity cleared her throat. “I can’t go there. I’m naked.”

  Aliceanna huffed. “Not one of those. It’s okay honey, you ain’t got nothing we ain’t seen before.”

  “Do you have to be such a dictator?” Raven asked. “This is new to her.”

  “I’m not a dictator. Am I a dictator, Myrddin?”

  Myrddin didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he said, “You are my best student.”

  Raven went to the clothes on the floor and lifted the bundle. Charity saw a mass of jeans, flannel shirts, T-shirts, panties, and bras.

  “Let me,” Aliceanna said, taking the bundle from him. She gave Charity a measuring glance, then began leafing through the clothes. “Size eight?” she asked.

  Her mind still reeling, Charity glanced down at her own body still covered by the thick comforter. “Size five.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What kind of question is that? Of course I’m sure.”

  “You do realize I can see the outline of your body under all those covers.”

  “The hell you say!”

  “Very
well, then, size seven.”

  “You know good and well that’s practically the same thing as a size eight. Size six.”

  “In your dreams. I bet you haven’t seen a five/six since you were in high school.”

  “Of all the horrible, inconsiderate…horrible things to say to a person.”

  Aliceanna grabbed two pairs of jeans from the pile and held them up, a pair in each hand. “Size five/six and size seven/eight. Care to wager which will fit?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What’s your shoe size?”

  “Seven.”

  Aliceanna bent over the bed and came up with a pair of boots. She tossed them in Charity’s direction then got to her feet. “Good luck.”

  Myrddin settled himself on the bed and set to making a plate of food. “Is the spell holding, Raven?”

  “Do you see the white one?” Raven replied. “No, Myrddin, your cloaking spell is working fine.” Raven settled down on the bed again. Every inch of his body was covered in snakeskin save his face, and the knee-high biker boots he wore. Seeing him dress in the snakeskin made her feel kind of silly to have thought the clothes were actually his real skin. Raven had also draped a leather cloak over his shoulders. She supposed the cloak offered him more freedom of movement then a regular coat would have.

  He looked phenomenal.

  “Come, Charity,” he called to her after she had shoved herself into her clothes under the covers.

  Fully dressed in jeans—the size fives—a brown flannel shirt and boots, she looked like a shorter, darker version of Aliceanna. Did the girl have to find clothes for Charity that were nearly an exact replica of her own?

  As Charity stood, Aliceanna gave her an approving smile. “Still say the size eights would have been a better fit.”

  Charity walked around to the edge of the bed where Raven was sitting, knees spread. He held a brush and two black rubber bands out to her. “I need you to braid my hair,” he said.

  She took the implements, wrapping the bands around her wrists for easy retrieval. For a brief moment, their hands touched, and a shiver ran up her spine. “You tell me I’m not human, then you tell me to braid your hair.”