Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1) (21 page)

I flinched when Jaron suddenly shot to his feet and glared around the room. “Right, simmer the fuck down!” he growled. “Willa is not here to hurt you. Yeah, you know her as an Empyrean, but what you don’t know is that she’s also half Gehenna.” There was a range of gasps and I wanted nothing more than to slide under the table. “She’s here on the specific orders of Diablo, so unless you’re prepared for his wrath, I’d shut the fuck up and get on with eating!”

The murmurs ceased instantly, many looking contrite as their eyes moved my way. A few of the red auras softened back to their usual blue or green, although some remained. I frowned when I noticed at least a dozen or so grey auras. My eyes scanned again and my gut twisted in horror at the amount of sick Gehenna. Sorrow pulled at my chest and I swallowed when the mouthful of carrots I’d just shovelled in became stuck in my throat.

“So, Willa.” Carlos spoke chirpily. “How you liking Gehenna?”

“It’s so beautiful,” I answered quietly, grateful for the diversion. “Nothing like I had expected.”

Carlos and Dexter chuckled. “What did you expect, wasteland and monsters?”

Smiling guiltily, I nodded. “We’re all ignorant until we know the truth, I’m afraid.”

Carlos gave me a soft smile. “That we are.”

I shivered, feeling eyes on me. Looking up I found Damon Torres staring at me. His gaze wasn’t nasty but it wasn’t friendly either. I stared back, trying desperately to get a read of him but I squinted as a deep heat seeped into my head.

Shaking my head, I turned back to Dexter when he said my name. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said I was sorry to hear about Marie, your friend.”

I gave him a sad smile. “Thanks. I miss her.”

“She was definitely a wild one.” Jaron chuckled. “But not the brightest star in the galaxy.”

I laughed, remembering their game of pool. “She had a good heart, and I can only take comfort that she’s finally reunited with her mate.”

Eyes shifted to Zak when he paled and looked away. An uncomfortable silence bled around the table and I leaned into Delilah. “What did I say?”

“Zak lost his mate only a year ago. It’s still pretty raw,”
she explained in my head as she dived into her supper, spearing a lump of broccoli with her fork as though it was a formidable adversary.

“Oh no. What happened?”

“No one knows. He found her himself … in a bad way, in their home. Someone had broken in, raped and slaughtered her. They never found who did it.”

Losing my appetite I placed my fork on to my plate and pushed it aside.

“Not hungry, Bab?” Jaron asked. I knew he’d sensed my guilt at bringing painful memories to the table. I looked at him and he gave me an easy smile and a shake of his head. “It’s over.” He said nothing else before he turned to look up at Rax who had approached our table.

“Fuck me!” Dexter bit out. “Finally put down the dog and decided to acknowledge your mates.”

Rax snapped his eyes to Dexter, a fierce blaze firing in his eyes. “Shut it, Dex.”

Dex snorted, holding his hands out in front of him in surrender as Rax turned to me. “Can I speak to you alone?”

My new friends tensed, sensing Rax’s need to explain his relationship with Tabitha. One by one they started to move but I put my hand out. “No, please stay.”

They each looked at me then at Rax. “Leave us!” Rax barked.

“Stay!” I growled.

“Willa,” Rax snarled. “I don’t have time for this shit. I need to talk to you.” He glanced back as his father, stood, and lifted a glass. “NOW!” he bit out as he grabbed my hand and yanked me up, my knee thudding on the underside of the table.

“Whoa!” Jaron narrowed his eyes on Rax as he stepped in front of him, glancing at Damon suspiciously. “Why the rush? Looks like your father is about to say something. Aren’t you at least curious about what he has to say?”

Rax shot his eyes to Jaron, narrowing them as if trying to converse with him.

I was suddenly interested in what Damon had to say, especially as Rax appeared in such a hurry to drag me out of the room, his hand still in mine as he pulled me out from the bench.

“Hang on,” I shouted as Rax swiftly led me from the room, the double doors banging closed behind us. “I want to hear what your father has to say.”

“No, Seraph, you don’t,” Rax mumbled. “You really don’t.”

“Why?”

I was trying to pull back, my head turned to the side as I strained to listen to Damon’s loud voice when he addressed his people.

“My father is a weak man,” Rax said, still pulling me down a corridor. “He will stop at nothing to ruin us.”

“Us?” I questioned as I skipped beside him, trying to keep up. Rax was practically dislocating my shoulder in his rush to get me away.

“Holy – fucking – shit!”
Delilah hissed in my head.
“Where the fuck is he taking you?”

“Erm, I’m not sure, why?”
I answered, looking around me for clues as to whereabouts we were as we sped through numerous unfamiliar hallways.

“Because if I were you,”
she growled,
“I’d direct him to the infirmary.”

“Why?” I gasped out loud, dreading what Damon had just revealed about Rax’s health. It was obviously something serious if Delilah was telling me to take him straight to the medical wing.

“Because I’m gonna rip his hairy balls off and use them as fucking ping pongs!”
Delilah whispered so calmly I couldn’t help but gulp.
“That’s after I’ve dipped his knob in acid and then fed it to his father’s hellhounds!”

Rax slammed to a halt. Very slowly he turned to me. “Who are you talking to?” His voice wasn’t his. It was deathly quiet, a hint of something ‘animal’ growling in the background as though two voices conversed as one.

I stepped back, the blood in my veins turning to sludge when I gawped at Rax. His teeth were descended, but by now I was used to them. What I wasn’t acquainted with was the way his hands grew before my eyes into thin long claws. His strong, gruff chin rippled until his skin appeared to crack and the bone stretched into a mammoth jaw of gleaming white teeth. His chest, although already bulging, spread to an abnormal swell, his shirt stretching and ripping over the great muscles suddenly developing on him.

I shook my head, my eyes wide and shocked as the enormous monster from the dream once again showed itself. Yet this time it was real, very fucking real, its hot breath making me blink rapidly when it hit me in the face.

The monster’s lip curled and his head tipped to the side, a sinister twinkle glaring from behind Rax’s usual brown eyes. My heart stopped beating, the organ also taking the time to stop and stare in horror.

“Who – are – you –talking – to, Seraph?” It snarled, causing my breath to leave me in one single gush.

“She’s talking to me, you hideous rubber dick!” Delilah jeered from behind me.

I spun around, shaking my head at her as she stupidly attempted to gain his attention away from me, but she stepped in front of me, pushing me back.

“You got a problem, you ugly fuck, then you come to me!” she spat. “Not her! Never her!”

It roared with such malevolence that every bone in my body turned to jelly. My legs gave way and I toppled to the floor. The monster’s eyes came my way and it took a step towards me. Delilah snapped her whip and jumped in front of me, tempting the beast.

“One more step, King Kong, and I’m going to show you just how cosy you can get with my whip.”

The monster sniffed, his eyes closing when he caught a scent … most probably mine. But then he shivered, released a howl of agony and turned and ran, his huge body bursting through the door and tearing it from its hinges before he disappeared.

“Chicken!” Delilah shouted after it before she turned back to me.

Dipping to her haunches, she wrapped her arms around me and helped me up. “You’re okay, Willa.”

I nodded, my eyes still on the broken doorway. “I don’t understand.”

“He didn’t want you to understand,” Delilah said angrily.

“What?” I stared at her in confusion, “He didn’t want me to understand what?”

“That I’m having his baby,” Tabitha piped up behind me.

I heard a range of growls as the ground seemed to sway beneath me and slowly I turned to her rancid grin. My stomach was trying to escape through my throat and I had to fist my hands to try and keep it in.

She sneered at me, a look on her face that I so desperately wanted to wipe off – with a flamethrower. “What did you say?”

She preened herself before me, a scoff of delight coming from her. “I said,” she repeated slowly, accentuating every fucking syllable. “Rax and I are expecting a child.” She stepped towards me, the evil in her sweeping over me and making me shiver. “He’s
my
mate, halfbreed. Why you ever thought he was yours is the funniest shit I’ve heard in years.” Then she scrunched up her nose as if talking to a child. “Aww sorry, honey.”

“Go home,” Jaron grumbled at Tabitha as he came to stand beside me. “Just fuck off, Tabitha.”

Dexter was reeling off some pretty cruel descriptive words Tabitha’s way. Delilah stepped up to the bitch, pushing her back with a fierce prod of her finger. Zak was mute but his angry glare said everything he needed to.

I stood mute and still, my mind repeating her exposé, every – damn – word. Over and over.

“I’m having his baby.”

“He’s
my
mate, halfbreed.”

“I’m having his baby.”

“I’m having his baby.”

The air around me appeared to be vibrating, a rich hum pushing through my skull and making me wince.

“Willa,”
Rax’s strangled voice whispered in my head.
“Willa, stop!”

My stare was on Tabitha as she disregarded my friends, checking her fingernails and blatantly ignoring their heated words as if they weren’t worthy of her attention.

The fucking bitch!

“Rax and I are expecting a child.”

I dropped my eyes to the floor, my focus zeroing in on particles of stone as they danced along the floor, bouncing high as if the ground jumped beneath them.

“Willa!”

Warmth seeped into my bones, making my whole body relax as my head rolled around my shoulders and my eyes closed to the frantic argument going on around me.

“Why you ever thought he was yours is the funniest shit I’ve heard in years.”

I could feel the rush of blood through my veins as if it carried my consciousness around with it. Every smell licked across my senses, every sound tickling the tiny hairs in my ears.

“WILLA!”

I’d never felt so relaxed in my whole life. My heart beat completely stilled as my brain liquefied all the thoughts in my head.

“YOU’RE KILLING THEM!”

My head tipped back, my arms involuntarily rising into the air as my lips parted and bliss curled deep into my lazy bones. A high pitched sound reverberated around my head, seeping in through my ears as it bounced off every lobe of my brain. My mind echoed it, the purest note lifting from my lungs as I allowed it to tear up from the depths of my soul.

And then it was all whipped away from me as I was propelled through the air by a force that crashed into me from the side. I was enveloped by a monstrous wall of flesh before everything slammed to a halt, my body jerking as it came to an abrupt stop.

A mixture of gaps, wheezes and groans filled the air as I opened my eyes. I gasped when I was met with Rax’s eyes, misery pouring from him as his monster held me tightly but lovingly in its arms.

It stared down at me, a drop of water glistening in the corner of its eye. Slowly, and so gently, one of its nails trailed across my cheek. “You’re extraordinarily beautiful,” its gruff voice whispered. Then the drop of water that was sat in its eye rolled down its cheek, freedom granted. “Mine,” it then breathed before its head fell back and the most torturous sound I had ever heard broke from it, making my soul fall to its knees in a debilitating sorrow.

It then released me, its face furrowed in pain before it whimpered and then limped away, back through the hole it had produced in the door.

“What the fuck?”

I snapped my head round to the sound of Tabitha. She was gawping at me, her hand around her throat as if she was trying to breathe. “You’re fucking crazy!” she choked out, “You nearly killed us!”

I frowned, looking at my friends when Tabitha stormed off. Delilah stepped up to me hesitantly, as if frightened, her hand outstretched before her. “Let’s get you home.”

“What happened?”

Dexter, Jaron and Zak gave me pitying looks, and I swallowed at the uneasy feeling in my gut.

“Come on,” Delilah urged as she pulled me against her chest as a hatch opened up to the left of us. She turned to Dexter and smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Dex.”

“Take care of her, huh?” Jaron whispered.

“Always,” Delilah answered before we stepped beyond the warbled air and into my room.

Feeling exhausted, unsure as to why I was, and struggling to keep my eyes open, Delilah pulled back my duvet and settled me onto my bed before pulling off my shoes and jeans.

“Delilah,” I whispered when she switched off the light and was about to unite with me. She looked up at me from her place beside me but remained quiet. “What did I do?”

I was almost too afraid to ask but I needed to know. According to Tabitha I had nearly killed my friends and I needed to know if I was a threat to them.

Delilah inhaled loudly then slowly blew it out. Her fingers softly swept my hair to one side and she smiled adoringly. “You didn’t do anything, my darling,” she whispered.

I frowned at her. But then she finished her sentence.

“It was your demon that did.”

Without waiting for my questions, she merged back into me, leaving me stunned in the darkness of both my room and my head.