Sure enough, by the time they pulled up in front of Gabriel’s cabin, now Gabriel’s and Asmodeus’s, a welcoming party awaited them on the wraparound porch Asmodeus had built before the snows had set in the previous winter.
Ash smiled to see Asmodeus waiting on the porch with his arm around his mate, Gabriel, as Ash brought the bike to a halt. Parking it, he gave a hand to Miri to help her off the bike.
Nor were Asmodeus and Gabriel alone. A few of the others also waited, Zaebos, Ba’al and Moloch, Foras, Beelezebub, a dozen more.
The Demonae. His brothers.
Suddenly, surprisingly, as he tightened his arm around Miri and they walked toward the house, Ash realized that for the first time in centuries he felt as if he were truly home again in a way he’d never felt on the other plane. He might live other places, they might have to escape to their refuge in those distant peaked mountains but to him this place was now home, here where these people were.
And Miri.
Once again he was reminded that he’d never thought to have what they shared. He’d thought himself too damaged, too scarred not only physically but mentally, to ever have a place in anything even as close to normal as his people knew it.
Now he did. It still astonished him.
He looked around.
In this, their own place, they were all in their own natural form, including Asmodeus, his Prince’s wings lightly spread.
Ash shifted even as he went to greet the one who was both Prince and friend as his own wings extended in relief, freed from their confines, his tail unleashed as he conjured his clothes away in favor of the loose vests and drawstring pants they preferred.
Even as Ash walked toward him, Asmodeus was striding down the steps to greet him, a broad grin on his face, his arm already held out to offer the traditional arm clasp shared between brothers. Ash met it with more than his usual formality.
“Asmodeus,” he said.
Bemused, amused, Miri watched as the two gripped arms, the other massive Daemonae clapping Ash hard on the shoulder. Not that Ash couldn’t take it, he didn’t even flinch.
Still, the other Daemonae was incredible, as tall as Ashtoreth and as incredibly beautiful, his features not quite as sharp as Ash’s, his eyes as intense but without the eastern slant Ash had.
But then, all the Daemonae were amazing.
Tall, each was in his own way incredibly handsome, their bodies impressive, the muscles strong through their chests and shoulders – not surprising when one considered the wings.
It was more than a little overwhelming.
The little wood cabin and the silver-haired woman who stepped down from the porch in Asmodeus’s wake seemed strangely out of place, almost startlingly normal, as more Daemonae spiraled down out of the sky to greet Ash.
A true cabin, the house was built of white-chinked, hewn-wood walls. The windows glowed warmly, invitingly, in the fading light of sunset. White lace curtains hung in them. Wood smoke drifted from the chimney.
It looked…homey. Normal.
The porch was deep as well as broad, the wood floor rough-hewn and rustic from what she could see. Adirondack chairs painted white and green waited there. Tubs of spicy fall mums anchored the wood steps that led up to the porch and spilled profusely in shades of scarlet, gold and bronze from pots and containers everywhere.
Far above them on the slopes of the hills where the last light of the sun turned the trees a deep vibrant gold, it also glittered and gleamed on those still flying.
Sensing her uncertainty, Ash drew her close while the others crowded around.
“Dr. Miri Reynolds,” Ash said, “I’d like you to meet Asmodeus, Prince of the Daemonae and my truest friend.”
Miri looked up at the huge Daemonae towering above her.
“A pleasure,” she said and offered her hand.
The Daemonae Prince smiled. As with Ash that smile transformed his face, softened the harshness of it.
Given what she knew of Ash’s experiences, of what her visions had shown her, that hardness had been bought and paid for with blood. The smile, though? That was his true nature and the warmth in it showed. Seeing it, she understood why Ash followed him so faithfully.
He took her hand, dwarfed it within his and lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Ash.
Ash returned the look in a silent communication Miri could almost hear.
“Welcome, Dr. Reynolds,” Asmodeus said.
Like Ash, he had deep red skin but unlike Ash, shades of ebony washed beneath his and his eyes were red flecked with gold. Ash was broader, though, deeper in the chest where Asmodeus was a little leaner. Where Ash was power, Asmodeus was finesse.
And like Ash, like all the others, he was amazingly beautiful and radiated sex like an oven. From the moment she saw him, saw them, her pussy had flooded. They were just too much. Her body would have instantly overheated if it hadn’t been for Ash’s arm around her waist to ground her. Even without that beguiling attraction so intrinsic to them, they were a breathtakingly sexy bunch, not to mention large and gloriously muscled. Every one of them was male, their skin tinted in various shades of red and black all the way from scarlet to deep mahogany with reddish undertones, to deep sable with gold shimmering in its depths and into black. And she didn’t mean African American. One was the color of midnight. Moonlight seemed to drift beneath his skin. He was serenely and exotically beautiful.
It felt as if her hormones had gone into overdrive with so much pulchritudinous male flesh around her.
“This is my angel, my mate Gabriel,” Asmodeus said, reaching out.
A hand brushed her arm and Miri came face to face with the woman from the porch. There was an air of confidence about her, of strength, that Miri both envied and admired. Gabriel was a woman of surprising…not beauty, for her features were too strong, too confident, for that, but character. This was a woman who recognized obstacles as little more than something to go up, over, under, around or sometimes through, but they would never stop her, come hell or high water.
Her hair was a gleaming river of silver and flowed in shimmering waves past her shoulders, her eyes a brilliant blue.
She was also hugely and radiantly pregnant.
Noticing where Miri’s eyes went, the woman gave a mock scowl in the direction of Asmodeus, who just grinned. Proudly.
“This is his fault,” she said as she rubbed her hands over her swollen belly. “I honestly thought I was past it, my best years already gone. Ash, our primary Healer as well as everything else, tells me it’s a boy…” She winced reflexively and looked down. “Damn, son, you don’t have to kick so hard. If it was up to me you’d be out already. Trust me on that.”
Glancing at Miri again, she smiled.
“Hi, I’m Gabriel Nicholas,” the woman said, holding out her hand, “I’m with Asmodeus. Come on inside, you must be exhausted.”
For a moment, Miri stared at her, amused. Asmodeus had said, his angel?
Gabriel?
Gabriel grinned at her expression. “Yeah, I get that a lot from these, too. Archangel Gabriel, Angel and the Daemonae. Yeah, yeah. They all think it’s funny, but they’re a literal lot.”
Linking her arm through Miri’s, Gabriel continued, “As for them, Ash may not have told you but they’re all male, the Daemonae, as will be this not so little guy inside me. Girls, so they tell me, will look human but they’ll have magic.”
She glanced at the Daemonae behind them with a fond smile.
“As for them, if you feel a little overwhelmed,” Gabriel said, “it’s because they all radiate sex like an oven. It’s their nature, a kind of protective coloration.”
“Being different from human men but dependent on human women for procreation – and real sustenance – they need something to get us past the strangeness of them. So they all give off testosterone like mad. You do get used to it, sort of, after a while. Although get enough of them together in one room at a time and even I feel it.”
She punctuated that last statement by waving a hand at herself like a fan.
“Which is why we have so many meetings out on the porch, even in the dead of winter. Last winter was a long one, though, let me tell you.”
Miri couldn’t help but laugh until she caught a glimpse of herself in a window.
“I must look a wreck,” Miri said.
“You’re fine. Don’t worry about it,” Gabriel said. “Although Ash, if you’re going to ride her around like this, though, get her a helmet and gear, would you?”
“As soon as I can,” Ash promised. “It worried me too. There just wasn’t time.”
He didn’t own a helmet, it wasn’t a problem when one had wings, and it was difficult to fit over horns.
Miri relaxed as Gabriel patted her arm and led her into a kitchen just as homey as the rest of the house.
The other Daemonae crowded around Ash followed, either admiring the bike or exchanging arm-clasps and greetings as they walked. Introductions were made but Miri was quickly bewildered by all the names.
“So, what would you like? We have coffee, tea, various home-brewed ales and beers…,” Gabriel asked.
“Beer. Weak stuff. What they serve in this time is disgusting,” Asmodeus pronounced. “And cold? How can they drink that?”
He shuddered dramatically.
“There’s also homemade mead,” Gabriel said with an amused glance at her mate. “It’s a kind of honey-wine. You have to taste it to believe it but it will put you on your butt in a heartbeat.”
Kissing the top of his mate’s head, Asmodeus said, “Thank you, my angel.”
She eyed him, smiled and shook her head, the love and affection between them obvious.
“That wasn’t a compliment, ‘Deus. None of which I can have, by the way,” Gabriel said, with a sigh, patting her swollen belly. “Or wine, which I’d recommend at the moment.”
To Miri’s surprise, she felt a sharp spurt of envy as she watched the easy display of love between them. It wasn’t something she’d ever known. Her parents had been distant, confused by their too-smart daughter and not given to expressions of affection.
Ash’s warmth had been a revelation.
Given the events of the last two days, she thought she needed something a little stronger than wine, though.
“I’d like to try the mead, if you don’t mind and thank you.”
A hand closed over her arm even as Ashtoreth’s tail wrapped around her waist to draw her close. He wrapped an arm loosely but possessively around her shoulders while he accepted the mug of mead passed to him by one of the others with his free hand. A deep contentment filled her as Ash leaned back a little against the counter, taking her with him, obviously comfortable with such displays. She brushed her cheek quickly against his shoulder.
She didn’t miss the look of surprise – and delight – that Gabriel and Asmodeus exchanged at Ash’s gesture or her own response to it.
Asmodeus’s brilliant red eyes whirled as Gabriel handed Miri a glass of her own.
It hadn’t come as a surprise to Ash to see Gabriel and Miri hit it off so well, it would have surprised him more if they hadn’t. While Gabriel might be the tough F.B.I. agent on the job, she loved what she did. In return, she was respected and, although she didn’t know it, liked and admired. Academic that she was, Miri, too, did what she did for the love of it, it was her passion.
What did surprise him was how natural she felt with him in this place, in this house he considered as much home as his own cabin in the woods. Time passed differently on the other planes but it did pass, yet in all that long time he’d never experienced the kind of peace he felt with Miri in his arms.