His finger was inside her now, and Rhiannon twisted and writhed as it was joined by another. She couldn’t keep herself from moving to meet him, begging him without words for whatever more he would give.
He moved slowly within her, pulling slightly away and pressing further in, so tight that every nerve ending was caressed by his delicious touch. Rhiannon felt delirium inexorably wash over her as, unaided by magic, her own body built itself toward an ultimate peak, one higher and yet deeper than anything she’d ever known.
She cried out again, half-sobbing as Michael extracted his fingers and she very nearly went mad.
He moved above her, and she felt a heat that burned touch upon the entrance to her core. It pressed past her lips, inching and threatening, so large, she stretched around it in perfect pain. His flesh was a brand, and even if it killed her, she wanted it inside her like she’d never wanted anything before.
Please….
Her mind spun over the word without control. She gritted her teeth, pressing against him with everything she had in a futile attempt to keep fighting, to win. To make him do what she needed him to do.
And then she screamed as Michael’s fangs sank deeper; she hadn’t realized his teeth weren’t impaling her to the hilt before. A split second later, the world exploded as he drove his cock into her with a hard, merciless thrust that filled her to the point of perfect, triumphant agony and seared her from the inside out.
The delirium that had threatened her now flooded her, covering her in its sheltering darkness from which there is no escape, and pushing her past the point of no return. Michael pulled back agonizingly – then thrust into her again, gripping her body tightly to his. Rhiannon had no control over the sounds she was making; they filled the room, soft and desperate, fuel for the monster that had taken over her archangel.
He growled against her throat, his claws pricked her skin, he pressed painfully deep inside her, and pulled back to drive into her once again. His strong body controlled them both, taking her over and over, claiming her with each thrust and every swallow.
A languid peace was coming over Rhiannon. Her body crackled, lightning struck, and thunder engulfed them as Michael drove into her one last time, yanked his fangs from her throat and cried out in deep, hard male satisfaction.
Rhiannon felt him swell within her, the pulse of his orgasm flooding her with liquid fire that set off one last, ultimate climax in her own body. She closed her eyes and smiled, riding it out in helpless, gluttonous satisfaction.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She was banging a jar against the kitchen counter in her dream, trying to break the seal on the lid to loosen it. She kept banging, and it was still tight. Eventually, the jar shimmered, and everything warped, and Rhiannon opened her eyes.
Someone was knocking on the door.
“I didn’t want to wake you, but I think we should probably answer that,” said Michael. His lips were at her ear, and his voice raised chills down her neck. She bit her lip and shifted, sitting up. She took the sheet with her when she did, and it pulled away from Michael’s chest.
She couldn’t help but admire it.
They’d been in his bed more or less for hours. She’d lost track of time, in fact. When they’d come down from their first bout of lovemaking, he’d left her in bed to acquire them both some food. What he’d said about not shopping very much had been true, so Rhiannon had taken a shower and dressed in a borrowed shirt as he’d gone out for new clothes for her, managing to purchase exactly the right brands, colors, and sizes. He also came back with fresh fruit such as peaches and strawberries, which she loved. The jewel on his crown of purchases had been the diet root beer, which she pretty much craved on a regular basis these days.
Rhiannon knew he’d learned most of these things about her when he’d “checked up on her” during his work for the NYPD. Her clothing sizes and preferences, however, she was guessing he’d gathered from the garments he’d shredded from her body earlier.
He did know quite a bit about her, though, because he also brought back Pad Thai, which was her favorite food, and an entire bag of Sixlets, which happened to be one of her favorite candies. She’d laughed and shaken her head at his presumptuous admittance to having done his homework on her, and then she’d ripped open a mini-pack of Sixlets and slid every tiny chocolaty ball into her mouth.
They’d talked. About everything, really; mostly about the Adarians, Gregori, Samael and the other archangels and their archesses. But also about life and the world, in general.
It felt bigger to Rhiannon now, that world. For decades, the universe had been people. Just people, really. People she could divide into good and bad: evil bastard and victim.
Now, however, it wasn’t just people, and it wasn’t just a universe. There were worlds out there beyond her own. There were not only other places with other beings, but other realms. It was no longer a universe, but a multiverse.
Normally, this realization would make a person feel very, very small. But Michael Salvatore was the Warrior Archangel, one of the Four Favored, and she was his chosen mate. She wasn’t less important than she had been before. If anything, she felt bigger now than ever.
As they’d talked, they began to forget about the worries that had plagued them until now, and they’d eaten, which Michael practically forced her to do so that she could regain her strength. And when that strength was regained, they’d fallen right over the cliffs of lust once more and tangled themselves in the sheets of Michael’s bed in another round of mind-blowing sex.
But now someone was banging on the door, and Rhiannon guessed that every good thing had to come to an end at some point.
Michael smiled and sat up with her on the bed. “One sheet,” he said. “We can’t both take it.”
“It’s mine,” she replied firmly.
Michael shrugged casually and got out of the bed, exposing his body with shameless abandon.
Rhiannon felt her gut tighten and a hot blush take her cheeks. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d seen it, but it was quite a body. He was an angel, after all.
He pretended to ignore her, concentrating on grabbing fresh clothing from his dresser drawers. He pulled on a worn pair of jeans over nothing at all and then shrugged another black tee-shirt over his head and shoulders.
Rhiannon watched him dress, and absent-mindedly touched the wounds he’d left on her throat. There was not a force strong enough in the world to make her heal those particular wounds. They were battle scars she fully intended to keep. She flushed with happy memories every time she felt a twinge of soreness, either on her neck or… lower.
When Michael finished, he turned back to find her still watching him. His brow raised, and his lips turned up at the corners.
“I just slept with you,” she said defensively. “Twice. I’ve earned the right to ogle.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.
“No, it doesn’t go both ways.”
He chuckled, but like a gentleman, he turned around, allowing her to discreetly exit the bed. She moved like liquid lightning to get back into her clothing, despite her soreness.
The knock came again at the door, this time sounding more desperate than before.
“Rhee? Are you in there?” a small voice called. It was tight and high-pitched with emotion.
Rhiannon’s eyes widened, and she straightened, having just finished with her second boot. “Oh my God, that’s Mimi!”
Shame flooded her; she was moving at once. She and Michael left the room to head down the hall at a full-on run. Mimi sounded desperate.
Michael reached the door, turned the knob, and popped it open. Rhiannon came up beside him, nudging him out of the way.
Mimi stood on the threshold of Michael’s apartment, with Strike in her arms. The dog lay limply in her grasp, eyes closed, chest unmoving. Blood matted his fur here and there, and had gathered and dried at his muzzle. He was very obviously dead.
Mimi’s face wa
s a mess of tears and snot. Her eyes were swollen and her skin was the ruddy color of terrible emotion. Strike’s blood had stained her clothing, but her grip on the animal was fierce. She shook uncontrollably on the doorstep, and Strike’s body shook with her.
“They killed him!” she cried, her voice clogged and trembling. “The gargoyles did it!”
Rhiannon shot forward, taking Mimi in her arms while Michael eased Strike’s body out of her small grip. Thunder rolled over them all as Rhiannon tenderly and quickly ushered Mimi into the apartment. The late afternoon sky was darkening by the second, not only because the sun was setting, but because clouds were moving in like a water vapor stampede.
“Aunt B grounded me,” Mimi cried. Rhiannon sat her down on the couch and went to fetch a wet washcloth. “It made me so mad, I snuck out again! I couldn’t find Strike!” She hiccupped.
Thunder moved closer, finding purchase in the gathering darkness.
Rhiannon helped Mimi blow her nose, and ran the damp washcloth slowly over her face. “But when I was hiding in the hall, I heard two guys talking about gargoyles. They said they’d been in your rooms, Rhee! And Strike was in there!”
Despite the fact that her heart was hammering, and her chest was tightening in empathy for Mimi, the temperature of Rhiannon’s blood began to drop in her veins. Gargoyles had been in her rooms? Looking for her? How the hell had they gotten in?
The outside of the Swallowtail Foundation’s apartment complex was stone. They can move through stone. And it was as easy as that.
Fully frozen ice traveled through her arteries and capillaries now, grating like icebergs against the hull of a ship. Mimi had left Strike in her room. She’d admitted as much earlier, at the restaurant. Strike was dead because of Rhiannon.
“Mimi, oh God, I’m so sorry….” She got up from where she’d been kneeling in front of Mimi before the couch, and sat down next to the child, who immediately wrapped her arms around her waist.
Mimi began bawling uncontrollably. “I… found… him… in the… alley!” She called out the muffled words in-between cries. “His neck is broken!”
Rhiannon looked up to see Michael standing in the archway to the adjoining kitchen. His face was stricken, and his eyes were that impossible blue just before glowing. He’d placed Strike’s body on the linoleum floor and covered him with a towel.
Rhiannon met his gaze. But any thoughts they might have shared about the gargoyles, about Gregori, or about the Culmination, were cut short as lightning struck so close outside, the thunder blew all sound to oblivion.
The windows shattered inward, and Mimi screamed, but Rhiannon only partially heard it. Her ears were ringing as she took them both to the ground, covering the girl’s body with her own. She hadn’t prepared for that lightning bolt; it hadn’t been one of her own. The sound was not magically muffled. Instead, it was terrible, like the sky cracking open to let in something dark.
It was also disorienting. There was movement around her, but it was blurred and on the edges of her vision. Rhiannon propped herself up on extended arms and lifted her head.
Life slid into slow motion. Something moved on the other side of the windows, but wind swatted at the curtains, giving her only glimpses of what it could be. She smelled something, too. Like the smell of a match striking, and of leather, and of some kind of acidic thing, like poison.
Dragons. Her body turned heavy with dread.
She forced it to move, pushing herself to her feet, taking Mimi with her. She lifted the child into her arms as the outer wall of Michael’s apartment exploded inward. There was no sound. Wood and insulation fragments sailed overhead in that slow motion that would have gone wonderfully with the score to Platoon.
Rhiannon ducked, taking Mimi with her. They rolled as something large came through the wall directly in front of them. Once more, fragments of building sailed through the air in a cosmic ballet.
One went through her right arm, but she felt it numbly, all impact with no pain, and she kept going. Her boots slid, still in slow motion, on debris that was building up beneath and all around them.
The Culmination?
Her mind whispered its fear, but even that whisper was lost to the numb silence of catastrophe.
She kept moving, dodging, rolling and guarding like the player of some enormous video game, all the while hugging Mimi close. Heat licked at her side, the fire of a red dragon. A roaring sound tried to break through the slow-motion silence. Shapes loomed overhead, and somehow the ceiling was gone. An angry heaven stretched above the living room now, deep and dark and tumultuous.
Lightning languidly sliced up that churning sky, carving it into fragments of dark energy. Wind whipped through her hair, and rain kissed her face. Rhiannon pushed on through the living room and into the hall. The ceiling was still intact there, and by comparison to the rest of the world, it was tranquil.
She recognized the door to Michael’s bathroom and opened it at once, tossing Mimi inside. The girl stumbled, but caught herself on the bathtub.
“Get in and get down!” Rhiannon commanded. Mimi obeyed at once, crawling over the lip of the tub. “Stay there!” Rhiannon turned to leave, planning to re-close the door behind her – for all the good it would do. Dragons were coming through the walls, after all.
But when she turned back to the hall, it was to find it blocked. Half a dozen pairs of inhuman eyes were focused upon her.
It wasn’t just dragons, either
Every supernatural creature Rhiannon had ever gone up against was gathering in Michael Salvatore’s little one-bedroom apartment. And all of them were bent on killing her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mimi’s knees hit the bottom of the porcelain tub with a bruising thunk, but she barely registered the pain. Breathing hard through gritted teeth, she pressed her hands on the sides of the tub, palm-out, and peeked over the rim.
“Stay there!” Rhiannon commanded before she spun around and rushed out of the bathroom, attempting to slam the door shut behind her. She didn’t make it that far however; as she hit the threshold of the bathroom, she briefly froze. Then something slammed into her from the side so fast that it blurred. It was massive and brown, but that was all Mimi could tell from the brief glimpse she was afforded. The impact took Rhiannon out of sight and down the hall, and the door was jarred loose from her grip.
Mimi watched in horror as the door, her only barrier between herself and a dawning horror, banged open against the opposite wall. Beyond the opening to the hall, shapes loomed and shifted, shadows danced, and chaotic screaming ensued.
Monsters, she thought. They’re the ones who killed Strike. Something out there had killed her dog, taking from her one of her two best friends. It was just one of those things that someone was absolutely sure about without having any proof, because no proof was needed.
They might kill Rhee.
Rhiannon was Mimi’s other best friend. Without her, she would be so lost.
Her gaze narrowed, and her teeth pressed together so hard, they threatened to crack. Thoughts of vengeance swam through her head, and the bathroom shades of white and beige shifted a little into light reds and black. That had never happened before, but she figured it was just rage. She’d read about people’s vision going red with rage. This must be it.
Mimi Tanniym, born Melody Margaret Tanniym, was not like most nine-year-olds she met. She liked the same kinds of things they did, on the surface, but to her, things like Pokémon and X-Men were a secret window between the world most people thought was real and the one that she knew was real.
Mimi actually believed in monsters. She always had.
Maybe monsters didn’t get carted around in little hollow spheres by ten-year-olds who wanted to train them and use them in arena battles, but there were some definite similarities. Sometimes they were big, sometimes they had sharp teeth, sometimes they could fly. Sometimes they looked like humans, but under their skin, there was something much more interesting. And some of them could be tr
ained, and sometimes they did do battle in arenas. It was just that their arenas were forests or deserts or third-story apartments owned by police detectives.
Like the one they were fighting in now.
When Mimi was five years old, she’d been lifted onto her father’s bed at the hospital, and he’d waved her close. She remembered so much about that moment, from the raspiness in his voice, to the beeping of the machines around him, and the way his breath smelled like metal. But most of all, she remembered what he told her.
I don’t mind this, Mimi. I was just renting this space. The world doesn’t belong to humans, little one. It belongs to the monsters. We’re just borrowing it.
They’re closer than you think.
Those had been his final words to her. He’d had to sleep after that, and the next time Mimi had seen him, he wasn’t able to talk at all. So she’d told him she loved him.
And that was that.
But now, as she crawled out of the tub despite Rhiannon’s warnings, she felt a sense of something an adult would call irrational. It was something like validation, almost even like happiness. The building was exploding around her and she was standing at ground zero for disaster, but it didn’t matter, because she was going to get revenge for Strike, and because all of this meant her dad had been right, and she had been right for believing him.
Mimi gasped for air through lungs that were tightening in fear and hatred as she stumbled to the entrance to the bathroom and peered out into the cacophony beyond. Some of the ceiling had been ripped away, and wind wailed through the living space that used to be a roofed apartment. Clouds were swirling overhead, dark and tumultuous. Angry. Everything looked angry.
There were two massive winged beasts that she could see, one of them on the remnants of the roof, and the other in the living room, dead set on destroying Michael Salvatore. The one on the roof was red, and it looked exactly like the drawings Mimi had seen in Dungeons and Dragons books at the bookstore.
A red dragon, she thought. A tingling went through her, maybe from disbelief or shock, she didn’t know.