First Grave on the Right

  “Then what? What went wrong?”

  “Her baby’s blanket.”

  My head whipped up. Angel was peeling paint off the side of the snack bar, doing his best not to look in Reyes’s direction.

  “She went back for her baby’s blanket,” he explained.

  “She didn’t have a baby,” I said, confused.

  “She would have, if he hadn’t sucker punched her in the gut.”

  I buried my head again, fought the sting of tears.

  “She’d knitted it. Yellow because she didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl yet. She lost the baby the night she mustered the courage to tell him she was pregnant.”

  My lids squeezed shut, forcing the most useless tears I’d ever cried past my lashes. The blanket absorbed them, and I wished with all my heart it would absorb me as well. Just swallow me whole then spit out the bitter bones. Why was I even on Earth? To make a fool of myself and my family? To hurt people I’d never met?

  “But Zeke Herschel was in jail,” I said, unable to fully accept what had happened.

  “He made bail almost the minute they booked him; his cousin is a bail bondsman.”

  I knew that, but I never expected her to go back.

  “Herschel caught her as she was leaving the house a second time. And he knew from the look in her eyes what she was doing.” Angel chewed on his bottom lip a moment before continuing. “After he … did what he did, he found your card in her pocket and put two and two together.”

  A long silence ensued as I tried desperately to figure out my role on this Earth. Clearly, I was going about the whole grim reaper thing wrong. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe there was no going about it. Maybe I was just supposed to live my life without trying to help people, without trying to fix their problems, living or otherwise.

  “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Angel said after a while.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice spent as fatigue and depression set in, “right. It was probably Rosie’s fault. We can blame her.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I just know how you are. You take everything onto your shoulders like that guy who holds up the world, and you shouldn’t. You’re not nearly as muscular.”

  “Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked him. Angel. A thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger.

  “Just ’cause you’re supposed to be, I guess.”

  “Oh, right, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Why do you think you’re here?”

  “To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses,” I answered. “Duh.”

  “Well, if you knew…” A glimmer of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  Reyes stirred beside me, and Angel’s gaze darted to him.

  “Why do you suppose he’s here?” I asked Angel, indicating Reyes with a nod of my head.

  Angel thought about it, then said, “To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses.” He left out the duh, and I realized he was serious.

  I glanced at Reyes. His gaze was locked on to Angel, as if in warning.

  “I’m outta here,” Angel said. “My mom has a hair appointment in the morning. I like to watch her get her hair done.”

  It wasn’t the lamest excuse he’d ever used, but it was pretty darned close.

  “Will you just tell me next time?” I asked.

  He winked at me, the flirt. “We’ll see.” Then he was gone.

  “Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked Reyes as he sat beside me. He didn’t answer. Naturally. “You saved my life. Again. Are you planning on waking up anytime soon? I don’t know how long I can hold the state off.”

  My pulse had quickened the moment I realized he was beside me. Now that we were alone, it charged headlong into warp drive, heedless of any stars lurking nearby. Reyes’s energy was like a tangible thing, electric and arousing as it encapsulated my body. He hadn’t moved, but I could feel him everywhere.

  Trying to keep my wits about me, or at least nearby, I asked him, “What are you, Reyes Farrow?”

  Without saying a word, he reached over and took hold of the blanket, tugged it off me, exposing my skin to his heat. I leaned toward him, ran my fingertips along the silky lines and curves that made up his tattoo. It was futuristic and primitive at once, a combination of intertwining lattice that ended in sharp tips like those on his sword and smooth curves that wound around his biceps to disappear under his shirtsleeve. The tattoo was one solid work of art that spanned his shoulder blades and spiraled over both shoulders and down both arms. And it meant something. Something big. Something … important.

  Then suddenly I was lost. I fell in like Alice in Wonderland, stumbled along the curves, feared I would never escape. It was a map of an entrance. I had seen it before in another life, and I didn’t associate it with fond memories. It felt like a warning of some kind. An omen.

  And then it hit me. It was the tumbling, mazelike mechanisms of a lock that opened a realm of devastating darkness.

  It was the key to the entrance of hell.

  A jolt of shock snapped me back to the present. As if I’d been drowning, I broke through the surface with a gasp, filling my lungs with air. I turned to Reyes, looked at him in horror, and slowly, very slowly, started edging out of his reach.

  But he knew. I’d figured out what he was, and he knew. Comprehension dawned in his eyes and he grabbed for me, the movement like a cobra strike. I tried to scramble out of his grasp, but he’d caught my ankle, pulled, and was on top of me at once, pinning me to the floor, holding me there as I thrashed about, fought for my freedom with nails scraping and teeth gnashing. He was simply too strong and too fast. He moved like the wind and thwarted my every attempt at escape.

  After a moment, I forced myself to calm down, to slow my racing heart. He’d locked my hands above my head, his body, lean and hard, acting as a blockade if I should change my mind. I lay there winded, eyeing him warily, my mind racing in a hundred different directions as I panted beneath his weight. And a strange, unsettling emotion skimmed across his face. Was it … shame?

  “I’m not him,” he said through gritted teeth, unable to meet my eyes.

  He was lying. There was no other explanation. “Who else bears that mark?” I asked, trying with all my being to sound disgusted instead of hurt and betrayed and more than a little dumbfounded. I lifted my head until our faces were inches apart. He smelled like a lightning storm with the promise of rain. And he was hot, as usual, almost scorching against my skin. He was also out of breath. That should have given me some consolation, but it didn’t. “Who else in this world or the next?”

  When he didn’t answer, I tried to squirm out from under him again. “Stop,” he said, his voice raw, husky, as if filled with pain. He gripped my wrists tighter. “I’m not him.”

  Laying my head back, I closed my eyes. He shifted on top of me, angled for a better hold.

  “Who else in this world or the next bears that mark?” I asked again. I looked at him, accused him with my glare. “The mark of the beast. Who else has the key to hell branded on his body? If not him, then who?”

  He rested his head against his shoulder, as if trying to hide his face. A deep sigh whispered across my cheek. When he spoke, his voice was filled with such shame, such indignation, I had to steel myself to keep from flinching. But what he said left me breathless.

  “His son.” He looked at me then, scrutinized my expression, tried to decide if I believed him. “I am his son.”

  A shock wave jolted through me. What he was saying was impossible.

  “I’ve been in hiding from him for centuries,” he said, “waiting for you to be sent, to be born upon the Earth. The God of Heaven does not send a reaper often, and each time before you, I’d felt such disappointment, such utter loss.”

  My lashes fluttered in confusion. How could he know such things? But perhaps the more important question was, “Why were you disappointed?”

  He turned his face away before he answered, as if ashamed. “Why does the Earth seek
the warmth of the sun?”

  My brows slid together, trying to understand.

  “Or the forest seek the embrace of the rain?”

  I shook my head, but he continued.

  “When I knew he was going to send you, I chose a family and was born upon the Earth as well. To wait. To watch.”

  After a moment, I asked, more than a little appalled, “And you chose Earl Walker?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile as his gaze traveled over my face. He released one hand, slid his fingertips over my arm to rest on my neck. “No,” he said, staring at me with a feverish intensity, as if mesmerized. “A man took me from my birth family, kept me a while, then traded me to Earl Walker. Knowing I would have no memory of my past while I was human, I gave up everything to be with you. I didn’t find out who I was … what I was, until I’d been in prison for years. My origins came to me in pieces, in fractured dreams and broken memories, like a puzzle that took decades to assemble.”

  “You didn’t remember who you were when you were born?”

  His grip on my wrists eased, but just barely. “No. But I’d done my research well. I should have grown up happy, gone to the same schools as you, the same college. I knew I would have no control over my own destiny once I became human, but it was a chance I was willing to take.”

  “But, you’re his son,” I said, trying really hard to hate him. “You’re the son of Satan. Literally.”

  “And you are the stepdaughter of Denise Davidson.”

  Wow. That was a bit harsh, but, “Okay, point taken.”

  “Are we not all products of the world we were born into just as much as, if not more than, the parents we were given to?”

  I’d heard the nature-versus-nurture argument all through college, but this was a little hard to justify. “Satan is just so … I don’t know, evil.”

  “And you think I am evil as well.”

  “Like father, like son?” I said by way of explanation.

  He shifted his body weight to the side. The movement stirred the swirling pool still growing inside me, and I fought the desire to padlock my legs around his waist and throw away the key.

  “Do I seem evil to you?” he asked, his deep voice like a caress of velvet. He was busy eyeing the pulse at my neck, testing it with his fingertips, as if human life fascinated him.

  “You do have a tendency to sever spinal cords.”

  “Only for you.”

  Disturbing but oddly romantic. “And you’re in prison for killing Earl Walker.”

  His hand sank lower, skimmed over Will Robinson until it found the bottom of my sweater. Then it worked its way back up, palm skimming over bare skin, sending ripples of pleasure shooting to the most delicate nether regions of my anatomy. “That is a problem,” he said.

  “Did you do it?”

  “You can ask Earl Walker when I find him.”

  No doubt he went straight to hell. “Can you go back? Can you go into hell and find him? I mean, aren’t you in hiding?”

  His hand eased farther up, cupped Will, teased her hardened center with his fingertips. I bit back a gasp of pleasure.

  “He’s not in hell.”

  Surprised, I said, “Surely he didn’t go the other direction.”

  “No,” he said before his head dipped and his mouth found that same racing pulse, christened it with tiny, hot kisses.

  “So, is he still on Earth?” I was trying really hard to concentrate, but Reyes seemed dead set against it.

  I felt him smile against my skin. “Yes.”

  “Oh. So, why are you hiding from your father?” I asked, breathless.

  “Earl Walker?”

  “No, the other one.” I had so many questions. I wanted to know everything about him. About his life. About his … pre-life.

  “Was,” he said, nipping at my earlobe. The action sent shivers scampering down my spine.

  “Was?” I whispered, trying to think of a distraction, something other than the waves of delight washing over my body.

  “Yes. Was.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “If you’d like me to. But I’d rather do this.”

  “Oh … my … g—”

  His hand had tunneled down my pajama bottoms, slipped into my panties, and found a delicious spot to play with. I quaked visibly when his fingers brushed over the silken folds below. When he sank them deeper, I shuddered, the sensation so exquisitely intense.

  Son of Satan. Son of Satan.

  While his fingers continued to stroke the sensitive flesh between my thighs, his mouth—his glorious, perfect mouth—traveled south and was now nibbling on Danger. In the deepest recesses of my mind, I realized I was suddenly half naked and exposed to one of the most powerful beings on Earth. I just couldn’t remember him disrobing any part of me. Did he have super-stripper powers as well as the spinal cord thing?

  I wrested my hands from his grip and dug my fingers into his hair. Pulling him back to me, I kissed him with all the longing and desire I’d harbored for years. This was his kiss, the special one I’d saved for just such an occasion. I savored the smooth taste of him on my tongue as he tilted his head and delved deeper inside me, drawing on my essence, my life force.

  This was the first time I’d really felt him without swimming in a sea of lust so strong, I could barely stay conscious. Not that I wasn’t having a difficult time of it—I just felt a bit more in control, a bit more lucid. He was so real, so solid. This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t an out-of-body experience. This was Reyes Farrow, as close to in-the-flesh as it got, considering he was in a coma an hour away.

  The air undulated around us like heat radiating off a furnace. He grumbled and I helped him remove my bottoms, kicking and manipulating them down my legs. After a few moments, he broke the kiss, jerked them past my feet, and threw them at Mr. Wong.

  Then he was on top of me again, like a blanket of fire, flames licking over all my girl parts, stoking and stirring my body into a frenzy of heat and desire. My hands fought off his clothes and he rose over me, his eyes drunken with sin. His wide shoulders, a wall of solid muscle, were covered in smooth, razor-sharp tattoos. Fluid and alive, they marked the boundaries between heaven and hell, so at one with his form, so natural and ethereal, they seemed to breathe when he did. I ran my palms over his chest, rigid and tempered like ancient steel, then down to his rock-hard stomach that contracted with the brush of my palms.

  Finally, my hand sank farther, wrapped around his erection, my fingers barely able to encircle him. He hissed in a breath and clutched my wrist, holding it still as he fought for control. Shaking with need, he leaned back onto his knees. “I wanted this to last.”

  I wanted him inside me. With sore ankle forgotten, I rolled onto the balls of my feet, climbed onto him, and impaled myself, inhaling sharply, clenching my jaw with the desire that burst in my abdomen. He tensed to the density of fine marble when I slid him inside, his arms locking around me, immobilizing me when I tried to move. I gave him a minute, relishing the feel of him, the hardness that filled me to exquisite capacity. Even completely still, I hovered on the verge of orgasm, the distant sensation drawing nearer with each breath. I struggled against his hold, wanting to move, to come. Tangling my fingers in his hair, I anchored myself and pushed up with my legs, to no avail. He growled, secured me against him with his unshakable embrace.

  Then, with a throaty groan, he laid me back and buried himself deeper inside me in one long thrust. I sucked in a lungful of air, held it as he eased out then back in again, his movements agonizingly slow, insanely meticulous. He tortured me for several long minutes, stopping when I came too close to the edge, pulling back when I clawed at his steely buttocks, wanting more. Slowly, he increased the rhythm, quickened the pace, lured me closer and closer to the inferno blazing in my abdomen until an orgasm exploded inside me. In one continuous rush of adrenaline, the sweet sting of orgasm washed over me, pulsing and coursing through every molecule in my body. I threw my head back, b
it down, and steeled myself to ride out the wave, shuddering beneath him with the power of it.

  He came moments after I did, sending a second climax bursting and spilling through my veins. But this one was different. This one was even more intense. More … important.

  Stars exploded into white-hot supernovas in my head. Galaxies formed in my mind as I saw the universe being born. Planets were forged from raw material as gravity reached out and took what it could, manipulating and bending the elements to its will. Gases and sheets of ice became orbiting spheres, bright and incandescent against the black of eternity, while others shot through the sky at impossible speeds.

  Then I saw the Earth form and its magnetosphere take shape, giving the brilliant blue orb the ability to sustain life like a shield from heaven. I saw one mass of land part and become many, and I saw the rise of the angels then the fall of the few. Led by a beautiful being, the fallen hid in stones and crevasses scattered throughout the universe, where the hottest molten rock flowed and ebbed like the seas of the Earth.

  It was then, after the brief war of the angels, that Reyes was born. Nearly identical to his father, he was created from the heat of a supernova and forged from Earth’s elements. He rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a great and respected leader. Second only to his father, he commanded millions of soldiers, a general among thieves, even more beautiful and powerful than his father, with the key to the gates of hell scored into his body.

  But his father’s pride would not be subdued. He wanted the heavens. He wanted complete control over every living thing in the universe. He wanted God’s throne.

  Reyes followed his father’s every command, waited and watched for a portal to be born upon the Earth, a direct passage to heaven, a way out of hell. A tracker of flawless stealth and skill, he forged through the gates of the underworld and found the portals in the farthest reaches of the universe.