The Bound Angel (Sacrilege Rising: Book 1)

Chapter Thirteen

Meredith rifled through stacks of paper. The ink left black smears on her fingers. She’d seen rubber fingertips made for this sort of thing, but that was a step too far. Only old ladies used them, and it was a line she just wasn’t ready to cross. So she put up with inky fingertips and the occasional papercut.

She was searching for last month’s electric bill. The current invoice was unusually high, and she wanted to compare it against the last few bills, but one month was eluding her.

A while back, Tom gave her the responsibility of paying the company’s bills. Not exactly the pinnacle of her career aspirations, but it was a semi-promotion and came with a raise, so she couldn’t say no.

Plus, Tom was terrible at it, and it was nice to be relied on for something. They’d mastered the technique of communicating through eye contact. Whenever she answered the phone, she would turn back to peer into his office, and he would look up from whatever he was doing. If it was a customer with potential business, she gave him a look and connected him right away. But if it was a vendor asking for payment, Meredith would give him a look, and he would inevitably waive her on to reassure them the check was in the mail. Ever since she took over the job, she’d vowed to get her own expenses in order.

So she flipped through stacks of old bills, searching for the one with the right month.

Though, if she was honest, she was mostly doing it to keep herself occupied. It helped to have something to do with her hands, something she could focus on to keep herself distracted. But just thinking about needing a distraction triggered the memory again.

Meredith and her companions shuffled silently through the empty warehouse. She knew Mike, of course, but the others were strangers. Well, maybe not strangers, exactly. Not anymore. If she had any energy at all, the thought would have made her blush. Instead, exhaustion pushed it to the background. Just something else to think about later. Once she had a shower. Once she had a chance to sleep and get her mind right.

None of them were in the mood to talk. There was nothing to talk about besides what just happened and they weren’t ready for that. They weren’t ready to acknowledge any of it. Speaking it into existence meant they had to face it and come to terms, and it was just too soon. Much, much too soon.

Soft gray light filtered through the high windows, but she couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. The looks on her companions faces mirrored how she felt. They were heavy and hollow. Haunted thoughts stirred behind their eyes, hidden beneath weary determination.

Meredith was eager to go home and put the last few days behind her, to digest what had just happened on her own.

Old, ratty mattresses littered the floor of the warehouse. Meredith didn’t know what they were for or why they were here, maybe homeless people slept here, but the stains caught her eye. She looked away from the splotches of red and brown, but some stains matched the ones on her clothes.

The clothes that didn’t fit quite right anymore. The clothes that were bare-threaded and stretched and would be going in the trash instead of the hamper. The clothes that were missing buttons and had stains that matched some of those on the mattresses.

Yes, she knew what those were from, and the thought awakened mixed emotions. She wanted to go home, of course, to shower and recharge. But what then? She glanced at Mike. It suddenly felt wrong that he was wearing clothes. She hoped he didn’t feel guilty. Part of her wanted to turn around and drag him back to bed. How long would she have to wait before seeing him again? How long would she have to wait before he…

Meredith shook her head and blinked the thought away. The details were fuzzy. Just snippets, like a highlight-reel episode of a sitcom that ignored the B-story lines.

So she flipped through her well-kept folder of old invoices, eager to have something else to think about. But she did remember one thing. One truth stuck out in the haze like a figure standing in the middle of the road on a foggy night. The figure’s hair was long and dark. Its skin pale as moonlight. Its eyes as blue and bright and cold as a frozen mountain lake.

Meredith knew one thing for sure. Demons were real.

***

Allie felt a headache coming on. It was a dull throb behind her eyes, pulsing like it had its own heartbeat. Her brain was slow and sluggish, stuck in first gear when she desperately needed it to shift into third. The thing she wanted was just out of reach. It was like it was hanging just over her shoulder, only every time she turned to see, it disappeared. It was maddening.

She dug her palms into her eyes, hoping the darkness would help her focus. Then she saw it. A room like it was from the dark ages. Oil lamps hanging on the walls, lazy wisps of black smoke uncurling from the flames. Sex hung in the air like perfume. It filled her nostrils and flooded her lungs and warmed her core. Then voices, both so familiar and completely unknown, but they weren’t speaking.

They carried the most primal form of communication. Moans of pleasure. Gasps of surprise. Grunts of satisfaction. She did recognize one voice. Mike was there. His sounds were comfortably familiar. But not the others.

Then something else. A melody. Textures. Singing. A woman’s voice crooning a forgotten language. The memory of that voice made her shiver, and she felt a familiar itch.

Then it changed. It became louder. Clearer. Allie began to recognize the words and phrases. The thumping bass made the bed under her vibrate, and now she did recognize the voice, and the song. And it pissed her off.

She opened her eyes. Her roommate was playing music out in the living room again, and singing, badly. God dammit. She was so close to grasping it, to seeing it clearly. God fucking dammit. Just like that, the memory dissolved back into blurry shapes, a smear of dim colors, and a faint recollection of voices.

But the feelings. Now the feelings she still remembered. Pleasure. An endless sea of pleasure. Giving and taking equally. What she wanted, who she wanted, how she wanted. It was freedom. True, actual freedom. No dancing around the perimeter of the bonfire, anxious to feel its warmth but scared of getting burned.

In that place, before Mike brought them out, she’d stood right in front of the flames with her hands outstretched, basking in its heat. Her own musky scent mingled in the air with the others’. She gave herself to the fire and let it burn until it reached the sky and all she could see and hear and smell was sex.

Allie felt heavy again as she returned to the memory. The itch was back. But other thoughts began to push their way in, distracting her from the heat she craved and the itch she longed to scratch. There was something off about the memories. They were exactly what she’d always wanted, and it made her nervous.

A voice whispered that it was too good to be true, that there had to be a catch. Though she didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, deep down she knew it was right. Nothing so good was ever free. There was something… off about the whole thing. Something supernatural. Nothing was supposed to feel so overwhelmingly good.

Allie was surprised to find that she didn’t care. For all she knew they’d been abducted by aliens. But if aliens could make her feel like that, then sign her up for the next ship. She’d just have to convince Mike to go with her. He was the key. He knew how to unlock something within her nobody else could. She remembered his strong hands on her hips, his rough mouth on her throat, his dark words brushing against her ear. Just the thought of him made her heart race.

Somehow, she knew he didn’t want it. Or, at least, that he was conflicted. But that wouldn’t be a problem. She could convince him. She’d been manipulating men her whole life. They were simple creatures, eager to be led around by the nose, and Mike was no different. Well, maybe he was a little different.

Torturing him was fun. Turning his head made her smile. Pushing him until he took control was… amazing. Instead of focusing on the wrongness of the memories, she let herself sink back down into the pleasure. There was good and bad with everything in life, why focus only on the bad? The itch was there, and now she knew just the right memories to scratch it.

Her roommate’s off-key voice crumbled the cocoon she’d begun to wrap around herself, and the itch vanished again.

Allie’s eyes snapped open. She hopped off the bed and stomped into the living room.

***

Emma stared at her apartment. Oddly, everything was just where she’d left it. A black and white movie was playing on the TV. The bowl with the remains of her ice cream sat on the counter, now spoiled and moldy. The curtains were drawn back around the heavy air conditioner in the window. Her shirt… the tiny, V-necked tee shirt she wore that day, was lying on the kitchen floor, next to an even skimpier pair of shorts. They left a trail to the bedroom.

That day seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened. So much had come to light. Her world had been shaken down to the core. But here was her apartment, completely unchanged.

It was unnerving. If it wasn’t for the sour smell of the ice cream, it would have been like she’d just stepped out to take out the rubbish. Everything was right where she left it before the world went pear shaped. It didn’t seem right that it looked so… ordinary. It wasn’t fair that its world hadn’t been turned upside down too.

But standing there like a sod wouldn’t help anything. She did a load of dishes and started the dishwasher. The normalcy of that act seemed to clear her head a bit, so she kept going. She dropped the shirt and shorts into the hamper and made a trip to the laundry. Once that was going, she closed the curtains around the air conditioner, settled down in front of the TV, and started flipping through channels.

This was where she was sitting just before… what? She blacked out? What had she been doing just before that?

Ah. Mike had just turned her down. She’d been on fire, bare skin touching bare skin, tongues exploring, his hands on her ass, hers on his length. He was like steel. To have it in her would have been pure, blissful satisfaction. They’d been so close to shagging. Then he left in a hurry, out of nowhere, just before they were about to have it off. She was sitting here on the couch watching a movie, embarrassed, eating therapy ice cream, trying to relieve the frustrated tension, and then… what?

And then she’d felt it. Mike’s cock stuffing her mouth, filling her pussy, pounding her so deep and hard that all she could do was try to hold on as she tumbled over the edge. He was perfectly stiff and perfectly sized, and he knew just how to use it. It was better than she ever could have imagined.

What happened between those two things was a blur, like looking out the window on a moving train. If she concentrated hard enough, she could pick out little details, like the way his hands felt on the back of her head or how sweet the other girls tasted while he watched.

So. They’d had sex. After years of dancing around it, there it was. What did it mean? Was their friendship over? That was likely the case even if they hadn’t done the business. Something seriously mental had just happened, and it would have catapulted their friendship into another phase regardless.

Emma had seen things she wasn’t ready to put names to. Flashes kept coming back. Making out with an impossibly gorgeous blonde woman. Talk of bindings and demons. At the end of those murky memories, there was sudden clarity.

They were standing on the sidewalk in an abandoned part of town. A black sedan was parked down the street. After so much time in the dark, she had to squint against the fierce sunlight. Even so, to her eyes, everything was washed out in shades of white and beige.

Mike was there, exhaustion and regret written on his face. Others too. The cute brunette she recognized from one of his work parties that he’d just started seeing. She couldn’t remember her name. Molly, or Melody, or something. And another woman. Dark and mysterious and gorgeous. They were strangers, but not really. Not anymore.

None of them spoke. They just stood there, waiting, until the sedan pulled up to the disheveled group and rolled down the window. The driver said something to Mike, who said something back, and they all shuffled into the car. Then she was here.

She needed to talk to Mike. For some reason, it seemed like he knew what was going on better than the rest of them. He led them out of the warehouse. He spoke to the driver. He’d been in control when they knocked boots.

Emma checked her phone and sighed. She’d missed classes and assignments were now late. The world didn’t stop just because she was on a bender for a few days. Mike would have to wait. She had the rest of her life to get back in order first.