Ascension: Sins of Eden Part 22

He was still angry with her, but anger quickly turned to guilt.

"Elise, I don't-" he began.

She started walking again, striding across broken gla.s.s, and she dragged him along with her. The werewolves parted when Elise moved between them. They didn't try to stop her. In fact, the way that they looked at her was almost fearful-like they thought that she might exorcise them if she noticed that they were there.

Inside what had once been a very nice bathroom, the remaining shattered gla.s.s had been swept into a corner and the snow sc.r.a.ped off of the floor. It was cold inside. Very cold. All of the wards that James had erected to maintain the temperature had broken when Elise escaped.

It was equally cold inside the atrium where Abram, Levi, and Nash were gathered. They seemed to be planning something. There were boxes of supplies from the trucks scattered around the room. Folding tables had been erected, papers spread everywhere.

"Elise?" Levi called, breaking away from the rest of the wolves. One glance from Elise stopped him in his tracks. "What's wrong?"

The question of the day.

She kept walking.

Elise pushed James into the bedroom. Everything was exactly as they had left it: the furniture she had broken in her rage, her clothes piled in the corner, the bed's linens stained with James's blood. Neither the snow nor their dwindling army had reached that room. James had gotten there first and cordoned it off for his personal use.

He'd been working in that bedroom to a.s.semble the spell to heal Nathaniel-or at least, he'd been a.s.sembling pieces of a spell. He had no idea if any of them would work.

"You can't blame me for what I did in pursuit of Eden anymore," James said, trying to hold up his end of an argument that Elise didn't seem to be interested in. "You're doing the exact same thing. You're trying to get into the garden and-"

Elise slammed the door and shoved him into it, fists gripping his s.h.i.+rt, and she kissed him. Her lips tasted salty. She felt desperate, urgent. Like this was her last chance to kiss him.

He was momentarily too shocked to respond. Then he was tempted to let her do whatever she wanted.

Sanity caught up with him a moment later.

James pushed her off of him. "Elise. What are you doing?"

"We're not talking right now." She kissed him again, harder this time, straining up on her toes to reach him even though he was too stunned to be cooperative.

Was this about feeding? Trying to heal her damaged arm?

Her hands came up to grip his hair so hard that it felt like she was going to pull it out. She kissed as aggressively as she fought, like she was putting all of her anger and accusations into the nip of her teeth and flick of her tongue on the roof of his mouth.

James wanted to forget the "why" of it all and lose himself in the sensation of her body against his, thighs pressed to thighs, belly to belly, chest to chest.

But he made himself grab her wrists, pull her gently away.

"Elise, why?" James asked. It was hard to breathe.

Her cheeks were damp. "That girl."

He blinked. The girl? The child? "You mean..."

"That's Dana McIntyre, James."

The name sank in slowly. Dana McIntyre-the older of the McIntyre daughters-had appeared at their camp, carried by Elise, without her family. Hadn't there been two children? A second daughter? And then McIntyre, and Leticia...

Belphegor's words seemed even more hideous now. You have to despair.

"My G.o.d," he said.

Elise dug her fingernails into the back of his neck. "Belphegor's not going to stop until he kills you, too. You're next. You're all that's left."

"Why? I'm human. I'm not a threat anymore."

She shook him. Not hard, but not gently, either. His back banged into the door again. "Do you really have to ask?"

Belphegor had pushed Elise past her breaking point.

"No," James said, his voice coming out gravelly, "he's not going to kill me, I'm not going to let that happen." But how could he stop a demon with the powers of a G.o.d? He had surrendered his powers.

When she kissed him again, he didn't try to fight her.

There were too many things that they needed to talk about, but for the moment, there was only this. Elise's hands ripping down the neck of his s.h.i.+rt, popping the b.u.t.tons off, shoving it over his shoulders to bare him to the freezing air inside the resort.

It was his only s.h.i.+rt, now destroyed. A ridiculous thing to be worried about. If Belphegor was going to come after James next, then s.h.i.+rts were the least of his issues.

He actually laughed at that thought, chuckling against Elise's lips. Funny what looming death did to one's sense of humor. And then he mumbled, "Sorry."

She silenced him by ripping his belt off.

James tried to lift her s.h.i.+rt, but Elise shoved his hands away. Her lips traveled from his lips to his cheek, up to his ear, tickling against the fine hairs of his sideburns.

"Relax," she said. "Let me do what I want."

"If you think that I have the self-control not to touch you..."

She bit his earlobe at the same time that she popped the b.u.t.ton off of his pants. Another article of clothing ruined. He wasn't going to have anything to wear after this.

Elise's hand slipped into his waistband and curled around him. James wasn't a young man, and it wasn't the first time that he had been with a woman-not by far. Yet he found himself instantly, dangerously close to losing control, just feeling her fingers cupping his erection.

"Careful," he said warningly.

She bit his bottom lip this time, pulling on it until it stretched to the limit, almost to the point of pain. Then she released it. "Tell me again," Elise said, stroking him with much more gentleness.

He made a strangled sound. "Which part?"

"Tell me you're not going to die."

It was a lie. They both knew it was a lie. Even if Belphegor didn't do the deed, even if the world didn't end, he only had decades. A mortal lifespan.

"Nothing is going to happen to me," James said. "I swear." Although there was a very good chance that she might give him a heart attack before Belphegor got a shot of his own.

Before he could lose control, she pushed his pants down, letting him step out of his shoes. He felt strangely exposed like that-fully naked while Elise was still clothed, still in control. But at least he didn't feel cold anymore. His blood was running far too hot for that.

He scooped his hands underneath Elise's thighs, lifting her easily. She wrapped around him, legs twined around his waist, arms around his neck. She adhered to him like shadow to the dark side of the moon, curving perfectly around his body.

James carried her across the room, setting her on the edge of the desk. This time, she didn't fight him when he lifted her s.h.i.+rt, exposing the destroyed black bra underneath. There were slices along the band, on the sides of the cups.

He slid the one intact strap down, brus.h.i.+ng his thumb over the skin it exposed at her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he murmured against her throat, tasting the skin in a line down to her collarbone. "I'm so sorry."

He wasn't sure if he was apologizing for McIntyre and Neuma or for what he had done to her over the years, or something else entirely. Maybe his mortality.

The bra slipped away, and her head fell back as he palmed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Lord, but they were perfect. Genuinely perfect. The sight of them was almost overwhelming, just like her hand on his erection had been.

They were soft, the nipples dark peaks, almost reflecting the color of her blood-red lips. The swells curved down into the narrow pinch of her waist, the lines of her hips still encased in leather, the curve of her thighs.

There was no way James was going to last long like this, when merely looking at her was enough to bring him to the brink. He was just too d.a.m.n human. And she was-well, she was virtually a G.o.ddess.

She could also, humiliatingly, tell that his stress levels were rising. She rubbed her face against his neck. More of a comforting gesture than a s.e.xual one. "I told you to relax, James."

But she needed him. He wanted to make her feel good enough to forget everything, even the end of the world.

Elise seemed to know that he was thinking that, too. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, embracing him hard, and after a moment he returned the gesture.

It was strange to hold her, and be held, and feel such comfort. The one thing that he had never thought Elise was capable of providing or experiencing.

He wasn't cold, but she was shaking.

"Lord, Elise," he murmured into her hair.

It was reminder enough of what she was doing-why she was doing it-to get himself under control. He pulled the remnants of her leather pants from her body and cupped her bared thighs in his hands, feeling the silk of her bare skin, the inhuman smoothness of her calves and ankles.

Once she was naked, he let himself look at her. She was a thousand times more beautiful than he remembered.

Elise ducked her head. "Stop thinking like that."

"You can read my mind?"

"Not exactly." She slid her fingers up his abs, his pectorals, sc.r.a.ping the hair lightly. She still wore fingerless gloves. It was strangely arousing for her to be naked aside from the gloves. "With humans, I can kind of read the hormones. The chemicals. The way that thoughts travel over your mind." Elise pulled his head toward her. "I can tell that you're thinking about me like...that."

"But you are perfect," James said, and he kissed her, mouths slanting together.

His hands slid up the insides of her thighs, moving to the apex of her legs so that he could stroke her, prepare her as she had prepared him. But she pushed him away. Her hand slipped between them again, guiding his body toward hers. "I don't want to wait. I don't need to."

James slipped against her wetness. She really was ready for him, burning hot, threatening to consume him.

So he let her.

He sank inside of her, and it was more than just a relief-not just the sensation of rightness, of being completed again, but a feeling that felt something close to nirvana.

Elise's breath was choppy in his ear as he began to move, her knees squeezing so tightly against his ribs that he could barely breathe. Her fingernails dug furrows into the muscles of his back. For the first time, the bite felt good, and he thought he understood why Elise had always preferred to take her pleasure with pain.

But he wasn't a witch anymore, nor did he have any angel blood. He was mortal. Just mortal. And Elise felt incredible.

"Elise," he groaned, "I don't think I can-"

"Do it," she whispered.

The words sent him over the edge. He gripped the edge of the desk on either side of her, thrust deep, and emptied himself inside of Elise with a roar that he knew was too loud. The sensation was blinding. The world around him went white.

For a moment, it was easy to forget the world was ending.

Fourteen.

Eventually, Elise and James ended up in the relative warmth of the bed, burrowed underneath the stained comforter with books from the Palace of Dis.

James had expected her to leave quickly once she was done with him-which hadn't been for well over an hour-but she remained to read through the books in silence. They each had separate papers to take notes on. The only sounds in the room were the scratching of pen against paper.

Preparing gaean magic with Elise curled naked against James's side was as near to perfection as he could imagine-aside from the whole impending genesis thing.

He realized that his pen was the only one moving. Elise had only drawn a few parts of the circle, and now she stared vacantly at the wall.

James leaned over to kiss her shoulder. "You didn't tell me that you planned to enter Eden because you thought I would want to get into the Origin. Didn't you?" It was hardly pillow talk, but the thought had been nagging at him.

The question stirred her from her reverie. "Was I wrong? You weren't exactly subtle about how much you wanted to become G.o.d yourself."

"I didn't know there needed to be a three-person pantheon." James kissed her shoulder again as he thought, softer than before. "No. I think entering the Origin would be a mistake now."

"But only now. Only because Belphegor's gone in."

"Can you tell me that you feel no temptation to become omnipotent and set all of these wrongs to right? Is there nothing you would do with the power of G.o.d now?"

She bit down on the end of her pen hard enough to dent the plastic.

After a moment, she began to draw again without responding.

"You really aren't tempted," James said. "You don't want the power." It was kind of impressive, actually. Everyone wanted something selfish. Elise just wanted to save the world.

"Tell me what we'll do afterward," she said, changing subjects. "After Belphegor's gone. After we heal Nathaniel. After we save the world."

James frowned. "Really?"

"Yes," Elise said.

"Feeling sentimental?"

"Humor me."

He pushed a book out of his way and rested his chin on his arms, watching Elise from the corner of his eye. "Well, it's impossible to say what the world is going to look like after it's been 'saved.' a.s.suming we can restore it to some semblance of its previous condition, I suppose I'll need a new job. I could teach again."