RemissionChapter Two
Angelus scowled. Ramadevi was willing to feed him, and he was starved for her, but the scent of fear wafting around her revolted him. He mused silently as he lightly nibbled at her jawline, soft little nips of his teeth barely touching her skin. Little sighs whispered from her throat, she trembled and closed her eyes. The delicious scent of her freely offered blood blended with her fear–of him. Angelus felt his stomach churn in disgust.
He was–something was–wrong. With him. The idea of drinking her fear nauseated him.
“Turn around.” He urged her to face away from him, unpinning her lace scarf and dropping it carelessly. Angelus pressed his closed lips to the base of her throat. Perhaps, if she didn't see him...
It was worse, a shudder ran through her entire body. She felt terribly vulnerable with her back to him! Angelus felt it, all of it, the panicked fear she tried so hard to hide.
“Please,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Just–do it.”
Angelus drew her into his arms and scooped her up as a child might lift a baby doll. He strode over to the cozy sitting area opposite his giant bed. He sat on the giant mossy green velvet sofa facing the fireplace and cradled the young woman in his lap, his arms surrounding her.
“Pain doesn’t have to hurt, Egypt,” Angelus traced the pattern of a ringlet alongside her face. “If you learn to give yourself to it.”
“No!” She squirmed futilely in his lap. His hands never even tightened to hold her down. Ramadevi was keenly aware of his bared body, broad and muscular in some places, lean and hard elsewhere. He smelled of the bustle and stink of the Paris streets in the rain.
But beneath that, he smelled of Angelus...And she wanted to burrow against him, rub her face into his chest and neck and breathe him inside of her.
The Devi do not couple with the dead...It is abomination, an act of blasphemy...
Please Angelus! Please be somebody else! Anybody else! Please don’t make me feel this way when you are still a monster!
She found the dignity to meet his dark curious eyes. He seemed faintly amused.
“I won’t stay in here, Angelus, and you can’t make me.”
“Can’t I?” A smile, laden with cruelty, touched his hard lips.
“It’s wrong.”
“Is it?” He stroked the length of her hair. His open hand was gentle and tender.
“It can’t be right,” she persisted. “I–my reputation–it is not customary for a man to bed down with a legal ward, is it?”
Angelus only looked at her patiently. Apparently none of her words had reached him yet, made him reconsider.
“I don’t WANT to.”
“Don’t you?”
Angelus continued to hold her, easily defeating every effort she made to crawl off of him.
If she reached into the pleated fold at his waist, where Angelus had tucked the corner of his towel, pulled it away...What would she find?
Ramadevi met his eyes and flushed deep scarlet. Surely he knew just what she was thinking! She took a deep breath.
“Even the lowest woman in my–in a king’s harem–has a bed of her own.” Ramadevi managed to keep her voice steady almost until the end of her sentence.
He continued to watch her quietly as he unfastened the top buttons of her dress, eased her sleeves down her arms, baring her throat and shoulders. He lightly caressed the delicate pulse in her slim neck. Don’t be afraid, my precious, I won’t hurt you–only in the ways you want me to. Or the ways I want to. Her rising body temperature made the scent of her blood more obvious, more appealing. And he smelled the delicious wet heat pooling between her legs under her clothes.
“If I give the bed to you, Egypt, would you share it with me?” He kissed her forehead tenderly, smiled with real affection as her eyes brimmed with tears. “Who used to kiss you like that, Egypt?” he purred as her eyes betrayed memories. “Someone you love?” A faint shadow of rage touched his eyes at the idea of Ramadevi’s love given to others. Angelus considered her his own–even before he ever knew her.
“I had an older brother,” she whispered. “We loved each other dearly.” Her voice broke for a moment and Angelus wondered if she would open to him, tell him about her real family. “He died.”
Disappointment stabbed him, followed by a surge of satisfaction. The man who once kissed her this way, a gentle brush of lips to her forehead, was dead. Angelus didn’t have to kill him himself.
The doorknob rattled softly and Alain soberly announced that Mademoiselle’s supper was ready. Angelus scowled, realising he had to put Ramadevi down to open the door. He lowered her trembling body to the plush sofa cushions, pressed a firm kiss on one shoulder.
Alain handed Angelus a covered tray of food for Ramadevi. Roasted lamb cooked in rosemary and olive oil. Toasted bread and butter. Asparagus and carrots. Angelus set the tray on a small table near the doorway. Alain silently passed Angelus a small honeypot.
Angelus felt her before he even saw her, a swatch of cherry-burgundy dress, clear honey-and-cream skin, and thick dark hair sprinting through the opening door, knocking Alain to one side. Swearing a filthy oath, Angelus leaped over the fallen steward and tore off after Ramadevi.
Ramadevi ran down the hall blindly. She had no real sense of direction or destination, only a desperate wish to flee the horrible conflict in her own mind. Come home, Angelus, I want you...The Devi do not couple with the dead.... And the horrible aching in her body, the hungry need to give him what he wanted. Everything.
“Living Goddess, the Beautiful One, My Mother Who Gives, bless us! Call the rain! Call the earth! Call destruction to the guilty!”
Ramadevi’s legs tangled in her own drooping skirts and she fell flat on her face on the hard wooden floor near the foyer. In the same moment, Angelus covered her from behind. His rage was terrible, he was in demonic form, and she screamed in real panic. Loud, uncontrollable cries of terror as she kicked and wriggled against his body.
BOOM!!!! The thunder growled and snarled at the door and lightning struck a nearby window. Rain and wind sobbed and hissed through the broken pane.
“Angelus! Please! Let go!” Ramadevi begged.
“No, my darling.” His voice was low and oddly soothing against her hair. “I never will,” he promised.
Desperately she threw her body forward, strained with all her might to crawl out from under him. It was no good. He was bigger. Stronger. Faster. Angelus had every advantage.
“Let–go. Of. Me.” She twisted onto her back to face him in the inky darkness of the hall. Raw energy–blood, power, and erotic heat–crackled around them and between their bodies.
Without conscious thought Ramadevi lifted her hips, arched her back. A wild plaintive cry escaped her lips. The thunder roared above them like an enraged animal until the floor shook beneath them.
Angelus kissed her brutally, his hard mouth fusing onto her silky-soft lips, as he ground his body against hers.
CRACK!!!!! BOOOOOMMM!!! The thunder and electricity danced in the skies while the rain quickened and wept louder than before. Violent wind howled and rattled at the front door. The occasional lightning flashes allowed Ramadevi to see Angelus’s face, it’s distorted structure so different from his human face. Still beautiful. She pushed impatiently at his chest as her throat itched and tingled, longing for his fangs.
“Egypt,” he whispered softly in her ear. “If you don’t stop fighting, you’ll rouse all the servants. Every soul in this house will know what we are.” He nuzzled her neck as she panted and gasped for breath. “They’ll all know Egypt. They’ll see what I really am. I’ll have to kill them, Rama.” He closed his lips on a choice spot at her throat, softly sucked her flesh. “Will you come back to our room?”
Ramadevi stifled a sob. Above them she heard footsteps on the gallery landing, near the top of the stairs.
“Miss Ramey?” It was Marie, her fourteen-year-old maid. “Are you all ri–” She was heading downstairs, worried.
A sliver of time shot through Ramadevi’s mind, everything she knew about the sweet-tempered young girl and her family in Gascony.
“Don’t come down!” Gods, why did she sound like that, why couldn’t she sound less panicked? Now Marie’s steps sounded more determined. “Marie go back to bed!”
The footsteps on the stairs hesitated.
“Are–are you all right? I heard glass breaking. Are you–”
Angelus softly bit Ramadevi, nibbled at her collarbone, then licked the spot where he nibbled.
“I’m fine, cherie! The storm is very fierce, it broke a windowpane. Angelus is–here with me,” Ramadevi added lamely. “He is covering it up. Go to bed, cherie.” Did she sound natural enough? “Good night!”
Angelus slowly rose to his feet, lifting Ramadevi, growling softly when she pressed her face into his chest.
“Good night,” Marie replied after an eternal second. Ramadevi heard her walking back towards her room.