Darynda Jones - First Grave on the Right

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?