Eve Langlais - Toxic

However, grief couldn’t clutch me forever. I’d seen and done too much in my life to succumb to it for more than a moment. In short order, I dried my tears and snorted in a very unladylike manner into the kerchief Lily handed me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, ashamed of my display, and in front of my queen no less.

“Sorry for what?” Lily asked as she pulled my bandages away to check on my healing progress. “There is no shame in showing grief for the passing of those we care about.”

I said nothing in reply as Lily tended my wounds. Admitting I cared aloud still felt too much like weakness. I concentrated on other things, less human concerns, like the damage done to my body. The daemons’ claws had left their mark, and the poison they’d injected with their slashing touch infected my usually resistant body. Dirty creatures. I found the pain of my injuries helped me regain my focus even if emotionally I felt like a tautly wound wire that would snap at the slightest pressure.

Lily laid her hands on one of my seeping, foul smelling wounds. Then she used magic, a healing magic that none of our kind except she enjoyed.

I sucked in my breath at the burning agony as she bled the toxins from me, my third and final session as she informed me. With each jolt of gut wrenching pain, the wound in question began to heal, so I bore it with gritted teeth-although, a part of me kind of wished I’d remained passed out for this part. What could I say, I preferred dishing out pain as opposed to receiving it.

To distract myself, I recounted my shameful blindside and the battle I’d almost lost-a first for me. The carnage of my people she’d seen firsthand and a fragile part of me thanked the fact I didn’t need to go into detail about their demise.

Clarity returned to me as the discomfort of my injuries lessened and a disturbing fact sprang free to the forefront of my mind. The daemons, with their attack, and even worse, recognition of me, had clearly shown they had access to information thought secret, such as locations of lairs.

“They knew who I was and where to find me,” I announced grimly to my queen.

“I know,” she replied softly. “And you’re not the only one.”

Anger burned alongside shame as Lily informed me my castle was only one among several others invaded. However, I was the only one who’d escaped alive. Elsewhere, the results ended up fatal and bloody with vampires slain along with their human slaves. Daemon coordinated attacks that made me realize, as Lily washed my now mostly healed skin, that we’d fooled ourselves into thinking the daemons were unaware of us and our plans to halt them.

Realization hit me like a ton of bricks followed by a piano and an anvil. The previous attacks on the humans had only been feints. A testing, so to speak, of our defenses. Having learned what they needed, the daemons had banded together to take out what they perceived as their greatest threats before the arrival of the main army. My kind, the only ones to really understand and recognize the danger they posed.

I shared my revelation with Lily, who nodded her head. “They fooled us into thinking they were little more than brutal beasts. We shan’t make that mistake again.”

“You mean whoever takes my place. I’ve failed you and my brethren. It is only right I step down and let another take my place.” Altruistic of me? Not really. I’d flunked my test as protector and honestly believed I didn’t deserve my position.

“I refuse your resignation.”

“But, because of my short sightedness, dozens died.”

Lily’s eyes blazed darkly as she retorted. “And because of your vision, you’re the only reason we might even stand a chance when they come. If you’ve failed, then so have I for not listening to you when you warned we needed to prepare. Like others, I kept hoping and praying the approaching doom still lay far into the future.”

“And it still might.”

“Don’t placate me,” Lily snapped. “If there’s any fault, then it’s mine for not acting sooner. But unlike you, I’m not ready to give up.”

I snarled at her implication. “I haven’t given up. Nor am I scared.”

“Then stop the caterwauling and instead start thinking of how we can prevent this happening again.”

“We can’t prevent attacks if our information network has been compromised. The only defense I can see working is if we can form groups large enough to repel any attacking forces.” Already, plans formed in my mind of calling my brethren back home-manning, or should I say vamping the ramparts so to speak. Only in large numbers could we hope to repel with fewer casualty any future attacks like the one I’d barely survived.

“I’ll put the call out that it’s time to come home then,” Lily said, closing her eyes and communicating with her thralls.

“You do realize if our information network is compromised, it’s just a matter of time before the daemons appear here?”

“Good, because I’d say we have a score to settle, don’t you?” Lily’s innocent beauty transformed for a moment into that of the predator she was at heart.

I could only grin in reply, my cockiness reasserting itself. “We won’t be caught unaware again, I promise.” And I meant it. I would not fail my people again. My funk dispelled, I had to ask the question burning on the tip of my tongue. “Why did you tell Rafe where to find me?”

Lily shrugged and smiled. “He looked so miserable when you left. Moping about and what not. I had to do something. I truly think the man is in love with you.”

“He’s not a man. He’s an angel,” I mumbled even as my heart beat faster at her words.

“Whatever. You both have the hots for each other. So why fight it?”

“Because.” Did I need to write her a list?

“Are you still worried you might kill him like we do the humans?” she asked, cocking her head at me.

“Considering sex with us is toxic to most beings, wouldn’t you be?” I replied sarcastically.

“And if I told you angels are immune?” Lily’s sly smile rang bells in my mind.

I frowned at her. “And just how would you know that fact when even he doesn’t?”

Lily’s casual shrug didn’t fool me for one moment. She had access to more knowledge, at least where angels were concerned, than she was letting on. But I found it hard to task her given she’d just paved the way for me to be with Rafe. Suddenly, I didn’t find myself so tired or despondent anymore. And I was anxious to see Rafe.

Naked.

Of course, I still hadn’t changed my mind about sending him away, back to Heaven where he’d be safe. But before I threw him out of my life, I couldn’t deny myself one selfish taste of his lust-and if my hope was right, his love.

Lily left me with my thoughts and my body mostly healed, the red lines scoring my body, a faint reminder that would disappear in a day or so. My mind tumbled in disarray over the news she’d imparted, the fact Rafe could handle my touch. I ordered up several of my thralls, finding myself really hungry after my ordeal, and as I sucked on their necks one after another, I tried not to think of Rafe. Easier said than done. With the green light from Lily, my excuse of being toxic no longer acted as a barrier to us being together.

I loved him. I couldn’t deny that fact any longer. He made me feel things I’d never imagined, and not just physically. Had I suffered only from lust, I think I would have handled the Rafe situation with ease, but having my heart involved complicated things. Like, did he love me, too? Doubt, another aspect to my mushy feelings that I didn’t enjoy at all. And unlike other things I didn’t like, I couldn’t just kill this problem or tear its head off.

I finished eating without coming to a decision, but at least I felt a lot more like my usual strong self. I thought long and hard while I showered the grime from my body.

To do or not do Rafe? A crude question, but one of importance, at least to me. My selfish half said “Hell yeah!” However, my newly discovered softer side asked if it was fair to use him and then discard him. Even worse, both sides of my psyche wondered if having a taste of him and the pleasures I’d find in his arms would make removing him from my life even more painful.

Self-indulgence won. I couldn’t, make that wouldn’t, deny myself a last chance at happiness. A fantasy moment that I would treasure and use as inspiration in the upcoming battle with the daemons.

Decided, I toweled off and walked out into the bedroom, nude.

I stopped dead at the sight of Rafe lounging on my bed. A modest woman would have covered her bare parts. Thankfully, I lacked that kind of stupidity. I stood tall and proud, my nipples tightening at the glowing interest in his eyes.

“Come here,” he ordered.

I put a hand on my hip and cocked it. “Whatever for?” I asked with a playful smile.

“Your queen told me there’s no danger. We can be together. So no more excuses.”

Lily meddling again, but I didn’t mind in this case, not when it meant I could finally have what I wanted most-Rafe.

“What happened to my shy and geeky doctor?” I asked.

“A façade.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Not as hard as my cock.”

His crude words made me flush. Talk about switching extremes. “You know, you’re pretty bossy for an angel.”

He just smiled and beckoned me closer.

I approached him slowly, undulating my hips for his appreciative, hungry gaze. I stopped at the foot of the bed. “Aren’t you afraid I’m still too weak from my ordeal?”

Rafe snorted. “You? I doubt it.”

I grinned. I had to give him credit, he understood me all too well. “So who gets to be on top?”

Apparently he did, for in one fluid movement with a speed to match-perhaps even surpass my own-I found myself under him, and lucky me, he was very happy to be on top.