Page 12

The Abyss

Beth burst through the sleep paralysis with a drowning gasp.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders with a quiet, “You’re okay, shhhh. It’s Sinrik.”

A shot of relief flew from her as dread clawed at her chest. She’d dreamed about that terrifying abyss. It was like a magnet and her body was made of whatever attracted it. She was dragged slowly through tunnels to the hideous dark pool, but it didn’t pull her in, it began pulling her baby out of her.

“You were having a nightmare,” he whispered, her panic returning at remembering more of the dream. “I have food. You need to eat.”

Her gaze found the fire in a large fireplace on her right. She scanned the décor next, remembering.

“It’s one of guest suites. I stayed to make sure you were safe.”

Safe.

The odd term niggled at her as she regarded the posts on the bed surrounded in ivory sheer curtains. “I dreamed…they took him from me.”

“Who?” he asked, his gentle tone caressing her.

“Whatever…is in the abyss,” she gasped, her panic rising again as she touched her belly. “They took him…right out of me.”

His hands returned to her shoulders, gentle and firm. Warm. “I’m sorry for scaring you with the abyss. I shouldn’t have.”

She shook her head as he turned then handed her a plate of food. “I can’t eat. I’m not hungry for food.”

He paused, watching her before setting the plate behind him and facing her again. “Tell me what you need. I’ll get whatever it is.”

Her mind and body suddenly screamed what she needed, and it brought hot tears to her eyes. “I need my husband,” she choked, covering her face.

“Don’t cry,” he urged softly, barely petting her head. “I think it’s his blood that you need,” he whispered.

Hearing it out loud punched a hole in her as she eyed him, desperate and terrified. “What if…the baby is…”

“We’ll check the baby as soon as we return,” he assured.

She closed her eyes as exhaustion swarmed her. “I’m… dizzy.”

“Lay down,” he urged, helping her back on the pillow.

She latched onto his hand when the mattress pressed into her. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” he whispered, his strong voice bringing a wave of calm. “You’re not the only one experiencing odd symptoms,” he added, his fingers stroking the hair from her forehead.

“What’s wrong?” she barely managed, trembling despite the warm safety he created.

He stared at her then turned his gaze to the fire. She watched the flames flicker in his green gaze. “It’s…”

Something in his tone brought her sitting back up. “Tell me,” she urged, realizing the second she gave the order, it was one he wouldn’t be able to refuse. But she didn’t take it back.

The turmoil in his eyes and the shake in his breaths gripped her. “I’m… I’m supposed to give you my blood.”

A gasp flew from her at those words. She covered her mouth with a hand, feeling something break inside her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, the words half strangled as her breaths turned shallow.

“I…”

“Tell me what to do,” he begged quietly, tormented. “I don’t care about giving you my blood.” His lips parted with shuddered breaths as hunger swam through her blood, sharp and angry. “I want to,” he confessed, locking his gaze on her. “I need to.”

The hunger unfurled into a rabid craving, sending her scooting back.

“Why are you fighting it? What are you afraid of?”

He turned on the bed and reached for something then faced her again. Her eyes locked on the knife in his hand, the sight of it rocking her with lust . “No,” she whimpered as he slid the blade across his palm and produced a line of blood.

“Take it.”

The urgency and hunger in his words smashed through her control and she scurried back on the bed more, panting with the crippling hunger.

He slowly moved his hand toward her. “Beth…” he pled carefully.

“Stop,” she gasped, when the back of the bed pressed into her spine.

“You know it’s right,” he said. “I don’t know why it is, but you know it is.”

“It’s not right,” she forced from her chest, shaking her head harder. “Only my husband!”

“Beth,” he again pled. “This isn’t for you.”

Her gaze snapped up and locked onto his, then lowered to his hand as he moved closer. The baby. He was saying it was for the baby.

****

The need to make her take the blood coiled in his muscles, tightening his frame as she hovered on the edge of her own panic. The weight of it all hung between them—his desperation, her hesitation, the raw current thrumming in the air like an electric storm.

“Beth…he needs it,” he urged, voice lower now, roughened by something he couldn’t name. But with every second, he knew it to be true. “Something’s wrong,” he dared, every moment a negotiation with her surrender. “He needs it.”

Her breathing turned more erratic, pupils blown wide, swallowing reason. Every fiber of her being screamed war—against hunger, against guilt, against the unknown force he could feel twisting in her gut.

And then she broke.

She snatched his wrist like a viper striking prey, sending a jolt through his bones, her lips sealing over his flesh. The second her tongue pressed down and sucked, an excruciating euphoria seized him. A strangled sound tore from his throat, caught between a moan and a curse, but it barely registered beneath the full-body paralysis that followed.

Nothing had ever felt like this.

The pull of her mouth, the wet heat of it, the aching drag of something deeper than hunger obliterated him. His fingers spasmed, grasping at nothing, at everything, at the invisible tether that now bound them together in something far beyond the physical.

Darkness fringed his vision, creeping in like an inevitable tide. The world warped and folded in on itself, reality thinning as a soul-wrenching pleasure swallowed him whole.

He didn’t know whose name was slipping past his lips anymore or how long he teetered on that edge. But as the world faded, one thought anchored itself deep in his collapsing mind. He was gone. And he never wanted to come back.

****

The faintest sound of a motor brought Seer out of his bed and to the lone window on his childhood shack. He peeked out, his pulse thumping at why his Pierre didn’t just call when he knew he wanted no company. Where the shack sat, he couldn’t see the dock then remembered Mr. C. checked traps near there.

The motor suddenly opened up and soon began to fade, taking with it all the tension that it had brought. He still wasn’t ready to see people.

He picked up his phone, looking for any new texts from Cherie. She was the only one he needed but couldn’t have. Ever since Sherrie and Raphael came to stay with them, things had been… strained. He found himself clueless in everything. How to talk to the boy, if he should, when and where. And that woman was near his age and his old celibate habits had him not wanting to give wrong signals and messages. Which meant no looking, no talking. He knew she was a good woman, but he’d learned when it came to the male/female dynamic, goodness had negative relevance. He was likely overreacting and over thinking that too but had no idea how to correct it or who to ask for guidance while the world burned with much bigger emergencies, demanding all the time and attention.

Eveque entered his mind, and Seer quickly shoved him back to God. He was still in no shape to be handling anything that required spiritual fortitude. He’d tried. The last time he’d taken this kind of a hit was when that woman took her life.

He added a couple more logs to the fire, his mind going back to Cherie. What all did she know about everything? Surely, the less, the better. And yet, he wanted to tell her everything. He missed being able to talk to her. She was the only one he could speak freely with. But she had enough to deal with.

A faint knock spun him around and he eyed the small door at the corner of the room, his pulse kicking up. He listened to the wind shaking the trees just outside. The winter storm had picked up speed.

Three hard knocks sent him hurrying to the door. “Who is it?” he asked before opening it.

“Cherie.”

Panic hit him and he yanked the door open to his wife, bundled up from head to foot, only her eyes peeking out through her scarf and hat. He pulled her in and shut the door.

“How’d you get here?” he demanded.

“Ruckus,” she shuddered, unwrapping her scarf and hurrying to the fire. “I asked him to bring me.”

He stared at her, kneeling before the fireplace, his heart hammering with a million things. Fear, need, worry… biting hunger.

He hurried to her and before he could help unwrap her, she bear hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

Her tiny voice cut through him. “For what, Ma Cherie?” he whispered, holding her head to his chest.

“I know you needed space, but… I missed you.”

The ache in her voice broke him. He turned her face up and covered her mouth with a hungry kiss, his groan thick with every need only she could feed.

“I missed you too,” he swore, winded as he began yanking on her clothes. “Fuck, I need you,” he croaked, devouring her whimpers with another kiss.

He suddenly paused, stepping back. “How many layers do you have, Ma Cherie?” he blasted, helping her out of another.

“A lot! It’s freezing if you haven’t noticed.”

He suddenly caught something in her expression and paused. “What’s wrong?”

She flashed him a quick gaze, looking at the fire then hurrying to it, pulling the little stool close to it. “I’m cold, for one,” she muttered, shivering and reaching her hands toward the flames. “You should add more wood, I think.” She glanced around, briefly. “I heard this is your first house.”

Samuel eyed her for a few seconds, his pulse raging with all the wrong energy now. He tossed a couple more logs in the fire and reined in his fears when they tried to shove him off a cliff. She needed to tell him something, that was obvious. “What’s on your pretty mind, Ma Cherie?” he gently asked, sitting on the floor next to her and crossing his legs.

“Nothing, I—”

“Cherie,” he cut in softly, not able to handle that game.

A few seconds passed and she sighed lightly. She took many more seconds before finally whispering, “I can’t do this.”

Her words speared dread through his guts.

“Do what, angel?” he whispered, staring at the fire while every fear imaginable slowly encased his muscles, preparing to crush him.

She shot off the stool and he watched her pace with her arms folded tightly against her. Her anger brought him to his feet, and he caught her in mid-stride, forcing her to look at him. “What can’t you do, angel?”

She aimed her pretty face at him with her forehead in dire straits about it. “Anything!” she finally blurted. “I’m living in my own house like an unwanted guest! My son side-eyes me while climbing into the lap of another woman! And not just any woman, either, no, she’s a damn saint!”

She tore from his hold, and he let her pace again, relieved to fuck as she hit the gas on her venting rampage. “She don’t ever raise her voice, not a damn octave! She’s just sittin’ all composed, blinkin’ real slow like she’s too holy to experience a real emotion. And my son?” She snapped the question right at him. “That little boy looks at her like she put the damn sun in the sky! Follows her ‘round like she got honey in her shadow,” she said, walking her fingers in the air before whipping her pissed gaze on him. “He does every little thing she says without so much as a side-eye. He’s five, Samuel! You ever seen a five-year-old so obedient? It ain’t normal. She got that boy trained like a show dog! An’ if I tell him somethin’? Oh, he hesitates, he frowns, then there he go, lookin’ for her like he needs her permission to listen to his own mother!” she yelled, shooting her arms out at her sides before getting back to plowing rows of rage on his floor.

“She’s always there, floatin’ round like some damn guardian angel with the patience of Job, always calm, always ready with some gentle somethin’,” she muttered, her disgust tickling his cock for some reason. “And she don’t ever get mad,” she quickly informed with a side-eye. “She don’t ever snap while glidin’ her ass across the floor while the rest of us mortals gotta walk.”

Samuel’s insides jerked when she spun with her pointer finger on him, walking over. “And I see the way she looks at you,” she forced out between clenched teeth. “Real subtle with it, real proper, real respectful,” she literally spat. “But don’t think I don’t know what I’m seein’,” she assured, waving her head around while her eyes never budged from his. “She got the nerve to stand there all serene, all demure, like she ain’t sittin’ there lusting after my damn husband.”

The jealous fire in her eyes called up a vengeance in his cock that demanded punishment. And the only thing guilty was her perfect, thick ass and the way it shook when he fucked her. The way his white hand looked digging in to his silky mocha heaven.

Her fury finally saw what burned in his blood and it froze in its tracks. He removed his sweater in one move and began working on his pants as her eyes moved over the storm building right before her eyes. “Get your perfect ass out of those clothes, Ma Cherie,” he ordered as he kicked off his pants. “I wanna fuck you all night long.”

****

Spar hid his grin at how Scarlett’s gaze dashed off him when he walked into the Roost Room wearing his bayou-ball-hammocks. The budget boxers were an old pair of stretchy black thermals cut too short with his saw knife. Baptized by blood and sweat, washed clean in the good Lord’s rainwater. Today, they were a weapon posing as a covering for his ever-hard cock.

Scarlett was still catching her breath from their little hike from the boat. She was fucking pissed, just like he needed her. Hands on her hips, face flushed from anger and physical exertion. She had no idea how fucking good she looked like that—hot, flustered, alive.

She popped out a sharp laugh. “Training? Is that how you plan to cleanse the nun-whore?” She was unbuttoning her sin-proof sleeves on those virtue drapes she wore faithfully to their lessons. “Bring. It. On, you, bayou… bullhead .”

“Sure you don’t wanna free up some space?” he suggested with a nod.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d love that, you gorilla . I’ve faced far greater, far far scarier men in my days.” She bent over and pulled the backside of her long dress up between her legs and tucked it under her belt at the front, creating those billowing pant legs. Then she came straight onto the mat in that stance he’d taught her, ready to kick his ass.

Fuck, he was going to love this.

His smile was slow and sharp as he walked toward her on the mat. “That’s right, my little hot hussy. Training. But not the kind you think.”

Her spine straightened with a snap as she demanded, “What does that mean?”

“It means, little nun, I’m gonna ruin you for a soldier.”

Scarlett's brows pulled together with the new threat. “Ruin me, ruin me how?”

He stopped right in front of her, towering over her, keeping his posture lazy and confident. “You think you can overcome me?” He dropped his voice with hot challenge. “You think you can stop me?”

Her throat bobbed with the shudder of her eyelids from the effort not to see the wall of muscle before her. “I—I don’t understand what you mean.”

Spar gave a slow, knowing smirk. “Let’s just say I’m gonna be your every temptation. You’re gonna show me how ready you are to say… no.” He let the words sit between them for a second before adding, “You’ll need your armor.”

Her eyes flickered with confusion. “Armor?”

“Not literal, little sis,” he murmured, his voice almost affectionate as he reached out, plucking a stray leaf from her sleeve. “The big guns. That armor of God you taught me about.”

He watched as realization hit her like a slow-building storm. His little nun had been preparing to train her tin-men. He wasn’t sure what that even looked like, but he knew what his would look like.

He raised his palms before her, slowly stepping to the right. “Let’s see how long you last.”

She eyed his hands, her breaths deep and shallow now. “I can last however long I need to,” she assured with gaspy, frail words.

As he circled her, he studied the war in her—enjoying his new gifts. The spiked pulse, fingers curled into tiny, useless fists now.

Then she caught a second wind of courage and squared her little jaw. “You think you can shake my faith?”

Spar shook his head slowly, already seeing his first move. “Not exactly,” he said, snatching her wrist and leg-sweeping her right onto the mat hard. “Shaking would mean you haven’t already fallen.”