Whiskey Witches, F.J. Blooding [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗

“You’ll be a good girl, right, Paige?” Jones asked.

“I’m a good girl, I am.” Paige giggled again, her heart beating like the frantic flutterings of a trapped butterfly. “I heard that in a movie once. What movie was that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, or really care,” Malika said, stepping into view.

“You’re so…so pretty.” Paige smiled, her head rocking with the motion of the world around her. “Everything’s so pretty.”

“That’s good, dear.” Malika raised her face to the light. “Sven, it’s time to start the ceremony.”

“Is someone getting married?” Paige blinked slowly, the fingers of her right hand twitching. “I hate weddings.”

“Knife,” Malika said shortly.

Jones reached over Paige, handing Malika a curved, dangerous-looking blade.

Fear wiped the feeling of blissfulness out of Paige’s heart like a sledge-hammer. Her eyes opened wide. She attempted to back away only to find herself still strapped to the table. “What are you doing?” One moment of pure clarity overtook her mind. She remembered who she was, what she was doing strapped to a table, and what that knife meant.

The moment faded..

The knife drew closer. The people that had surrounded her, the flowers, the sun, everything slipped into a pit of dizzying darkness. She lifted herself onto her elbows as much as the ropes would allow, inching further from the blade.

Harsh hands grasped her shoulders, pinning her to the slab. A grotesque face emerged from the void, his eyes black, his nose slitted down the middle, his forehead red and creased. His blonde hair stood in blood-tipped spikes on top of his head. He sneered and said something she did not understand.

She screamed with every ounce of energy she had left, pulling against her bonds.

The others talked to her in nonsense words, her mind filled with fright. Another demon stepped out of the inky blackness, his eyes shooting red flares of light. His long, clawed hands ripped at her shirt.

She gulped air and kept screaming, looking from one demon to the next. The knife settled on her chest. The woman chanted something above her.

The second demon pinned her down.

Unable to move, unable to breathe. The heat of her tears slid down her face and into her ear, amplifying the sounds around her. Her screams turned to whimpers as she lost the ability to gain enough air. The dark world spun. Everything crowded around her. The blonde demon’s hand bit into the flesh of her arm.

The world stilled. Time stopped. The knife quivered where it lay against her breast. Paige stared into the Malika’s brown eyes, and found peace in the maelstrom.

Malika’s face twisted into a cruel sneer. Time rushed forward and the vision shattered with an explosion of dust and the tinkling of glass. Paige pushed off of the slab beneath her, driving the knife into her skin. The pain sent her skidding back into the hellish nightmare around her. Hot blood slipped from her frozen body.

She shivered on the slab, helpless, unable to move, unable to stop what these monsters were doing. Terrified. She couldn’t figure a way out. She couldn’t think of a way to stop them.

A light grew from the size of a firefly to a blazing door. A calm blanketed her as she watched it approach. A face unraveled from the light’s grace, a chiseled and handsome face accentuated with an intense network of tattoos.

The pain disappeared, pushed into the dark recesses of the nightmare. Malika’s voice seemed far away. Paige floated up, past the claws tearing at her, and the rough ropes that had held her down.

His body drifted towards hers, draped in an exquisite robe of burgundy velvet. The intricate embroidery of blues, greens and gold along the edge drew her attention to the robe opening, to the rippled expanse of muscled manliness. Tight black leather pants were buttoned securely at his waist, a trail of soft black hair like fur stopped like a rivulet of water pooling at the base of a mountain.

“Paige,” he crooned, his accent giving her name an exotic ring. “Come to me.”

“I know you,” she whispered. “You’re dangerous. A ghost. A demon ghost.”

“You know me.” The deep rumble of his voice caused her to shiver. “As I know you. Now, come to me.”

She closed her eyes. Fire licked at her in a way it hadn’t in three long years. She felt alive, empowered. Impassioned. “No.”

His strong arms wrapped around her, holding her close, one arm draped around her waist, the other holding her head cushioned against his chest. He smelled of wood and something else she could not place.

Safe. She belonged here as she belonged nowhere else. Accepted, not feared, not manipulated.

“You must trust me now.” He pulled her head back to capture her gaze.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his, trapped and helpless in the depths of his soul.

“Help me, Paige. Help your world. Be my instrument so I can stop the madness, the killings. Your pain.”

“You can stop them?”

“I can,” he said gently. “But not without your help. Will you help me?”

No, came a voice from somewhere inside her mind.

She fell into his bottomless black eyes. “Yes,” she breathed softly. Every cell in her body cried out with her. “I will help you.”

He smiled at her and cupped the back of her head, drawing his lips towards hers. “Thank you, Paige.”

She watched his lips tread dangerously, wonderfully near. She needed to feel what it meant to be a woman again, to feel alive and emboldened.

His breath feathered across her lips. “Thank you.”

She took the breath he offered, closing her eyes as her body answered him.

His lips brushed her cheek. “Paige.” He groaned, his tongue encircling her earlobe in wet heat. “How long have I waited for you? How long have I yearned to feel this?”

She clung to him. Her head fell back into the comforting support of his hands. She was his, powerless to stop him. She had no wish to. His lips trailed down her neck, leaving a path of burning passion in its wake as she moaned, wordlessly begging for more.

He pulled back.

She opened her eyes, looking at him in askance.

A soft smile softened his features. “You are sure you are ready to help me?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Open to me,” he commanded. “Do not fight me. Let me in.”

She swallowed, watching his frustrating descent. She ran her hand over his bald head. “I’m not fighting you.” She claimed his lips with the power of her passion.

His lips were firm, at once gentle yet demanding. She closed her eyes, pushing herself closer to him, needing more of him than one small kiss. She needed the feel of his hands on her body, to feel his skin against hers. She needed him.

He teased her mouth open. His tongue invaded, sending streams of energy coursing through her. She devoured him, taking as much as he would give her. She moaned, exhilarating in the feel of his hard, muscled body pressed tight to her own.

He wrapped his arms around her. Squeezing her tightly, he deepened the kiss still further.

Then something changed.

He wasn’t just pressing his body against hers. His body was entering hers. His mouth morphed into her own. His arms blended into her back. His torso sank into her chest.

She tried to pull back, to disengage. They had become one like a half-formed Siamese twin. She tried to raise her hands, but her arms clung to his neck, refusing to budge. She blinked, seeing only his eyes, those huge, deep pits of darkness. What was happening?

Do not fight me, love, she heard his voice say inside her mind. You are going to be my vessel. You are going to help me fight these demons.

Demons. Her heart raced as she suddenly recalled the full gravity of her situation.

Lucius.

This was Lucius, a demon trying to possess her body to open the Gate to Hell. Rising fury gave her the strength to push back. She gained the freedom of one hand.

You will be my vessel.

No. A firm sense of reality slammed into her. I will not.

You leave me no choice, he said softly, pausing in his assault to overwhelm her body. I am sorry.