Chapter Thirteen
Michael left with Tony, with a promise to try to find out more if he could about Abel’s plans and where he might have gone to ground. But what he’d told them about humans having to hide from soulless sent a chill through Devlin. “Do we trust him?”
“I think so, but he was holding back,” Eva offered.
Devlin sat with her in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. On the one hand pleased she hadn’t kicked him out, but on the other hand, she hadn’t taken him to her room either, or exactly invited him to stay. He just lingered and had asked for a cup of coffee after the others left. “I got that impression too,” he said.
“So what do you think about what we learned tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to think but it’s scary shit. Notice he said he saw at least one of the Chronicles once with Abel but he never said he doesn’t know where it is now. In the morning, I’ll call Samuel and let him know what’s going on here. But if this lost Chronicle does somehow have a way for the soulless to rise up at the expense of human lives, scares the shit out of me. I heard truth in Michael’s words.”
“Yes. Me too.”
“Is that what this first book or scroll as he called it, is about?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know. We were never sure there was a first Chronicle, one that predates what we have on record. There’ve been hints about it but nothing concrete and nothing about what exactly it contains. At first, we assumed those writings might have been referencing the Ten Commandments, the first written word from God. Michael’s provided me with additional information about the lost Chronicle that I’m not sure is in any of our known records. Maybe there was something in the two books that had been stolen. Besides, it sort of makes sense. I’m going to let my aunts know in the morning too, what we’ve found out.”
“And I think we put a bit of pressure on Michael to see if he does know where Abel might have hidden at least the Chronicle he had or better yet, where he is.”
“I don’t think we need to worry so much about Abel as we do in finding the Chronicles. Depending on what it contains, he can do more damage with that.”
“I thought you had a catalog of what everything contained?”
Eva shook her head. “No, we’ve only had a universal catalog in the last ten years. The books have been missing since I was a child and I don’t think we understood their significance until recently. If the existence of a first journal is true, then the importance of the missing writings are beyond comparison. We have to find them. I suspect Abel believes the scrolls contains the hiding place of the first Chronicle.”
“Shit!” Devlin stated.
She stood up and walked over to the sink with her empty teacup. Devlin couldn’t stall any more. He finished his coffee and got up, going over to the sink to join her. When she opened the dishwasher he rinsed his cup off and placed it in the rack, she did the same then shut it. They stood there for a moment staring at each other.
“Thank you for tonight,” she finally said. “For trusting me.”
He took a step forward until he was right in her space, waiting for her to step back. To reject him again, reject them. She didn’t. He raised one hand and placed it at her waist, the other he wrapped around her neck and drew her to him. She parted her lips, her gaze seemed to be focused on his mouth. He smiled briefly then closed his mouth over hers.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung onto him even more. He scooted down and placed his arm under her thighs lifting her up to his chest. He never broke the lip lock they were in. Their tongues continued to twirl around each other’s. Without breaking his hold, Devlin stepped out of the kitchen and down the hallway that would lead him to her bedroom and his haven.
He stepped into her room and headed straight for the bed, laying her down on it and straightening up. Without taking his gaze off her, he pulled off his shirt and toed off his shoes while she watched him as she pulled off her pants too. Her eyes seemed to glint from the light coming in from the hallway. Like last time, neither one of them seemed to be able to get their clothes off fast enough.
He helped her tug her pants off, she’d already gotten rid of her shoes. He left her gray silky looking underwear on, for now. She tugged her top off and tossed it at him. He grabbed it and dropped it at his feet watching her. She still wore a bra but scooted toward the pillows, her hand snaked behind her and she snapped the bra off. His lips parted and he tasted her in the air in the room, her honeysuckle scent seeping into his skin. She pushed the blanket aside and scooted under it. He finished getting out of his jeans just as she pulled her underwear out from under the covers and tossed that at him too.
Catching it in the air, he brought it to his face placing it over his nose and took a deep breath. Then he dropped it to the floor to join the rest of their things. He pushed his underwear off and his cock sprung free. Damn, he was so frigging hard his dick bobbed as he grasped it. With his free hand, he grabbed the cover and pulled it down until she was fully revealed to him. His chest stopped moving. Devlin took the time to gaze at her long shapely toned tanned legs that would soon be wrapped around him.
“No more hiding, Evangeline. No more running. No more.”
Devlin moved onto the bed then and lay beside her, he placed his hand at her waist drawing her toward him as she reached for his cock. “No, not yet,” he said as he held her hand. He joined their mouths together again, then he stuck his tongue out to lick her lips. They parted for him but all he did was lick around her plump mouth then he sucked on her bottom lip.
She squeezed his bicep as her leg slid up and down against his.
He smiled then pushed his tongue into her waiting mouth to glide against hers. At first, the motion was slow and controlled, but that’s not what either of them wanted, not really. Soon the sucking became harder, their breathing harsher, anticipation tingled along his skin.
Still, neither seemed capable of releasing the other. He ran his hand over her hip and thigh, stopping to clutch her leg a bit in a silent signal. She parted them for him and he found himself cupping her center. “You are so wet, baby. Damn, so fucking wet. Do you want my touch?”
“Yes.”
He brushed his thumb over her clit and she moaned. He smiled again and took a slight nip on her tongue before moving his lips to the curve of her breast. While his thumb pressed against her nub, he could feel how very wet she was.
Turning her so she lay fully on her back, he remained beside her, pressing his lips against her soft skin as he slid his thumb between her nether folds and slowly inserted it into her as far as it would go. He groaned at her natural response to him. She moaned, reaching for his cock as she spread her legs a little wider.
Devlin shifted downward and out of her reach, he couldn’t let her touch him yet, he’d lose all control. Instead, he brushed his tongue against the side of her hip, took another tiny little nip of her skin then brushed his tongue over it to make it better. Finally, he situated himself between her thighs. He weaved his arms under them and had her slightly raised so it was easier for him to bow his head and lick along her folds. She rewarded him by releasing her nectar onto his tongue. He didn’t wait but pushed his tongue farther into her warm channel. Her body arched seeking more of his pleasure, but he held her still and kept right on sucking. The sounds she made a melody of pleasure to his ears.
The pleasure was too much for Evangeline; so much, she almost couldn’t take it. Almost. But she would and she wanted even more. Her legs began shaking, her stomach muscles tightened and her climax hit her like a freight train. To the point where she was seeing stars behind her closed eyelids.
She felt him move, pressing his body on top of hers pushing her into the mattress with his weight while keeping her legs raised and over his arms. Then she felt him within her core again, but this time it wasn’t his tongue. Her body bucked and he filled her with his thickness. Her lips parted and she couldn’t get enough air. Then he pulled out of her and pushed into her again, and again, and again. And each time, she flexed to meet his strong, sure driving force. There had been no real pain her first time and there was only unimaginable bliss now.
“Together, baby.”
“Together,” she cried.
He pulled back and surged forward with a roar.
Her entire body quaked, shattered around him. Their arms and legs engulfed each other. Their essences mixed to become indistinguishable. She felt her stomach muscles tighten yet again and electricity surged through her body into his as she came again and so did he. Gasping for breath, he lay over her, she could feel the vibration of his heart as it raced in time with hers. Slowly, the pace began to ebb. He lowered her legs but stayed resting on top of her, seemingly reluctant to part. His cock softened and she felt him slip out of her and still he didn’t move. She didn’t care. She welcomed his body on hers, welcomed him in every way. Denying him no more.
The sunlight that filtered into the room had her blinking but what had woken her up was the same sensation, almost that had put her to sleep last night. The feel of Devlin inside her. She rested on her side, her back against him, he had her leg raised slightly as he slipped inside her. It was the feel of his cock filling her that had woken her up and the increase of her juices gathering to surround him. His strokes were slow at first but became long and deep. She moaned and his pace increased. Devlin’s hand snaked between her legs and pressed against her clit taking her over the edge and she shattered around him a fraction of a second before he joined her. His warmth filled her, quenched her when she hadn’t realized she thirsted.
He kissed her shoulder then withdrew from her. Turning and wrapping his arm around her waist, drawing her closer to him. She turned around in his arms and touched his face before kissing him. They lay back on the pillows and she must have closed her eyes, they both did, and fell back asleep. They had been up all night. They weren’t the kind of people who kept ‘normal’ human hours, whatever those were. So when she first felt the bed shaking she thought it was Devlin giving her another orgasm, but this was different. She opened her eyes and sat up.
“It’s an earthquake,” Devlin stated, caressing her arm. “A bad one.”
The lamp on her tall dresser fell to the floor.
“Yes. Maybe, we should go down into the library, we’ll be safer there.” She sat up completely and placed her legs at the side of the bed.
He sat up too. “Are you sure?”
Eva merely glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m sure.” As she stood up to find some shorts and a t-shirt, the ground beneath her feet shook again and she almost lost her footing. That did it. They both quickly dressed, she grabbed her boots but didn’t put them on because the house shook again. They could hear car alarms going off in the neighborhood and the sounds of something rumbling. They needed to get downstairs.
Devlin came around to her side, wrapped his arm around her waist and together, they stumbled out of the bedroom. She could hear things falling around the house and crashing onto the floor. The mirror hanging on the wall in the hallway shattering into quite a few pieces on the tile.
“Damn.”
The house didn’t seem to want to stop shaking, she placed her hand against the wall to help steady both herself and Devlin. She was staring at all the glass all over the floor, thinking she’d have to take a moment to pull on her boots when Devlin bent down and picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned up at him. He easily carried her down the hallway, but he didn’t stop to put her down. Just carried her to the library entrance and she opened it as the house continued to groan.
Devlin put her down at the top of the stairs and by the time they made it down to the first bend, they could no longer feel any shaking, but Eva was pretty sure the quake continued. And there’d be aftershocks. She raced down to her workroom where she had a television set up, access to the internet and more importantly, an instrument that would measure seismic activity. It was a combination between a seismograph and seismoscope, something one of her aunts had created. Just in case something like this happened. The same aunt who had drawn the runes in this library.
Devlin stood over her shoulder when she sat down and turned on the equipment. “What’s the verdict?” he asked.
“It’s bad. Looks like it was felt all up and down the west coast and as far away as Kentucky. But we’re not done yet, the aftershocks might be just as bad, could even be worse.
“Fuck!”
“Yeah.”
He held onto the back of her chair and leaned forward. “Am I reading that right? Is that saying 7.5?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Can it get worse than that here?” he asked.
“Yes. In the early 1900s a 7.9 was recorded and scientists have been predicting a much larger one, but no one’s sure when.”
Devlin pulled out his phone and tried to make a phone call. “I’m not getting a signal.”
“Not surprising, during earthquakes sometimes towers go down or are overwhelmed. You can try going back up toward the entrance see if you get a signal or you might have to wait a bit.”
“I’ll do that. I need to contact my people.”
She nodded in understanding that he’d want to check on the hunters he led. “I’ll try the television.” She clicked it on but the screen kept freezing. She turned back to her equipment to get a better sense of what the earth was doing around them and to make sure the library was safe.
“TV keeps freezing and I can’t access the internet. Were you able to reach anyone?” she asked when he returned to the room.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad out there. Like nothing that’s gone on before. The emergency people have their hands full. The governor is going to declare California in a state of emergency. There’s been several eruptions resulting in fires around LA. Southern Cali is crumbling. What Tony said didn’t make sense to me. Reports of molten rock, magma rupturing through giant cracks.”
“What!”
“I know. I’ve got to go and join the others, get all the hunters out there. The soulless will have a field day with this kind of destruction and negative emotions running wild.”
“That explains some of my readings, but my equipment is showing something else, Devlin.”
He came over to stand behind her and glanced at the computer screen. “What is it?”
“I don’t think this was a natural event. Especially if what’s being reported is true. Mother Earth would have had to have help to produce magma here. I’m no expert but…” She raised her hand and pointed at a spike on the graph. “This appears to be the starting point for the quakes. There were two of them and maybe the cause of the magma, like something happened here and here. Something not natural. I think some kind of massive explosion triggered the quake at those two points and caused the cracks that released the molten lava above ground. See how the spikes here are at exactly the same time and how it sits perfectly aligned to cause the most effect? The timing and placement are too exact.”
“Sonofabitch! The soulless did this! It reeks of them.”