Dawn was a pale tint of color in the East. The night was not yet over, but morning was not far off, either. I looked up to my steeple as Bis flew up to check over the yard's defenses. I picked my way carefully through the snow that had fallen in my absence. White blanketed the grass and the headstones, glowing pale blue in the coming dawn's eerie light. By the time I had reached my back stoop, my slippers were soaked through. My feet were freezing, but I was glad to be home.
Entering my kitchen, I couldn't help but frown. Pierce waited for me on the other side of the counter top, his own frown of worry easing back off his features when he saw me home safe. "When you weren't here, I had a spot of fright," he told me as I ignored him in favor of reaching the coffee left in the pot. "Why did you choose to appear in the graveyard? It's freezing outside."
"I noticed," I said drily as I poured myself a lukewarm cup. I dragged my weary butt over to a chair and placed a hand over the mug, letting a bit of power slip from me to warm it. The tiny bit of magic was almost too much for me, but I concealed my weakness from Pierce. I hid behind my cup as I sipped the steaming liquid. "Where is every one?"
"I do not know. They were not here when I arrived. We are alone in the church."
Silence stretched out between us. I welcomed it. I preferred it to the alternative.
"Why, Rachel?" He finally asked. I could not bear to meet his earnest, searching gaze. "Why did you come back?"
"I live here," I said, pretending ignorance for as long as I could. I so did not want to have this conversation with him.
"You know to what I was referring. I know you well enough to determine that," he intoned, not budging an inch. I gave up trying to put it off.
"I live there, too," I shrugged, letting him take it as he would.
The silence stretched on, heavy and insistent. Unable to bear it any longer, finally he spoke. "Did you come back for me, Rachel?" he asked, hands outstretched to take mine, which were stubbornly clasped around my mug of coffee. I held it like a talisman before me, like a shield, and searched his face. Gone was the anger that I had thwarted him in killing his captor, instead hope and regret warred in his eyes. Above all, there shone his unrequited love.
"No, Pierce." I took a deep breath. "I came back for me." Hope was replaced by resignation, regret by relief.
"But you had a chance at a normal life." I met his pleading gaze square-on, watching his hands flutter to his sides. "I thought that was what you wanted."
I met his earnest, searching gaze with a frank, honest look I doubt I've given to many. The gravity of his questions pulled at something deep within me. I felt compelled to answer in kind. "Normal life turned out to be overrated. It didn't sit well, not any more. I've changed too much, seen too much, and I couldn't bear to sit here, useless, as the world turned beneath me. Like it or not, I am a demon. Hiding here won't change it. I can't change it, so I am going to make the most of it."
He searched my face for a long time, seeking answers to questions he didn't voice, written in my expression. I tried to keep my far blank, but whatever he'd seen there must have satisfied him somewhat, as he nodded. I let out the breath I'd forgotten I was holding in relief, only to suck in another when he stepped close and cupped my cheek without warning. I never expected it of him, he had always been so proper and respectful. Well, not always, I thought ruefully, with a blush. He hadn't been so proper in the hole in the ground where we'd shared fear and passion, by turns. I was too startled to smack his hand away, as memories of our time together came forward in a sensuous rush.
Taking my inaction as a sign to move forward, he slid his gentle grasp around to the base of my head and pulled me to my feet, to stand flush with him. My mug clattered to the table as his other hand swept around my waist, pulling me closer. "Pierce," I breathed, heart going like a jackhammer, "don't…"
"I have missed you, Rachel," he murmured to me, content for the moment to regard me with wonder in his eyes, drinking in my features. Past the smell of burnt amber, I could pick up the faint traces of his cologne. My hands slid to his shoulders, applying gentle pressure to keep him from closing the gap. "So many times I have thought of you in my arms, convinced I could never have you there again."
"Pierce, please. I don't want to have to hurt you." His shoulders were wide beneath my hands, but even through his clothes, I could feel how thin he'd become.
"Grant me this," he pled. "Just a kiss. A drink of water in the desert of my fate. Just a dream, and I will let you go." He seemed so desperate. There was an odd light in his eyes I'd seen in people resigned to death. He was looking around corners.
"Are you dying?" I asked, startled at the thought.
He gave me an odd look, frustration pulling his brow downward. "Honestly? I feel as though I've been dying for a long while, until you. I'm dying now, knowing what can never be."
Tears sprang to my eyes. My heart ached for him. "One kiss? You want to kiss me goodbye?" Ivy had done the same in Seattle. I could understand this request.
"I don't want to say goodbye." His eyes were intent, stubborn. "I know I am not the man for you, but if this is all that can ever be, I will be glad of the closure. One kiss, freely given and received. We can decide whether or not it is to be a kiss of reunion or farewell… after." I bit my lip, unable to think beyond the knowledge that I was going to hurt him, one way or the other.
"I'm dangerous," I cautioned, most of the fight going out of me. "People die around me. Think about that. What you're asking is going to hurt you, one way or the other. I don't love you, Pierce. I won't lie to you and pretend."
"I can live with that," he replied lightly, and then his lips were descending to meet mine in a featherlight touch. I made a soft sound at the tenderness in his kiss, the softly searching question of the touch beguiling me to let him deeper in. His hand at my neck sent a trickle of energy into me through my scar. My mouth opened in a gasp of heady pleasure and his tongue swept inside. I clutched at his shoulders, bringing him closer. His low rumbling groan encouraged me, even as he sent another wave of power over my skin. My fingers went into the silky strands of hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him harder still. What started as a sweet, tender kiss became a conflagration of passion in the blink of an eye as he pushed all the right buttons, pulling instinctive responses from me.
I broke from the kiss, panting, freeing his lips to lay conquest to my neck and shoulder, little jolts from my scar playing havoc on my senses along with pulses from the line he sent spiraling through me. I grit my teeth, trying to master myself, to tell him to stop. Tingles on my scalp heralded the fall of my hair as he pulled the chopsticks free to send them clattering to the floor. Fingers chased at the tingles through the newly-freed strands, and I found my lips being turned back to a new assault of his own. We both groaned at the renewal, but as much as I was enjoying myself, I knew I'd have to stop him somehow. He had asked for a kiss, but it was going to become something much more than that if one of us didn't put an end to it.
I felt my back come up against the refrigerator, unaware until that moment that he'd been guiding me there. His knee pressed between my legs until one of them passed out of the slit in the dress at his urging and he pressed fully against me, the hardness in his pants pressing over my core. Another wave of pleasure crashed over me at the sensation of being manhandled masterfully, the feminine desire to submit to his powerful seduction leaving me feeling weak and breathless under the assault on my senses. My better sense abandoned me to the moment. I reveled in my body being ruled by the demands placed by his.
Sensing I was lost to it, Pierce's touches grew bolder, mapping out my curves through the satin of my dress, gripping possessively at my bottom, rubbing me rhythmically against him in a dance I'd almost forgotten. I whimpered, head swimming, and his low chuckle of male self-satisfaction brought my ire kicking to the fore. Two could play this game, now it was time to see if he could handle what he'd awoken. I took hold of the line, slipping it through him in an ever-increasing rush, until he was groaning and panting along with me. We wrestled for control for a little while longer, the play of the power-pull dancing over our heated flesh and minds. My awareness was narrowed fully to what we were doing, the room dissolving in my mind's eye until it was him, me, and the line. Nothing else existed in a timeless moment of sweet, revolving power.
"God, Rachel!" he gasped, after a particularly strong pull from me. "Sweet, so sweet!." He returned it with interest, until I had to spindle a little in my thoughts when the overflow would have been too much. I pressed it back through him, giving him more, and he growled low with the pleasure. "You're getting too good at this, Itchy Witch." Before I could blink, he sent another spike through me, adding even more to the power I'd pulled from the line in a blinding rush, bringing me to the brink of my peak in an instant as I fed it right back to him, completing the circuit. Though I'd channeled the excess flood back through him, pain still blossomed in my gut, until I was gasping, not with pleasure but with supreme discomfort.
"Something's wrong," I grunted, then sneezed. Pierce's face went from slack-jawed pleasure to mounting horror in an instant. I looked over his shoulder to see the sun beginning to crest the horizon. He glanced back, too, turning back to me with comprehension and the barely banked blaze of desire.
"You're being summoned. I must go as well. Be safe. I will contact you when I can." As the sun made the rest of the journey over the hills, Pierce disappeared. I gaped after him. As another wave of nausea and pain swept me over, I clutched my gut and lay disbelieving fingers over my swollen lips.
"Fuck! Al?" I breathed, as I let the summoning take me.
My fears were confirmed when I arrived at my destination. Without a circle or any of the darkness, candles, robes, or other trappings people foolishly thought were a necessary part of demon summoning, I could take in the sight of everyone present in a blink. There, between Ivy and Trent, was Pierce. I had no doubt that he was the real article, as the sun was up, and only Al ever called me 'Itchy Witch.' Feeling all the frustration of an abruptly aborted impending orgasm coupled with the sting of betrayal, I cursed, "That Goddamned bastard tricked me!" startling everyone assembled with my sudden appearance and rancor.
"Mistress Witch, are you well?" Pierce blurted, accompanied by a stream of worried exclamations by the rest, overlapping in a maelstrom of confusion. Ceri alone took in the sight of my rumpled state and wisely remained silent. Locks of my (now silky) red hair cascaded over my shoulders as I caught my breath, holding up a hand to hold off everyone's questions for the moment. "I'm fine. Just give me a minute to catch my breath." The imbalance of traveling the lines loomed up suddenly, and I chanted "I take it, I take it, damn it," before it could hurt me.
"She looks rather flushed," I heard Pierce comment to Ivy. "Do you suppose she requires medical attention?"
"I'm fine," I spat, scooping back the locks that cascaded everywhere in irritation. "Summoning just hurts like a sonofabitch, is all."
"I apologize," Trent said stiffly. "When Pierce appeared here, concerned for your safety, I thought it best to act."
I took a deep breath and willed myself to calm. I put the last fifteen minutes aside from my consciousness until I had time to deal with them, and gave Trent a grateful, if still frustrated look. His cheeks took on a hint of pink under my smoldering gaze and he looked away. "You summoned me?"
"I wanted to," Ceri murmured, finally, "but Trenton wouldn't let me."
"Thanks, Trent," I said, and meant it. "I was safe, but I got… caught up in things, so I didn't have time to let anyone know I was back." I coughed and everyone looked away, suddenly uncomfortable with thinking about what I might have been doing that put me in such a state. I shook my head, looking down at myself, and used up another of my appearance curses just to make sure I was all put together again. Red everafter washed over me, and I was suddenly dressed in a flowing violet peasant top, black slacks, sensible flats, and pearls. My hair once again flowed smoothly to the top of my head, gathered in a loose French twist out of the way. Al and I had agreed it was a casual, sophisticated outfit that would serve well in most situations. I fought back a blush and put the thought of Al firmly from my mind. It was a rather difficult task I'd set myself to, all things considered.
My pulse slowly settled itself into a more steady rate. All at once, the last twenty-four hours caught back up with me and I was suddenly exhausted again. "I think I need to lay down," I muttered, before the world went dark.
a/n
A short update, but a sweet one. I hope you all don't mind, but I thought it best to end the chapter here. Next up, Rachel dreams and then awakens to a changed world