Edyn (The Essence Project Book 1) Read online

  My blood turned ice cold. Share a room with him? Was he crazy? I tried to outthink him. "But doesn’t the bible say you’re not supposed to share a bed with someone you’re not married to?"

  He smiled. "That law is written for humans. I’m not a human, and you’re not entirely human, so that doesn’t really apply, now does it?"

  I couldn’t breathe.

  "I am pleased that you’re still pure," he said. "Unless that has changed in the last few days with that Evans character." A look of anger crossed his face. "I surely hope not. I was merciful with him, but if he touched you, I will revoke that mercy and have him hunted down."

  His possessiveness of me was as terrifying as it was infuriating. I was no one's property, not even Ryker’s.

  "Why are you doing this?" I whispered.

  He merely looked at me, as if wondering if I was joking. "Because I am falling in love with you."

  I choked out a laugh, and he just blinked. "Oh wait, you’re serious?"

  That had definitely not been on my radar.

  "Are you high?" I asked, and he scowled.

  "I’m sure it doesn't make any sense to you at the moment, but it will."

  This time I didn't even attempt to hold back the laugh that burst from my mouth.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he looked like he was resisting the urge to strangle me. "It’s nothing like human love. Angelic love transcends human love. It’s all consuming. It permeates every thought and every waking moment. It’s not something that I can just stop doing. If I don’t have you, it will drive me into the depths of insanity and destroy me."

  I crossed my arms. "I don't see a problem with that."

  His eyes narrowed.

  He definitely wanted to strangle me.

  "Angels are much more complex than humans, as you’ll learn. It’s not just an emotion for us. It’s a state of being. A higher calling in a way."

  I merely shook my head. "Yep. You're definitely high."

  Anger was creeping into his eyes. "I'm going to ignore your attitude right now. You’ve been through quite the ordeal, and in time you'll come around."

  "But I will never love you," I spat.

  "Like I said, you’ll learn. Angels have a wonderful propensity for learning things."

  "But it still wouldn’t be real. It wouldn’t be anything like what you think you feel for me."

  He flashed me a cold smile and shook his head. "You still don’t understand how angels or angelic love works. When I say you’ll learn, I mean you’ll learn all about loving the way I do. It will be no different than the way I will love you. "

  I just shook my head. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. Surely this was just a nightmare that I needed to wake up from.

  Please, God, let this be a nightmare.

  He pulled me close to him, and I felt his breath on my face. "It won’t be so bad," he whispered. "Once you learn, you’ll be happy."

  Then he brought his lips to mine, gently at first, and I resisted. When I did, he kissed me with more force, with desperation. The power behind it made me gasp, and he took that as a sign that I wanted more, which was so very far from the truth. I was so caught off guard that it took me a second to remember what was happening. Shivers racked my whole body, and I felt a hollow pit growing in my stomach.

  Ryker’s face flashed in my mind, and I fell away from Jophiel feeling utterly disgusted. Losing control, I slapped him hard across the face. It didn’t phase him one bit.

  Jophiel’s eyes were glowing, and he was grinning like a madman. "Like I said, you’ll learn." He watched me for a moment before crossing the room, and then I heard the door shutting behind him.

  As soon as I was alone, I collapsed to the floor and sobs racked my entire body.

  22

  T he next few days were pretty uneventful, but I was exhausted. Each night, I was haunted by nightmares. Images of Ryker getting shot again, nightmares of Mariah which I still didn’t fully understand, and nightmares of Jophiel, flashed through my unconscious mind.

  In one particularly disturbing nightmare involving Mariah, I stood next to Jophiel as he subjected her to the same horrors he had put me through, half-angel babies and all.

  During each day, I took to studying my surroundings, looking for weak points and opportunities. There was no way I was staying here. I was going to escape and get back to Ryker. My biggest concern with escaping though, was that I didn't have my Essence. Breaking out would be risky and if something happened…

  I didn't want to think about it.

  No solid plan had formed yet, but I knew I had to try and steal an Essence before I did anything else. With as much research as Jophiel was doing, surely there would be plenty in one of the labs somewhere.

  Jophiel.

  He hadn’t been unkind to me surprisingly, and asked me every day if there was anything he could get me. After that first kiss when I had arrived, he was much more reserved, as if giving me the time and space to come to the decision to love him on my own. He would kiss me on the cheek several times throughout the day, and after the first few times, I stopped shying away from him. I resigned that there was no use in avoiding it since he would do it anyway, even though it repulsed me.

  I barely heard much of what he said about his plans for his research and where I fit in, but I caught that Congressman Tate was applying more pressure because of his granddaughter’s illness. Jophiel had hoped there would be a key within my healing abilities to unlock a solution.

  Too bad for him I no longer had those healing abilities.

  I stopped eating again, and could see the exasperation and frustration all over Jophiel’s face. He insisted on meals together, but I would just sit there staring at my plate, not touching a thing. Jophiel would chatter on and on, as if we were friends, or even a couple. I rarely said anything, and by the end of the fourth day I could tell that was starting to wear on him.

  He dropped his fork loudly on his plate and chewed the inside of his cheek as he stared at me. I could see a flush rising in his cheeks and anger in his eyes. He was trying to remain calm, but it was clear to me that he was slowly losing that battle.

  "We’ve been through this once before, Edyn, and I have no problems hooking you back up to an IV until you gain some sense."

  I chose to ignore him, and shifted my gaze away.

  He slammed his palms down on the table, making me jump. "You will look at me when I am speaking to you. I have given you ample time to adjust enough to start showing me the smallest measure of respect. I don’t expect you to love me yet, but you will respect me."

  I turned my gaze back to him and shot daggers at him. "You expect me to respect you? A man that is holding me hostage and demanding my love? No," I added with a low laugh. "You’re not a man. You’re less than a man. God had to create man because He was sick of you winged assholes."

  That was most definitely the wrong thing to say. I absolutely couldn’t have said anything worse in that moment.

  Jophiel flipped the table over in one swift motion and was at my throat in an instant. He knocked me back out of my chair and pinned me to the ground beneath him. Rage flooded his every feature, and his perfectly groomed hair was falling out of place. His eyes glowed.

  "You. Will. Love. Me," he growled, emphasizing every word. "And you will treat me the way a wife is to treat a husband. You will respect me. You will do my bidding."

  I could sense something other than rage in his eyes, even though all I could see was their glow. It almost felt like lust. Before I could react, he slammed his mouth down on mine and thrust his tongue between my lips. It knocked the breath out of me.

  I thought of Ryker and whimpered, pain slamming through my heart at the thought of him. It only fueled Jophiel’s desire, and I could feel his hand sliding under my shirt. His fingers sent shockwaves through me, and it gave me back my self-control. I bit down on his lip as hard as I could, and he screamed. His fist found the side of my head, and I let go, the metallic taste of warm
blood in my mouth.

  I stared at him, his blood dripping from my lips as he fumbled for one of the cloth napkins to stem the bleeding. "I will never be your wife," I hissed at him.

  He stood and glared at me, wanting to say something, but he decided against it. Marching out of the room, he slammed the door behind him, and once again I was left alone.

  I stood up, shaking, and made my way back to my room through a side door. There were several rooms all connected together to make up his and my suite. I wasn’t sure if they connected to a kitchen or not, but aside from our bedrooms, we had a dining room, two bathrooms, his office, his conference room, and a living room which was complete with a pool table and massive TV.

  It was odd to me that Jophiel lived at the lab, but I supposed the government was paying for all of it, and they wanted to keep a close eye on him while he did his research. I was still unsure what I was going to be subjected to in future experiments, and so far, Jophiel hadn’t gone into detail. That worried me. Not having anything scheduled told me that at least some of my eggs had developed into embryos and been successfully implanted into surrogates. I was surprised he hadn’t mentioned anything to me about it, but maybe he hadn’t wanted to upset me any more than he already had. I made a mental note to ask him about it the next time I saw him.

  A few more days passed. I didn’t see too much of Jophiel during that time, and he left me alone in our suite. Since I didn't get to venture out into the rest of the building, my attempts to plan my escape screeched to a halt.

  Hunger and rational thought got the best of me, so I decided to eat at each meal. I wouldn't be able to escape if I was too weak to move. The thought of the IV again sounded less than appealing as well, and I didn’t want to anger him any more right now. I was sure he was still furious with me for biting him. He still didn’t know that I was without my Essence though, and it wasn’t something I was eager to disclose just yet. I was worried that he would have me killed, but I knew that was nonsense. He was supposedly in love with me, so he wasn’t just going to up and kill me. Hell, he might even give me a new one. That would certainly make escaping less risky.

  It was something I’d been contemplating the last few days, but I wasn’t sure how he would take it. I tried to weigh the pros and cons, but kept coming up without a solid answer. It seemed like too much risk at least for now. Perhaps if I changed my attitude towards him, at least on the surface, and made him think I wasn’t completely repulsed by him, I could talk him into giving me a soul.

  The next night, I was in the living room watching some really old funny prime time show about two brothers that hunted monsters and demons, and in some cases angels. I found it quite ironic. Jophiel walked through one of the doors at the other side of our suite, and I took a deep breath.

  I needed to play him, and I needed to play him well. Switching the TV off, I stood up from the leather couch and walked through the rooms of our suite looking for him. He wasn’t in the dining room, and had no reason to be in my bedroom, so I knew he must have been in his room.

  When I approached the door, I saw that it was cracked open. I placed my hand on it and pushed it open enough to see through. Across the room, steam was pouring out of his bathroom, and he already had his shirt off.

  I stood there mesmerized by the landscape of his back. Scars and muscles made up his body, and for a moment, I thought about his fall. It wasn’t the same fall that Lucifer had experienced, but it was a fall nonetheless. I wondered if that was when he’d lost his wings. I wondered how painful it had been. My heart went out to him at the thought of the agony he must’ve faced, and for a moment I felt sympathetic to his cause. I tried to shake the feeling, but couldn’t. He was a monster, and yet, I found myself wondering what had turned him into one.

  Shifting my weight, the door creaked, and he turned. In his eyes was a mixture of caution and pain.

  "I’m sorry," I said quickly. "I didn’t mean to intrude. I just heard you come in, and I was," I hesitated. Time to play my part. "I was a bit lonely." I let my gaze fall to the floor.

  "It’s okay," he said softly. "I’m sure you have been. I apologize for not paying more attention to you. I just wanted to give you some space after our dinner last week." He strode slowly across the room and pulled the door open all the way.

  I noticed his hair was slightly disheveled, and he looked tired. He towered a good eight inches above me, and as I stared at him, I suddenly had the urge to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. Stupid, I thought. But then again…

  I brushed it carefully away from his face, telling myself I was only acting, only trying to make him relax enough to get what I needed. He closed his eyes as my fingers grazed over his forehead, and he placed his hand over mine, holding my palm to his cheek.

  It sent shivers through my body.

  Stop reacting like that.

  It’s more convincing, though, if you don’t fight against it.

  I wanted to fight against it, though. Ryker was the only man I wanted to make my body respond this way.

  Jophiel backed into his room, leading me with him, and shut the door. My heart raced with panic. I needed to be convincing, but I couldn’t give up my dignity to do so.

  I wouldn’t.

  His eyes never left me. They were filled with wanting, but also suspicion. I couldn’t just throw myself totally into this act, or he would never believe it.

  Or would he?

  "I don’t want to be alone," I said quietly.

  He narrowed his eyes, and I knew I had to choose my words carefully.

  "I don’t know exactly what I want yet. I’m so confused." That part was at least partially true. The feelings he was causing in me were confusing. I definitely wasn't falling in love with him, but there was something conflicting I couldn't put my finger on. "But I don’t want to be alone anymore."

  "What about Evans?" he asked skeptically.

  I thought about my beloved Ryker for a moment, torn inside at what I had to say next. Torn, because I wondered if my heart was betraying him by feeling the faint beginnings of sympathy towards Jophiel. "That’s part of why I’m confused. I love him, I do. But, I don’t know. Part of me doesn’t want to hate you." Those words came out completely true, and that really scared me.

  How could I feel anything but hatred for this monster?

  How could I feel sympathy?

  "Well, that’s a start," he said and brought the back of my hand to his lips.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed, and it was then that I noticed I was shaking. Slowly and carefully, he pulled me into his embrace. Feeling his bare skin against my arms sent a jolt through me, but it was Ryker’s face I saw in my mind, not Jophiel’s. I felt him lightly kiss the top of my head, and he sighed.

  "I know what you’re thinking," he whispered.

  "You do?" my voice was shaking just like the rest of me.

  "Yes. You’re thinking how could you ever fathom loving a monster like me."

  My breath caught in my throat, and he laughed.

  "I understand it. I am a monster. But aren’t we all in one form or another?" he asked and pulled away to search my face for confirmation of what he’d just said.

  I thought for a moment. "I suppose we are, in our own ways."

  I was a monster for letting him kill my mother without a single word.

  I was a monster for standing here in his arms, while Ryker might still be fighting infection somewhere, surely out of his mind worried about me.

  I was a monster for trying to manipulate his emotions to get what I needed.

  "Please, don’t hate me," he whispered. "I don’t want you to hate me."

  Unable to meet his gaze, I said quietly, "I don’t know if I can hate you anymore."

  There.

  I said it.

  The words were out.

  I couldn’t hold onto the hate anymore. It was exhausting. I thought back to when I'd been here before, alone with Ryker's bible. I’d read quite a bit about forgiveness, and my heart j
ust couldn't handle unforgiveness anymore.

  I felt his body relax around me and listened to the rhythmic sound of the shower still going in the bathroom.

  "I should go so you can shower," I said.

  "No," he replied. "Stay."

  Before I could say another word, he leaned down and pressed his lips softly to mine, the echo of a kiss. There was nothing demanding or selfish about it, and it completely caught me off guard. That was not what I’d expected from him.

  I sucked in a breath, and he pulled me close to him. He was gentle, but I felt his urgency. His fingers ran ever so gently down the side of my face, and my body went completely still. He began moving backwards, never breaking away from me, never stumbling.

  Before I knew it, we were in his bathroom. Steam enveloped us, and my breathing quickened. Jophiel’s hands found the skin just below the hem of my shirt, and I stepped back at his touch. In my head, a whisper was screaming at me to run, to get away from him, to remember Ryker.

  He's buying this.

  Don't run yet.

  Make him believe you.

  I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to figure out how exactly to do that while pumping the brakes on this charade. The thought of continuing to kiss him soured my stomach, and I knew I was walking a razors edge between being convincing and being obvious about my intentions. I didn't have to make the next move in this poker game for my life, however.

  He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently, reassuringly. His kiss spoke of love and security, like he was promising not to hurt me. After a moment, he slid one hand down to the small of my back. It felt so incredibly wrong, and I prayed Ryker would forgive me.

  I shouldn’t be doing this.

  This is too much.

  I don’t need to be doing this much to convince him.

  But the other voice in my head argued, Oh but how much better you’ll convince him this way.

  Slowly, so slowly, he pulled my shirt over my head, and I hesitated, but I let him. He threw it aside and let his eyes fall down my exposed skin. I closed my eyes and could tell I was shaking more than I had been. There was no way I was going to go any further than that and I crossed my arm across my breasts. At least I was still wearing my bra and that was not coming off no matter what.