Fall From Grace by Eden Crowne Page A

brief moments
together – as she had thrown aside her mandate to be with him.
    A Reaper.
    The Enemy.
    He leaned down, his
cheek brushing hers, his words a whisper soft touch across her
lips; “Come again, come again my Angel.” And he moved hard and
deep, filling her to the brim with ecstasy until it ran over and
through her entire body stronger than the waves breaking on the
shore.
    Evie stared up at
him. He seemed enormous from where she lay. The muscles in his
shoulders and arms knotted with tension, the flat lines of his
abdomen clenched tightly. She looked into his sea green eyes as
nothing except a woman. Trick couldn't wait any longer.
    “Now,” he moaned,
“please, now.”
    Holding him tightly,
Evie arched her back as he pressed into her faster and faster until
with a cry of defiance, he filled her. He rode it out, the ecstasy
lasting longer, so intense at the end he collapsed on top of her,
breathing hard and fast, the sweat running down his face. She held
him with her thighs and arms, still feeling him inside.
    Earthbound and
down.
    After a time, Trick
shifted his body, pulling her with him so they lay side by side in
the sand. He felt her muscles pulsing, every nerve alive.
    The gulls were waking
up, calling out across the shallows.
    “Why?” Evie
asked.
    Trick understood what
she needed to know with that one word.
    “My mama died young,
after she lost baby sister. I think she just gave up. The desert
can be a terrible place, especially on a woman. Daddy went a few
years later from bad water. One day Mathew, he was the oldest by a
couple of years, took two of the horses and rode east. That was the
last we ever saw of him. My older sister Missy married a boy from
town. Eventually just my little brother James and me were left on
the home place. James was a good boy and I saw in him the
possibility to become a great man. The teacher in town helped him
to get a scholarship. He was smarter than the whole family put
together. Hell, the whole town! Can you imagine in those days out
in the middle of nowhere, a chance to go to college back East? Then
he got bit by a sidewinder. A stupid accident. One careless moment
and those dreams were evaporating like a drop of water in the hot
sun. Did I mention how much I hate the desert?”
    Evie shook her head.
His western accent had become stronger as he told the story, a true
drawl.
    “Well, I do. Usually
a healthy fellow can survive a snake bite but not always. James was
18 years old and he was going to die. Now I didn't matter so much.
I had turned into a bit of a wastrel. Figured I'd end up shot in a
gun fight or stabbed over cards. Anyway, I knew some people who
knew some people. They found me a Skinwalker. Navajo fellow. Very
different from their Shamans. All evil and darkness. He had no love
for white men, I can tell you. 1879 Arizona? He practically paid me
for the ceremony. Well, that Skinwalker was the real deal. Called
up a big time demon and we negotiated our terms.”
    “Demon, not the
Devil?”
    He
gave her an astonished look, “Course not the, the...” he hesitated
as though unwilling to say the word directly. “ Him . Nobody can actually summon that
order of consciousness. You should know that, Angel. My master is
Marcus, a very high order demon.”
    “ Marcus? Your
demon is called Marcus?”
    He made a face. “Not
every dark lord is named after something that sounds like a Greek
dessert read backwards. In fact I know a heroin addicted wraith
called Bruce. Which is probably what got him into drugs in the
first place.”
    “Are you sorry?”
    “For Bruce?”
    It was her turn to
make a face.
    Trick was about to
make a joke of it, turn the conversation along a different path.
Somehow he couldn't. Not with her. Staring up into the sky as the
blush of sunrise tried to break through the gray cloud cover and
chase away the darkness, he finished his story.
    “James studied law
and championed the rights of small farmers, helping to establish a
bank