STORY EXCERPT

Rayder’s mind fractured. His vision of the demon, Ravener, came when he felt his mate waking from her nightmare. Ravener’s twisted body hobbled through the woods surrounding their mountaintop village. The shrieks and cries of his horde of demon spawn preceded him as his scaled face twisted into the semblance of a smile.

He looked happy. He oozed the confidence of one whose victory was assured as he strolled through the valley of the angel stronghold. Their angel stronghold. Rayder’s vision moved with the speed of a movie on fast-forward as the vampires, the ghouls, the witches, and the demons all moved en masse to attack the angels. Massive griffins, their number too many to count, blocked out the moon as they flew into the clearing. Blood. There was so much blood it seemed to rain down from the skies as feathers and bodies fell to the earth and broke apart.

The woman’s mind stirred as sleep left her and she relived the events of her last night on earth. His mate was waking, and Rayder tried to focus on the two separate events that played out simultaneously in his mind. Rayder watched as his mate remembered driving down a dark, winding road. The ocean’s waves were a soothing boom, and then swish, as they hit the beach and then retreated.

“What a time for her to wake,” Rayder hissed, his head aching as he viewed the two differing scenes play out without pause. He needed to see all he could of the vision involving Ravener, but his heart and soul wanted to be with his mate when she awoke fully from her nightmare. “And I thought I missed the visions.”

“Your visions had to choose now to return?” Dev said tightly. “Now, when she’s waking. What do you need us to do?”

“I can see what our mate is reliving. Dev and I will watch over her. Is the vision about the demon?” Mikhail asked. Rayder nodded, clutching his head as he fought to keep the tenuous threads of both visions separate. “We’re here with you, Rayder. Our mate is safe with us. Don’t fight the vision—we need to see where it takes you.”

He knew Mikhail was right. He couldn’t afford to lose what he was seeing of Ravener, not with him coming here, not with the vision foretelling so much death. If he had to, he’d separate from his mate, but he was loathe to do so until she was fully awake. He’d made her a promise in that dark pit of hell, and she was too important to him to break that promise.

“She’s waking up, Mikhail. I promised I’d never leave her. Don’t let my vision take me away.”

That was the way of it with his psychic power. Sometimes Rayder was left walking in the visions for hours. Sometimes he became lost in them, unable to find his way back to reality. If it weren’t for Dev’s and Mikhail’s connections to him, he’d have long ago gone insane, as had been the fate of every other angel cursed with the gift of precognition. All had eventually been lost in the distant future, never finding their way back to the present.

“You’re still here with us, Rayder,” Dev said vehemently. “And that’s where you’ll stay. I’ll never let you go.”

“You won’t get lost, Rayder. You have something to come back for now. Someone.”

* * * *

Wren recognized the feeling of coming awake from a deep, deep sleep. She felt stiff and sore all over. She was in pain, more pain than having lain for too long in one position warranted. Her head throbbed, and her throat felt parched. She remembered driving home from parent-teacher interviews. She remembered the animal running across the road, the car skidding as she braked to avoid hitting it. She’d screamed helplessly as the car plummeted down an embankment.

Wren snapped open her eyes. Blinking, she attempted to see where she was. “Where am I?” She stretched out her arms, and the hard, lumpy car seat rocked under her back.

“What a time for her to wake up,” said a tense voice.

“We now know the future can be changed, Rayder. We can use what you’ve seen to our advantage and make certain the demon won’t breach our barriers.”

Wren didn’t understand what was being said. Perhaps the car’s radio was still working despite the crash. Rayder. She knew that name. He’d spoken to her. Her body tensed as she remembered exactly what had followed the screaming of brakes and the crunching of metal. A beast. A beast that should have been a delusion. Her mind protested the possibility that any of what had followed had been real. None of it could have been real.

“Rayder, did you see anything else we can use?”

“Rayder.” Wren’s throat burned and her vision swam. “Rayder?” She croaked out the word, her voice unrecognizable to her own ears. If Rayder was real, then…

“I’m here, little one. I haven’t left you.”

His voice was the same. The promise was one she’d heard him utter in that same deep and masculine, yet infinitely sweet, voice. It was the voice of an angel. Her angel. The voice of her savior. The voice from her nightmare.

A squeeze to her hand made her look down at it. The room was dimly lit, but there was enough light for her to clearly see a large pale hand was covering hers. She looked up and gasped as she locked gazes with the man staring at her. His irises hinted at a bleached green color and seemed to glow with an inner light. His skin was so white it, too, seemed to be luminous. His hair was long, a little unkempt, and as colorless as his skin. Behind him, like a shadow, was a set of huge inky-black wings.

ADULT EXCERPT

She was swept up into the arms of her two angels. “Wren.” Dev moaned her name as he took her lips in a kiss filled with the wildness that was uniquely him. Rayder cursed, breaking Wren’s haze of desire.

“I’ve got you covered, Rayder.”

Dev’s words made no sense until the light began to dim around her. In a matter of seconds, it was dark as midnight, the only illumination coming from the phosphorescence of the volcanic pool.

The raw heat of Rayder’s naked skin pressed to Wren’s back then, Rayder’s sigh matched her own as need erupted through her. Realization hit her. The sun. She pulled reluctantly from Dev’s kiss, gulping in air as she turned her head to look at Rayder. His skin was as luminescent as the pool. Pale, perfect, simply stunning. His uniquely green eyes reflected blue in the eerie light enveloping them.

“We could have gone home.”

Rayder’s smile was pure temptation, and his rugged beauty shocked her anew. “And miss out on my first outdoor sex?”

Wren squeezed Dev’s waist as she gave in to the temptation of kissing Rayder’s wicked smile from his face. She tried her hand at telepathic communication since she wasn’t yet ready to end the pleasure of Rayder’s kiss. “Thank you, Dev, for loving Rayder so much. I’m certain your love, and Mikhail’s, is what’s kept him sane all these centuries. I’m here to help with that now.”

Dev lifted her and settled her against his body, his erection pressed against her stomach. “We’re one, now, my beautiful mate. Rayder is no longer in danger of losing himself to his visions. You’ve made that happen by joining us at last.”

“We’re not one at the moment.”

Dev growled as she showed him what she wanted. He kissed down her neck as he lifted her higher and lowered her onto his cock.

She moaned, and Rayder released her lips and kissed a path down her neck to her shoulder. She writhed between them, Dev’s cock stretching her, but he wasn’t moving. She needed more. She needed the torturous slide against her core. She needed him thrusting deep, over and over.

“We wait for Rayder, sweetheart. It’s what you wanted, remember?”

She wanted to curse, but he was right. She’d shown them she wanted them inside her.

Dev leaned back, taking all her weight as Rayder licked and nibbled down her back in a sensual exploration that had her pussy clenching with need on Dev’s cock. Rayder kneaded her ass cheeks as he parted them, kissing the base of her spine and driving her insane with need. He massaged warm oil into the tight ring of her ass, and she pushed against his fingers, moaning as two of them slipped inside her tight channel.

Rayder moved with the speed only an immortal could possess, his hands now gripping her hips, his cock stretching her open. She pushed out and the muscle relaxed. He slipped fully inside, and the burn of the stretch had her toes curling. She wrapped her legs around Dev’s waist and used the added leverage to move herself on their cocks, driving her own pleasure.

“Slowly, love,” Rayder whispered in her ear. “I won’t see you hurt.”

She reached back and gripped one of his ass cheeks in her hand, pulling him close and moaning as he sank deeper inside her. She was so full, her pussy and ass quivering with pleasure as her orgasm roared up on her. The need to prolong the delight warred with the drive for the release she felt coming.

Then they began to move, and Wren was helpless to do anything but hang on and be held captive to the pleasure. Dev and Rayder filled her senses. They were inside her body, inside her mind, and filling her soul with their passion and love. They moved as one, driven by their need and joined in their joy.

Wren’s orgasm rose and soared free. She cried out her pleasure as she clung to her angels, her body shaking. When they reached their own peaks, they slowed their thrusts as they all rode out the mind-numbing waves of ecstasy.

When Wren’s mind was finally free to start thinking again, she found she was waist deep in the hot springs, Rayder and Dev still deep inside her body. When they withdrew their cocks, the water was warm and soothing, relaxing her further until she feared she’d fall asleep.

Rayder began to massage her shoulders, and she became boneless in Dev’s arms. “Mikhail,” she murmured, missing his presence even as sleep became inevitable.

“I’m always with you, baby. Rest now.”

Wren no longer had the energy to fight the fatigue. She slipped into sleep, never once forgetting that tonight the village would run with blood. Angel blood. Rayder had seen it.