Still of Night, page 1
Still of NIght
Book Four in the Thorne Hill Series
Emily Goodwin
Still of Night: Book Four in the Thorne Hill Series
Copyright 2019
Emily Goodwin
Cover by Covers by Christian
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or places is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
For my Family
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Thank you
About the Author
Also by Emily Goodwin
1
The feather falls from Lucas’s fingers. He snaps his head to the side and holds out his arm, blocking me from the door.
“What?” I whisper, heart racing. “Do you hear something?”
“Shhh,” he tells me and motions for me to move back. My heels softly click on the dusty hardwood floor as I take a step away from the door. Lucas speeds forward, twisting the lock, and then moves back to me, taking me protectively in his arms. We both know a simple lock isn’t going to keep an angel out.
I close my eyes and hold out my hand, calling the glowing blue energy ball that was floating above us back into my hand. I absorb the magic and the foyer goes dark. I can’t see a thing, but Lucas can.
“I think we’re alone,” he tells me, and the floor creaks beneath his feet. His cool fingers wrap around my arm as he holds me closer. I smash myself against his chest, scared that if I conjure another energy ball, light will fill the room and reveal the faces of a dozen angels, eyes narrowed with anger, looking at me like I’m an abomination that needs to be eliminated.
“I never thought I’d be scared of angels.” I splay my trembling fingers on Lucas’s broad chest. There’s no heart beating beneath my palm. It used to unnerve me. Now it comforts me.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” I say softly, but that thought scares me almost as much. Lucas would die before he let anyone get to me, and I’m not losing him.
A familiar energy tugs me forward, and I pull out of Lucas’s embrace, holding my hand out toward the door.
“What is it?” he asks.
“My familiars.” I look at him. “I’m going to open the door.”
Lucas sidesteps closer to the doors, ready to attack anything that tries to get into the house who isn’t my familiar. I conjure another string of blue magic and let it go into the air. It hovers about a foot above my head, twisting and shimmering in the dark.
Binx, Pandora, and Freya are closing in on the porch. I can feel when they slip past the warding I’ve placed on the house. Waving my hand at the door, I undo the locks and open one of the double doors. My familiars shadow in and Lucas speeds forward, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Did you sense anything out there?” I ask as Pandora and Freya shift back into cat form. Binx, ancient, powerful and apparently guided to me by my angel father, stays in his shadow form, looking like the black shadow creature from your worst nightmare.
“Not in the woods,” he says, deep voice echoing all around us. Pandora and Freya sniff the feather, and Binx shifts into his form as a black cat and investigates the feather too.
“He says it feels familiar,” I tell Lucas, picking up the feather once my familiars are done with it. “Does it smell like the other one I had?”
Lucas brings the feather to his face and inhales. “It’s strange…I can’t tell.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t smell like a bird. It doesn’t smell human. But I can’t discern anything further from there, which I suppose makes sense given that we know it’s angelic.”
“Well,” I start and wrap my fingers around the vane of the feather, careful not to crush it. “We can’t stay here forever, and I’m hungry. Tacos and margaritas sound so fucking good right now.”
Lucas and my familiars stare at me like I’m crazy.
“What?”
“Maybe we should go back to your house and order food,” Lucas suggests.
“Nothing delivers all the way out here.”
“Then I’ll pick it up.”
“You can’t order a margarita to go. Michael told me to keep living my life and that’s what I want do. Besides.” I hold up my hand, heart skipping a beat for a different reason. “We have a lot to celebrate.” Blue light reflects off the large engagement ring. “I am not going to let anything ruin tonight. We’re going out, we’re celebrating, and I’m going to take stereotypical photos of my ring to post on social media like a normal fucking person.”
“My love,” Lucas says gently, still looking at me like I’m on the verge of walking into a salon, grabbing clippers, and shaving my hair off. “The Grand Coven has forbidden us to be together. You know how I feel about them—and my offer still stands to rip their throats out—but posting on social media is a terrible idea.”
“Dammit, you’re right.” I let out a sigh. So much has happened over the last few days. I’m half angel. Half witch. Demons want to kill me. Angels want to kill me. The Grand Coven has ruled against my relationship with Lucas, and if I’m found guilty of associating with vampires, then my very own High Priestess is the one who’s supposed to punish me.
“Let’s get away.” Lucas strides forward and envelops me in his arms. “Let’s go somewhere we can celebrate our engagement. Paris. London. Ibiza. We can stay at my vineyard in Italy or my estate in California. Hell, I’ll take you to Disney World. Bring Kristy and Evander and you can go out together during the day.”
He gathers my hair to one side and presses his lips to my neck. A shiver runs through me and I want nothing more than to surrender to him, feeling nothing but pleasure for the next hour or so as he makes love to me.
“You’d really go to Disney?”
He chuckles. “Out of every place I listed that’s where you want to go?”
“It’s a little nostalgic for me.” I snap my head up. “Wait, you own a vineyard in Italy and I’m just now learning about it?”
“I own a lot of properties. I own one in Naples, California too. You’ll own them too, once we’re married.”
“You want to put everything in both our names?”
He cups my face with his large hands. “Yes. When I asked you to marry me, Callie, it was because I want to be with you in every way. As husband as wife. Witch—or Nephilim—and vampire,” he adds with a cheeky grin. “You are the first and only person I’ve ever wanted to share everything with. What I was. What I am. What I will be. I want it all with you.”
Tears fill my eyes and I step closer to my undead lover.
“You will be mine in every single way,” he growls, lowering his hands to my waist. He pulls me in and bends down. “And I will be yours.”
“I love you,” I whisper right before he kisses me, tongue plunging into my mouth. His fangs, still drawn, poke against my lips. They don’t break the skin, and the slight pain they cause feels good. He breaks away, resting his forehead against mine.
“I suppose we should go out for dinner now. You should eat so I can.”
I hook my arms around his shoulders and smile. “You just ate me not that long ago.”
The cheeky grin is back on his face, and blue light dances over his handsome face. “Are you referring to your pussy or your blood?”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “I like when they go hand in hand.”
He sweeps one hand down and squeezes my butt. “I do too.”
“I’ll have them go out first,” I tell Lucas, and turn my head to look at my familiars. Freya is on the stairs batting at a large spider. Pandora has gone into the basement, hunting mice, and Binx is sitting in the windowsill, looking out at the dark yard. Sometimes they look and act like so much like normal house cats it’s humorous. I don’t think they’ll ever admit it, but they’ve gotten quite used to their cushy lifestyle with me.
Though that’s not to say there’s not a certain amount of danger that comes from being my familiar.
“Are you sure you don’t want to christen one of the bedrooms first?”
I laugh. “I told you, once the mold and dust has been cleared, I’m game for having sex in every single room of this house. And there are a lot of rooms.”
“Well, in that case, I should bring on another construction crew and speed things up.”
“Can we actually do that? I cannot wait to move in here with you.”
“There are certain things you can rush and certain thing you can’t. As much as I want to strip you down, spread your legs, and drink from your thighs, I want this house to be perfect even more. It will be worth it.”
“You’re such a perfectionist,” I tease.
“Only for you.” Lucas pulls me close and I look at the ring once more. I’m not good at guessing carat size or anything like that, but this thing is huge. It’s going to take some getting used to wearing it, and I can totally see myself scratching my face with that thing.
Hah, it’s big enough to double as a weapon if it came down to it.
“I do at least have to text Kristy. Like right now.”
“Very well,” he says with a smile and takes his arms from me. I pull my phone from my purse and take a few pictures of my hand, and then make Lucas stand with me for a selfie.
“Ugh, I get no service in here,” I grumble when my text doesn’t go through. I look at my phone as I move toward the double doors. “Shall we?” I ask, blinking when I look up from the bright screen. Binx jumps from the windowsill, shifting back into shadow form. My other familiars follow suit. Lucas unlocks the door and lets them out, waiting a beat before taking my hand and stepping onto the porch as well.
He pauses, keeping a tight hold of my hand, and looks around, sniffing the air.
“Anything?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
I magically lock up the house again, and by the time we’re walking down the porch steps, my familiars have come back, letting me know they haven’t found anything.
“Thank you,” I tell them as they shift back into cat form. “Head home, and I’ll bring you my leftovers.” I run my hand over Binx’s sleek fur. “And then we’ll find a new show to watch in the morning. It’s been a while since we just sat around and watched TV.”
“They like to watch TV?” Lucas asks, zooming to the passenger side of the Jeep and opening the door for me.
“It mildly entertains them. It’s more so the cuddling that they enjoy. Binx loves to be held and have his belly rubbed. Freya snuggles under the blankets, and Pandora sleeps on my pillow. It’s glorious.”
“You really are a crazy cat lady even though you don’t really have cats.”
“Should we change that?”
Lucas laughs. “What about a dog?”
“I’ve never been much of a dog person. Mostly because I’m not home enough to take care of one.”
Lucas closes the door and speeds around, getting in the car. He fires up the engine and I try sending my text again as the Jeep bumps down the makeshift driveway.
The house is situated on a large plot of land and sits back away from the road. The driveway is long, but I like being set back like this. In the winter when there are no leaves on the trees the house will be visible from the road, but the view will still be obscured.
Suddenly, Lucas slams on the brakes. I jerk forward in my seat and the phone flies out of my hands, clattering to the floor. Lucas brings his hand out, protectively holding it over me, though I don’t know what good that’s going to do against the man standing before us.
My lips part and my breath leaves me. I’ve seen this man before, and he’s seen me.
He knows what I am…and I know what he is.
An angel.
2
Before I can form a coherent sentence, Lucas is out of the car, racing with vampire speed to the man. Bright light from the headlights illuminates him, and when I blink, I swear I can see the dark outlines of wings behind him.
He’s the man from the alley, the one that led me to the demon in the old warehouse. I still don’t know if he led me there in hopes of killing me or if he knew I could beat the demon.
I did, but not without almost dying first. If Michael hadn’t intervened, I would have. Frantically, I unbuckle my seat belt and rush out of the car.
“Lucas!” I yell, seeing him grab the man by the throat. He goes in for the kill, mouth open and fangs bared. “Stop!”
Lucas jerks his head back but tightens his hold on the angel. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tear this winged fucker to shreds.”
The angel leans away, fingers glowing bright with energy, similar to the way I conjure raw energy. It’s a rare skill for a witch to have, but not totally unheard of. I always thought my energy-summoning was part of being a witch. But is it from my angel side instead?
I shake myself. It doesn’t matter. “I know him. I think. Or at least I’ve seen him before.”
“It’s true,” the angel says. “She has.”
“What are you doing here?” Lucas demands and the angel tries to jerk away.
“I was sent to watch over Callie.”
“Sent by whom?” Lucas pulls his lips back, showing off his fangs.
“Y-your father,” the angel chokes out, looking at me. “Michael.”
“What do you want?” Lucas could easily crush the angel’s throat with his bare hands. It wouldn’t even take him much effort. But would the angel die? They’re immortal in the same sense as vampires, right? Never aging, never getting sick, but will die if they’re murdered.
The fact that I hardly know anything at all about angels is unnerving, considering that I’m half one.
“To watch over and protect Callie.”
“You’ve done a shitty job.” Lucas releases the angel but doesn’t retract his fangs. The angel staggers back, rubbing at his throat.
“I wasn’t supposed to intervene unless other angels went after her.”
I step forward, moving into the stream of light from the Jeep’s headlights. “You’re the only other angel who thinks I should be allowed to live, aren’t you?”
The angel nods, and Lucas looks at me in question. “How do you know that?”
“Michael told me there’s one other angel who agrees with him on my, uh, fate.”
“I’m working on convincing others,” the angel assures me. “Hypothetically speaking, of course. We need to keep your identity as concealed as possible.”
“What are you doing here now?” Lucas demands.
“Michael sent me to protect Callie,” he repeats.
“I can do that,” Lucas growls, flashing his fangs.
“Against an angel?”
“I could drain you dry in seconds.”
“Lucas,” I hiss, shaking my head. I am not about to watch them get in a pissing match over who’s better fitted to protect me. I’ve been very good at protecting myself, thank you very much.
The angel shrugs. “You could try, but you’d fail.”
Lucas growls again and I hold up my hand. “Enough!” I turn, eyes wide, and look at the man before me. “You’re an angel,” I state, needing to say it out loud.
“Yes.”
“I have so many questions for you.” Our eyes meet, and something passes through us both. He’s familiar in an unfamiliar way, and it occurs to me that we’re related…somehow…someway.
“I wish I could answer them,” he says gently.
“Why can’t you?” I shake my head and my hair falls in my face.
“I…I shouldn’t.”
“Please?” I’m not above begging. “I just found out I’m a Nephilim and I could really use some fucking answers.” Light from the headlights flicker, and the angel’s jaw tenses.
“I really shouldn’t.”
I curl my fingers into fists, thinking back to the night when I saw him outside the old warehouse. I followed him and he was gone, making me think he can teleport or fly or something—so why did he get caught now?
