In Bonds of the Earth (Book of the Watchers 2) Read online

  IN BONDS OF THE EARTH

  BOOK OF THE WATCHERS PART TWO

  Janine Ashbless

  Contents

  Quotes

  Prologue

  1. PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT

  2. EGRIGOROI

  3. ROSHANA

  4. LET’S BE FRIENDS

  5. THE SEED OF ANGELS

  6. PENEMUEL

  7. THERE WERE GIANTS ON THE EARTH IN THOSE DAYS

  8. LALIBELA

  9. EMPTY, SWEPT AND GARNISHED

  10. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD

  11. DELIVERED THEM INTO CHAINS

  12. A COMPLICATION WE DON’T NEED

  13. FEVER

  14. FROM OUT OF THE STRONG CAME FORTH SWEETNESS

  15. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

  16. COLORS OF THE FALL

  17. ONLY BLOOD IS FOREVER

  About the Author

  Other Sinful Press titles

  First published in 2016 by Sinful Press.

  www.sinfulpress.co.uk

  Copyright © 2016 Janine Ashbless

  Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

  The right of Janine Ashbless to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN-13: 978-1-910908-09-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NB: All Bible quotes are from the King James Version. All quotes from The Book of Enoch are from the R. H. Charles translation (1917).

  "An absolute must read. In this, In Bonds of the Earth, Janine Ashbless’ impressive knowledge of primeval Christianity and her passion for plot-brimming storytelling renders yet another gripping fantasy that ravishes readers, all while on a journey to the ancient rock-cut churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia. I must confess…I would follow Ashbless’ Milja and her exquisitely rebellious Azazel anywhere. My heart quickens for book three." — Rose Caraway, writer, audiobook narrator, and editor of The Sexy Librarian series

  “No one weaves together sizzling erotica and ace storytelling better than Janine Ashbless. Her books are always a pleasure to read.” — K D Grace, author of The Tutor & The Initiation of Ms Holly

  "Janine Ashbless creates pure magic with words—her stories are darkly erotic and enticing, powerful and wickedly strange, yet at their very core, romantic. Poetry for dark angels and a tale that will literally hold readers enthralled...hold them, and not lightly set them free.” — Kate Douglas, bestselling author of Wolf Tales, Spirit Wild, and Intimate Relations

  Dedicated to the amazing and beautiful land of Ethiopia

  and especially to our guide, Gebre.

  And from henceforth you shall not ascend into heaven unto all eternity, and in bonds of the earth the decree has gone forth, to bind you for all the days of the world. And previously you shall have seen the destruction of your beloved sons, and ye shall have no pleasure in them, but they shall fall before you by the sword. And your petition on their behalf shall not be granted, nor yet on your own: even though you weep and pray

  - The Book of Enoch 14: 5-6

  Prologue

  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

  That’s how we’re used to hearing it, and yes—that’s how Azazel would tell it. I think. Bear in mind that he’s not exactly forthcoming with explanations. He’s got more urgent things on his mind when he pays me a visit. I’m piecing the story together from fragments he’s dropped in the limited moments he’s both present and not busy nailing me, as well as from things told to me by other angels. I’m flat-out guessing at bits, I admit.

  God created the earth and He wanted someone else to appreciate what He’d done, so He made angels. I think this was shortly before the appearance of life on the planet, so…about four billion years ago. Yeah, that whole six days thing is just not literally true, I’m afraid. Don’t blame me if that upsets you. And if that does get you riled you might prefer not to read any further, because you are in for some serious offence, believe me. The story as I know it isn’t told from the point of view of the guys in the white hats. Azazel is one of the damned.

  Which means, I guess, that I am too.

  It’s not my choice, but I don’t see any alternative.

  God created life, and life evolved, and the angels watched and applauded. That was their job, after all. Eventually primitive humans appeared on the scene. Was that part of the Divine Plan? I honestly don’t know. Azazel is vague on the details. But humans multiplied and filled the earth.

  Then something happened. Azazel calls it the Ash Winter. I’m taking a guess that it was to do with the eruption of the Toba super-volcano, about seventy-five thousand years ago. The atmosphere was blanketed with dust and the earth was plunged into an environmental catastrophe. The Stone Age human population crashed as cold and hunger came within an inch of wiping us all out. Paleontologists reckon there were maybe as few as a couple of thousand humans left on the planet, a pocket population clinging to life amidst the dead forests and the half-frozen sludge-filled marshes.

  That’s when God stepped in to save us. Maybe he saw something in humanity that he hadn’t seen in all the millions of species that had gone extinct over the eons. Maybe there really is a Divine Plan. The Archangel Uriel certainly claims that there is, but I’d trust that supercilious bastard about as far as I can spit a rat.

  Uriel, after all, is…but I’m getting into really murky waters here. Uriel, as Azazel pointed out, is not my friend. I’m going to leave it there.

  The point is, the angels were given instructions to keep the human race alive. They were appointed as Watchers, shepherds to us sheep. They took material form in order to guide or drive us to places of safety, to clean water and sources of food; as animals at first, as far as I can make out, giant cave bears and shaggy aurochs and such. They protected us from mundane wild beasts and called down fire from Heaven to stop us freezing to death. They nurtured that tiny human gene-pool and cared for it like gardeners tending fragile hothouse plants. They taught us to cook our meat, to make tools, and to look to the heavens in wonder and worship.

  And to do those things, they later had to take human form, at least on a temporary basis. Beautiful, charismatic, insanely powerful men.

  Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was always men, not women. So much easier to get people to do what they’re told that way.

  Between seventy and fifty thousand years ago, so far as archaeologists can tell, the human race underwent a vast and fundamental change. All human culture stems from that time of population collapse, when we teetered on the brink. We discovered cooking and fishing and started crafting musical instruments. We started making art. We started wearing clothes and jewelry. We started burying our dead with reverence. We started believing in some sort of higher power, and using ritual to invoke it. That makes sense, because after all, the gods walked visibly in our midst.

  The angels changed us.

  But we changed them too. Again, I’m going off something Uriel let slip: taking material form seems to involve buying into the biology too. Things like hormones. Natural appetites. Pain
and pleasure, both. A perspective from below instead of on high.

  Above all, I imagine, a sense of one’s self as an individual. No longer a living manifestation of the Divine Will, but a finite, bounded, needful entity. Something entirely different to the Creator. With an ego of one’s own.

  Can you or I imagine what it must have been like for a being whose natural element was spirit? How unsettling? How deliriously overwhelming? For the first time, they must have understood in themselves the true significance and lure of a shy smile, a full breast and a hard nipple. Or the soft skin at the small of someone’s back, the flare of hips and ass from a slender waist and the bewitching tick-tock of a woman’s walk.

  What more dangerous attribute could you possibly inflict upon a being of vast power than testosterone?

  “They saw the daughters of men, that they were fair.”

  Their downfall should have been predictable. Two hundred of the Watchers, a third of the Host of Heaven according to The Book of Enoch, decided that they shouldn’t deny themselves the sex their new bodies craved.

  “They took to them wives of all that they chose.”

  It’s there in Genesis. Just before the story of Noah’s flood. The Sons of God interbred with human women, and those women gave birth to half-human babies.

  “There were giants on the earth in those days.”

  I’ve seen a couple of Azazel’s children. Not in the flesh, sure—I was shown a cosmic flashback to the Bronze Age, right at the end of the age of the Watchers. Those two sweet little boys hadn’t looked like giants or monsters. But it was the existence of those half-breed children, the Nephilim, which caused the loyal angelic troops of the Almighty to launch an all-out attack on their fallen brethren. And those two boys died bloody deaths for the sins of their father.

  It was Raphael who fought Azazel and took him down after a devastating battle. Then the four archangels imprisoned him under the earth, tethered to the raw rocks with the guts of his slaughtered children. Starving, blinded by centuries of dust and darkness, racked with physical and mental agony, there he was to remain until the Day of Judgment when God would finalize his damnation by casting him into Hell forever.

  Azazel was the first, but the same fate descended on all the Watchers. One by one the Fallen were captured and imprisoned, and their children butchered. Then humans were set to watch over them, the emotional drip-feed of their care and devotion keeping the prisoners alive. And now, in secret corners all over the world, in vaults under temples and in crypts behind walls of stone, the Watchers still remain in torment awaiting the end of the world.

  Azazel’s prison was located in the mountains of Montenegro, deep in the Balkan region of Europe. For five thousand years he remained there, cursing his enemies and raging against God. Guarded by my family.

  Until I fell in love with him.

  Until I set him free.

  Now all hell is about to break loose.

  1

  PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT

  I’m giving a presentation on my proposal for a commemorative footbridge to the Senior Design Team at Ansha Engineering, when Azazel strolls up to the glass wall of the office and smiles in at me.

  It isn’t a reassuring smile. His never are. My heart meets my stomach with a big gloopy splash. This really isn’t the best moment for him to drop in.

  Don’t get me wrong—a part of me is always delighted to see my boyfriend, if that’s the right word for him. No prizes for guessing which part of me is always delighted. Let’s just say that my clothes suddenly get too tight and I can feel a wet blush erupt all the way up from my panties to my face. Azazel is so ridiculously hot that just the sight of him melts me.

  But I’m at work. The wrenching sensation as I tip from my professional headspace is far from comfortable. And that’s before I even begin to factor in the fear.

  What does he want?

  No normal boyfriend should ever come in and interrupt a girl at work—especially when she’s just switched jobs and city because he got her sacked from her last position, and she’s pretty sure her extended family will do something awful to her if she stays in Boston, and she’s desperate to make a good impression at her new place of employment. Especially when she’s showcasing her first design project. Most of all when she has the Senior Design Team watching her. It would just be incredibly intrusive and undermining to pay her a visit under those circumstances.

  He lifts a hand to the door and I could swear I hear thunder in the distance.

  See; that’s the thing about Azazel. He’s not a normal boyfriend; I’ve a nasty feeling ‘master’ would be closer to an accurate term. He’s made it very clear that he owns me. And yes, he loves me in his own primitive way. And he needs me: my eagerness to open my legs for him is more important than oxygen as far as he is concerned. Literally. But. But.

  Not normal at all.

  He’s not human, remember.

  He’s one of the Fallen.

  He pushes open the office door and strolls in like he owns the place. The misters Ellis and Singh and Constanzo and Mackenzie, who are sitting either side down the long table and have all been wondering why I’m staring slack-faced and flushed past their heads, all turn to look at him and frown. He’s not wearing an office suit. Not even any shoes, in fact; he never wears shoes. Just faded black jeans and a white long-sleeved T-shirt in some soft material that makes me want to press my face to it and feel the hard wall of his chest beneath. His dark hair is long and unkempt, his jaw scruffy with black stubble, his eyes slits of wicked anticipation. As an employee, he wouldn’t get away with that sort of appearance even down in the bowels of the drafting department where they hide the techies.

  But he doesn’t look like an engineer. Broad at the shoulders and lean at the hips, six foot-and-then-something of ropey muscle, he looks like a Spartan god who got lost in a thrift store. He moves like ink through water. And his eyes, when you get a good look at them, are silver. Not gray. Silver. You might take their inhuman shine for fancy contact lenses. You’d be wrong.

  “Milja,” he greets me, his smile wolfish. “Come out and play.”

  “Aziz,” I say weakly, trying not to use his real name, “you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Last time I heard that I ended up imprisoned for eternity.”

  He makes jokes about it sometimes. Brittle, jagged jokes, like snarls of rusty old barbed wire. Jokes that hurt him more than anyone. It’s best to ignore them.

  “Excuse me—do you know this man?” Mr. Singh demands.

  “She’s my leman,” he says, managing to sound helpful and yet not being helpful in any way whatsoever.

  “Go away!” I beseech him.

  “What’s the magic word?”

  “Please!”

  “Oh, I love it when you beg for me.”

  He’s as old as the earth, and he’s prickly with rebellion, and he has no boundaries when it comes to sex. No social shame at all. That’s not a good thing.

  “What’s he doing here, Ms. Petak?” asks Mr. Ellis, stabbing his notepad with his ballpoint pen in irritation.

  “I want her,” he purrs. “Now.”

  Excuse my language, but Azazel will screw me anywhere. In front of anyone. He’ll turn up without warning, wanting action, and he’ll fuck me breathless and then vanish into empty air leaving me in a puddle of exhaustion and bliss and shock. And in these months since I released him from his underground prison, I don’t think he’s managed to really wrap his head around the concept of ‘consent’ at all. I am, after all, his mortal pet. I’m a powerless, infinitesimally ignorant, transient blip in the annals of eternity. How could I possibly argue with him?

  “Please, I’m working, this is important—just wait till I’ve finished?” I try.

  “Important?” He comes up beside me and glances at my little audience. “More important than me?” he wonders as he runs his fingers through my hair. I’ve tied it back in a ponytail but the whole lot comes loose at a touch, allowing him to knot his fing
ers there. The gesture, as always, fills me with a wet heat.

  “Of course not,” I stutter, “but…”

  That’s when he kisses me. Hot, hungry, just this side of threatening. His mouth steals away my breath, and his hands in my hair and on my flank steal away my free will. One thumb presses into the soft flesh inside my hip, probing the pressure point there that makes me go weak.

  “Milja,” I hear Mr. Constanzo growl; “this is most inappropriate.”

  I tear my lips free with a gasp. “I’m sorry!”

  “No she’s not,” says Azazel. His free hand drifts to the buttons at the front of my blouse. “She loves this.”

  “Azazel!” I whimper, squirming with shame as his fingers flick open the first button, but unable to escape his grip in my hair. “Don’t!”

  “Shush,” he admonishes, stooping so that his lips brush my ear. “I want you. You want me. These men want to watch. See?”

  He turns me back to face them, sliding behind me. ‘These men’ are wide-eyed and open-mouthed by now. But oddly they voice no objection as he pulls aside my bra cup and pops my right breast out for all to see.

  Oh God, they’re all looking at me.

  My panties are soaked and my legs are actually trembling. Azazel knows me only too well. I get off on being claimed by him in public. I was always the girl no one noticed. But I can’t be ignored now. He’s right that I love it. Even when I hate it. Even when I’m crimson with shame. He wipes away all my common sense with a flick of a finger, the press of a palm, the first hint of a lecherous, knowing smile. I’m watching my career go down the can again, and all I can think of is how hot this is making me.

  The other thing is that, if he were human, I’d at least have some sort of choice about walking away from it all. As it is…I’m not so sure.