Page 40 of Against All Odds

I wanted to believe that Higher Raya was the real Raya, freed from the burdens of having a human mind and body.

After lighting all the candles in my room, I put the match down with hands that still trembled, though not as much as they had the first few days after quitting Ritalin. I took another hit from my joint before putting it out and stepped in front of the mirror to take a good, long look. The binaural beats faded into the background. My reflection was dressed in a satin red top and matching shorts, messy brown curls wrapped in a towel after a long, steaming shower. Her brown eyes looked dazed, peaceful, almost – I didn’t want to believe that was just the weed.

Breathing in slowly, I locked eyes with my reflection and imagined Seren standing behind me. Though I vividly remembered her from my dreams, I didn’t have to, because her face stared back at me from my tablet across the room – the printed photo of her mugshot beside it. A shudder ran through me at that look in her eyes – intense, challenging, unhinged. As if she saw right through my soul, even from the photo.

“Seren,” I murmured, my eyes fluttering closed. The sudden breeze behind me made the hairs on my arm stand up, and my head snapped to the open window immediately.

Shaking my head, I refocused. I closed my eyes and started moving my body, slowly, intentionally, along with the music – the binaural beats now changing into a rhythmic humming.

She’d talked about spiritual practice, but she didn’t specify what kind. I wasn’t the type to sit down and pray to some man I’d seen no evidence of. If I were to pray, it would be to her, in a language made of rhythm and movement.

I took the time to give my body a nice, long stretch. I stretched my arms out above my head and sighed out as I let my body fall forward. I repeated the movement a few times to the beat of the music until the tension left my body. I felt it slip away as if it were an unwelcome spirit – and that’s how I visualized it. As if I were cleaning not just my room, but my body: of substance remnants, of tension, of bad energy.

I sauntered over to the nightstand, slowly swaying my hips from left to right. Fuck spiritual practice, fuck religion – this was how I connected to the version of myself I wanted to be; the one I’d been neglecting for the high until Seren had been so kind as to remind me.

“Seren,” I sighed out, her name spreading a smile across my face. I grabbed the bottle of lavender-infused body oil from my nightstand. From the corner of my eye, my obsidian, rose quartz and crystallite stones gleamed in the candlelight.

“I’ve been good for you.” My voice quivered slightly as I dripped small drops of oil onto my palm, rubbing my hands together. “I’ve been studying. I’m staying sober – and guess what?” My eyes flickered open, and I smirked. “I haven’t even thought about Rebekah at all lately. Are you proud of me?”

No answer, of course. I knew she couldn’t watch my intimate moments, and it was probably better that way. Speaking her name like a prayer while oiling my body probably wasn’t how she intended spiritual practice – but how could I not when she showed up in my dreams looking like a fallen angel with redemption on her mind and murder in her eyes?

“But do you want to hear a secret?” My voice dropped to a whisper as I slowly bent down to rub the oil on my legs, massaging it in with slow, sensual strokes. “I haven’t thought of her… because I’m thinking of you.”

I pictured her standing in front of me, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a tight line, blood on her hands from the men she killed for me. My gaze darted to the photo of her mugshot on my tablet, and desire pooled between my legs as if she were right beside me. My breath quickened as I dripped more oil on my hands, now placing them higher on my thighs.

“And I’m not entirely sober, either,” I admitted, a sly smile curling around my lips. “Well, I’ve been staying off hard drugs and booze – but I did just smoke a joint.” A giggle escaped my lips as I lowered my head, allowing myself to get lost in the fantasy for a moment. Her, glaring at me like she did on that mugshot, shaking her head in disapproval.

The intensity of my feelings confused me. I was still annoyed with her, pissed off for how she had scammed innocents – and worse, how casually she dismissed my anger, as if those people didn’t matter. As if it were their fault for thinking too naively of the world. And I was still mad at her, I thought. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was the intensity of facing the world sober after a long period of numbing myself, but right now, I needed her so badly, I could forget her crimes for a moment.

Or, even worse, maybe her crimes were part of what attracted me to her. Not the swindling, of course – but the violence, the danger, the resolve with which she’d removed problems from my life. It made me feel safe and excited at the same time.

“Would you punish me if you knew?” The question left my mouth in a whisper. Another sudden breeze caused goosebumps all over my freshly shaved, oiled legs, as well as the rest of my body. Through half-shut eyes, I locked eyes with her mugshot as I slowly lowered the straps of my top, letting it fall down and pool at my waist. I threw my head back and sighed out, slowly rubbing the oil over my upper arms, breasts and stomach, loving how my skin gleamed in the candlelight. People always talked about how hard it was to love your body, but for me, the real challenge was loving my mind. What’s to love about a brain that put me through hell every day, trapping me in a never-ending loop of ruminations, self-doubt and overwhelm?

But now, in this moment, Seren’s praise still fresh in my mind, it became a lot easier to pretend. And maybe, with her guidance… I could become something close to happy.

I imagined her roughly pushing me down on the bed, straddling me with those toned legs, ready to punish me for my disobedience. Strengthened by the weed, the image was so vivid, it might as well be happening right now.

A quiet whimper escaped my lips, the breeze carrying it away in the dark as my hand trailed down my shorts, the other pinching my already hard nipple. Unsurprisingly, just the thought of her already had me wet and throbbing. I slightly turned my head to lock eyes with the photo on my tablet, her eyes flickering dangerously from across the room.

“If only you could touch me,” I murmured, touching myself with slow, deliberate strokes. “I would let you have me, however, whenever, wherever you wanted.”

Cold air brushed my arms when I came with her name on my lips.

Seren

No amount of celestial knowledge could have prepared me for the visual of Raya fucking herself to my mugshot – much less what it did to me.

I stood there frozen, in the corner of her room, unable to take my eyes off the sinful sight that unfolded in front of me. I knew I should’ve left the moment she accidentally summoned me. She was moaning my name, but she did not intend for me to see this, and watching without her consent was unethical… especially since I’d been laying out the reasons why we couldn’t be together just yesterday.

But fuck, was the sin addictive. She captured my gaze like a magnet with her slow, sensual movements, her soft curves in the candlelight, and those damned sounds from her lips.

“Little brat,” I murmured, clenching my fists beside me. “You know this is not what I meant by spiritual practice.”

As usual, I’d been reading in the Celestial Library on a peacefully boring night when my whispered name on her lips yanked me out of it. I barely registered the portal opening as a beam of light dragged me through it, down to Earth, into my assignment’s bedroom. I didn’t even know this was possible – it had never happened before.

Her eyes fluttered open, clouded with pleasure as she tilted her head to lock eyes with my photo on the nightstand. Automatically, my gaze followed hers, and a shudder ran through me. I’d always hated that picture – they made me look like a criminal just for scamming a few people – but for some reason, my mugshot seemed highly arousing to her.

And apparently, she wanted me to punish her for breaking the rules. I wasn’t sure where she got this idea of me as a celestial bringer of justice, but God help me, I suddenly wanted to break even more rules to give her what she craved.