Angel of Darkness (28 page)

Authors: Cynthia Eden

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal

BOOK: Angel of Darkness

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If he weren’t holding her hands in that unbreakable grip, she would have punched him then. Not the sweet move of a schoolteacher, but the hard right hook of a vamp who’d learned to fight dirty. “You’ve been using me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just how did Mike find out where we were hiding?”

His smile dimmed a bit. “You think I led him to you?”

The hard suspicion in her gut said yes. “Didn’t you?”

His hold became harder. “I’m the one who helped Keenan find you in that cemetery.”

She realized he hadn’t answered her. Like Keenan, the guy couldn’t say just yes or no. “Angels can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean they have to tell the complete truth, right?” Cause there was a difference. “They can avoid answering the question or they can—they can just twist their words, twist the truth.”

He nodded. “I knew the first time I saw you that you’d be the key to making Keenan break.”

He’s getting lost in you.
“I don’t want him to break.”

“Really? Don’t you want a little vengeance? Come on ...” His voice lowered. “It’s just us. Keenan’s upstairs, hating the world. He won’t know what you say.”

“Let go of my hands.”

He didn’t let go. “I mean, if he’d just moved faster, just touched that vamp who attacked you that night
faster
, you’d still have your nice, picket-fence life. Hell, maybe you’d even have met your prince charming and be getting ready to settle down.”

Her claws were coming out.

“But he didn’t move fast enough, did he? Because of him, you suffered and you changed and you lost everything you held dear.”

She would have lost it anyway. No matter what Keenan had done, there wouldn’t have been a prince charming or a picket fence for her. “I don’t want vengeance.”

He laughed. “Good thing vamps can lie, huh?” Finally, he dropped her hands, but he still stood between her and the door. “In order to stir his powers,” he said, “Keenan needed to let his emotions go. Angels don’t feel emotions, did you know that?”

She didn’t answer.

“So when they fall, they get slapped with them. The emotions are what strengthens us here, and what weakens us.” His head cocked. “To get Keenan to conjure and control his fire, he needed rage. He got that rage when your life was threatened.”

And in order for him to kill ...

“That’s right.” Sam’s eyes gleamed. “He just had to feel the killing fury. He needed to
want
to kill. When Big Mike attacked you ...” A soft laugh. “The
only
thing Keenan wanted was to kill.”

“Good for you.” She glared at the jerk. “You let the tiger out of his cage.”

“No, I let the Fallen loose. Or, rather, you did.”

“Because you set us up!” Everything—was it just a game to him? And why did it matter? “No wonder Keenan didn’t want me close. If he touches me, he’ll kill me.”

That shouldn’t have made her feel relieved. It should have terrified her. Made her shove Sam aside and haul ass for the door. But, no, she was there thinking ...
He wants me to leave so he can’t hurt me.

Figured. That was her angel. No, her
Fallen.

“He won’t kill you.”

She blinked. Sam sounded real sure of that.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Sam exhaled on a hard sigh. “I said he kills because when he touches, he
wants
to give death. When he touches you ...” One brow rose. “I bet death is the last thing he’s thinking about.”

Her teeth were burning. “I ... have to go.”

“To get blood?” He smiled at her. “Why go out? You can dine right here.”

“Keenan wasn’t exactly offering—”

“
I
am.”

That shocked her. “You’d trust me? At your throat?” Oh, no, wait, this game she understood. “When I touch you, will you kill me?” Because he was Fallen, just like Keenan. Only maybe he could kill at will. He’d been on the human plane longer, so perhaps he’d gotten total control over all his powers.

He smiled at her. “I promise not to kill if you promise not to bite too hard.”

Her eyes measured him. “Are you hitting on me?” Impossible. No way.

He moved in a blur—didn’t he always?—and grabbed her hand once more. “You’re still living.”

Her heart slammed into her chest.

“Trouble’s coming after us. Those coyotes will be howling at the door soon. If you’re going to listen to Keenan and run out of here ... which, by the way, I don’t recommend because they’ll just follow you and hunt you down eventually, so that idea pretty much fucking sucks ...”

Uh, yeah, it did.

“Unless you’re leaving tonight,” he said, “you need to get strong, and you need to get strong
fast.
”

His blood. She inhaled and caught his scent. She could hear the thunder of his blood. So close. Her tongue slipped over the edge of a fang. “Most
Other
... they think it’s an insult to get bitten.” Especially the shifters. She’d heard those guys would rather die than get bit.

“I’m not most
Other.
” His gaze burned her. “Besides, I know there’s pleasure as well as pain in the bite—that’s a mix I rather like.”

He was offering. She
needed
the blood. Nicole pushed up onto her toes and pressed her lips against his throat.

If the coyotes were coming, and she didn’t doubt that part of his story, then she wouldn’t have time to find other prey. Not that she’d even been particularly good at finding prey to begin with.

Her fangs scraped his skin.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Have a taste.”

Her teeth pressed—

“
What the hell are you doing?
”

She spun around, but didn’t go far. Sam had her clasped tightly to him, his arm a steel band around her waist.

Keenan thundered down the stairs, his eyes flashing black, then blue, as he raced toward them. “Get your hands off her! What are you thinking? You could
kill
her!”

Sam didn’t let her go. “Only if death was what I wanted.” She felt his shrug. “I don’t want death for her.”

“
Let her go.
”

“She’s holding me.”

Oh, crap, she was. Her hands were still on him. She dropped them instantly. “Keenan, it’s okay, I was just going to—”

“Have a bite,” Sam finished and Keenan jumped down to the landing. “After all, you left her weak, Fallen. Burned, broken,
weak.
What did you expect her to do?”

Keenan staggered to a stop less than a foot away. His hand lifted, then his fingers clenched into a fist. “Nicole, get away from him. You can’t trust him. He’ll turn on you in an instant.”

Like that was something she didn’t know.

“You want her, then take her.” Sam’s voice was mocking. “Touch her, take her, if you think you’re strong enough.”

Oh, so
that
was what this was about. Nicole jabbed out with her elbow, as hard as she could. Sam’s grip loosened, just a bit, and she sprang away from him. She didn’t hurry toward Keenan, but rather backed away from them both. “
She
doesn’t need taking by anyone,” Nicole said clearly.

But the two fallen angels were too busy glaring at each other to listen to her.

“Don’t ever touch her again,” Keenan ordered.

“I don’t touch her ... you don’t touch her ... that’s gonna be one lonely vampire.”

Keenan growled.

“Just back off,” she snapped right back at him. “You’re the one who told me to leave, remember?”

His head inclined in a tight nod.

“Dammit, she
needs
blood.” Sam threw his hands into the air. “Look at her.
Look.
”

Keenan’s gaze darted to her. She saw the hunger in his eyes. The need. The fear.

“If you’re not gonna help her, I will.” Sam reached for her.

“No,” Nicole said, her voice firm. She’d been planning to pull back even before Keenan came flying down those stairs. “I’ll find another source.”

Keenan’s jaw tightened and she caught the flash of fury in his gaze.

So did Sam. “Don’t like that, do you? Makes you jealous.” His voice lowered. “Those damn emotions. They’re real bitches, aren’t they?”

Keenan ignored him. “I
won’t
kill you,” he told her.

Sam laughed. “Isn’t that what this whole mess has always been about? You ... killing her.”

Keenan didn’t glance back at him. “If you leave now, you’ll have a good headstart, sweet. I’ll make sure the coyotes don’t follow you.”

“Because it’s okay to kill them,” Sam said, “but not her?”

Keenan’s eyes narrowed. “Go, Nicole.”

The guy was really throwing her out the door. Fine. She spun away, took two steps and locked her fingers around the doorknob.

“
Thank you.
”

His whisper stopped her cold. “For what? Leaving you?” So that he’d have to fight a vicious battle without her?

But Keenan didn’t say anything else. Damn him. Nicole looked over her shoulder, glaring. “
For what?
”

“Life.” He inclined his head. “Now I understand why you fought so hard.”

No, no, he was not bringing that up to her—

“Some things are worth fighting for.”

He turned away and began to march back up the stairs.

“He
can’t
kill you.” Intensity hardened Sam’s voice.

Nicole’s tongue swiped over her lips even as her fingers tightened around that doorknob. “Th-that’s not what Az said.”

“Az is a dick.”

So was he. “Az said that if ... if Keenan killed me ...” And Keenan was halfway up the stairs now. His shoulders up. His head high. Couldn’t he have looked a little depressed? “Az said if Keenan killed me, he could go back.”

She turned the knob and opened the door.

Sam slammed it closed instantly. “
What?
” Lethally soft and vibrating with fury.

“You heard me.” Nicole didn’t doubt that for a moment. “Keenan can go back. He can get his
life
back. I just have to die.”

“There are
no
do-overs. Az knows that. He can’t bullshit his way through—”

“I don’t think he was bullshitting.” She wasn’t going to run after Keenan even though it
hurt
to watch him walk away. “Now get out of my way, Sam.”

He blinked.

“
Out of my way.
”

“You’d leave him?” He edged away but watched her with curiosity in his eyes. “I ... didn’t count on that.”

She bared her fangs. “Maybe I finally realized it was time to save my own skin.” She yanked open the door. The night waited for her. Dark and heavy.

She wouldn’t look back. Death was the only thing that waited behind her. She’d never wanted death.

Not when the doctor told her that the same cancer that had killer her mother was slowly destroying her own body.

Not when that vamp had slammed her onto the ground in that alley.

No, she’d never wanted death.

But she sure wanted her angel. She could almost feel his touch.

A touch that would kill.

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

Keenan didn’t turn when Sam burst into the room. His gaze was on the street below him. On Nicole. She moved so quickly through the shadows that he could barely keep track of her. “If she stayed here, she would’ve been dead by dawn.” Because he was a greedy bastard, and he wanted to touch.
So badly.

“So you send her out alone? That was your genius plan?”

“No. My genius plan ...” Nicole was turning the corner, heading out of sight now. He swallowed. “My plan is to track the coyotes before they track us and to kill them. Then Nicole won’t have to worry.” He’d thought she’d stay safe if he was with her, watching her back every moment.

But that plan was too risky. Because when he was close ...

Touch. Take.

Human needs and emotions were, indeed, a bitch.

“It’s all because you think you can’t touch her, right?”

The question didn’t need answering.

Sam sighed. “I
told
you. You have to want to kill. When you touch her, you’re just gonna be wanting to screw.”