Blonde and Blue (39 page)

“As long as you never betray me, Alexa, I really don’t give a damn what you and yours do.” Matter of fact and somewhat flippant, Shya shrugged.

“Fine. Thank you.” I wasn’t going to push things further. I’d address everything as it occurred. What mattered to me right then was that Shya knew I wasn’t going to be controlled.

 The angel glided up next to Shya, but his pale silver gaze was on me. Blowing a shaggy lock of fair hair out of his eyes, he openly glowered. “So this is the one that will lead vampires and wolves. Doesn’t look like much. Kind of small. Cute I guess.”

My jaw dropped. He was an enigma, a being so enchanting that I was both in fear and awe of him. Unlike Shya, I couldn’t feel the angel’s power. I had a feeling it was simply because he didn’t want me to. But angel or not, who the hell was he to talk about me like that?

A retort burned on my lips, but before I could get it out, Shya cut in. “Piss off, Falon. Give Ms. O’Brien some respect. There is much more to her than it might appear.”

I was completely offended. Not only did I hate being spoken of as if I wasn’t present, I also hated being underestimated. Anyone who chose to use “cute” and “small” to describe me was immediately on my shit list.

Falon looked me over, his glower becoming a sneer. “Well, I should hope so.”

My wolf came snarling to the surface, and I growled. Satisfied with my reaction, Falon turned on his heel. Cloaked by his ethereal wings, he slipped through the large double doors and into the night.
What an asshole.

“Pay no attention to Falon. He doesn’t think very highly of anyone.” Shya wasn’t apologetic, just matter of fact.

“That’s fine. I don’t think very highly of him, either.” It wasn’t often I developed a sudden dislike for someone within just minutes of being in their presence.

Shya cast a fleeting glance back toward the altar. “I won’t keep you any longer. I have some business to take care of here with my friend, Evan. We’ll speak soon. Please, both of you, have a lovely night.”

Just like that, we were effectively dismissed. Turning his back on us, Shya left us standing by the door. Kale snapped into motion, guiding me outside with a hand on my back. I saw no sign of Falon outside. He was long gone.

“What in the fuck was that?” Glad to be free of the confines of the church, my disbelief exploded out in a blast of incredulous diatribe. “He asked me here so I could watch a man be murdered and have an angel talk shit to me?”

“Fallen angel,” Kale corrected. With a jingle of keys he unlocked the passenger door of the Camaro, holding it open for me. “Only a fallen angel would be seen in the company of demons.”

I reached over to unlock Kale’s door, waiting for him to get in before continuing my rant. “Fallen angel? Are you kidding me? What makes him any different from a demon then? And, what’s with his attitude?”

“Whoa, one question at a time.” Kale laughed as he started the car and put it in gear. The engine roared, and we were on our way, leaving the church behind. I couldn’t possibly get away fast enough. “Demons are fallen angels. At least, they were once. But a fallen angel isn’t always a demon. They choose to fall. They don’t all choose to take it all the way.”

“They just linger in between? What’s the point? Why even fall if they aren’t going full demon with it?” I rolled down the window to let the summer night air caress my face. Now that I was out of the blood-filled building, the bloodlust was waning.

 “You’re asking the wrong person, Alexa. I don’t know much about angels. It’s rare to even see one, especially one that hasn’t fallen.”

Like I didn’t have enough to occupy my thoughts these days. I had so many questions after what I’d just seen. Questions that would mostly go unanswered.

We rolled to a stop at a red light, and I glanced over at Kale. The glow of a streetlight fell upon him, illuminating his pale skin and sharp eyes. I wondered if he’d been killing recently, but I didn’t want to offend him by asking. I liked him better when he wasn’t.

“What’s wrong, Alexa?” He met my eyes briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “Is it Shya? You don’t have to worry about him. Keep your distance, don’t get tricked into anything, and it will be fine.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Shya, but now that you mention it, I’m more afraid of myself right now than I am of him. I killed Veryl, without a second thought, and I don’t regret it. Now, I’ve made an agreement with a demon, and I’m not even sure what he wants from me.” Suddenly panicked, I stared out the window at the dark storefronts and office buildings as we passed. “I’m afraid of turning into the same thing I’ve been killing all these years.”

Kale’s energy grew warm as his mood shifted. “That won’t happen. That’s not what you are. Shya believes you have power over both werewolves and vampires, and judging by the way your power can manipulate me, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

I flashed back to an incident at The Wicked Kiss a few months earlier. A vampire had attacked me with a stake, swearing to never bow down to me.
I’m nobody’s slave,
he’d said as he pressed a stake between my ribs.

“I feel like I’m living in denial, like everyone else knows more about me than I do. I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.” The confession fell from my lips. I doubt I would have said it to anyone else.

Kale reached over, and I thought he was going to take my hand. He seemed to think better of it and instead smoothed a strand of my hair back behind my ear. “You’ll find out. We all do eventually. Even if it takes five hundred years.”

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the way the breeze streaming through the open window felt on my face. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Shya and the role he wanted me to play, his personal assassin, the one who would keep the vampires and werewolves in line. It sounded huge.

I was wary. However, I did believe that creatures of the night needed to stay in the dark. Much of our power lies in the myth that we don’t exist. It had to stay that way. Otherwise, all hell would break loose. I was willing to do my part to keep that from happening. All I could do was pray that I never had to become a monster to do it.

Too late.
I ignored the ugly voice of guilt that taunted me. Kale was right. Things to come would show me who I really was, one day at a time. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was just another one of the bad guys.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Are you sure about this?” I couldn’t sit still. Squirming on my seat with discomfort, I started to question my decision to listen to Arys.

He sat next to me, an untouched martini in front of him. He kept trying to slide it in front of me, and I slid it right back. I wasn’t touching a drop of alcohol, not with what he had in mind.

“Relax, Alexa. Enjoy the buildup. It’s like foreplay. No need to be impatient.”

“I’m not impatient. I’m nervous and starting to change my mind.”

Tearing his gaze from the interior of the martini lounge, he fixed me with a daring stare. “Oh no, you’re not. I told you, I’m not going to let you be bloodlust’s bitch anymore. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You’ll see.”

He hadn’t let go of his intent for us to hunt together. It made me uncomfortable in more ways than I could count. I’d seen Arys in action. It was both thrilling and frightening. But, to accompany him? It didn’t sit well with me.

“You damn hypocrite.” I ran a finger along the top of my sparkling water glass. I felt too nervous to drink it. “You live by the rule of all or nothing. Isn’t that why you look down on the vampires that feed at The Kiss?”

“This isn’t about them. It’s about you. You try to hide that it drives you crazy, but then you break down and slaughter someone. You’re not cut out to live my lifestyle. The guilt would eat you alive.” He offered me the olive from his drink, and I grimaced at the smell. “Besides, I don’t take the kill every time. Just more often than not. Every now and then, I like the tease of resistance.”

I didn’t know what to expect from a hunt with Arys; I’d half expected to stalk helpless victims in dark back alleys. When I’d voiced that very thing to Arys, he’d both scowled and laughed at me. Instead we’d ended up in a martini bar on the main floor of a five-star hotel with a key to a room upstairs. It seemed like excessive work to me though Arys shrugged it off as no big deal.

I watched Arys as he scanned the lounge for the right victim. I was impatient and wanted to get this over quickly if I had to do it at all. But, he was calm, like the fox in the hen-house, deciding which one he liked the most.

“So, what are we waiting for? Can’t we just do this already?”

He frowned and ran his tongue over his lips. Just watching him perform the casual action made my stomach tighten.

“Patience, my wolf. Don’t be so quick to act. If you’re stuck with the bloodlust, you might as well learn to enjoy it. It doesn’t have to all be bad.”

“That’s the problem. I want to hate it, but once I’m caught up in the moment, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. And, that’s what I hate.”

Arys took my hand and lightly ran a finger over the back of it. His touch stirred my longing. The bloodlust was running high. Arys had wanted me to be at its mercy. I couldn’t say I was loving it. My senses were on fire. Every touch and smell was amplified. All I could focus on was the tingle in my loins as he stroked a finger up my bare arm and the thick scent of human blood. It begged for my attention, making it hard to acknowledge any other smells in the lounge.

“That one, right there.” Arys drew my attention to a woman sitting alone at a table on the opposite side of the room. “She’s perfect. Do you want her?”

She was a leggy brunette in a designer dress, staring intently at her cell phone. Nothing distinguished her from any other woman in the lounge except for the fact that she was alone.

“A woman, huh?” I teased. “I guess that’s fair considering I’m usually the only woman present.”

Arys grinned, but his eyes glinted seriously. “Alexa, I don’t mind sharing you with the wolf pup. You seem to think I do, but sharing you with him means not having to share you with anyone else. Simple logic but it works.”

I thought it over, finding his logic to be a tad skewed like usual, but somehow, it made sense this time. “Alright. You want her, that’s fine with me.”

I was uneasy, but Arys had promised me that we weren’t killing anyone tonight. This was about finding the balance I needed to appease the bloodlust without taking the kill.

Tipping my head up with a hand under my chin, Arys kissed me lightly. “Stay here until I give you a signal.”

He slid off his stool and was gone before I could change my mind. The sound of my heart beating was suddenly deafening in my ears. I clutched my purse tightly and fidgeted with my short skirt. I couldn’t tear my gaze off Arys as he sauntered through the room like a wolf stalking prey. As I watched him go, the nerves melted away, replaced by a hungry anticipation.

Arys was a vision of sensuality. He moved through the room with dark intentions, drawing the attention of several women as he passed. It was impossible not to look at him. From head to toe the man oozed sex. It didn’t come as a surprise that the majority of other women thought so, too.

At his approach, his intended victim glanced up from her cell phone. She looked wary, but once Arys started talking, she smiled. I would have loved to hear what he was saying. The grin he beamed at her was downright seductive. I was falling for it from where I sat. So when she gestured to the chair next to her, I wasn’t surprised. Actually, I was a little turned on watching Arys work his magic, although a little part of me wondered if I was as easy a target as this woman was turning out to be.

Watching Arys seduce our victim made me ache for satisfaction. My growing hunger was testing the limits of my control. I’d questioned his intent to lure her upstairs to the room, but my patience was slipping. Now, I just wanted to make it happen.

The brunette leaned into Arys as they talked. Something in her eyes, a strange glazed look, indicated Arys’ influence over her. That had been easy. Not many vampires had that ability to make people want to surrender, happily accepting that he would drain their life away. I was painfully aware that, because I loved him, I often forgot how very dangerous Arys really was.

Catching my eye, Arys nodded ever so slightly toward the door. With eager anticipation, I picked the olive out of his abandoned glass and tossed back the contents. Then, I made my way out of the lounge and up to our room.

I was a mess waiting for them. I paced the small but nicely kept hotel room, unable to sit or stand still. I turned on the gas fireplace but then turned it off. Finally, I went to stare out the window at the street below.