Good Side of Sin (21 page)

She kissed his finger softly, and then reached up to take his hand, gave it a firm squeeze and leaned closer to him. “Thoros?”

“Yes,” he squeaked, and then cleared his throat and exaggerated the bass in his voice when he spoke again. “Yes?”

She smiled, obviously noticing his shift in confidence.
Damn it!
“I have decided that I’d like you to… get to know me, figure me out. Clothing is optional.”

What? What the hell does she mean ‘figure her out’? She can’t mean that she wants me to take her to my bed. But of course, that is exactly what those desire-filled eyes of hers are telling me she is saying,
he thought. He hoped.
No! I can’t do that to her. I can’t be selfish like that—not with her! She wants to trust me, and I’m not going to earn that by having a quick romp between the sheets before we leave to go save Heaven and her angel boyfriend! She will hate herself in the morning, and I’m not strong enough to see that look of regret in her eyes.

It would destroy me.

He cleared his throat, but refused to give her eye contact as he slowly pulled his hand back to his lap. “It’s getting late,” he managed to say with a calm, steady voice. “We leave early in the morning. I think there are enough beds for everyone in the house; I’m sure most everyone has turned in by now. I’ll sleep on one of the couches and you can have my bed if we are short—”

“Thoros?” she whispered, but he only took a deep breath in through his nostrils and closed his eyes.

“That Paul guy said he hasn’t slept in over five hundred years, but now he’s exhausted. I assume that has something to do with all the changes that are happening in Heaven. He’s sleeping down in the basement, and so is Damien. The guy that lived through the vehicle accident looks like he’s going to pull through. I can imagine you’re getting tired, too. I know I’m beat.”

He sat there another minute, waiting, but not really knowing what he was waiting for. Maybe for her to suggest they sleep in the same bed together. Uggh! No! He ran his fingers through his hair and huffed.

She had gone silent, her breathing and the steady pounding of his heart the only sound interrupting his thoughts, and damn, didn’t they seem loud all of a sudden?

Standing from the swing, he picked up the small bowl of tart fruit and, bracing his heart, he turned to look at her. Damn, the confusion on her face made him want to kick his own self in the ass. But he knew it wouldn’t help. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t get a pass past the pearly gates, and he’d be damned again before he would be selfish enough to ask her to stay with him. And he knew if he ever made love to her, that was exactly what he would ask her to do. It wasn’t fair to her, but he knew he would go crazy without her. He felt like he already had.

But even though she wasn’t his, he knew in his soul that he would always be hers.

There would never be another female that could even come close to comparing to her. She was his
one and only
love
,
his
soulmate.

Suffering was the only way for him, but he could make sure she ended up happy. He would help her find the angel and then disappear from her life so she would never ever have to clean up his messes again.

Before she read the plan in his eyes, he took a step toward her and bumped her knee with his thigh, stopping the gentle back-and-forth of the swing. Taking her free hand, Thoros lifted it to his lips and placed a chaste kiss on her knuckles, and then gave her a polite smile. “Good night and sweet dreams, Miss Josselyn.”

Sweet dreams!

Oh, for Heaven’s sake!

I heard the sound of the door as it clicked shut and I bent forward at the waist, letting my forehead fall to my hands that were resting limply on my knees. What the hell did I have to do to turn the guy on? I knew I didn’t know much about sex—well, okay, I didn’t know anything about how to get a man’s attention in that department; I had never had sex! But the basics were pretty damn clear. At least I thought they were.

I always felt—no,
he
always made me feel like I was doing something wrong. First with the amazing first kiss and now this! Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. He tells me that he wants me, and then pushes me away. I don’t get it. Is it something I’m doing? Do I not know how to flirt? I rolled my eyes. Of course I don’t.

What had been his purpose in even coming out here? To continue flipping my world upside down? Well, he had certainly succeeded. I was flipped. Up. Side. Down.

Sitting up a little and forcing myself to breathe deeply, I realized that he’d flipped me the first time I ever laid eyes on him.

He had been so much better at charming me back then, though. Now—now he was just scared, and it showed. Why was he scared? I practically threw myself at him and he just walked away! No, he
ran
away!

Fury flooded through me and I shot to my feet with every intention of telling him where to—

Then I felt it. I stopped and looked out across the brown grass, dead shrubs and lifeless flowers in the yard, and I saw her. Her flaming red hair was lifted up around her shoulders and face. By the breeze, maybe? I doubted it. The dry, hot wind was too tame. My hair was barely moving at all. She had to be controlling it.

Amazing dramatic effects, demon. What’re your other tricks?

She was standing a hundred feet down the dusty driveway, leaning casually against the dark brown and tan brick that housed the mailbox, like she had been watching us, and had been waiting for the perfect time for me to see her. I was alone now. How convenient. I made sure all my mind blocks were in place. I didn’t want her taking control over me the way she had Thoros.

The smiling demon didn’t move forward, and I could only assume it was because the owners of the mansion had put some sort of barrier around the property to keep people out. Evil, lurking, soul-stealing demons didn’t seem to be an exception to the rule.

Her smile grew wider as I took my cross on its broken chain from my pocket.

“Come here and let me see that, little girl,” she said, her voice carrying very well on the slight wind. She seemed to be only one person, or rather she was using only
one
of her voices. We’d see if it stayed that way.

I remained where I was, on the top step of the porch, and she scowled at me, like her words were supposed to have power within them to make me do as she’d demanded.
You’re not the only one with tricks up your sleeve, fiend.
“Why are you here? What do you want from us?”

She moved her head from one side to the other, and then back again. “Not you, angel.”

“What, then?” I said, and then heard the front door open behind me. I threw out my hand to stop whomever it was without turning around to see them, and then heard a lot of muffled cursing and scrambling and shouting as he rushed back into the house to get more back-up.

“Send the mortal out to me and I will leave your sweetie pie alone.”

Sweetie pie?
“Not even if my own soul depended on it, bitch.”

She smirked, but I could see anger boiling behind her eyes and knew I had hit a nerve. Aww, the poor little demon didn’t like to be called names. Too bad for her, because I’d had a long damn couple of days and I was already tired of her shit. Being nice to a soul-eater wasn’t going to happen tonight.

“That very well may already be true.”

“What, that you’re a bitch or that my soul is in jeopardy? Because I can tell you right now I already know them both to be true. But let me tell you two things you don’t know: you won’t be the one to take my soul from me and you won’t ever get control of Ethan.”

She was silent for a moment, studying me, and in her silence I felt my back-up move up behind me. Without looking, I knew Isaiah was on my right and Troy was on my left. I didn’t have time to think about where Thoros was before I heard feet pounding back down the grand staircase and a whole lot of words Isaiah wouldn’t approve of coming from Thoros’ mouth. It appeared he wasn’t having a great day, either, but I felt his hand slip into mine and I instantly felt stronger. My irritation that he’d rejected me again was all but forgotten, for now, anyway.

“Fallis,” Baddon said in a quiet voice, and I knew what he was asking the guy without him saying anything more. I had overheard them talking with Isaiah earlier about security. Isaiah wanted to trade out shifts between everyone in the house—with the exception of the mortals—watching the mansion, but Fallis had informed the group that he had already secured the house from top to bottom. He had finished by saying that Lucifer himself wouldn’t even be able to breach the protection he had placed on the property. That really wasn’t saying a whole lot, since Lucifer couldn’t even get to Earth, much less break through a magic barrier one of his previous demons had made. It kind of seemed unlikely to me that his magic could be that strong, but I was praying for the best and super-duper glad he was on our side now.

“We’re good,” came the reply.

I think every soul standing with me let out a breath of air the same time I did.

“Go away, demon. You won’t get what you’ve come here for.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

The fingers gripped around my hand loosened and Thoros began to walk down the steps, away from us, toward the demon.

Isaiah figured out what was happening the same time I did and hit him with something to wake him up from his trance as I grabbed his arm and jerked him back up the steps into the strong arms of Baddon and Troy. They would go with him before they would let him go to her alone.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ethan asked as he stepped out onto the porch. “I heard—”

“Get back in the house, Ethan!” I shouted, but kept my eyes on the evil demon who had started cackling now.

“Holy shit! She’s back?” I heard Cross say as she realized the reason we were all alarmed and standing on the front porch of the house. The distinctive sound of a hammer being pulled back to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber of her pistol was heard a little too loudly. I was glad she wanted to do her part in protecting herself and the people standing around her. But the weapon she was holding wouldn’t actually do the trick. Hell, a missle wouldn’t kill it. If all went well, she wouldn’t need to find out if her mortal plan would work.

“Paul, Marcus, make sure the humans stay behind me. Don’t let them loose from your grasp for any reason,” I said, and heard a simultaneous response of “Yes, ma’am!”. I then addressed the rest of the group with my thoughts. “I suppose they need to see what we’re up against. Keeping it from them is not going to help anyone.”

“Hello, Ethan,” the demon said sweetly. I tensed and tried to block any mind tricks she threw at him. I had never done it before, but for some reason my instincts took over and I knew I could if I needed to. I had to protect this innocent—whatever he was—and keep him on our side of the fence.

“Who is that and why does she know my name?” Ethan whispered nervously.

The words came into my brain like they had been there all along, and I let them come out of my mouth without delay. I knew the reason the demon wanted him and it scared the crap out of me, but I had always known the fiend wasn’t here to make friends with us. Lucifer was behind this just as much as he was behind the destruction and fall of Heaven.

“She wants Thoros to give her your soul because she physically can’t take it herself. She can only touch the souls after someone else has stolen them—same with Lucifer; he can’t take a pure soul if it isn’t offered to him. Obviously, Thoros can. Then he is expected to give the souls over to this demon to give to Lucifer. I knew it had been too easy for Rhyan to just ask for the demons to be released from Hell, and for Lucifer to just allow it to happen.”

“Um… I’m lost—” Ethan started, but Thoros turned and cut him off, getting up and personal and growling in the guy’s shocked face.

“Lucifer wants your damn soul so he can control you and all that power you are holing up inside that mortal body of yours! I only have half a soul; he has the other half, and so he is using me as a tool to get yours from you. It’s practically the equivalent of him being on Earth without actually fucking being here! And it’s all my damn fault!” Thoros turned away from the guy and rushed to the edge of the steps where he proceeded to throw up the contents in his stomach. It appeared to be only liquid, and I made a mental note to get him to eat something solid later. It was one thing to have a mental breakdown over this, but he at least needed one advantage against evil. We needed him physically strong.

His theory had been spot-on with the thoughts that had gone through my head only a moment before he’d said them out loud. I assumed Isaiah had been feeding him the information from my head, because his reaction to the news had seemed to catch him off guard. It obviously wasn’t something he’d been mulling over in his mind for a while. The only thing different was what he had said at the end: he thought it was his fault. I didn’t blame him or any of the other seven half-souled immortals.

“So… what’s the devil going to do with me when he gets my soul?”

I turned back to the smiling demon at the end of the drive. I knew what would happen: Heaven would fall and Lucifer would take ownership. Lucky me, I was the one that had promised to put a stop to all of it. I should have stayed with my job as an intake specialist, helping St. Peter bring the good souls into Heaven. Shit! I had to do it. There was no other way. And I had to keep everyone thinking positive, as well as keep myself from falling apart in the process. “Don’t worry about it, Ethan. It’s not going to happen. We are here to protect you and keep anything bad from happening. Trust me.”

“I have someone here that would like to say hello, Ethan,” the demon said.

I swear my stomach did a flip and I thought about joining Thoros over by the dead rosebushes he was upchucking on. The red-haired fiend reached down behind the mailbox and effortlessly pulled a gagged, middle-aged man to his feet. Dried blood painted the skin under his nose, mouth and ears, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut from the beatings he had suffered.