Rebel (5 page)

I let the feelings suffuse me for no more than a nanosecond, and then I stepped back. “You never answered Raziel’s question,” I said, and if my voice sounded tense, I didn’t care. “Why are you here?”

He stared at me for a long, speculative moment. “I’m not sure. It could be to seduce you, sweet one.”

“Then you may as well leave now, because you’re doomed to failure.”

“Why?”

His simple question surprised me. “I beg your pardon?”

“I asked you why. Why am I doomed to failure, when I can feel the heat from your body, hear the blood rushing beneath your skin, can practically smell your arousal? Why?”

I had never hit anyone in my life outside of battle. I hated violence, yet I wanted to slap that taunting
smile from his mouth, slap him so hard my hand ached from it.

“I think you’re deluded.” My voice was glacial. “But in the end, I don’t really care why you’re here. If you don’t want to tell anyone the truth, that’s your business, as long as you leave me alone. Now, if you’ll get out of my way, I have things to do.”

“So you keep saying.” With that he moved, no longer standing between me and the door, and I hid my relief. “Feel free to change your mind.”

I admit it. I gave in to temptation for the first time in what felt like years. “When hell freezes over.”

He glanced around him, a faint, distant expression in his eyes. “Darling girl, it already has.”

C
AIN STARED AT THE DOOR AND
realized he was smiling. Sweet, pretty Martha the seer was a firecracker underneath her demure exterior. He’d sensed it almost immediately, and it hadn’t taken much prodding to get her to lash out. She’d be more guarded in the future, but he had absolutely no doubt he’d be able to break her down. He never failed when he put his mind to something.

He turned, surveyed the bland room, and sighed. He hated it here, and always had. This was a world of penance for those cursed, and he had never been one to wallow in regret. Life was a banquet of riches to be tasted and even squandered, yet the Fallen locked themselves away in a kind of purgatory.

Not he. He would have thought nothing could possibly make him return, but he was back, all right.
And when he left, if Sheol was still standing, it would never be the same.

He felt the shadow pass by the French doors off the main room, but he didn’t turn to look. Only one man would come after him this quickly, only one man that big, and it increased his reputation as being eerily prescient if he greeted him without turning.

The door opened and his visitor stepped inside, surprisingly quiet for such a large man. “Metatron,” Cain said in a cool voice. “You’re quicker than I expected.” He turned to face the big man. “I hope no one saw you come.”

The angel Metatron, the most recent of the Fallen, was huge, with arms of granite and legs the size of tree trunks. “What do you think?” he rumbled, looking at Cain with his usual disdain. “We’re going to have to be careful of Martha. She may seem quiet, but I don’t trust her. She knows things. And I don’t mean just her visions.”

“I’ll be taking care of Martha,” Cain said, dropping down on the white sofa. It was surprisingly comfortable—at least the Fallen weren’t entirely intent on living like penitents. He’d half expected a monk’s cell with a narrow cot. That had been his allotment last time he’d been forced to live here. But then, as usual, they hadn’t wanted him. He reminded them of things they wanted to forget.

Metatron simply grunted. Cain liked that about
the man. He seldom spoke, and when he did, he was usually worth listening to. Cain had no illusions about himself—he’d rather listen to his own voice than someone else’s droning on and on. In this, at least, they made excellent coconspirators.

“Do you think they suspect anything?” He stretched out his legs in front of him, propping his booted feet on the white coffee table with its fragrant cluster of gardenias floating in a white bowl. Damn, he hated white. His own black clothes were a bit singed from his little magic trick, and he would probably leave scorch marks on the spotless linen. Too fucking bad.

“Raziel and the others?” Metatron gave a derisive snort. “Not a bit. They’re so busy getting ready for the next big battle that they haven’t time to worry about the likes of you.”

Cain didn’t particularly care for the “likes of you” slur, but he didn’t argue. “Any idea when this next great battle is coming up?”

“You’d have to ask the seer about that one.”

Cain smiled reminiscently. “Oh, I intend to. Though I gather her prognostications are a bit . . . uneven.”

Metatron shrugged. “Sometimes she’s right on. Other times it would be better if she just kept her mouth shut—it only confuses things.”

“But Raziel trusts her?”

“Sometimes.”

Cain leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head as he considered it. “That could be extremely helpful. I shouldn’t have any trouble manipulating her visions to our advantage.”

“She’s stronger than she appears,” Metatron said.

“I always did like a challenge. Then again, I like when things are dead easy as well. What about the Alpha and his Source? A heads-up about Azazel abdicating his post might have been helpful. And how the hell did the new Source get pregnant?”

Once more Metatron shrugged his massive shoulders. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

Cain controlled his instinctive snarl. “Why don’t you let me decide what matters?” He looked out the window into the garden, shrouded in the soft light of Sheol. It was a glorious patchwork of color, unlike everything else here. Life in Sheol was bleached of color. He wanted red splashed across everything, the rich, deep, garnet red of the blood he loved. Blood on his tongue, blood on his skin.

He turned back to Metatron with an easy, deceptive grin. “Anyone you need to warn me about?”

“Michael’s suspicious, but he’s newly bonded, and what with training the Fallen for battle and bedding his wife, he’s easily distracted. Particularly since his wife is Victoria Bellona, the Roman goddess of war.”

Cain cocked an eyebrow. “How did he manage to pull that off?”

“The seer. She had a vision, and he fought like hell, but in the end she was right.”

“Interesting,” Cain murmured. “Who else?”

“Azazel hates you.”

“Azazel has always hated me. With good reason. Ezekiel was one of his closest friends. My reasons for hating him are stronger. I’ll be taking care of Azazel. You said both Sammael and Asbel are dead?”

Metatron nodded. “As we will be if they realize what we’re doing.”

“Then the trick, dear friend, is not to get caught.”

“I’m not your friend.”

Cain laughed. “That’s right. As you’ve often told me, I have no friends.”

Metatron said nothing, and Cain grinned. “Point taken,” he said. “If you’ve changed your mind, I can do this on my own. It might take longer—”

“I haven’t changed my mind.” Ah yes, taciturn Metatron.

“Good,” Cain said. “Then let’s get busy. I need to look over the wives and see if one of them will be of use. They’re all pretty, aren’t they?”

“If you like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, I do. I like pretty and plain, plump and thin, old and young. Women are delightful, Metatron. You really ought to indulge. It would help you relax.”

Metatron just looked at him. “There haven’t been
any available women here. They’re either bonded or mourning, like Martha.”

“I’m not about to let that stop me. You shouldn’t either.”

“Why do you need to look at the wives? I thought you’d decided the seer would be the most useful.”

“Probably. But I haven’t seen the others, have I? I’ll definitely have the seer on the side—I find her much too tempting. But it’s always useful to set the cat among the pigeons, and an unfaithful mate would shake things up quite nicely. Besides, I’ll need a second female eventually.”

Metatron grunted, though whether in approval or not, Cain couldn’t tell. At least he didn’t bother to ask why, since Cain had no intention of telling him.

“In any case,” he continued, “you’d better get out of here before someone decides to come and see how I’m settling in. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.” He grinned then. “Come to think of it, maybe we
should
give them the wrong idea. We could always pretend that you and I are romantically involved, unless the Fallen have some edict against that, and—”

“No!” Metatron said in a stifled roar.

Cain looked at him out of limpid eyes. “No, they don’t have an edict, or no, we shouldn’t pose as lovers?”

Metatron headed for the door, and this time Cain kept his smile to himself. Now that he knew the
fastest way to get Metatron out of his rooms, it could come in handy.

“Don’t push me, Cain,” Metatron snarled, pausing.

“Push you? Me? Never, old friend.” He waited for Metatron to remind him that they were far closer to mortal enemies, even if they were reluctant coconspirators, but Metatron simply glared at him and left, closing the French doors silently behind him when Cain knew he wanted to slam them so hard the glass would break.

Two people wanting to slam doors and smash his face in before he’d been in his room for half an hour. He was right on track. By the time he got through with them, the Fallen would be such a mass of anger and upheaval they wouldn’t know what hit them.

He expected to find it all extremely entertaining.

I
’D BEEN TRYING TO NAP, WITHOUT
much success, when I heard the muffled sound. Someone, a man, had said “No!” so strongly the power of it reached through the thick walls of the annex. I sat up, listening. Who could be visiting Cain? The Alpha, most likely. Certainly not Azazel, who had looked at the newcomer as if he were shark bait and Azazel was a great white. Michael hadn’t looked much happier.

I glanced toward the narrow glass-paned door that led from my small room to the courtyard I shared with Cain. The courtyard I would never use again, at least not until he left or moved to more central quarters. It was going to be difficult enough trying to avoid him in the narrow hallways back here. No longer would I lie naked beneath the blissful rays of a sun that never burned, never tanned, just soothed me with warm, radiant heat.

It was a price I was willing to pay. If things got bad enough, I could always ask Raziel and Allie to move me to a room up in the big house. I’d feel safer there, surrounded by the people who were more family to me than anybody I’d grown up with. I wasn’t sure why I thought safety was an issue. There was no reason to think that Cain was any particular danger to me. Why should he be?

Anyway, I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of driving me away. I was an inventive woman—I could tell him I’d had a vision requiring me to move. That I was supposed to be close to Allie as her time grew nearer.

I hated the thought of using my visions, of lying to get out of an uncomfortable situation. The prophecies were already extremely dodgy—if I started manufacturing them whenever things got difficult, I would destroy what little credibility I had.

I pulled myself into a sitting position, listening, but there was no more sound from the rooms next to mine. Maybe I’d be better off if everyone ignored my dreams and portents. They were a curse, nothing but trouble, and I’d be much happier slipping back into my role as quiet little Martha, Thomas’s widow.

I’d even considered lying about my confusing bona fide visions. I didn’t dare risk it—knowing Allie was pregnant before she did enabled her to take better care of herself. Knowing the ancient Roman
goddess of war, Victoria Bellona, needed to come to Sheol before the first battle with Uriel meant we had a chance of surviving. Knowing Tory was going to die in that battle gave Allie a chance to save her, bring her back.

No, I couldn’t turn my back on my responsibilities, no matter how difficult. And I couldn’t run away simply because I found our newly returned fallen angel unsettling. I wasn’t used to all that charm and intensity directed at me. I didn’t like it. But I could put up with it.

Besides, sooner or later he’d go off hunting for a mate—in my experience, the Fallen didn’t remain single for long. And once he did, he’d probably settle down and become like all the others.

Or not. I couldn’t quite see it. Cain was too different from the rest of them, with that wicked, taunting smile. The Fallen had never been much for smiling. More likely he’d simply leave once more and not return until long after my mortal life had ended. One could only hope.

Pushing myself out of bed, I paced my room. Sleep was evading me—maybe tonight would be better. Now that the dark man of my vision had arrived, I didn’t have to fear dreaming so much. Another prophecy was unlikely to come for weeks or even months. I could throw myself into the preparations for the baby, the first baby ever to appear
in the endless time since angels had first tumbled to earth. After all, in my mortal life I had mostly raised the children around me, siblings or not, and I knew about babies. I had even helped my mother deliver one of them in our dismal apartment with no electricity or heat, only running water. Allie’s delivery would be a piece of cake compared to that, and Rachel would be in charge.

A hot shower went a ways toward making me feel human. For some reason, it took me much longer than usual to dress—everything seemed to fit strangely and feel uncomfortable. I finally ended up in a dress, something simple, with ankle-length skirts flowing around me and a high-enough neckline to cover my scars. I seldom bothered with makeup, but my face was pale, my eyes looked a little hollow, and I didn’t like my reflection. Brushing on some blush and mascara, I stared at the new and improved Martha in dismay before wiping it all off.

I took off the discreet gold hoop earrings that Thomas had given me when we were mated, earrings that I never wore. I would have gone back and changed my dress to an enveloping shroud if I’d had time, but the dinner chime had already rung, and Raziel would grumble if I was late. Even worse, Tory and Allie would wonder why, and quiz me until I came up with a believable answer. Or, worst of all, they might make a totally absurd guess that I was
reacting to the appearance of the new man in our midst, which was obviously ridiculous.