Authors: Cynthia Eden

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

Angel in Chains (21 page)

BOOK: Angel in Chains

7.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

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She was fighting. Planning to destroy the man who’d taken her own life away.

“You know me,” she whispered as her hands traced down his shoulders and skimmed over the thick scars that remained on his flesh. “So when do I get to know you?”

He’s not the good guy that you think . . .

Fuck Bastion.

Az never wanted her to know the truth about him. He wanted her to keep looking at him like he was a hero. Like he was a protector. A man she could count on. A man she wanted.

Not a monster she feared.

“You know all that matters about me.” He began to thrust again. Slow, easy movements. “The rest is just hell and death. It doesn’t matter.”

He wasn’t the same as he’d been before. Jade made him want to be different.

For her, he would be.

She sighed softly, the sound so sweet and lush that he bent and caught it with his lips. This was need. This was pleasure. This was . . . life.

So very different from a world of death.

Her hands clasped his. He rose up and stared down at her perfect breasts. Not even a hint of scarring marred her flesh. He’d stopped Death’s touch.

And he’d do it again.

Bastion wouldn’t have her. Az had given up the witch to death. He’d let her go, but Jade—
no.

His fingers tightened around hers. Jade wouldn’t die. She wouldn’t slip away.

Not when he’d just found her.

And if he had to fight all of the angels in heaven in order to keep her, then he damn well would.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

S
unlight streaked through the old window. Jade lifted her hand to shield her eyes. Dawn had finally come. The light should have made her feel safer.

It didn’t.

Her gaze drifted to the right. Az slept beside her. She started to touch him, but hesitated.

Last night, she’d felt a darkness around him, filling the air.

And his blue eyes had turned black.

Her breath exhaled slowly as she slipped from the bed. She’d talked to him and bared her soul in an effort to pull him back to her. Whatever rage burned inside him, she’d wanted to quench it.

But. . .

But she knew she hadn’t.

The sex had been phenomenal, as she was pretty sure it always would be with him. Yet Az had been different. So intense. Like a fire was chained inside him. One that would erupt at any moment.

She reached for her clothes and dressed with barely a whisper of sound. Even at rest, his body, bare to the waist, appeared so strong and lethal.

Not the good guy.

But she wanted him to be.

Maybe he would have been, if it hadn’t been for her. Because now she had him locked in a death battle with her ex, and from the sound of things, she’d managed to turn his own kind against him.

Am I supposed to be dead?

She couldn’t think of another reason for a Death Angel to be on her trail. And Az couldn’t fight both that Bastion guy and Brandt. Even he wasn’t strong enough to face two powerful
Other
enemies.

She opened the door. The squeak had her tensing.
Crap.
But a fast glance over her shoulder showed Jade that Az still slept.

Okay. Good. She could do this. Last night, she’d peered out of the window and seen the gleam of metal near the edge of the woods.

And if I was gonna stash a ride at this place . . .

That sure would have been the spot she picked to hide her vehicle.

Jade rushed outside and headed toward the woods. Goose bumps rose on her flesh. Even in the daylight, this place just felt weird, and she could have sworn she heard the echo of old whispers floating in the air.

Five more steps, and she was at the edge of the woods. She saw the gleaming metal again, and realized someone had tried to use a green tarp to hide this prize. She grabbed that faded tarp and yanked. It flew away to reveal the heavy frame of a motorcycle.

Someone had left a backup plan behind. She started to smile.

A twig snapped behind her. Tensing, she glanced over her shoulder.

No Az. No other vengeful Death Angel coming at her, either. No—

“Going somewhere?” Az’s deep voice demanded.

She jumped and lost her breath. Then she yanked her gaze back around, following the sound of his voice. He was in front of the bike, head cocked, arms folded over his chest.

Her breath came back, only to be expelled in a fast rush. “I just . . . I thought I saw this”—she waved her hand toward the motorcycle—“last night. And while you were sleeping, I figured I’d check it out.” Her gaze held his and refused to drop, even when that too-intense stare searched hers.

“You’re lying to me.”

Okay, some shifters were supposed to be able to pick up on lies, maybe to even
smell
them, but did angels have some built-in lie detector, too? She didn’t think so.

“No, I’m not.” She’d bluff her way through this.

His smile held a cold edge. “After everything, were you going to just drive away and leave me?”

The darkness was even more intense in him today.

She reached for his hand. “No, I want us to both get the hell out of here.” Unhallowed ground. Translation—ground they needed to fucking get away from. It was working some kind of bad mojo on Az, and she wanted her hero back.

She sure didn’t want to deal with his bizarro dark side.

He glanced down at her hand. She followed his gaze. Her skin seemed so pale, while his was darker, golden.

“I dreamed about you.”

She swallowed. Okay, dreams were good, they were—

“You died in my arms.”

Dreams sucked. When his stare returned to her face, Jade tried to smile. “Good thing dreams don’t come true, huh?”

“For angels, they do.”

Her smile fell away.

“We see when our charges will take their last breath. We know of the moment that we must take them with our touch.” He was holding her hand and stroking his fingers over the back of her knuckles. “I’ve taken thousands of lives. Never hesitated even once. Not like Keenan.”

She had no idea who Keenan was. “Sorry, don’t think I know him.”

Faint lines appeared around his eyes. “Keenan was a powerful Death Angel. But when it came time for him to take his latest charge, he hesitated. He felt sympathy for the mortal, and he didn’t want to take her soul.”

Jade didn’t know what to say, but that was okay because Az wasn’t done talking.

He said, “Keenan lost his wings for her.”

That was kind of sweet. “So they survived? Got to live happily ever after?” Great, now she sounded like a fairy tale. Maybe even a perky greeting-card-wannabe girl.

The goose bumps on her arms were getting worse. A cold wind seemed to surround her.

“Because Keenan didn’t take her when he should have, his mortal was bitten by a vampire.”

Jade tensed.

“Now Nicole St. James has to spend an eternity feeding off others.”

So, not a happy ending.

“Keenan knew what he had to do,” Az continued, voice a deep growl. “I told him, but he wouldn’t give her up. He was ready to trade his life for hers.”

She didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t want anyone to trade for me.” She wouldn’t be taking on that burden, thank you very much. “So if an Angel of Death is coming, he’s coming for me. Not for anyone else.”

The blackness deepened in Az’s eyes. That was just creepy. Was her angel showing some demonic tendencies? He needed to stop. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered. “Please, Az, let’s just go.”

He leaned over her. Seemed to surround her. “You want me to stand back and let death take you?” Fury snapped through his words.

She didn’t back down. “I want you to get your ass on that motorcycle and get us the hell out of here.” Because she felt like Death was reaching out to grab her with his icy fingers right then.

It’s this place. We’ve got to leave.

Locking his hands around her arms, Az grabbed her and lifted her onto her tiptoes. “I know how Keenan felt,” Az muttered. “What I asked him to do . . . I
know
now.”

Wonderful. Fabulous. They could—

“I told him to just kill her. To touch her, take her soul, and come back home. To forget about her.”

Jade frowned up at him. That was some cold-blooded shit.

Az’s mouth curled, but that was no grin on his face. “Bastion told you I wasn’t the good guy. And you should know . . . angels can’t lie.”

Oh, hell. She tried to jerk away from him. He just held her tighter.

“I know how Keenan felt,” Az grated. “Because if Bastion came to me and told me to kill you, I’d destroy him.”

She froze.

“How?”

Now Jade was lost. How what?

“What did you do to me?” His hands tightened on her. “I never cared for a human, but I can’t let anyone hurt you.” The blue flashed back again in his eyes, as if he were fighting something. Someone. “Even myself.”

In the next moment, Jade found herself on the back of the motorcycle. Az was in front of her, revving the engine.

“Hold on!”

She locked her arms around his stomach. Held as tight as she could. The motorcycle rocked forward with a blast of power that she didn’t think was entirely natural.

But then, the unnatural was becoming more normal for her every day. Jade glanced back at the old cabin. The woods were so twisted around it now that the vines and vegetation appeared to swallow the place. And, for an instant, she could have sworn she saw thin, ghostly images walking near the woods.

Images that stared after her with fury.

Before vanishing in the light.

Jade turned her head away and pressed her face against Az’s back. Whatever the hell that place had been, she
never
wanted to go back there again. She had more than enough darkness in her life.

Curses, spirits—they could just stay the hell away from her.

Az braked in front of an all too familiar looking dive in New Orleans. He killed the engine and shoved down the kickstand.

Jade glanced up at the entrance of Sunrise. Didn’t almost dying in the place once mean that they should probably stay away? She thought that might be a good guide for them to follow.

And she realized that she was still clinging tightly to Az. Clearing her throat, she managed to unhand the guy and climb from the motorcycle. “Wanna tell me why we’re walking down bad memory lane? I mean, we’ve got the whole city as a meeting place, did you have to tell Tanner to catch up with us here?” Only, they weren’t meeting Tanner right then. It was a long way until midnight, and she sure didn’t want to just kick the time away in that hole.

Az glanced at her. His blond hair shone in the sunlight. No helmets for them—none had been stashed with the bike. Yeah, they were all about dancing with death.

He studied her a moment. His eyes were back to being that bright blue that she loved—thank goodness. Hopefully, “bad Az” had been left behind at that hell-forsaken cabin in the woods.

“We need brimstone.” He climbed off the motorcycle.

She sighed. “Yeah, well, unless you’re planning to make a little pit stop into hell, getting brimstone might be a problem for us.” Taking a field trip into hell wasn’t her idea of a good time.

Az strolled past her and his fist pounded against the closed front doors of the bar. The place might be called Sunrise, but she knew it didn’t open until well after sunset.

Jade glanced nervously up and down the street. Being out in the open wasn’t such a stellar plan. She inched closer to Az. Her fingers slid down the side of his arm. “Maybe we should come back tonight.” They could find a nice spot to lay low until then.

He shook his head. “It’s better when no one’s around.” He stopped pounding, obviously getting the hint that the door wasn’t going to be answered. Az waved his hand, and the entrance flew open. The doors banged against the interior walls.

Handy, having power like that.

“Come on.” He took her hand, and they hurried inside. The doors slammed closed behind her. “Maybe it’s here.”

Um . . .
it
?

The club was dark, with sunlight barely trickling inside. Chairs had been stacked on top of the tables, and the curtains were closed on the small stage. The scent of a dozen perfumes lingered in the air. A heavy, golden cage hung from the ceiling above them. Yeah, that cage freaked her a bit.

They’d taken about ten steps inside when she heard the growl. The hair on her neck rose at the guttural sound. “Az . . .”

He stopped and turned to the left. A heavy, metal door waited about twenty feet away. A door that had been padlocked.

“Perfect,” Az said, and actually sounded like he meant it. “I thought they might keep it here during the day.”

Again with the “it” that made her so nervous.

“Stay here,” he said.

Right. Like she wanted to go following him toward that creepy growl.
No, thanks.
She backed up a few steps, just to be on the safe side. Let the tough angel go investigate, she’d just—

Strong hands closed around her shoulders. Jade didn’t waste breath screaming.
Brandt.
She spun around and struck out with her clenched fist.

And the guy caught her fist mid-punch.

Not Brandt.
She recognized Sammael instantly. No mistaking those eyes that looked like they’d spent way too much time gazing into hell.

More monster than man.

“Well, hello there,” he murmured, his voice a silky threat. “I see my brother has taken to breaking into my place . . . and bringing violent friends to visit.”

Don’t show fear, but . . .
“Tell me you aren’t here to kill me.”

He smiled.

“He’s not.” Az was at her side. Pushing the other guy back. “Sam owns Sunrise.”

Now the breaking and entering bit made sense.

Sam lifted a dark brow as he studied her. “Well aren’t you just something . . . different.”

BOOK: Angel in Chains

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