Bastion lifted his hand and stared down at his fingers. “A simple touch from me can’t kill you. Az’s blood is making your immune from the Death Touch . . . for now.”
That was good, right?
Bastion dropped his hand and stared into her eyes. “I don’t want you to suffer.”
She staggered to her feet and put some precious distance between them. “What a coincidence. I don’t really want that, either.”
His head cocked as he frowned at her.
“So how about you just go your merry angel way,” now she could see the wings bursting from his back. Rather hard to miss them without his extra magic mojo. “And I’ll go mine.”
Bastion shook his head. “I need you.”
“No, you need to get the hell away from me. Once Az gets here . . .”
Get here, Az, get your Fallen butt here.
“You don’t want to be around.”
“Things have to be set right. Az can’t be allowed to change fate.”
Oh, no. That sounded very bad. “You-you want to kill me.”
“You should already be dead.” He gave a short, hard shake of his head. “Instead, the Fallen attacked an innocent. He brutalized Marna, an angel who’d never—”
“Whoa! Hold on there.” She was gonna ignore that whole “You should already be dead” part for the moment. “Az hasn’t attacked any angel.”
Bastion laughed. “Really? Then how’d I get a brimstone bullet in my gut?”
Ah . . .
“I went to take you, and he shot me.”
He’d shot another angel to save her? Sweet, but, deadly.
“You’re marked for Death, and, once marked, there’s no changing what will come.” His eyes darkened. “I’ve seen you die.”
Jade licked her lips. “Now when you say that, do you mean—”
“You’re on my list. I’ve seen what will come for you. It’s a vicious ending.”
Did he have to sound so chirpy about it? Weren’t angels who still had those precious wings supposed to be
un
emotional?
“As I said, I don’t want you to suffer, but other plans are already in place. The Death Touch from me would have been merciful, but now, another end waits.”
“Yeah, well . . .” And she dug deep, trying to pull out that new power that she still couldn’t even control. “I’m gonna have to take option B on all this and say . . .” She sent a burst of fire out at him. Not a controlled ball of flames, but a swirling, bulging wall of heat. “Screw your plans.”
Then she turned and ran, not even bothering to see how Bastion stopped the fire.
Get away.
Fast. That was her priority. Get away. Get to Az. Get—
She hit the dirt. Something hard and strong had slammed into her back, and Jade’s feet just flew out from under her.
“Abomination.” Gravel crunched as Bastion circled around her. “Humans weren’t meant to have such powers.”
She tasted blood in her mouth. Jade lifted her head. Nope, the angel wasn’t so much as singed. He stood about five feet away, not looking winded, but appearing . . . mildly annoyed.
Well, big damn deal for him. She was feeling pretty annoyed, too.
“You’re not going to get away.” Bastion’s wings fluttered in the breeze. They were doing that neat magic trick again where they seemed to just burst right through his shirt. He crouched so they were more on eye level. “He’ll find you soon.”
Now why did those words fill her with dread?
Because he’s setting a trap for Az, and I’m his bait.
Az didn’t bother knocking at the witch’s door this time. He just blew off the right wall of the place and stormed back inside.
Mateo turned at his approach, holding up the small, black bag that Jade had given him. “Ah, back from your psycho moment, are you?
Bueno,
because I’ve got your bullets—”
And Az had him. His hands locked onto the witch’s shirt, and he yanked Mateo toward him. “You’ve had another visitor.”
Mateo glanced down at the floor. Az was holding him a good foot in the air. “I have many visitors.”
“In a moment, you’re going to be in many pieces.”
Mateo’s gaze lifted. “Your eyes have gone black.”
“Where. Is. She.”
“Some beings are too powerful. When emotions hit them, they lose all control. Power without control can mean—”
“Would you like for me to incinerate you?”
Mateo smiled at him. “I’ve felt fire before, Fallen. Remember where I came from.”
Hell.
Mateo jerked away from him. Wind rushed in the air. “Your friend paid me for a job. The job is done.” He tossed Az the bag.
Az caught it and tried to fight the rage surging within him.
Jade. Gone.
Bastion should have never touched her.
Never.
“Is she dead?” he gritted.
Mateo shook his head.
Az took a breath.
“Now you know better than that . . . there’s a price for information.”
Az let his power rip from him. In an instant, fire engulfed the building. The remaining walls burned. The windows exploded. Smoke thickened the air.
Mateo’s eyes widened.
The flames were less than a foot away from the witch. The fire wasn’t touching him, but only because Az didn’t want Mateo dead, not yet.
“I think you’ve confused me with someone else.” Az’s voice boomed from him, easily louder than the crackling flames. “I’m not Sammael. I’m not here to save your ass and play your games.”
With a wave of his hand, he sent the fire to lick across Mateo’s arms. Agony twisted the witch’s face.
“This isn’t hellfire,” Az snarled. “You don’t control it.”
Mateo slapped at the flames, but they just flared higher as he began to scream.
“So the games end now, or you die.”
Mateo fell to his knees. The flames closed in.
“The choice is yours.”
Jade shoved up to her knees. “Okay, angel, I get it. You’re pissed—”
“Angels feel no emotions.”
Yeah, she’d call bullshit on that one. The guy was a big old vibrating ball of emotion—mostly rage.
“Whatever. So I’m the walking dead, and you want to put me in the ground.” She straightened her shoulders. “But here’s the deal. Az isn’t gonna let you do that, okay?”
He’d better not.
“When he gets here, he’ll be freaking furious, and you
don’t
want to be in the area when that guy is enraged.”
She’d hoped her threat would make the angel back off long enough for her to get a running start. But he was holding his ground.
Then his lips curved a bit. “I never said Azrael was the one coming to find you.”
Her heart seemed to freeze.
Bastion pointed to the woods behind him. “Your shifter has found a new base. Just a mile or two over that hill.” In the next second, he was at her side. He grabbed her arm, and sliced her flesh with a knife she hadn’t even seen.
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. Since when did angels go around knifing people? How was that possibly in their job description?
“Your scent is special to the shifter.” Bastion dropped her hand. “He’ll follow the blood trail, and he’ll find you.” He stepped back. His wings began to spread out behind him. She realized then that the jerk was just going to leave her, bleeding, for Brandt to find.
“Order will be restored,” Bastion said.
She covered the wound. He’d sliced her deep, a cut that went almost from elbow to wrist. “Why didn’t you just drop me on the bastard’s doorstep?”
He hesitated.
“Were you scared he’d slice you apart, too?” Her words came fast and she wouldn’t let her gaze drift over Bastion’s shoulder.
Don’t come, Brandt.
“For the record, he’s the one who attacked the other angel, not Az.
Brandt.
The guy is some kind of hybrid shifter and angel mix. He attacked her and now—”
Now she definitely had his attention. Bastion stood right in front of her. “Her wings were sliced from her body.”
More rage. And the guy thought he didn’t feel emotion?
“Yes.” Her voice was soft. “We found her in the woods. A doctor is helping her.” She left out the little bit about Cody being a demon doctor.
Bastion’s brows pulled together. “No, Azrael—”
“He
found
her. Brandt was the one who got off on slicing her apart.” She swallowed.
Don’t look over the hill.
“Just like he’s going to slice me unless we leave here, now.”
His gaze held hers.
“I’m telling you the truth. It wasn’t Az.” She swallowed. “Please, believe me.”
“Angels can’t lie.” His own voice had softened.
She knew what he meant. Angels couldn’t lie, but humans could. “Humans can also tell the truth.”
He studied her a moment longer, then seemed to . . . believe her? He pulled her against his chest and held tight. His wings were stretching out again as he prepared for flight. In the distance, she could hear snarls.
Brandt had her scent.
They needed to get the hell out of there.
Now.
C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN
A
z pulled Mateo from the wreckage. Flames shot high up into the air. Sirens blared as the humans raced toward the burning warehouse.
They’d never arrive in time. By the time the fire trucks pulled up, the building would be ash.
He tossed the witch onto the ground. Mateo had talked. Witches, even half-blood ones, couldn’t take the fire.
Az turned away from him.
“S-saw . . . th-this . . .” Mateo’s words froze him. “You . . . destroy . . .”
He’d destroy anyone who tried to take Jade. “I let you live.” After the witch had deliberately betrayed him. Separating him from Jade had been part of the guy’s plan all along. So she’d be vulnerable. Alone. Then Mateo had whipped up the wind in that room so Az couldn’t hear her screams.
Not until it was too late.
He glanced into the sky. The flames and smoke had dimmed the sunlight. Yet as he stared, the clouds seemed to thicken. A dark shape emerged.
A shape with the wide, black wings of a Death Angel.
His back teeth ground together. If Bastion was coming back to taunt him, he’d make the angel pay.
And it
was
Bastion. There was no mistaking the angel’s form. But—but Bastion wasn’t alone.
Bastion touched down just in front of the flames. He held Jade against his chest. One of Bastion’s arms circled her stomach, and the angel held a knife to her throat.
“Let her go,” Az demanded. The sirens were growing louder. The fire seemed to shriek behind Jade and Bastion.
Bastion’s eyes were wide. “You did this?”
Mateo climbed slowly to his feet. Blisters covered his right arm. They’d heal. Mateo was too powerful not to heal now that he was away from the flames. “She’s not supposed. . . to be . . . here.”
The tip of the knife sliced her throat.
Az couldn’t hear the screams of the approaching sirens or the crackle of the flames. Jade’s lips were moving but he could discern no sound.
He leapt forward, stopping mere inches from Bastion. “Let her go or die.” If he had to use his fists to pound those brimstone bullets into Bastion’s head and heart, he would.
No one was hurting Jade.
Fear flashed in Bastion’s eyes. Az knew fear when he saw it and smelled it.
“M-Marna . . .” He caught the angel’s whisper. “Tell me, did you take her wings?”
“I already told you,” Jade muttered, “
he didn’t
.”
Az fought the fury inside of him. His gaze held Bastion’s. “I did not.”
Bastion’s wings curled inward.
“Brandt was the one who attacked her,” Az told him. “He’s more than human. He could see her. And you know what a shifter’s claws can do to us.”
“Not a weapon of man.” Bastion swallowed. The knife lifted. His hands were shaking. “I-I thought you . . .” He pushed Jade toward Az.
He grabbed her, held her close, and smelled her blood.
Az stiffened. Keeping his hand on her, his gaze swept her body. There was no missing the long gash that had torn open her arm.
“Az,” Jade began, with her eyes wide. “Hold on. It was a misunderstand—”
Bastion attacking her wasn’t a misunderstanding. Az pushed her behind him. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
The angel’s head hung down. “When I found them, Marna’s wings were covered in blood. There was no sign of her in the swamp. I-I thought that you’d—”
“You didn’t attack me. You attacked
her
.”
The angel wasn’t meeting his stare.
“What were you going to do?” Az demanded. The urge to attack, to destroy, was so strong that his body trembled.
Bastion’s chin slowly lifted. “I was going to let Brandt have her.”
“Bad, bad mistake.” He lifted his hand and prepared to beat the hell out of a certain angel.
“Az!” Jade grabbed his hand. “Dammit, we don’t have time for this now!”
Sammael would have said there was always time for an ass kicking.
Perhaps he truly was becoming more like his brother. Or maybe he’d always been like him and just hadn’t realized it.
“The cops are almost on top of us. We need to get out of here.” Fear flickered in her eyes. “There is no way that we want to get caught by human authorities now.”
The too-close shrieks of the sirens filled his ears. Jade was right. They had to leave. Vengeance would come second. Protecting her was his first priority.
He took her hand and turned away from Bastion. His gaze swept the scene. Mateo had vanished. No real surprise. But he’d be finding that witch soon.
Or he will find us.
Az could see the cop cars and fire trucks circling in now. He hoisted Jade into his arms. Her hands slipped around his neck and her body . . .
felt so right.
She always seemed to fit against him perfectly. “Hold tight,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
He lunged forward, but Bastion moved in an instant and blocked him.
“Where is she?” Bastion whispered.
He did not have time for this.
“You know she’ll be weak. If a foe comes at her again . . . Marna won’t survive another attack so soon after the loss of her wings.”
He wanted to tear Bastion apart, but Jade’s fingers were lightly stroking the back of his neck and some of the tight fury eased from him. Relenting, but still planning for some vicious payback, Az growled, “At midnight, meet us at Sammael’s club.”
A fire truck raced onto the street.
“She’ll be there,” he promised.
Bastion nodded and his wings arched as he rose into the air. The humans wouldn’t see the angel.
But the cops and firefighters would sure try to bust him and Jade.
Police cars were swarming the scene now. Az ran forward. He leapt onto the hood of one patrol car, denting the metal, then he propelled forward and up, racing fast, so fast . . .
The humans would never be able to identify him. They’d only see a blur.
Jade held him tighter and the rest of the world faded away.
Sammael didn’t need to hear the intruder to know that someone had slipped into his home.
After all, there was very little that went on without his notice.
But the fact that some asshole had come sneaking into his house, while Seline was there, well, that pissed him off.
No one messed with Seline.
“Sam?” Her voice was sleepy, sexy, and it instantly made him hard.
Oh, soon enough for that, but first . . . Sam pressed a kiss to the soft silk of her shoulder. “Sleep, love. I need to tend to some business.”
Her brows drew together. She knew all about his business.
He kissed her again and let his fingers skate down her arm. He could hear the faintest tread of footsteps on his stairs. His intruder had gotten past the magical safeguards that he kept in place on his house.
Not a human. But then, humans seemed to instinctively stay the hell away from him.
He climbed from the bed. Waved his hand and instantly had a pair of jeans on his body.
“Want me to call Beelzie?” Seline asked, and he glanced back to see that she was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide and worried.
“No. I’ve got this one.” Because he knew the identity of his visitor. If he didn’t have a faint friendship with the guy—even though he’d been on this earth for centuries, he could count his friends on one hand—Sam would have already attacked.
He stalked forward. Yanked open the bedroom door. And found Mateo standing in his hallway.
A rather blistered, ash-covered Mateo.
Sam lifted a brow. “Been visiting hell again, have you?” Shaking his head, he asked, “Why don’t you just give up that place and—”
“We have a problem.” Mateo’s voice was flat and cold. His gaze drifted over Sam’s shoulder, probably to find Seline.
The guy had always watched her a bit too much.
Sam shifted his body to block the view. “You’re damn right we do. Some bastard caller just busted into my house.” Mateo had been the one to put the charms and protections in place. It figured that he’d be the only one who could slip right past them.
Mateo’s jaw hardened. “You’ll have to stop him. No one else will be strong enough.”
He knew Seline could hear every word they said. “Stop who?”
“Azrael.”
Fuck. “What’s happened?” He didn’t let any emotion show on his face. Thanks to his time in heaven, he knew just how to camouflage his feelings.
“It hasn’t happened yet. It
will
happen.” Mateo exhaled and the scent of smoke deepened around him. “I’ve seen what’s coming. I know what he’ll do.”
“Yeah? Well then cut through the BS and tell me. Because I never fucking liked riddles.” And he didn’t like the hard gnawing in his gut, either. Even since his fall, he’d planned to get back at his uptight, rule-following ass of a brother. Then Az had started hunting him. Az the asshole.
Sam had thought he’d have to kill Az during those days.
But since his own fall, his brother had changed. Az had sacrificed. Nearly given his life in order to protect Seline.
So he’d let the guy keep living.
Had that been a mistake?
“His human will die tomorrow, and when she does . . .” Another long sigh from Mateo, only this one carried the scent of death. “He’ll break.”
Sam found he couldn’t speak.
“When Az breaks, he’ll go after anyone in his path. He’ll kill everyone, do anything.”
No, no, this was bullshit.
“She dies tomorrow,” Mateo said again, “and that fate won’t change. It can’t. So you and I damn well have to figure out a way to stop him.”
Az was fond of his human. No, more than fond. Sam had seen the way his brother looked at the woman.
The way I look at Seline.
And he remembered what he’d felt like when he lost his Seline. Remembered how desperate he’d been.
Desperate enough to take on hell and heaven.
“If you don’t stop him,” Mateo’s gaze searched his, “if you don’t kill him, we’ll all suffer.”
Sam still didn’t speak.
“Will you really just stand back, and let him destroy the world? All for one lost human life?”
Not just any human though. Not just any life.
A Fallen’s mate. Death couldn’t take her away, not without one hell of a fight.
“Many have said that Az is the embodiment of all that is evil.”
He’d heard the tales. “They say that about me, too.” Some tales were just stories to frighten children.
“With Az,” Mateo continued, “the chains of heaven held him in check.”
Sam knew that was true. Az had always clung so tightly to his control, because he knew well the beast that waited inside.
“There are no chains now.” Mateo’s gaze was stark. “There is nothing to stop him. The veneer of good will crack, and the true being that is Azrael will emerge.”
Sam glanced back over his shoulder. Seline was safe in the room, protected.
Seline—his life. “My brother is still chained.” Not with chains forged in heaven, but with a delicate chain that had been created on earth.
As long as his female lived, Az was bound to Jade.
But when she died . . .
Azrael’s dark side would definitely be coming out.
And it might just be one coming out party that the world couldn’t survive.
The world didn’t stop spinning for Jade. When Az slowed down his super speed, she found herself inside what looked like a bedroom. Gleaming wood surrounding her and—
And Az kissed her and the spinning continued. His tongue pushed into her mouth and his hand skated down her body.
The kiss was hard, almost brutal in its intensity, and she knew it was fueled by rage.
Jade didn’t want his rage. She’d had enough rage to last a lifetime. She turned her head away. “Az.
Stop
.”
He instantly stilled.
There was so much to say, and Jade was very much afraid there wasn’t enough time to truly say anything. Nothing that mattered, anyway.
Az drew in a deep, shuddering breath and stepped away from her. “I should . . . see about bandaging your arm.”
The arm didn’t hurt anymore. Actually, the deep wound was closing. Probably thanks to that angel blood still pumping through her body.
“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered as she lifted a hand to her head. That super speedy bit just didn’t work so well for her. “Az, I’m sorry.”