by K.N. Lee
When she got back to her world, she was going to have to ask some discreet questions about breaking and entering — hopefully without the breaking part. A quick scan of the side of the house confirmed an easier opportunity to get in through an open second-floor window a few feet away. Bingo.
Another quick glance around, and she moved under the window and re-slung her purse across her chest. She ran her hands over the wall and found a handhold in the ornamental brickwork, worked her toe into a notch just above her knee, and hoisted herself up. The brick was rough and slick, digging into her palms. She ignored it, hauled herself up to the window, and squeezed through the opening into a small office.
A desk sat in the center of the room and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase against the right wall. She climbed onto a short filing cabinet just under the window and hopped into the room. She was wet and filthy, but inside, and it had been easier than she’d thought. No alarm, no nothing.
The office door opened.
Shit.
21
Rowan had no time to climb back out the window of the office in the upscale entities’ club, or even to hide before the office door opened. She leaned against the desk, hoping she could sweet-talk whoever had walked in on her while she was breaking and entering.
It was the four-armed doorman who hadn’t let her enter downstairs.
“What about ‘you’re not welcome’ don’t you understand?” he asked.
She considered her options.
There weren’t any.
“Well, I—”
The doorman glared at her, but thankfully his third eye remained closed. He crossed all his arms and stepped aside to let her pass. He was being nice and not bodily hauling her down the stairs and tossing her out the front door. How sweet. He didn’t need to tell her what he’d do if she didn’t cooperate. She could imagine it well enough on her own. Four arms and all that muscle…
It wouldn’t be pleasant.
For a moment, no longer than a heartbeat, she contemplated jumping for the window, leaving the way she’d come. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything different and would be more humiliating than being escorted out the front door.
Mr. Muscles cleared his throat.
Right. She was supposed to be leaving. She sighed and stepped into the hall beside him. He didn’t look impressed. She supposed if she were in his position, she wouldn’t be impressed either. It had to be annoying to have a pesky human refuse to acknowledge your authority and sneak in anyway.
She tried to think of a witty retort but decided it would be lost on him. He didn’t strike her as the type with a sense of humor. With luck, Shannon would find something and share it or she could convince Jovkovic to get a warrant. Both seemed unlikely.
Mr. Muscles ushered her down a dark wood-paneled hall to a wide staircase. It swept into an opulent inner foyer with white marble floors and walls. A massive crystal chandelier hung from the center of a domed ceiling. Gold-rimmed picture frames with larger-than-life portraits of people covered the wall at regular intervals. Although on second glance, the people didn’t look quite right, and she was reminded that this was an entities’ club.
“I don’t suggest a repeat performance.” The doorman marched her to the stairs.
“Yes, but then we wouldn’t see such a lovely nymph again,” a rich masculine voice said. It was a clear tenor and rang against the hard marble, making it difficult to find its origins, until an angel emerged from a side hall.
She missed a step and grabbed the banister to keep from falling.
A real, live angel, straight from a Bible story — save that he wore a tailored gray suit instead of flowing robes.
He was blond and beautiful, with eyes the color of a clear summer sky. His wings, folded behind him, reached two feet above his head, while the tips brushed the floor. He smiled and warmth filled her, radiating from her heart and coursing through her veins. It wasn’t the same burning need that Seth inspired, but she still couldn’t deny this man’s attractiveness.
She took an involuntary step toward him, drawn by his smile, his eyes, and his wings.
“She’s not an entity,” the doorman said.
“I would disagree.” The angel held out a hand.
She strode down the rest of the stairs, wishing she had more grace and wasn’t so plain. Her focus narrowed to him. Everything else became fuzzy, insignificant. There was nothing more important or real than him.
A pale halo pulsed around him, tight like a second skin. It was thickest around his heart, opaque and obscuring most of his breast pocket, reminding her of the halo she’d seen around Seth. But even that was insignificant. She was melting into that aura, even though she logically knew she was standing in the foyer. It enveloped her, easing away the rough edges of herself.
His smile turned wry, but she didn’t get the joke.
She frowned and the hazy aura in her mind melted away.
“It’s not often a human tries to break into an entities’ club. Usually the entity part is enough incentive to keep them away.” He offered her the crook of his arm.
She took it, and tingles raced through her fingers as if she could feel his aura. Mr. Muscles looked even less impressed than before, but he didn’t stop her.
“I’m looking into the entity disappearances,” she said, letting the angel lead her through the foyer.
“And you think they’re here?”
“I think they were members. I just want to talk to people— entities. Ask a few questions.”
“A lot of reporters have already been by.” He shrugged, his wings rising and falling with the movement. “I doubt they got much, and they were entities. What makes you think you’ll get anything more?”
“It’s not always what a person says, but rather what a person doesn’t say.”
He laughed. The sound poured over her, filling her with more warmth. “That still doesn’t get you a story, but I’d love to see you try.”
They rounded a curve and stood at the top of another broad staircase, overlooking a massive hall. The floor, at least two stories down, stretched into shadows farther than she could see. Trees brushed a domed ceiling rising high above her, and flowing vines trailed over and between arches along the walls on all stories.
In the center of the room lay a lagoon, complete with waterfall, ferns, and water lilies. It drained into three streams that meandered to the left, right, and back of the hall, all disappearing in the shadows and foliage. The low light and shadowed nooks created a false intimacy and hid anyone from sight.
From somewhere below, Seth was watching her.
She knew it.
She was exposed on the staircase. Anyone could see her, even Shannon, but it wasn’t the thought of her fellow agent watching that made her insides quiver.
“Welcome to Devils Do, Miss…?” The angel dragged her attention away from the room and back to him.
“Hill. Rowan Hill.”
“Azkeel,” he said. “Please, join my table, but I doubt any demons will want to talk to you.”
He led her down the stairs with slow, measured steps, making her feel even more exposed. She forced back the urge to speed up and get under the cover of the trees and kept focused on their conversation.
“Aren’t they interested in stories about de— entities?”
“They are, but not published by human establishments.” Azkeel stopped and captured her shoulder.
“There are two types of demons,” he said. “Those who think humans are weak and want little to do with them. And those who think humans are weak and use them.”
She shivered. “And what category do you fall under?”
He flashed her a smile edged with a hint of darkness. Another shiver swept over her and she had a sinking suspicion she’d just made a terrible decision, trusting him to get her into the club.
22
Rowan swallowed at the lump in her throat, desperate to get off the stairs and out of sight, certainly to put some distance between her and Azkeel.
“Are you the kind of demon who wants nothing to do with humans or the kind who uses them?”
The hint of darkness in his smile vanished and his wings shifted behind him. “I’m not a demon.”
Right. Angel… who in the Bible were often the soldiers of God. Which meant he might be a good guy, but he wasn’t a pushover.
They reached the end of the stairs, skirted the pool, and followed a low bridge over a stream. On the other side of the pool, Seth lounged on a divan like a cat in the sun. He sat alone, with his eyelids half closed and a glass filled with a dark liquid hanging between his fingers. It was a lazy pose, as if he had all the time in the world, and exuded raw, unbidden sexuality.
He turned an intense gaze in her direction, a sardonic smile playing on his lips, and heat spread deep and low within her.
Shit. How was it that just looking at him made her hot and aching?
He saluted her with his glass, and she jerked her attention away, knowing he’d caught her staring.
Azkeel nodded at Seth, and embarrassment flooded hot across her cheeks. The salute hadn’t been for her. She was such a complete fool. As if Seth would acknowledge her. He’d done nothing to help her get in, and she doubted he wanted to admit to his friends that he knew her — even if it didn’t look as if he had any friends.
Jeez. She’d never been so distracted before. Not even with Ben. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to focus on her purpose: find Seth’s brother and get the hell out of this world… or wake up… or whatever it was she needed to do to get away from him.
Azkeel headed deeper into the club, to a wrought iron arch veiled by vines, and drew the natural curtain aside. Within was an alcove layered with thick rugs and pillows. Five people — at first glance they all appeared human — reclined within. All of them beamed at Azkeel and ignored her, their adoration for him plain in their expressions.
“Where have you been?” A blond woman with bright red lips asked. She stretched out a hand to Azkeel, inviting him to draw closer. She wore a black cocktail dress cut dangerously low in the front, and the movement revealed an ample amount of cleavage. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m here now.” He ignored her hand.
“Yes.” The blond woman, Blondie, said, her voice turning cool, and she ran her disregarded hand along the thigh of the man beside her. He was unresponsive, still enraptured by Azkeel’s presence, and a scowl tightened the corners of her now-false smile.
“Rowan here is doing an entity interest story,” Azkeel said. He eased onto a pillow in the center of his group of people, his wings shifting about him as he got comfortable.
Men and women alike inched closer. A woman with blue streaks in her black bob moved to his feet and wrapped both hands around his closest calf. That left a woman on either side of him and the men on the outside. The women stroked his arms, chest, thighs, and wings. The men did the same with the women, but from their intense gaze on Azkeel, the women were merely stand-ins for the angel.
Rowan shifted. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt so uncomfortable in her life.
“An interest story about Azkeel?” Blue Streaks asked, her hands wandering past his knee up his thigh.
“No.” Rowan cleared her throat. “The missing demons.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to do a story about them,” the blond man on Azkeel’s left said, light flashing in a row of tiny hoops in his right ear. “Azkeel is more interesting.”
“I’m sure.” Rowan shifted again, her insides churning with discomfort. She was too tall, standing while they lounged on their sea of pillows. And from their intense attention on Azkeel, she didn’t think she’d get a conversation from these people on anyone other than the angel. The more she looked at them, compared to Azkeel, the more they seemed normal humans. She wished the angel would weigh in on the conversation, but with that many people fawning over him, it was probably distracting.
She certainly found it distracting just watching.
“You should sit, Rowan.” Azkeel nodded at the pillow across from him.
She obeyed, uncertain where the impulse had come from. If she wasn’t going to get any information, she needed to stop wasting time with him and his worshipers. As much as he was an angel, and beautiful, and mesmerizing, she needed to find Seth’s brother, find Seth’s weakness, or find another way home.
“Do you know if any of the missing demons had friends here at the club?” she asked while trying to find a polite way to excuse herself.
“Everyone here is a friend,” the man beside her said, his skin so dark it blended with his black suit.
“As much as any one demon can make friends,” Earrings said, slipping the dress strap off Blue Streaks’ shoulder.
“How about family? Didn’t the latest demon who disappeared have a brother? Seth?” she asked.
“Seth is dangerous, even to other entities,” the woman beside Azkeel said with a swish of her long, loose brunette hair.
Azkeel shifted, his expression dark, as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Maybe his admirers were going to do it for him.
Blondie leaned forward. “If anyone was involved in the disappearance, I would bet on Seth.”
“But his own brother?” Rowan asked.
“I doubt family means much to him. He’s the son of an emperor and a shade.” Blondie’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper and everyone — save Azkeel — leaned close to hear. “I’ve heard he wants the throne.”
“And?” Rowan’s pulse picked up. Maybe these people knew something she could use against Seth.
“They say he eats human babies.”
The others laughed and leaned back.
“No demon does that anymore,” the man in a black suit said.
“But it’s true,” Blondie said.
The others laughed harder. Azkeel smiled but didn’t join in, as if he were a parent watching his children play and finding their antics merely amusing. After a moment, he sighed, and all eyes turned to him.
“Regardless, Seth Abbaddon had nothing to do with the disappearances, since no one has disappeared. The missing demons aren’t missing. They’re on vacation.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Rowan said. The FBI was involved. That had to mean something. Although she had a few theories as to why an aristocratic family might call the authorities on a misbehaving child, but she wanted to hear his speculations.
Azkeel leaned back and raised a sculpted eyebrow. “You believe everything you hear?”
“No.” Rowan frowned. She couldn’t figure out how he could lounge and be comfortable with his wings.
Out of the corner of her eye, through the veil of vines, she saw Seth step into sight at the end of a passage. Their gazes met and that black vortex in his eyes pulled at her.
She forced her eyes closed, severing the contact. He was playing with her. She just couldn’t figure out what the game was — and she hated being played with. The more she thought about it, the angrier it made her. There had to be something she could do without satisfying Seth’s agenda.
“If the demons are on vacation, why would the families call in the authorities?” She dragged her attention back to Azkeel.
“Since I’m from neither family, I couldn’t say.” But the gleam in Azkeel’s eyes said he could.
She waited for him to finish, share the joke his expression said he was keeping, but he sighed and his attention slid to Blondie. Apparently this conversation was done.
“Everyone here at the club will tell you they went on holidays,” Earrings said.
“If anyone would talk to you,” added Blue Streaks with a nervous giggle.
A ruckus on the other side of the club drew her attention. Shannon pushed past a waitress, knocking her tray out of her hands, and marched toward Rowan.
Great.
Just what she needed, the jealous boyfriend.
Azkeel and his posse hadn’t said anything she didn’t already know, and it didn’t look as if the a
ngel was going to say anything more — at least not in front of his admirers. Maybe if she could get him alone, she could coax out whatever he knew, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. God damn it, she didn’t want to do what Seth asked and even if she did, it was becoming more difficult by the second with Shannon around.
23
Shannon drew even closer, now less than ten feet away from the alcove’s entrance. If Rowan was going to learn anything, now was the time.
“So really, no one thinks anything about the disappearances… or vacations… or whatever has happened to these entities?”
The group shook their heads and shrugged. Azkeel’s gaze slid over them, and again she got the sense that he was a parent surrounded by children — a really creepy parent since their hands were all over him, and the situation was a few unzipped zippers away from an orgy.
“Well, thanks.” She shifted to stand, but Azkeel captured her with his summer-sky eyes, and she froze.
Azkeel flashed her a sultry smile and a hint of lightning charged storm clouds flickered in his gaze. “There’s an inner circle party tonight for another friend. Maybe someone will talk to you then.”
She leaned forward, unable to stop herself, drawn to him. “But I’m not invited, and I’m human.”
“You’re more than human.” Azkeel sat forward, matching her posture. “But only the most talented entities can tell.”
Warmth washed over her again, and she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. Nothing else and no one else mattered, either. There was only Azkeel.
“You must come as my special guest,” he said.
Except there were others around. They lounged beside him, as well as played and chatted and drank in the rest of the club. She had more to do than just fall at his feet and be near him.